Q1 2022 Investment Report
Greater Baltimore Companies Post Strong Start to 2022, Raising $173M in Growth Funding
Amidst national and international economic uncertainty, Greater Baltimore maintained its status as an investment location of choice in Q1 2022. Investments in Greater Baltimore’s start-ups and early-stage companies totaled more than $173M in Q1 2022, on par with 2019 and 2020 levels.
These investments span across numerous industries and funding stages, showing Greater Baltimore’s diversity of industry strengths and strong pipeline of growth-stage companies ready to bring their innovations to the next level.
The over $173M raised in Q1 2022 does not include investments in real estate development, or in Greater Baltimore's existing high-value companies. This report also excludes deals with undisclosed amounts. Investments were tracked for companies at the Pre-seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C, and Series D rounds, as well as Private Equity investments in early- and mid-stage growth companies.
Kicking off 2022, Greater Baltimore saw another mega-round – following a record six mega-rounds across all of 2021 – as fintech start-up Facet Wealth (Baltimore City) brought in a $100 million Series C round. This funding will contribute to Facet Wealth’s meteoric rise, exemplified by their surpassing $1 billion in assets under management. This investment, paired with a $20 million investment in e-commerce company Whitebox (Anne Arundel County) and multi-million-dollar investments in medical device innovator Longeviti (Baltimore County) and app development start-up Joget (Howard County), helped to make the second-strongest January in the last four years. February and March saw more investments overall, though smaller in size. Baltimore City-based user device-testing leader Apkudo and app-based laundry service SudShare raised $14.4 million and $10 million in February and March, respectively.
In total, eleven companies across Greater Baltimore received investments of more than $1 million in Q1 2022, evenly split between Healthcare/Life Sciences (four deals), Cybersecurity/IT (four deals), and other industries (three deals). These represent one-third of the 33 total deals reported. Baltimore City led in deal count and reported deal value, with 13 deals valued at $127.3 million. Anne Arundel County saw six deals valued at $24.5 million, and Baltimore County followed with seven deals at $17.5 million in total value. Howard County companies garnered six investment deals valued at $3.8 million.
Across all deals at all investment levels, the IT/Cybersecurity industry led with 14 deals, followed by a diverse group of Other industries (10 deals) and the Healthcare/Life Scienceindustry (eight deals). Most impressively, each industry category saw early-, mid- and late-stage investments; this highlights Greater Baltimore’s role in imagining, developing, and launching the technologies that will drive the future.
TEDCO Investment Spotlight: Funding Innovation across Greater Baltimore
The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) invests in the most promising early-stage technology start-ups across Greater Baltimore and the state of Maryland. In Q1 2022, TEDCO invested more than $1,550,000 across 12 companies in Greater Baltimore; this includes nine of TEDCO’s 12 Maryland Innovative Initiative (MII) awardees. Greater Baltimore was also home to half (13) of the 26 Maryland-based companies included in TEDCO’s FY2022 SBIR/STTR Proposal Lab cohort. These investments are not an exhaustive account of TEDCO’s overall funding but demonstrate that the Region continues to be a leader in the incubation and evolution of significant advancements.
Philanthropy Spotlight
In philanthropy news, University of Maryland, Baltimore County received its largest-ever donation: $21 million from the Sherman Family Foundation to support teacher education. Parity Homes and POWER: Prioritizing Our Women’s Economic Rise Collaborative collaboratively received $7 million from JPMorgan Chase to support wealth-building efforts in West Baltimore. Not to be outdone, philanthropist Mackenzie Scott donated $6 million total to Habitat for Humanity Chesapeake and Habitat for Humanity Choptank, empowering access for more Greater Baltimore families to achieve the goal of homeownership. Finally, Howard County and BGE showed the power of public-private partnership in their $500,000 investment benefitting local small businesses recovering from the pandemic.