In first half of 2021, VC funding for Maryland companies is already blowing past last year’s totals

Editor’s note: This quarter’s figures may vary slightly, as some deals aren’t accounted for until weeks after quarterly VC reports are published.

---

As the economy begins to transition from pandemic to recovery, venture capital funding is only going up from its 2020 highs. While the Baltimore region didn’t quite see the highs in the second quarter of the year that it did in the first, it’s still trending up.

Baltimore recorded $148.5 million invested over 21 deals for the second quarter of 2021, according to data from the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, a quarterly report produced by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association with support from Silicon Valley Bank.

That’s up from the $87.6 million raised over 11 deals in the same quarter of 2020. And while it is down from the city’s explosive first quarter, Baltimore companies’ total of $490 million raised so far this year is already approaching the $524.3 million that the Venture Monitor reports raised for the city for all of 2020.

Combine the first two quarters, and it means Baltimore had the highest-ever total for a first half of the year in 2021.

In Maryland, a total of $486.5 million was invested across 41 deals. That’s up from about $273 million invested across 29 deals in the second quarter of 2020, but down from Q1’s highs of $751.5 million invested. Yet it’s still the third-highest dollar total for the state shown since 2014, when the report’s data starts. The state’s companies raised about $1.26 billion collectively last year. Halfway through the year, the totals are already at about $1.24 billion.

It comes against the backdrop of record VC funding around the country. The national numbers for the quarter set new records across angel, seed and early-stage VC dealmaking, per the report. In all, $150 billion has been invested across 8,406 deals in the first half of the year for U.S. companies. It’s not expected to slow down, as venture firms raised a collective $73.5 billion of new capital across 337 venture funds. That’s already approaching last year’s record total of $80.5 billion for the entire in just the first half of the year.

Totals in the mid-Atlantic, too, are setting records, said National Venture Capital Association Research Director Michael Chow. Just shy of $15 billion was invested into 752 companies, topping Q1’s already-high total of 14.8 billion across 820 deals. Part of the reason behind this is that there are more “megadeals” over $100 million. Nationally, there were 350 such investment rounds through the first half of the year.

It continues a trend of rising venture capital funding that started with the pandemic, despite the economy’s dip in many other sectors. Investment soared as the pandemic accelerated tech adoption, and the recovery continues to put a focus on the kinds of new approaches that startups seek to advance.

“The post-COVID world is very different from the one we knew prior to March 2020, and I think a lot of innovators and entrepreneurs are focusing on the abundant opportunities to develop technologies and build companies that address the needs of a reopening economy that is structurally different due to the imprint COVID-19 has made,” Chow told Technical.ly in an email. “Investors know this and are investing in startups that will meet the needs of our new normal.”

Among the Baltimore metro area’s top deals of the quarter were growth rounds for software companies like Ellicott City-based cybersecurity company Huntress Labs’ $40 million Series B, Baltimore City-based healthcare analytics company Protenus’ $21 million Series D and Baltimore digital health firm emocha’s $6 million Series A. Biotech companies attracting capital like Baltimore-based VITA Therapeutics’ $32 million round, Frederick-based Veralox Therapeutics’ $16 million Series A and Baltimore-based Gliknik’s $12 million Series C also contributed hefty sums to the totals.