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Well that was fast. We’re already into the final quarter of 2014 and fast approaching the end of the year. To close Q3, September turned out to be a rebound month as venture investment totals jumped from $5.4B in August to $7.3B overall last month, according to CrunchBase data.
During the last quarter, the rate of investment in Internet of Things startups took an incredible jump relative to Q2, with a 1.7X increase from 13 to 36 funding rounds. Signalling the significance of this developing investment trend, 16 of the rounds were seed or angel investments along with 9 Series A rounds. Collaborative Fund placed two bets last quarter with a $6M Series A in Placemeter of New York and a $4.9M Series A for IoT platform Spark Labs of Minneapolis. The largest IoT round of Q3 went to tado° of Munich with a €10M Series A from Shortcut Ventures and Target Partners. WHILL, a personal mobility startup that has essentially created a high performance wheelchair, also scored an $11M Series A that included participation from Scott McNealy, and 500 Startups.
As Graph Insights suggests, a significant portion of the funded IoT startups in Q3 came with the announcement in August of the first batch of participants in the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Seattle program. With its focus on home automation, each of the ten startups are applying the internet of things to everything from security to lighting and electricity within the home.
The second largest increase QOQ was for the Big Data Analytics market with 31 rounds, up from just 17 last quarter. Hootsuite’s pair of venture rounds totalling $95M were the only later-stage deals last quarter. The $35M Series C from Fidelity Investments was followed closely by a Series D that also included Silicon Valley Bank, OMERS, IVP and Accel Partners.
Of the earlier stage Big Data Analytics rounds, New York companies ActionIQ and Bar & Club Stats both raised seed rounds last quarter. Bar & Club Stats was a member of the Dreamit Ventures NYC class, and aims to collect data from ID scanners in bars and clubs, as the name implies.
