The Megatrons — $1B+ Valuation Investors

Rocketship Investors who chase the unicorns to bring them to $10B+ valuations.

A few years ago it was a founders dream to get a $1B valuation - Ultimate Unicorn status. In recent years that is becoming a less exclusive of a club. According to CB Insights there are a?total of 817?Unicorns and?418 of them are in United States.

There is another massive trend going on?where large funds who I call the Megatrons are coming together to invest in $1B+ companies and getting them to $10B, $30B, and in some cases $100B valuations pre-IPO(Stripe valued at $95B).

**Megatron is a leader whose goal is to rule the universe and destroy everyone in his path. Not unlike many of these funds who take out competition but massively funding the market leader. So I found it appropriate to call these investors Megatrons.**

Now that our fund?Array Ventures?is privileged enough to have companies with unicorn status my founders are asking me about investors who invest in companies valued beyond $1B. Who are these investors who can do that and value your company at $10B or $40B (recent?Canva valuation!)

So I started putting together a list. Maybe there are many more investors I have missed but please send the names my way so I can include them. Maybe just like the rapidly growing unicorns this list might also get unmanageable but let me attempt to put this together. Here are some current Megatron funds that have been actively leading these rocketship rounds:

I have organized them in the order of how close to $1B vs $50B valuation they can invest.

1. Tiger Global?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tiger-global

Tiger needs no introduction as they have been investing in a range of valuations even some starting at Series A including an Array Ventures Series A company.

2. Softbank?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/softbank

Similar to Tiger, Softbank has also been investing at all stages such as their recent?Series C investment in Sendoso?and of course many other $1B+ investments we have seen over the years.

3. Sapphire Ventures?—?https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/13/jumpcloud-raises-159m-on-2-56b-valuation-for-cloud-directory-tool

Sapphire recently invested in JumpCloud at $2.5B valuation and they have certainly invested in?Array Venture’s Series B stage company, Safegraph.

4. Addition?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/addition-7af4

A new entrant with spin out from Lee Fixel who used to be at Tiger Global has led a few deals across the “growth” spectrum as well. They certainly also start early such as Series A as well.

5. IVP?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/institutional-venture-partners

More of the earlier side of $1B investment rather than later but certainly growth stage. They invested in Array Ventures company?Series C round of Productiv.

6. Insight Venture Partners?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/insight-partners

Insight manages over $26B and invests across all stages but if you can believe it their 1st fund was $25m. To all emerging managers this is a great case study for us.

7. Goldman Sachs?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/goldman-sachs

Goldman has been a traditional multistage Series B+ to IPO investor including investing early in Uber.

8. Iconiq Capital?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/iconiq-capital

Fund that?manages money for many Silicon Valley billionaires?such as Zuckerberg has been investing across all stages also starting from Series B.

9. Singapore GIC?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gic

They are one of the more serius later stage investors and led?Series C for Solugen?which is one of Array Venture’s portfolio company.

10. Temasak Holdings?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/temasek

Temasak also invested in Solugen

11. General Atlantic?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/general-atlantic

12. T. Rowe Price?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/t-rowe-price

Recently marked up Canva to $40B and Gusto to $10B.

13. Dragoneer?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dragoneer-investment-group

Looks like they just led?Discord’s $500m round?at $15B valuation

14. Wellington - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/wellington-management

Some other mentions such as Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds, and Investment Firms who are also Megatron investors especially if it fits their specific thesis. Many of these can invest closer to IPO.

1. Franklin Tempelton?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/franklin-templeton-investments
2. Bond Capital?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bond-57ec
3. Fidelity?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fidelity-management-and-research-company
4. Altimeter Capital?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/altimeter-capital
5. BlackRock?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/blackrock
6. Capital Group?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/capital-group
7. Silver Lake?—?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/silver-lake
8. Lone Pine -?https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lone-pine-capital

There are a series of traditional VC firms have also stepped up to invest across multiple stages of companies including ones that are valued over $1B. They still do traditional early stage investing but have also raised large Growth Funds to invest all across the later stages. My sense is currently they invest closer to $1–5B valuations vs. $50B.

1. General Catalyst
2. Founders Fund
3. Sequoia
4. Andreessen Horowitz
5. Social Capital
6. Lightspeed
7. Maverick Ventures

Hope the unicorn founders find this list valuable. Please feel free to comment or email me ([email protected]) to add more names to the list. No promises!