What began as a desperate year for startups, characterized by mass layoffs as the pandemic took hold, turned into a record venture capital funding haul.
Despite the economic tumult wrought by the coronavirus, startup investing in the U.S. reached a record high of $130 billion in 2020, according to a new Money Tree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers/CB Insights. Companies like Instacart and Stripe helped drive the surge by raising hundreds of millions apiece, even though the total number of funding rounds was lower than in 2019. The year also saw an uptick in funding for Seattle and several other cities outside the Bay Area, long the center of the startup universe.
