Start-ups in countries with conducive ecosystems were attracting high-value investments (more than or equal to US$100 million) in 2021 with Venture Capital (VC) firms betting big. More specifically, investors have shown huge interest in start-ups in the top two markets, the US and China, which managed to attract around 70% of the volume and value of high-value investments, according to GlobalData.

The leading data and analytics company also found that, in the US alone, there were 835 high-value investments (more than half of the total number) worth US$218.4 billion announced in the US, which equates to 53.7% and 52.3% of the world’s high-value VC investment value and volume, respectively. The US is followed by China, which attracted US$65.5 billion through 262 deals accounting for 16.1% value and 16.4% volume of the world’s high-value VC investments in 2021.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “The US and China remained the preferred investment destinations for VC investors. Thanks to the conducive start-up ecosystem, it’s financially viable for promising home-grown start-ups in these countries. Moreover, unspent capital of 2020 appears to have contributed. There has also been a significant injection of capital in start-ups in some of the other key markets.”

Of the top ten countries by high-value VC investment deals volume, two were headquartered in North America, three in Europe, three in Asia-Pacific and one each in the South and Central American and Middle East and Africa regions.

India occupied the third position in terms of high-value VC investment deals volume, followed by the UK, Germany, Canada, Israel, Brazil, France and Singapore.

Bose adds: “The attractiveness of these markets can be understood by the fact that these 10 countries collectively accounted for more than 90% of the volume and value of high-value VC investments globally.”