PitchBook News - Where investors want to make an impact

Also: GP stakes opportunities only growing; Autonomous trucking starts to gain real traction; Antitrust crackdowns loom amid bullish M&A indicators...
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July 31, 2021
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Analyzing impact investing focus areas and where the capital is flowing
When I was an institutional investor, I noticed that it was an interesting conundrum to find impact investment funds that perfectly matched with the things we hoped to impact.

While there might've been funds that targeted affordable housing or health, few did both and none targeted the geography we were attempting to influence.

(And we've heard from GPs who feel the same about finding the LPs most interested in what they're offering.)

When I arrived at PitchBook, I learned that while we had some funds tagged in our platform as "Seeks Impact Investments," the list seemed incomplete and the tagging wasn't terribly helpful if you had particular categories of impact in which you were especially interested.

After over a year of work, we have created a new dataset by tagging private market impact funds not only as impact funds but with a second level of tagging for the types of impact they hope to provide.

We partnered with the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) to use their IRIS+ framework to tag approximately 1,300 impact funds into 16 categories.
 
A sample of the 16 IRIS+ categories we used in our analysis.

The paper we released this week is the first attempt to use this dataset to report on trends in the impact funds ecosystem. We look at the landscape geographically, by strategy type (VC, PE, etc.), and then at the funds broken down by category.

Some highlights:
  • VC represents a larger share of impact funds than of the broader private fund universe, as do funds raised in Africa and for infrastructure.

  • European impact funds tend to have been the primary source of Climate impact funding (though maybe not after this month...), while North American funds have been more likely to fund Diversity & Inclusion and Health.

  • Energy (clean energy) is a perennial target of impact funds, as it can absorb a ton of investment dollars, while Biodiversity & Ecosystems garners infrequent attention.

  • Beyond the massive TPG and Brookfield Climate funds in the market, a wide variety of impact funds are currently fundraising across diverse geographies, fund types, and impact categories.
Download the free research (and get the underlying data): "Impact Funds by Reason and Region"

Feel free to reach out to me or our institutional research group with any feedback or questions.
 
Best,

Hilary Wiek, CFA, CAIA
Lead Analyst, Fund Strategies & Performance
Share:   Email    LinkedIn    Twitter    Facebook
Opportunities are only growing for GP stakes investing
GP stakes activity is reaching levels never seen before.

In the last couple of weeks, three GP stakes deals have been announced: Blackstone bought a stake in GTCR, Azimut Alternative Capital Partners purchased a piece of Pathlight Capital, and Blackstone and RidgeLake invested in Sentinel Capital Partners.

This fervent pace is unprecedented, and the remainder of the year may see this flurry continue; an expected rise in capital gains tax rates is driving many private capital founders to sell minority stakes in their firms.

All of this activity has some LPs looking to allocate to GP stakes funds and asking, "How much opportunity remains?"
 


As it turns out, the answer is plenty.

In our latest research on the GP stakes space, we dive into the total investable landscape and size up capital deployment opportunities. A few takeaways:
  • Despite the record number of GP stakes deals, there are more non-backed firms now than ever before—and the number rises each year.

  • The mid-market appears to have the best supply-demand dynamics for investors with the best ratio of available capital to capacity.

  • The total equity value of all non-backed firms in the top end, middle market, and small buckets is nearly $1 trillion.
For more detailed findings, including a methodology overview, download our free research: "GP Stakes Deployment Opportunities"

Please feel free to email me if you're an LP thinking about allocating to the space or a GP considering selling a stake.
 
Best,

Wylie Fernyhough
Senior Analyst, Private Equity
Market Updates
Healthy stock market returns.

Cheap financing.

Executives confident in economic growth and eager to make deals.

A lot of factors are driving strong M&A activity worldwide, and a rush of public listings this year could bode well for future dealmaking, according to our new Global M&A Report.

Amid these bullish signs, we're also tracking growing antitrust pressure in the US, Europe and China. This could shape M&A going forward, putting a damper on the largest deals and giving breathing room for smaller combinations to take place.

Plus, we're seeing conflicting effects from the macroeconomic whiplash of pandemic-induced supply reductions followed by faster-than-expected demand rebound.

Check out our data and analysis across core regions and sectors (and get the underlying data in XLS):
get the free research and data
 
Despite continued uncertainty around COVID-19, the European VC industry set multiple annual records in the first half of the year alone.

This unrelenting pace could see deal value land near the €100 billion mark by year-end as late-stage capital has continued to dominate and drive deal value upward.

