The month of August wrapped up as the lowest on record for 2014 according to CrunchBase data, with just $4.29B in venture investment globally over 831 funding rounds. The monthly total was the lowest since July 2013 in dollars invested and since February 2013 in the overall number of rounds.
In the Unites States, $2.64B was invested over 458 rounds, which was also the slowest month of 2014. China was the second leading country in capital raised with $421M in August, followed by Japan and Israel with $211M and $192M, respectively.
Within the U.S., the biggest surprise in the top funded city was perhaps Austin, third behind San Francisco and New York. Austin raised 14 funding rounds and $28M, led by a pair of $6M rounds for Green & Grow and Help. The agricultural and customer service software startups represented just a slice of the diverse array of markets funded in the region this month. High Brew Coffee, Rooster Teeth (Film), Visio Financial Services, NeuroChoas Solutions (Health and Wellness) and COINTERRA (Semiconductor) each raised significant rounds from Austin, which has emerged as a world-class startup hub for all types of entrepreneurs.
European startups totalled 77 venture rounds in August but just $269M total, compared to the $701M in July. London led all European cities with a dozen rounds, but the largest on the continent was a $45M Series D for Alfresco of Maidenhead, UK. OptiNose, based in Oslo, raised the second largest round from Entrepreneurs Fund, WFD Ventures and Avista Capital Partners in a $35M Series C. By city, Maidenhead and Oslo took the top honors with just the two large rounds, followed by Moscow, Berlin, Cardiff and Dublin.
Berlin raised $22.8M in August, which included $15M from Peter Thiel’s San Francisco-based Mithril Capital to nanomedicine startup MagForce. Online learning company SofaTutor raised a $4.6M Series C from a group of 4 German investors to grow their edtech platform across Germany and Europe.
While international as well as domestic German investors continue to increasingly look to Berlin to fund later-stage startups, the fourth largest funding round for August was a crowdfunding campaign. Bonaverde’s coffee roasting, grinding and brewing machine took in over $1M on Seedmatch, a crowdfunding platform for German startups. As the ecosystem in Berlin and across Germany continues to attract entrepreneurs, investors are responding with creative ways to support young companies. Grants4Apps, a Berlin accelerator run by Bayer, is the latest class to launch in the city with their first batch of the top 5 European digital health startups.
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