Over the years, our startups have become increasingly successful at closing follow-up funding. Last year, we celebrated the 100 million milestone and now imec.istart is ready for another celebration! Together, the companies in our portfolio have managed to procure a funding total of over 200 million. What’s even more remarkable is that the amount doubled in only 1.5 year.
Let us take you through some observations.
It took 7 years to raise 100 million euros in follow-up funding. Yet, only 1.5 year passed until the imec.istart portfolio businesses raised the next 100 million. Funding finds its way into our ventures much faster than before. And we are confident that this is only the beginning of the typical snowball effect.
More than 50% of the 200 milion was raised by our ‘funding top 10’ imec.istart ventures.
By November 2019, 4 ventures exceeded the funding cape of €10M: Datacamp, UgenTec, Ontoforce and Seaters.
Top 10 of most successful ventures to raise follow-up funding.
76% of all funding comes from Belgian investors, including both government funding and investments from business angels, venture capital funds, corporates and banks.
Imec.istart helps its portfolio companies close Series A rounds faster and faster. UBI Global analyses confirm that our efforts in this domain are successful.
The ventures in our portfolio increasingly gain access to (VLAIO) grants which is of course a consequence of the fact that technological innovation remains a very important parameter to get selected by imec.istart. Grants also help to build up the value of the venture in a non-dilutive way (as they don’t impact the amount of shares held by the founders).
Although HealthTech and MediaTech remain leading sectors in terms of capital injection, LearnTech is seeing its investments rise exponentially – nevertheless helped by an extra large round secured by Datacamp.