The Deal
Equity investment
in the UK in 2020
2020 in review
1
Analysis: the year that ended in tiers
2
Investment activity in 2020
4
First time fundraisings
6
Impact of coronavirus
7
Investment stages
8
Geography
9
Sectors and verticals
10
Investors
11
Valuations
12
Female founders
13
The biggest deals of the year
14
Sectors in focus
16
Ventures on a virus vendetta
17
Digital security in the WFH era
20
Money on a mission: impact investing in 2020
23
Investors in focus
26
Top investors by UK deal numbers
27
Crowdfunding in 2020
28
Angels in the cloud
29
Basket case valuations
32
About Beauhurst
35
Contents
Methodology and glossary
Data for this report was finalised on the 3rd February. To be included in our
analysis, an investment must be:
•
Publicly announced between 1 January 2011 - 31 December 2020*
•
Some form of equity investment
•
Secured by a non-listed UK company
Although we collect data on unannounced rounds, we exclude these from
temporal analyses because they are subject to a time lag.
Figure 8.3 is the only exception to this rule. This graph includes unannounced
rounds in order to paint a more accurate picture, as unannounced rounds are
more likely to be flat or down rounds than those that are announced.
Future Fund investments
Figure 1.2 includes data on investments completed with the Government’s
Future Fund, managed by British Business Bank, to show the impact of the
fund on overall investment figures. But, given that we don’t have details on
the vast majority (88%) of these deals (as they have not yet been announced
to the public), we have excluded all deals that include Future Fund
participation from subsequent graphs and statistics.
Company stage
We categorise companies into seven stages of evolution (seed, venture,
growth, established, zombie, exited, dead) using over 40 proprietary criteria,
taking a balanced view with each decision.
Company sector
We tag companies with as many sectors from our proprietary sector matrix as
appropriate.
Valuations