Equity Investment
Market Update
Q3 2020
1
•
The amount raised in Q3 2020 totalled £2.70b — a 48% increase from the previous
period and a 1% drop from Q3 2019.
•
Deal numbers declined to their lowest point since Q4 2016. A total of 402 deals were
announced during the quarter, a 12% decrease from the previous quarter and a 7%
decrease from Q3 2019.
•
The number of seed stage deals dropped 20% from Q2 2020, and first-time
fundraising fell to a new low. Just 87 companies announced their first fundraise in
Q3 2020, down from a high of 214 in Q2 2014.
•
Fintech had its second best quarter on record, with 60 deals completed. Meanwhile
artificial intelligence saw investment activity slow for the third quarter.
•
For the first time on record, all-female founding teams raised more than double the
funding of mixed gender teams. This was driven by sister-led Karma Kitchen's £252m
round—the largest deal of the quarter.
Key findings
The latest data on equity investment trends in the UK. We’ve
analysed every publicly-announced equity fundraising in Q3 2020,
to spot emerging trends and patterns in the market.
402
Number of deals
£2.70b
Amount invested
-12%
Change from Q2 2020
-7%
Change from Q3 2019
+48%
Change from Q2 2020
-1%
Change from Q3 2019
2
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3
Big deals keep on churning—deal numbers keep on burning
Just 402 investments were completed in Q3 2020, a
12% drop from the previous quarter and a 7% drop