Venture capitalists are actually pouring less money into late-stage startups than they were - but it's more than being made up for by the money coming from other investors like mutual funds and hedge funds, according to a new report from venture capital tracker CB Insights.
Overall venture capital deal volume in the first quarter of 2015 is down 18% from last quarter to $11.3 billion across 805 deals. That's the fourth consecutive slip, and a marked decline in number of deals from any quarter in the last two years.
CB Insights
Some of the gap is being made up by those other investors, who tend to come into a company at the later stages of financing. They've pushed total investment into venture-backed startups to a two year high of $17.7 billion this past quarter:
CB Insights
Gven the report's finding that both the overall number of deals and the amount of money coming from venture capital deals are going down, it seems like venture firms may be getting more cautious about where they put their cash.
On the other hand, big investment deals like Domo and Sprinklr have led to no fewer than 17 new "unicorn" startups achieving a valuation of $1 billion or more just since 2015 began, so maybe not.