Early stage activity was strong in the first quarter, with $8.9 billion invested across 634 deals vs. $9.8 billion invested across 949 deals in the fourth quarter.
The median early stage deal size hit an all-time high of $6.7 million in the quarter, due to a record proportion of deals exceeding $10 million, making up almost 40% of all early stage venture capital deals and making up nearly 90% of early stage venture capital invested.
Late stage activity, meanwhile, reached $23.4 billion invested across 676 deals in the first quarter, vs. $18.7 billion invested across 648 deals during the previous quarter.
Ten initial public offerings were completed in the first quarter, but the National Venture Capital Association expects IPO activity to decline dramatically in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Nine first-time funds have closed so far in 2020, while more than 49 were raised for the whole year in each of the last three years. First-time fundraising will only get more difficult as the pandemic continues.
"First-time managers and smaller GPs that need to engage new investors are likely to struggle due to travel restrictions and similar impediments," the report added.
The PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor is a quarterly report on venture capital activity by the NVCA and PitchBook with the support of Silicon Valley Bank and Carta.
