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BlackRock backing Hortonworks signals dawn of megadeal era

SAN FRANCISCO — The age of the startup megadeal is dawning.

Private-equity firms, hedge funds, and mutual funds are pouring money into Silicon Valley at an unprecedented rate, with BlackRock the latest entrant. The firm that manages $4.3 trillion is leading a $100 million investment in database software maker Hortonworks, just two months after a bigger deal for Dropbox.

Nine-figure financing rounds have long been reserved for high-profile initial public offerings, though a sea change is now underway. Technology companies are delaying share sales until they can more confidently tell their growth story to Wall Street, pushing investors that have historically bought into IPOs to get in earlier while the startups remain closely held.

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‘‘There’s a ton of money out there that wants to invest aggressively in this space,’’ Rob Bearden, chief executive of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hortonworks, said in an interview. ‘‘We had a very difficult time not taking more than we did.’’

Hortonworks becomes the fifth company to garner at least $100 million in the past week, following Actifio Monday and even bigger investments last week in Cloudera and TangoMec. Room-sharing service Airbnb is said to be pulling in about $450 million, more than what any US technology company except Twitter raised in an IPO last year.

There have been 11 nine-figure funding rounds total in technology companies so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It took until August last year to reach the same number of $100 million-plus financings.

The mega-rounds are refueling the bubble debate in Silicon Valley as skeptics of the boom question whether so many unproven businesses can live up to the hype. Adding ammunition is the most vibrant IPO market since 2007, as well as Facebook Inc.’s agreement last month to pay $19 billion for texting service WhatsApp Inc., the biggest Internet deal since the disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger in 2001.

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‘‘There’s all this hedge fund and mutual fund money out there,’’ said Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights, a New York-based research firm that tracks venture investing. ‘‘For those with resources, if they think this might be the next big thing, why not get in now?’’

Megadeals in 2013 went to 16 companies, including Palantir Technologies and Pinterest. The biggest year was 2011, when 17 companies including Facebook, Groupon and Zynga raised nine-digit sums, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Other companies to raise at least $100 million this year include online retailer Wayfair and business software maker Domo. Both deals included financing from T. Rowe Price Group, which also backed Cloudera, MongoDB and Pure Storage in $100 million-plus deals. Dropbox filed last month to raise as much as $450 million in a round that includes BlackRock.

The influx of cash in technology is largely the result of the low interest-rate environment, Bill Gurley, a partner at venture firm Benchmark, said in a March 12 interview on Bloomberg West. Yields on 10-year Treasuries have hovered below 3 percent since 2011.