Our 10 most-read stories of 2023, from VC downturns to layoffs to very large AI deals

For the startup world, 2023 was an action-packed yr, especially in the first half when there was a surge in the use of artificial intelligence ChatGPTAfter its launch, the largest startup bank collapsed, and layoffs increased even after the collapse of enterprise capital financing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, readers flocked to our articles on these topics, especially when we were able to apply our unique data lens to understand the biggest stories impacting technology and private corporations.

So let’s take a look at the 10 most read stories of 2023 on Crunchbase News.

1. Crunchbase Tech layoff tracker: By far the most read article this yr was our comprehensive look at layoffs in the US tech sector. As 2023 approaches the 200,000 layoffs mark, it’s no surprise that readers wanted to see which corporations were cutting jobs. While Big Tech corporations including Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft AND Meta that led the way in the biggest cuts, a regular decline in startup layoffs kept the number rising throughout the yr. Some layoffs also included company-wide cuts – in other words, they essentially meant the startup shut down. Hopefully, 2024 will begin to offer respite for tech staff.

2. Crunchbase Unicorn board: Next up is the next one Crunch Base tracker, this time our list of unicorn startups, i.e. private corporations with a valuation of $1 billion or more. Of course, it was also a difficult yr for many unicorns. Many boardroom corporations found themselves there in 2021, as enterprise capitalists created a whole bunch of recent unicorns – often at valuations that clearly wouldn’t be sustainable in the current business environment. In fact, since then we have seen some of the most famous unicorns lose that status following down rounds or other events that force a recalculation of their valuations. Example: Instacart, the grocery delivery app, hit a high valuation of $39 billion in 2021, at the height of the financial boom. It went public in September this yr with a valuation of lower than $10 billion, and currently has a market capitalization of around $7 billion.

3. Global VC funding declines dramatically across the board in difficult first quarter: Our first quarter Global Venture Funding report didn’t give readers the excellent news they could have been craving. Despite a $10 billion deal OpenAI and $6.5 billion for the fintech giant Stripe – by far the two largest startup financing deals this yr – global startup financing in the first quarter was down 53% year-over-year. The situation didn’t improve much in the second and third quarters.

4. Silicon Valley bank collapse leaves tech industry searching for answers: Also in the first quarter there was a sudden and unexpected collapse of the company Silicon Valley Bank – for many years the dominant bank for American startups – caused a huge shock in the venture-backed tech world. Startups scrambled to earn payroll, pay suppliers and find recent places to stash money. Ultimately, nonetheless, it seems that the collapse of SVB – the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history – appears to have had few long-term effects on the startup world, with the possible exception of enterprise debt. However, startups – and their investors – have likely change into much more cautious about diversifying where they bank.

5. VC downturn in 6 charts: Sometimes photos tell the whole story. In six charts, we have presented the downturn in enterprise capital that has affected every major startup region in the world, from North America to Europe to Asia and even Latin America, which was the fastest-growing area for VC investment in 2021. As we have shown, the withdrawal from the enterprise once again shocked the ranks of investors, including Silicon Valley corporations Andreessen Horowitz AND Generic catalytic converter regaining their places as the most energetic investors in start-ups, while, among others, SoftBank AND Global Tigerthat dominated the funding landscape during the go-go period of 2021 have disappeared from the rankings.

6. What’s happening with seed financing and Series A, in 4 charts: When enterprise capital funding began to decline in value after 2021, seed and early-stage funding initially went relatively unscathed. (Investment in seed startups globally actually increased in the second quarter of 2022, though overall enterprise capital investment declined dramatically). But as we have shown in this series of charts, things have modified by the first quarter of this yr, with seed and angel investments in U.S. startups dropping 45% year-over-year and Series A funding dropping by greater than half.

7. Crunchbase Mega Deals Board: Venture funding in general has declined, but that does not imply there weren’t still some really huge deals to be made – especially if it was an artificial intelligence company. Our Megadeals board tracks all funding deals over $100 million for US startups. Number 1 on the list is probably not hard to guess (if you’ll be able to’t, ask ChatGPT for a clue).

8. How to use AI to brainstorm a billion-dollar business idea: Speaking of billions and artificial intelligence, this is a guest article by a business and design strategist Dan Kraemer we discussed how to use AI tools to help generate great business ideas. It’s easy to see why this text has change into a reader favorite.

9. Embark’s valuation will grow from $5 billion to Kaput in 16 months: Of course, not every billion-dollar idea works in the future. Take, for example, an autonomous trucking startup Get in the trucks, which has raised over $317 million from enterprise capitalists since its founding in 2016 and went public via a SPAC merger in 2021 with a goal initial market capitalization of over $5 billion. However, things hurried from there: sixteen months later, the company announced that it was going out of business.

10. Global funding decline in 2022 sets the stage for one other difficult yr: A yr ago, we reported that enterprise capital funding in 2022 was down 35% to $445 billion and predicted that 2023 can be one other difficult yr for startups in search of capital. Unfortunately, we were right. We can only hope that even if the situation does not return to normal in 2024, financing will at least change into a little easier, and layoffs and downtime in corporations shall be a little less frequent.