BlackRock Inc is the latest among private equity firms, hedge funds and mutual funds to support a Silicon Valley startup with a mega investment, Bloomberg News reported.
BlackRock, which manages $4.3 trillion, led the $100 million round in database software maker Hortonworks Inc. The deal comes just a couple of months after BlackRock also supported a much larger round for Dropbox Inc, the report said.
Although funding rounds of at least $100 million were normally given to popular technology firms holding their initial public offerings, this is now beginning to change. Tech companies are now taking their time when it comes to going public, preferring to wait until they have established their growth. This has caused investors to back the startups at an earlier stage when they are still in private ownership, the report said.
Hortonworks Chief Executive Officer Rob Bearden told Bloomberg in an interview, "There's a ton of money out there that wants to invest aggressively in this space. We had a very difficult time not taking more than we did."
Actifio Inc and Hortonworks are just two of the five companies this week that were able to bag investments of at least $100 million. Last week, Cloudera Inc and TangoMe Inc pulled in even larger rounds. Online retailer Wayfair and Domo Inc, a business software manufacturer, were also able to secure at least $100 million this year. Airbnb Inc is also said to be readying for a $450 million round, an amount that is said to be bigger than what any US tech company besides Twitter Inc was able to secure through an IPO in 2013, the report said.
Bloomberg data showed that among tech firms, there were 11 rounds which secured nine-figure funding rounds this year. Last year, it was only in August when funding rounds of at least $100 million reached this number, the report said.
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