CB Insights Archives - Serious Startups

Q3 of 2013 posted the largest quarter in financing for the mobile sector ever, CB Insights reported this week. Venture capitalists invested $1.12 billion dollars across 150 deals in that quarter, and Q4 didn’t see a significant decrease in investment. Across all 4 quarters of 2013, VCs poured $3.8 billion dollars into the mobile industry.

That money isn’t just going to finance the next consumer app, either. (Though $190 million did go to consumer apps.) With 2013 being the year we all woke up to Internet threats, startups working on security took the largest portion of that funding (10%). Travel was the next hottest sub-industry, but the money spreads out a good bit after that. Payments, customer relationship management, and business intelligence/analytics were all sub-industries that pulled in big VC money last year.

Unfortunately, the money wasn’t as spread out over geography as it was over industries. San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Mountain View pulled in a combined $1.36 billion dollars. The next closest region was New York/Brooklyn with a combined $269 million.

What does this mean for startups everywhere else? Well, obviously, there’s money to be had out there. With some projections placing smartphone sales in the billions this year, and fewer companies than we thought going mobile first, it’s safe to say the market isn’t going anywhere.

Companies dealing in mobile security will probably still be attractive to investors in 2014. After all, black hat hackers and the NSA aren’t going anywhere.

Check out the whole report from CB Insights here.

CB Insights has released a new report on mobile app development companies. According to the industry publication, mobile app development companies have taken in $262 million dollars in venture funding since 2012.

The magnitude of that number is all relative to how you view the overall startup world, because many startups are mobile first. In this case CB Insights is reporting on “startups that provide tools and platforms to build mobile applications.” This encompasses startups that are building apps for other companies and clients, internal apps, and web tools and do-it-yourself platforms. 59% of total funding for these startups has come since 2012.

The $262 million dollars is across 36 deals. That 59% is of the $446 million to the mobile app development space overall, reports CB Insights.

Huge acquisition deals like Facebook’s acquisition of Parse in for $85M and IBM’s $70M acquisition of Worklight in January 2012 contributed to the steady growth.

There are also mobile app development companies like Florida’s Appsbar which provides a DIY platform for small businesses and individuals looking to create apps that haven’t taken any venture capital and have already started generating healthy revenues.

Check out CB Insights chart below.

Mobile Startups Raise $3.8B in VC Financing in 2013

Mobile App Development Companies Are $262 Million Dollars Hot!