Our latest European Venture Report highlights key trends shaping VC dealmaking, exits, nontraditional investment, and fundraising. This report also contains a spotlight on the emerging VC scene in the Baltics.

Key takeaways from H1 include:
  • European VC deal value reached a new annual peak of €47.1 billion, beating the record of €45.1 billion set in 2020.

  • Exit value topped €46.8 billion and eclipsed the previous annual best of €43.1 billion set in 2018.

  • Capital raised by VC funds hit €9.4 billion and is on course to exceed 2020 figures.
download the free report
 
Thematic Research
Autonomous Trucking Gains Traction

While self-driving cars get most of the tech buzz, the trucking industry may be first to adopt autonomous driving at scale.

Venture investors have noticed the potential, too, as VC funding is on the rise and valuation growth for autonomous trucking startups is outpacing that of robotaxis.

In our premium research for PitchBook clients, we dive deep into the unit economics, identify the key players in the space, analyze the cost-savings breakdown, and provide new market-size estimates for an autonomous trucking industry that we expect to experience tremendous growth over the next decade.

Note: Select information in our free preview is blurred out or redacted. If you have a PitchBook log-in, you can access the full version for clients here.
read the free version
 
Deal Commentary
Fintech analyst Robert Le weighs in on Robinhood's high-profile public listing after the stock trading app closed its first day of trading below its IPO price:

"We expected a highly volatile first day of trading for the stock.

"We believe the downward pressure on the stock on trading day was due to a combination of a large allocation to retail investors, allowing employees to sell, and negative sentiment from outspoken customers.

"A poor IPO performance will likely limit companies from issuing large allocations of shares to retail investors in future IPOs.

"Longer-term, we believe that Robinhood will be pressured to diversify its revenue streams as stock and crypto trading has become highly competitive and commoditized.

"Further, regulatory risks are on the horizon pertaining to the ban of payment of order flow, which should only accelerate the company’s plans to expand into adjacent businesses like banking and asset management.”

 
Robert Le

Senior Emerging Technology Analyst
Fintech
In the News
Our insights and data featured in the press:
  • After a period of blitzscaling in the world of food delivery, there's now a lot of competition in the industry without much variation among the companies. [New York Times]

  • Also, a look into the new ways DoorDash is trying to create value in the margin-strained business. [Quartz]

  • Just how active has SoftBank been with its second Vision Fund? And how has its strategy changed? [The Telegraph]

  • The factors pushing trucks past robotaxis in the world of autonomous driving. [Wired]

  • A deeper dive into the record-setting pace in European VC. [Private Equity Wire]
If you're a media member interested in interviewing our analysts, contact our PR team.
ICYMI
Highlights from our other research content published over the past few months:

Market updates Thematic research Emerging Technology Research (free previews) Coming next week (subject to change)
  • H1 Global Private Debt Report
  • Quantitative Perspectives: US Venture Capital
  • Seeding and Anchoring PE Managers
  • 2021 European Predictions: H1 Follow-Up
  • ETR: Information Security (sneak peek)
  • ETR: Mobility Tech
Thanks for reading! Feel free to email us any time with feedback, questions or tips!

Learn more about the PitchBook Institutional Research Group or access our research libraries for clients and non-clients.

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Visual milestones in Robinhood's journey

Friday, July 30, 2021

VCs keep autonomous trucking rolling; medical imaging specialist bags $220M; Culture Amp brings in $100M; Homebase scores $71M Read online | Don't want to receive these emails? Manage your

The VC deal that rescued Robinhood

Thursday, July 29, 2021

China tutoring ban strikes VCs; Gupshup lands $240M; SonderMind brings in $150M; Class books $105M for remote learning Read online | Don't want to receive these emails? Manage your subscription.

Climate mega-funds up the stakes

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Female VCs call out major funding gap; UK changes rules to attract SPACs; Fireblocks hits $2B+ valuation; Contentful secures $175M Read online | Don't want to receive these emails? Manage your

Opportunity abounds in GP stakes deals

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

SoftBank's Didi stake sheds $4B in value; plant-based food specialist lands $235M; ByHeart brings in $90M; pet tech startup Embark collars $75M Read online | Don't want to receive these emails?

Legislation could spark cannabis IPOs

Monday, July 26, 2021

NightDragon closes $750M cybersecurity fund; Paystand brings in $50M; Matterport debuts on Nasdaq via SPAC; Tovuti books $8M Read online | Don't want to receive these emails? Manage your

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