Welcome to the Q2 edition of Cut Through Quarterly. A big thanks to HSBC, Corrs, and GXE for their continued support and a huge welcome to our new partners Vanta and Deckmatch. More details on our new supporters can be found below.
As always, we're grateful to the 108 investors who completed our Investor Sentiment Survey. Special thanks to our guest contributors, Craig Blair from Airtree and the team at Blackpeak Capital.
Q2 experienced a significant bounce back in activity following a slow start to the year last quarter. The quarter recorded the highest level of funding for startups since Q4 2022, with the resurgence of $100M+ deals pushing total funding above $1.5B. The current global sector-du-jour for investors, Artificial Intelligence, topped the sector deal count table for the first time.
Investor sentiment is clearly on the rise, with reports of an improved funding market, higher quality deal flow, and better portfolio health.
The big disappointment in an otherwise positive quarter was the decline in the share of capital flowing to female founders to a level not seen since 2019. Despite participation in Pre-seed stage deals hitting an all-time high, female-led startups were noticeably absent from large later-stage funding announcements.
We hope you find the report useful. You can read the report here.
We can provide our reports for free due to the support from our partners. We're pleased to welcome Vanta and Deckmatch to our list of great supporters.
Vanta revolutionises compliance by automating the process, making you audit-ready in no time and reducing associated costs by up to 85%. With its market-leading trust management platform, Vanta scales alongside your business, facilitating smooth entry into new markets.
Join a community of over 7,000 global companies, including renowned Australian names like Atlassian, Dovetail, and Tactiq, who rely on Vanta to automate evidence collection, unify risk management, and streamline security reviews.
Deckmatch is every investment team's top-of-funnel best friend. Deckmatch automates your top-of-funnel process, allowing investors to focus on high-impact tasks and spend more time with founders.
Screen companies effortlessly with automated screening aligned to your investment thesis. Leverage detailed competitive and market analysis through our agentic workflow. Seamlessly integrate everything with your email, online forms, and CRM.
Thanks,
The Cut Through Team
