LA Seed Deals outperform national averages — Q4 2017 LA Seed Deal Report
We’re excited to share the most recent update of our LA Seed Report, encompassing all seed funding to LA companies in Q4. As a part of this update, we’ll also explore some of the top-level trends we saw over the course of 2017.
In total, 84 LA companies raised $892mm in Q4, with seed stage activity accounting for 36% of deal volume and $67.2mm in funding. This makes LA the fourth most-funded region nationally, by both deals and dollars. Across all stages, LA experienced a decline in deal volume and total funding, but at the seed stage, we noted an uptick in both. Below are a few key trends from the quarter:
- Media & Entertainment remained the most-funded category. For the second quarter this year, entertainment deals took the top spot. Historically, this has been a strong category in LA, and this quarter continued the trend with 6 companies bringing in $14.6mm in funding. Total funding to entertainment deals this year topped $56mm, the second most funded category in 2017 behind Consumer Products & Services ($57mm).
- Average seed deal size remained stable at $2.24mm. Nationally, average seed deal size rose to a two-year high of $2mm. LA averages consistently beat the national figures each quarter this year, with an average of $2.3mm for 2017 as a whole.
- We saw a slight increase in number of seed deals in LA this quarter, with 30 LA companies raising rounds in Q4. Nationally, seed funding as a share of total deal activity declined to 22%, well below LA’s 36% for the quarter. In total, 2017 saw 112 LA companies raise seed funding.
This quarter, we also explored the geography of investment into LA. As we’ve shared earlier, LA attracts more net-outside capital than any other U.S. metro, so we wanted to explore where that capital is coming from at the Seed stage. In all, over 50 unique funds put money into LA seed deals in Q4. LA and SF tied for top geo, with over two thirds of investors coming from either metro, and the final third coming from outside California. We’ve included the complete breakdown above.
For Q3’s seed activity, click here.
(Our report covers seed deals defined as $500k-$5mm that have been publicly announced in the quarter. Please reach out to connor@amplify.la with any questions or comments.)
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