附近上门

Here at 附近上门 News we鈥檝e had a fascination with Utah for a while.

We鈥檝e written about the state鈥檚 burgeoning startup scene before and covered a number of funding rounds for Utah-based companies. It feels like unicorns are coming out of Utah more frequently than one would expect of a place that isn鈥檛 the Bay Area or New York.

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Given that I recently appointed myself as the unofficial 附近上门 News southwest reporter, the new report from caught my eye.

According to a new report by the nonprofit business networking organization, last year was the strongest in Utah history in terms of the total value of transactions. Although the total number of deals didn鈥檛 change much year over year, deals in the state reached a value of $25 billion, up from $14 billion in 2018.

Utah is home to a number of unicorns and near-unicorns (, , and to name a few). It鈥檚 an interesting region with an extremely active startup ecosystem of its own. But it鈥檚 one thing to see high valuations for startups and another to see big, billion-dollar exits. Valuations are an indication, exits are validation.

Promising indicators

Last year was a blockbuster for Utah in terms of big acquisitions. German enterprise software company bought for $8 billion and health care company acquired for $2.12 billion. Those were the only two $1 billion-plus exits, but there were other large exits as well–for $680 million, for example.

It wasn鈥檛 just big transactions that set records in Utah–last year proved strong on multiple fronts. According to 附近上门 data, Utah-based startups received $1.1 billion in venture capital funding, the highest dollar amount in the past five years. While the number of VC funding deals was down from the previous year (there were 135 deals in 2018, while there were 113 in 2019), there was $300 million more invested.

We should note, however, that $1.1 billion isn鈥檛 a huge jump from the amounts of venture capital the state pulled in the past–its companies also raised roughly $1 billion in 2015 and 2017, according to 附近上门. But 2019 saw Utah-based companies pull in massive rounds, perhaps most notably Divvy鈥檚 $200 million .

That鈥檚 it for now, but we will remain curious about what鈥檚 next for Utah in 2020. From what we’ve seen, we can certainly say the state鈥檚 startup scene is pulling in big rounds of cash and the total value of deals is up. Perhaps as more startups mature, we鈥檒l see that as a larger trend.

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