Funding surge: Venture capital starts 2021 with a bang after record fourth quarter: Goldman Sachs

Venture capital funding globally has more than doubled to $50.5 billion so far this year after a record fourth quarter as investors searching for the “Next Big Thing” poured money into promising healthcare and tech businesses, Goldman Sachs said.

The 130% surge in year-to-date funding was led by Robinhood, Cruise Automation, Lalamove, Didi Cargo and Databricks, which cumulatively have raised over $9.4 billion, data from the U.S. investment bank showed on Tuesday.

Online broker Robinhood alone raised over $1 billion of fresh capital from existing shareholders last month, having been strained by high volumes of trading.

“The story of Venture Capital is the search for the Next Big Thing,” said Goldman researchers led by Heath Terry.

“Examining the early stage landscape for new entries into the VC lexicon as a tool for identifying that Next Big Thing, we see categories like Diagnostic Equipment and Decision/Risk Analysis emerging,” they added.

Funding activity crossed $90 billion for the first time ever in the last three months of 2020, up 75%. Significant growth was recorded across healthcare, edtech, supply chain & logistics, whereas payments and adtech saw the largest declines, Goldman said.