If a company refers to a closed financing event as a mezzanine round, then the round will likely be classified as such. If a round is labeled mezzanine but more than 24 months has passed and the company has not completed an IPO, then the financing is also reclassified. For example, a company cannot have a true mezzanine round in 1995 and then go public in 1999. Often a restart is accompanied by a change in business or dramatic shift in marketing strategy. If the financing had both corporate and venture investors, it is not called a corporate round.
Participants are generally wealthy individuals, angels, or informal angel groups.
Rounds classified as Private Equity do not utilize an underwriter and are financed by an entity other than a professional venture capital firm, a corporation, or a venture leasing firm. A private placement is an equity-financing instrument, carried out by an agent or underwriter. PPEs are generally offered to qualified wealthy individual investors as well as funds. The PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree Survey in partnership with VentureOne is designed to measure 'core' investments in venture-backed companies in the United States. Focusing only on companies that have received venture capital, stripping out debt, and excluding sporadic investing by angels and incubators, the survey provides reliable, meaningful statistics on the pulse of the industry.