Investment available from venture capital funds has reached a record level, according to a new report from global bank Goldman Sachs, with investor interest in the sector showing no sign of slowing.
Venture capital funds available stood at more than $121 billion in 2017, raising more than $64 billion in global capital last year. This figure is up from $55 billion in 2015, as investors continue to pour money into the latest startups.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs have launched a series of new reports focusing on the venture capital sector, aiming to ‘monitor the venture investment landscape’. The first report highlighted a geographical shift in investment, with Asia’s share of global venture capital reaching 38 percent in 2016, up from 11 percent just three years earlier.
Techology companies continue to account for the majority of the investment raised, totalling around 60 percent. The largest investment deal in the quarter was a $1 billion funding round for India’s online store Flipkart, which counted eBay, Microsoft, and Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings among its lead investors.
Scientific and engineering software companies constituted the fastest-growing subcategory last year, Goldman found, growing more than 200 percent year over year. Goldman Sachs themselves recently invested $30 million into Zilliant, an Austin-based software company, which makes predictive sales guidance and business optimization software.
Goldman Sachs have also recommended investment in the space sector, predicting that the so-called ‘space economy’ will become a multitrillion-dollar industry within the next two decades in a recent note to clients.
Analyst Noah Poponak said, “While relatively small markets today, rapidly falling costs are lowering the barrier to participate in the space economy, making new industries like space tourism, asteroid mining and on-orbit manufacturing viable.”
Since 2000, more than $13 billion has been poured into space-related start-ups and established companies, according to the latest Goldman research.