Venture funding spikes; Silicon Valley dominates
U.S. venture capital investment hit its highest level since 2001 in the first quarter, and California companies were by far the largest recipients of that money, according to a new report from CB Insights[6], the New York venture capital and private company research firm.
Nationally, nearly $10 billion went into 880 deals, up 44 percent over the first quarter of 2013, though the number of deals rose just 5 percent, according to the report, which only counted rounds in which venture capital firms participated and not rounds strictly from hedge funds or mutual funds.
California companies took 58 percent of all venture funding - $5.75 billion - notching more deals than the next 13 states combined, CB Insights said. The largest deal, by far, was the $900 round just disclosed by Cloudera, the Palo Alto database technology firm.
Silicon Valley[7] took 85 percent of all the state’s venture funding for the first quarter, with the top ten financings in the state all happening in the region. Nationally, the three most active venture firms were early stage investor 500 Startups, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates.
Late stage funding was up, with the number of companies raising money at $1 billion-plus valuations up dramatically, while Series A funding was down.
CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal said tech companies are getting money on very good terms, big rounds allow founders and early employees to cash out before an IPO and healthy balance sheets help them to recruit talent, ramp sales, access public market experts and otherwise apply finishing touches before making a public debut.
Patrick Hoge covers technology for the San Francisco Business Times.
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