According to PitchBook data, the first half of 2023 witnessed the lowest combined exit value for US startups and venture capital investors in around 15 years.
However, in the third quarter, we saw some light at the end of the tunnel, with PE/VC exits in August reaching their highest level in over 22 months. Perhaps surprisingly, deep tech businesses, which I describe as unique technologies or those that use engineering-led breakthroughs, have contributed to the first, slow recovery for individuals who are not closely following the industry.
Looking at the Crunchbase big board of $1 billion company exits for 2023, deep tech businesses account for one-quarter of the 16 unicorn exits. Given the number of deep tech unicorns that have emerged in recent years, our team is not surprised. In 2021, we developed a list of deep tech companies that had exceeded the $1 billion valuation threshold, discovering that 120 deep tech unicorns had already created roughly half a trillion dollars in value.
However, people who do not actively monitor the deep tech market on a daily basis may continue to assume that deep tech unicorns cannot be built and that there are only a few deep tech exit chances each year.
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