Funding & Business
State of Venture Q1’22 Report
After a red-hot 2021, global venture investment cools in Q1’22, even as the global unicorn club reaches a new high.
Global venture funding reached $143.9B raised across 8,835 deals in Q1’22, down 19% from the previous quarter’s funding. Despite the slowdown, Q1’22 marked the fourth-largest quarter for funding on record.
The US alone accounted for nearly half of total funding, with some of the biggest deals in the region going to companies like biotech startup Altos Labs, security analytics platform Securonix, and logistics unicorn Flexport, which hit an $8B valuation. US-based companies also drove a significant portion of the Q1’22 funding activity, accounting for 37% of all deals that quarter.
Other Q1’22 venture activity highlights include:
- The global unicorn count hit a new high in Q1’22, reaching 1,070 — up 62% YoY, even as new unicorn births decreased 15% QoQ to 113. New entrants include Miro ($17.5B valuation), RELEX Solutions ($5.7B), and Qonto ($5B).
- Mega-rounds (worth $100M+) reached $73.6B across 350+ deals, accounting for 51% of total global funding.
- M&A exits increased for the 7th straight quarter, hitting a record high of 2,983 in Q1’22. IPOs and SPACs, however, dipped substantially, with both decreasing by more than 40% QoQ — perhaps due to the lackluster performance of IPOs over the past year.
- Asia saw 91 IPOs total, more than any region in Q1’21. Asia-based companies also accounted for 9 out of the top 10 IPOs that quarter.
- $1 out of every $5 of venture investment went to fintech companies, which saw $28.8B raised across 1,399 deals.
- The US raised the most in venture funding ($71.2B), followed by China ($12.7B), and the United Kingdom ($9.2B)
- Tiger Global Management was the top investor in Q1’22, investing in 120 companies. It was followed by Gaingels (96 companies), and Global Founders Capital (77).
Download our Q1’22 State of Venture Report to learn more about all these trends and more.
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Funding & Business
Autotech Startup ServiceUp Lands $55M In Series B Funding
ServiceUp, a platform that automates and manages the vehicle repair process, has raised $55 million in a Series B round of funding led by PeakSpan Capital, the company told Crunchbase News.
The financing brings ServiceUp’s total raised since its 2021 inception to nearly $70 million. The company declined to reveal its valuation, noting only that it was “a significant step up” from its $14.5 million Series A in 2022. Tiger Global Management led that round.
Existing backers Hearst Ventures, Trestle Partners, Capital Midwest Fund and Litquidity Ventures also participated in ServiceUp’s latest raise.
Brett Carlson and Brett Dashe founded the Los Gatos, California-based startup “because vehicle repair was stuck in the past.” They operated under the premise that managing the repair process is “one of the most painful parts of running a fleet or processing claims.”
“It was slow, manual and full of frustrating back and forth,” Carlson told Crunchbase News in an email interview. “For fleets and insurance carriers, that meant lost time, lost money and operational headaches.”
ServiceUp aims to offer a centralized platform so fleets and insurance carriers can manage the repair process in one place, including repair approvals, vendor management, live repair tracking, billing and data insights.
For customers who want to fully offload the repair process, the company offers ServiceUp 360, its managed service where it handles everything — including vehicle pickup and delivery — on behalf of its customers.
ServiceUp is just one of nearly 240 automotive-related startups that have raised about $3.5 billion in venture funding globally in 2025 so far, per Crunchbase data. Birmingham, Alabama-based Fleetio, a web-based fleet management system, raised the largest of the bunch — a $450 million Series D financing at a $1.55 billion valuation.
In 2024, ServiceUp experienced 180% year-over-year revenue growth, according to Carlson. While the company is not yet profitable, he projects that it will be by 2026.
Today, ServiceUp has more than 50 customers across the fleet and insurance industries, including Zipcar, Voyager Global Mobility, Clearcover and Kyte.
The company makes money in two ways: For customers using its software, ServiceUp charges a SaaS fee; for those opting for managed ServiceUp 360, it charges a service fee “to cover coordination, logistics, and quality control, “ Carlson said.
It claims to have reduced repair cycle times for its customers to date by more than 30%.
Carlson believes ServiceUp’s main differentiator is that it is solely focused on managing the full repair process for fleets, specifically mechanical and collision repairs.
“In the insurance space, large carriers often have direct repair program (DRP) networks, while smaller carriers are typically left without a scalable solution,” Carlson told Crunchbase News. “ServiceUp fills that gap by providing a purpose-built platform that manages the entire repair lifecycle with transparency, automation, and speed.”
ServiceUp plans to use its new capital to add more automation and artificial intelligence to the platform and expand into Canada and other states in the U.S. by next year. Presently, the company has 63 employees.
Jack Freeman, partner at PeakSpan Capital, believes that ServiceUp “is not just building another solution for corporate fleets.”
“They have a differentiated vision and are re-imagining how automotive collision repair should look and feel,” he told Crunchbase News via email. “They … craft solutions that make a substantial difference through enhancing visibility, decreasing downtime, and driving cost savings. ServiceUp helps corporate fleets level up.”
Related Crunchbase query:
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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Funding & Business
Red Bull Fires Christian Horner After Turbulent End to F1 Tenure
Christian Horner has been let go as chief executive officer and principal of champion Formula 1 team Red Bull Racing, following struggles both on and off the track over the past year.
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Funding & Business
Treasuries Stem Run of Losses Before Debt Sales, Fed Minutes
Treasuries are holding their ground following the longest streak of declines since April as investors look ahead to a US debt auction and the minutes from last month’s Federal Reserve meeting.
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