Venture capital financing rounds with transaction volumes of 100 million US dollars or more have become an integral part of the US venture capital market within the last decade. We aim to determine whether such mega-deals are a quality signal for equity investors in the event of an IPO. Based on a sample of 364 US IPOs, we find that companies that have received a venture capital mega-deal perform, on average, superior IPOs and exhibit favorable post-IPO performance.