A16z tops active investor rankings in a slow year

Overall, start-up investors will put significantly less money to work in 2023 in comparison with the previous two years. They also made significantly fewer deals.

However, some investors slowed down much less dramatically than others. As a result, these corporations, which include distinguished multi-stage investors comparable to Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Partners of the Lightspeed enterprise AND Bpifrancereigned among the most active enterprise capital investors in 2023, percentage Crunch Base data.

Meanwhile, several names that were at the top of the rankings a few years ago have moved far down the list. It comprises Global Tiger Management, SoftBank Vision Fund AND Capital of Sequoia.

To illustrate the changes in the rankings, below we have prepared a list of the most active investors after the seeding phase in 2023 by total variety of transactions.

As you possibly can see, the overwhelming majority of active investors have slowed down their transactions in 2023. This even applies to a16z. While the company made 77 disclosed post-seed investments last year – greater than anyone else – this is actually 43% fewer deals than in 2022.

The highest spending and most active lead investors

Of course, the corporations that support the most deals don’t at all times spend the most money. Instead, it’s those that lead or co-lead the largest rounds who walk away with the title of highest-spending investor.1

Who was at the top of the list? Below, we have ranked the investors who led or co-led the rounds with the highest total capital committed, based on Crunchbase data.

According to this metric Microsoft overtook Andreessen for the top spot, largely due to the software giant’s $10 billion investment in January OpenAI. Additionally, Microsoft co-financed $1.3 billion in June to launch a chatbot AI overkill.

Andreessen, in our second place, didn’t put nearly as much capital into his work. The company’s largest round in 2023 was $6.5 billion in late-stage financing Stripe co-run by a group of 10 investors. A16z leaders’ second-largest round was December’s $420 million Series A for a French generative artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI.

Meanwhile, in the rating of the most active post-seed lead investors, a16z regained first place. In 2023, the company conducted or co-led 33 rounds. Lightspeed was in second place with 31 such rounds, followed by Lightspeed Insight partnersfrom 23.

For a more complete rating, below is a list of the most active lead investors by variety of rounds:

The most active seed investors

When it involves backing multiple startups, no one can match competing seed investors. The most active ones make tons of of transactions in a typical year. And while 2023 was a relatively slow year, well-known names in the seed sector were still busy.

Our rating of the most active seed investors is shown below Technology stars in first place with 640 reported investments. Y Combinator is in second place with 448 transactions, followed by Shovelof 293.

To get a broader picture, below we rank the largest seed investors by variety of rounds, comparing the 2023 total to the previous year.

As you possibly can see, just about all of the most active sponsors closed fewer deals in 2023 than in 2022. This is not surprising on condition that global seed funding declined in 2023 as a part of a broader pullback.

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Overall, the rankings of the most active investors paint a picture that is fairly reflective of the global startup funding landscape in 2023. Most of the typically busiest investors continued to back many corporations, but closed fewer deals and put less capital into work than they did during the boom. which peaked at the end of 2021.

Founders on the fundraising trail are obviously hoping for a more bullish investing environment this year, each with greater checks and more of them. While it is uncertain whether it will come to fruition, one thing is clear: it’ll be much easier to realize positive year-on-year returns in 2024, given the weak investment pace in the year just ended.