The SaaS VC gap: China & other markets trail the US
[ad_1] Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor International growth, primarily in China, fuels the VC market today Corporate venture investment climbs higher throughout 2018 Chinese startups rule the roost when it comes to total reported venture dollars raised so far in 2018. That is, mostly. In one key category at least — software-as-a-service, better known as SaaS — they do not. Ant Financial raised the largest-ever VC round in June, a mind-boggling $14 billion in Series C funding. And nearly a dozen privately held Chinese companies, including SenseTime, Du Xiaoman Financial, JD Finance and ELEME, raised $1 billion (yes, with a “b”) or more in single venture rounds thus far in 2018. But if there’s one thing to note from that shortlist of 2018’s largest China venture rounds, it’s this: almost all of them involv...