SA国际传媒

In a year when seemingly everything in the startup world broke records鈥攆rom venture funding to startup M&A, IPO proceeds to investment in sectors from cybersecurity to biotech鈥擲A国际传媒 News had a lot to write about.

Looking back at our most-read stories of 2021, it was no surprise that coverage of IPOs and SPACs, emerging new startup hubs, and highly funded startups rose to the top. Here鈥檚 a closer look at our most popular coverage from this year.

: For much of this year, payments processing startup held the title as the most highly valued venture-backed private company in the U.S. While it鈥檚 since to 鈥攙alued at $100.3 billion as of this writing鈥擲tripe is arguably the most anticipated IPO of 2022. Given Stripe鈥檚 $95 billion valuation and its pivotal role in e-commerce, Senior Data Editor Gen茅 Teare took a deep dive into its business model.

: This was a record year for the IPO markets, with close to 400 companies making traditional public-market debuts. While we didn鈥檛 track every single one of them, Reporter Sophia Kunthara did follow along as the most prominent venture-backed tech startups went public鈥攁nd beyond, as their shares traded on an often volatile market.

Speaking of going public, Sophia also tracked the venture-backed startups going public via special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, as these blank-check mergers became an increasingly popular route to the public markets. As Senior Reporter Chris Metinko noted at the start of the year, after many of these blank-check acquirers raised money in 2020, the pressure was on in 2021 to find targets to merge with.

, a 20-year-old New York-based investing firm that鈥檚 part hedge fund, part private equity investor, this year quietly became the most prolific investor in unicorn startups and also significantly picked up the pace at which it deployed capital. That鈥檚 from an analysis of the firm Gen茅 and I did earlier this year. Since we wrote that piece, Tiger has continued to invest at a rapid-fire pace, helping to turn 2021 into the biggest year for global venture investment to date.

Miami was in the spotlight as the next startup hub this year, as founders and investors liberated by the new world of remote work found the Sunshine State calling. High-profile startup investors including general partner and founder moved to South Florida in 2020, and as this year began, the buzz was that Miami would continue to draw more people from Silicon Valley. Contributing Reporter Joanna Glasner checked in again recently to see whether the Miami hype held up as the year wore on鈥�and found that it largely did.

: Venture investors this year dipped deep into their pockets to fund Thrasio and other startups known as third-party seller aggregators. These startups, which roll up successful third-party companies that sell through large retail sites like and , have raised billions this year. The most highly funded in the space continues to be 鈥攚hich last month closed a $1 billion Series D鈥攂ut others including , and also raked in tons of capital as the year progressed, as Chris recently noted.

: A decade after one of its co-founders wrote the five words that would go on to define the future of Silicon Valley鈥斺�溾�濃�攙enture firm had its best exit year in 2021. A16z, as the firm is also known, closed out the first half of the year with its biggest exit yet鈥斺�檚 direct listing鈥攗nder its belt. It also significantly increased its investing pace this year, Gen茅 and I found in our analysis.

More startups bet on menopause market:听In the field of women鈥檚 health, much of the medical advancement until now has been focused on birth control and fertility treatments, but startups and venture capitalists are increasingly turning to menopause as an area ripe for innovation, former contributing writer Christine Hall found in her reporting. The space represents $600 billion of spending opportunity, investors estimated, but is still largely untapped by startups and brands that could be creating new products and services for these women.

What Katerra鈥檚 collapse means for proptech investing: , once the most highly funded and valued startup in the construction tech space, this year abruptly filed for bankruptcy protection, a spectacular demise for a company that had raised some $2 billion from private-company investors. But even after the sector鈥檚 biggest unicorn imploded, venture capitalists who spoke with Sophia said they鈥檙e still bullish on the construction tech space overall, though investing more cautiously.

LatAm鈥檚 unicorn herd multiplies: Startup investors have been putting a lot of capital into Latin America for the past couple of years. Now they have something to show for it: A large and fast-growing stable of unicorns, Joanna noted. Her August tally found 23 LatAm unicorns鈥攁 number that鈥檚 surely grown again since and will continue to do so in the new year, following high-profile exits from the region including 鈥檚 recent IPO.

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