Venture Firms Turn Down Funding Volume, but Still Rockin’ in Q3
Venture capital activity descended from the stratosphere during the third quarter, but it was still flying high, as venture firms invested nearly $9.8 billion in 879 deals across the United States, according to a report released today by the financial data firm CB Insights.
The amount invested during the quarter was down 30 percent from the $13.9 billion that VCs deployed in the previous quarter, and the deal count was down by 10 percent from the 974 deals that CB Insights counted in the second quarter. But it still marked the third consecutive quarter when VC funding exceeded $9 billion, according to the report.
The accumulated total for VC funding so far this year amounts to more than $33.7 billion—a 59 percent leap from the $21.9 billion deployed during the first three quarters of 2013. As we previously reported, mega venture investments in Airbnb, Uber, and Pinterest helped drive second-quarter VC funding to a 13-year high.
With its quick snapshot of quarterly VC activity, CB Insights is usually first to release its data, which counts only venture capital investments (including corporate venture) in emerging companies. The quarterly MoneyTree Report, which provides a more detailed survey of third-quarter venture capital activity, is set for release later this week.
U.S. venture activity (courtesy CB Insights)
In its 114-page report, CB Insights notes that venture funding for startups increased in New York to a five-quarter high, with close to $1.4 billion invested in 122 deals.
An astounding 85 percent of New York’s venture dollars went
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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