There have been 22 angel investment deals worth an aggregate EUR 39 million targeting companies based in Western Europe announced in August 2020 to date, according to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk. The overall result represents a significant month-on-month decline from 64 deals worth a combined EUR 370 million in July.
While there are still eleven days to go until the end of the month under review, both volume and value have some way to go to reach the heights recorded in July, which came after two consecutive months of decline in May (EUR 292 million) and June (EUR 143 million) following the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. On a 12-month comparison, August fell 69 per cent by volume and 84 per cent by value, from 70 deals worth an aggregate EUR 237 million in August 2019. There have been 86 angel investment deals worth a combined EUR 409 million targeting Western Europe announced in Q3 2020 to date. Volume is down 52 per cent, while value has so far declined 47 per cent from 178 deals worth an aggregate EUR 779 million in Q2 2020; however, there are still 41 days until the end of Q3 and therefore enough time for a number of sizeable angel investment deals to be announced to improve overall value for the quarter.
Of the 22 deals signed off in August so far, only one targeted a company based in Spain. This deal involves web portal management services provider Procera Technologia securing EUR 140,000 in a round of funding from angels such as Francois Derbaix, Fernando Cabello-Astolfi and Alejandro D Caneda, among others. In total, there have been 42 angel investments targeting Spanish companies signed off in 2020 to date, the largest of which is worth EUR 8 million and involves online hotel reservation group ByHours Travel raising cash from Angel Ventures Mexico SA de CV, among other venture capital backers. Other Spanish targets in the year to date include online university training courses provider Proeduca Altus, investments and savings management company Prakma Innovation and web page templates and graphics designer Genially Web.
The largest angel investment deal to target a Western European company in August was worth EUR 7 million and involved UK-based online real-time cross-border payment processor Vitesse raising funds from angel investors and other venture capitalists. This was followed by European Super Angels Club, among others, investing EUR 6 million into Austria-based business information interface tool developer 360Kompany. UK-based online membership-based health services provider Med24, Germany’s online mobile carbon footprint calculation application Climate Labs and German medical and pharmaceutical auditing services provider Qualifyze, among others, have also been targeted. In all, 12 of the top 20 deals by value targeted companies based in the UK, while Germany was featured in six of these and Spain and Austria were targeted in one deal apiece.
Globally, there have been 84 deals worth an aggregate EUR 1,795 million involving angel investors announced in August 2020 to date. Volume has declined 60 per cent from 211 deals in July; however, value has increased 63 per cent from EUR 1,104 million month-on-month, despite there still being eleven days until the end of the month. Similarly, year-on-year volume declined while value increased from 246 deals worth EUR 1,363 million in August 2019. There have been 295 angel investments worth an aggregate EUR 2,898 million announced globally in Q3 2020, compared to 622 deals worth EUR 4,325 million in Q2 2020.
Angel investment in Western Europe appears to have slowed down in August despite results having returned to pre-coronavirus levels in July. The lack of single deals with higher individual values can be attributed to the disappointing result as no deal exceeded the EUR 10 million-barrier in the four weeks under review. However, globally the result fared much better, with one deal topping EUR 1,000 million as US-based Epic Games raised EUR 1,289 million in a round of funding involving David Tepper, among others.
© Zephyr