VC report: Delaware deals fall to $6M in Q3

You may recall that venture capital deals in the second quarter of 2019 were unusually high for Delaware, thanks to a Series B investment of $60 million landed by Prelude Therapeutics, a Wilmington-based, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, from OrbiMed Advisors. Indeed, it was the largest VC deal in Greater Philadelphia for the year so far.

Combined with Series B investments totaling $30 million for Ayala Pharmaceuticals and $3 million in seed investments for Printify, Delaware’s Q2 deals hit a six-year high of $93 million, the most since Q1 2013.

By comparison, Q3’s $6 million in seed or angel funding to four companies looks tiny, but 2019 has already shown better numbers than the last five years, with $104 million so far, compared to $44 million in 2018 and $83 million in 2017.

Nationally, the numbers took a less dramatic fall of 15%.

Brad Phillips, director of emerging company services at PricewaterhouseCoopers in D.C., told Technical.ly that, on the national level, mega deals — defined as deals of $100,000 or more — are still on trend.

“We saw 55 of those [nationally], a significant reduction from Q2, where we had 67,” Phillips said. “But 67 was a record, and with 55 it’s still a trend that’s alive and well.”

All funding stages saw a fall in Q3, nationally.

“What we’ve seen over the last several quarters is higher dollar figures and lower numbers of deals, which means that we’re getting later-stage companies funded,” said Phillips. “For Q3, activity was down for all funding stages. So that’s a change of what we’ve seen over the last few quarters.”

For Delaware, later-stage funding went down (to zero), but seed and angel funding went up, going against the trend of fewer high dollar deals with several small deals.

Delaware’s Q3 dealmakers are:

• Kencko, a Newark-based online retailer of an instant organic fruit and vegetable drink, got $3.4 million in seed investments from Kairos Ventures, LocalGlobe, Max Ventures, NextView Ventures, Techstars and Undisclosed Angel Investors.
• Scalarr, a Wilmington-based antifraud solution for mobile companies, got $1.5 million in seed investments from TMT Investments.
• RocketBody, a Wilmington-based ECG-based personal trainer application, got $1 million in seed investments from AltaIR Capital and Gagarin Capital Partners.
• VRgineers, a Dover startup that builds VR headsets, got an unspecified amount less than $1 million  in seed investments from Martin Rozhon, Nation 1 and Y Soft Ventures.