• CrunchBase: Social, Mobile And Deals Categories Led 2011 Private Tech Investments

    Friday, February 17th, 2012

    Eric Eldon is the Editor of TechCrunch. He was previously the cofounder and editor of Inside Network, where he managed publications including Inside Facebook, Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps. Before that, he spent a couple years covering technology and finance at VentureBeat, a leading Silicon Valley publication where he was the first employee. While Inside Network sold... → Learn More

    Screen Shot 2012-02-17 at 4.24.17 PM
    Screen Shot 2012-02-17 at 4.24.17 PM

    In case it wasn’t already clear to you that later-stage social, mobile and deal-oriented companies led venture fundraising last year, here’s some analysis of CrunchBase data that drives the point home, courtesy of Alexey Tolkachiov at BuzzSparks.org.

    421 Companies with the “social” tag in CrunchBase raised a total of $5.2 billion over the year. Out of this, Facebook alone was $1.5 billion; out of the 1,941 companies that were included in this analysis, Facebook alone raised 7.3% of the $20.5 billion total.

    A few other social companies, including Twitter, Zynga, LivingSocial, Kabam, along with Chinese sites 55tuan and Lashou, count for another $2.29 billion. We’ll see how this category looks in 2012 — that is, look for a drop in private funding considering that so many of the leading companies in the category have already raised late-stage capital.

    But wait, aren’t some of these companies not only social but also deals sites, or game developers? Yes, and this analysis in some cases double-counts ones that could fit in more than one category. The goal in doing so is to show how companies that are in multiple areas area impacting each of those areas. In any case, this type of categorization problem exists with any such data set; share your recommendations for how to make this clearer in the comments. And click on the categories in the graphic above to see each of the companies included.

    Moving along… “Mobile” comes in second, with 393 companies raising a total of $2.3 billion. The fundings are relatively less concentrated at the top — InMobi, Square and Rearden Commerce all raised above $100 million, but that’s it. The third-largest category, Deals, is even more unbalanced than social. Groupon alone makes up more than half of the $1.9 billion total.

    Mouse over the dots below to see the number of companies and total funding for all the various tags we have in the system.

    Finally, the caveat you’ve all been waiting for. CrunchBase is a wiki-style database about startups, and while it seeks to be complete as possible, the data tends to skew towards Silicon Valley web companies. It’s also the largest free site of its kind, and worth analyzing despite any imperfections. In fact, you can help improve it by adding and editing entries about you and your company or venture firm.


    Product: CrunchBase
    Website: crunchbase.com
    Company TechCrunch

    CrunchBase is the free directory of technology companies, people, and investors that anyone can edit. It is developed and maintained by TechCrunch with the support of the tech community and visitors like you. If you have any questions about CrunchBase or the data contained within, please feel free to contact us. Currently, all additions and edits to CrunchBase go through an approval process before they are pushed live. We are working on ways that will allow users to make immediate changes...

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