Funding Legal 2022 Q1: China, Copyright & Carbon
This is about China, Copyright, Carbon, and a new post-credit. This is the State of Legal Venture Funding for the first quarter of 2022.
China
Let’s jump right in: $1.78 Billion was raised between January 1 and March 31 this year by legal ventures. This is 10.6% less capital than 2021. The global pullback of risk capital from private companies is hitting the legal industry. Weirdly enough, we found more rounds completed and investors participating in this quarter compared to last year. We found 108 deals and 337 investors participating. So we got more checks from more investors, but those checks got a litter smaller this year. Why?
In our ESG analysis, we noted the $300 Million round by PatSnap and $138 Million by Fadada in early 2021. To understand Asia, we did a mini analysis on Softbank and China with investors like Tencent. Especially, Tencent went quiet this quarter in legal. Some say the slowdown is caused by China’s crackdown on tech and trade tensions with the west.
We got a ping from a LinkedIn follower to join this particular take on China. Measuring venture funding in Asia versus Europe and North America, this graph shows an equal percentage increase for each region. On the surface, it seems there was no impact on venture funding. Yet on closer inspection, we discovered that India is picking up the slack in Asia. That’s how Bengaluru emerged as the mini Silicon Valley of Legal Tech in our Law.com interview.
Copyright
Now venture capitalists are feeling less venturous. Yet, they still need to find opportunities, so where do they go? To see opportunities, one has to recalibrate our vision of growth. The NFT and Web3 are still generating ridiculous graphs on Spark Max. However, this announcement gripped us: Microsoft bought Activision for $68.7 Billion. It’s the single biggest acquisition in gaming and it cleared all anti-trust hurdles without a hitch. Huh, how?
The acquisition made every analyst play games and every attorney dream about those deal fees. Remember: lawyers have superpowers and some more than others. Copyright lawyers, like me, watching the new Halo TV series were thinking: Ooh this is the new Marvel Universe. They will be printing money in perpetuity. If you like to know what this word means in a copyright contract, ask Dave Chappelle.
If you like to really know what this deal means, pass the controller and pay attention. Noticed how iPhones got cheaper and their designs went backwards? It’s because all the attention is going somewhere else. Attention is going towards getting your attention. That is the most valuable asset and it is called Copyright.
Carbon
Now, if lawyers aren’t calculating their cut on deals, they are litigating the conflicts between people. Usually, those conflicts arise when change collides with the need for things to remain the same. It is about the future we want versus the future we are going to get. That future is largely determined by our environment. While our environment consists of many chemicals, it is largely dominated by one: CO2.
Regulating and accounting for carbon across supply chains is generating even crazier charts on Spark. Supply Chain capture $2.60 Billion this quarter, which is a whopping 669% more than last year.
Up until this point, we only mentioned numbers from segment Legal. The supply chain and accounting numbers come from the segment Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). A single area within segment GRC managed to be bigger than the entire Legal segment and all its areas including Contracts.
That’s not all: accounting for carbon accumulated $172 Million of funding. This total set the radical record in GRC of a 933% increase over 2021.
Cred
You made it this deep, here’s your post-credit. Remember, we joked about analysts playing games? Well, we got slapped by this data. Most new NFT rounds aren’t about music, art, or virtual real estate. They are about games that render high scores as non-fungible tokens. Finally, you can say: Mom, I’m not just gaming, I’m minting NFTs, so gimmie the controller.
There is more: the average seed round for NFT games is $5.6 Million. The very first check these companies receive producing a website and nothing else is five million-plus in cash. That will give anyone street cred on Twitch.
- Wonder how much your idea or company is valued? Spark Mini gives you the best answer;
- Why didn’t you talk about LinkSquares and LawVu? That is Q2;
- Will you discuss mergers and acquisitions? Yes;
- When are we getting Funding Legal Q2? Leave your email in the footer below to subscribe for updates, and you get the analysis first;
- Can’t wait? Ping me on LinkedIn.
Shelter Ukraine 🇺🇦
Originally published at https://www.legalcomplex.com on April 12, 2022.
