VC’s decade in data: How the 2010s reshaped a market

Mega-rounds, and mega-funds. Unicorns, and deca-corns. Crypto investors. Seed stage as the new Series A.

And then SoftBank. Especially SoftBank.

Those are some of the most defining traits of the remarkable decade in venture capital that is now coming to a close.

Looking back on the go-go 2010s, what also stands out is a historic shift in how the business of VC investing is done—and who is reshaping it. PitchBook sifted through our vast data platform and came away with some illuminating facts and figures about the transformation—some might say disruption—of the worldwide VC ecosystem.

What follows are some of our favorite takeaways from our data crunching. They highlight the historic gobs of cash that flooded the marketplace, thanks in large part to a broadening class of investors playing in the high-risk, high-return venture ecosystem.

Every kind of participant, it seemed, rushed into the market to place their bets on VC and other alternative assets. Hundreds of new VC firms also came on the scene and made a splash. And China, in its race for global supremacy, also took its own great leap forward as a venture-capital superpower. These are the fundamental factors that shaped the 2010s as a historically gilded and hyperdriven decade.