Big names took a big hit on their checkbooks last month.
The five largest U.S.-based startup investing corporations are a who’s who: Capital of Sequoia, Khosla ventures, Generic catalytic converter, Capital Lux AND Founders Fund. In April, these five corporations made a total of 46 investments in U.S. startups.
In fact, April totals were high for every company this 12 months.
As you may expect, these corporations not only led the pack in deal volume, but also participated in some of the largest rounds of the month. Let’s take a look at some of those offers.
General Catalyst, 10 offers
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company was one of three that made 10 investments in U.S.-based startups last month. This is the most offers for General Catalyst in one month since November last 12 months.
The company was leading Collaborative robotics$100 million in Series B and took part in Rampa $150 million round that valued the startup at $7.65 billion (in fact, every company on this list participated in this round).
General Catalyst has also invested heavily in artificial intelligence by striking deals with such cyber corporations Andesite AI and research start-up Symbolic artificial intelligence.
Khosla Ventures, 10 offers
Like General Catalyst, Khosla last month closed the most deals with U.S. startups since last October, when it closed 11 deals.
Like General Catalyst, he did rounds for Collaborative Robotics and Ramp (which he actually co-hosted). Khosla also participated Wardseries B value $90 million. The San Francisco-based startup produces pharmaceuticals in space in microgravity conditions which may be uneconomic to provide on Earth.
Sequoia Capital, 10 offers
The last of the three firms to shut 10 deals last month is Sequoia Capital. The VC giant hasn’t made that many deals since 2023.
Sequoia also achieved success. The company was involved in the Collaborative Robotics and Ramp transactions. She also participated in a gigantic $1 billion fundraising effort Xair therapya startup at the intersection of artificial intelligence and biotechnology.
Finally, he was co-manager of an enterprise browser developer Islandbig series D value $175 million z Coat which valued the company at $3 billion, doubling its most recent valuation from lower than a 12 months earlier.
Founders’ fund, 8 transactions
Founders Fund is next on the list with eight deals accomplished last month. That’s greater than the entire 12 months for U.S. startups, with just five investments in the first three months.
Last month’s Founders Fund deals included co-leading Ramp deals and participating in Ripplinga $200 million round that valued the San Francisco startup at $13.5 billion.
Founders Fund also led a $175 million investment for the San Francisco-based company Cognition, which valued the startup at $2 billion. The six-month-old startup has developed an AI-powered coding assistant called Devin.
Lux Capital, 8 offers
New York-based Lux rounds out our list. The eight announced transactions correspond to the total of transactions in the first three months of the 12 months.
She was also involved in deals for Collaborative Robotics, Ramp, Varda and Xaira, while co-leading a $32 million enterprise round for a document digitization startup Ripcord.
Also noteworthy:
- FJ Laboratories, Partners of the Lightspeed enterprise, G.V AND 8VC 1 all ranked next on the list with seven transactions per person.
- Khosla Ventures leads the most led or co-led deals last month with six, followed by General Catalyst with five.
- Arch Venture Partners once again topped the list in variety of rounds led or co-led with the highest dollar amounts, leading or co-leading three rounds totaling nearly $1.4 billion. Of course, the company’s biggest deal was co-leading Xaira Therapeutics’ massive $1 billion-plus fundraising with Foresite Capital.
- Y Combinator last month it was once again the top investment incubator and accelerator, with an astonishing 111 deals in April after its last demo day.
Methodology
Here is a list of investors who participated in the largest variety of rounds involving US startups. It does not include incubators or accelerators as a consequence of the fluctuations their investment numbers may show.