U.S. Venture Capital on Track for Historic Year

In the first three quarters of 2015, U.S. venture capital firms have invested $47.2 billion, more than the year-end totals for 17 of the past 20 years, according to new data from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). About $16.3 billion was invested in 1,070 deals in the third quarter, bringing the 2015 total to $47.2 billion in 2,239 deals. Investment activity is on track to reach its highest annual level since 2000, and the second highest year since the beginning of PwC’s Moneytree report. Both dollars and deal slightly fell in the third quarter, but still managed to rank as the second most active quarter since 2000.

Venture capital activity also became a bit more democratic in the third quarter. The top 10 deals comprised 19 percent of all deals in Q3, down from 24 in Q2. These deals were spread across seven industries, indicating an unusual degree of diversity. While the top two sectors, Software and Biotechnology, continued to lead, activity was more evenly spread across industries. Media & Entertainment, Medical Devices and Equipment, IT Services and Industrial/Energy sectors all had more deals. Also, California’s dominance of the national VC market slightly dipped. The state’s share of national VC dollars fell to 57 percent in the third quarter, down from 60.5 percent.

Seed stage and later stage investments were both up, while early stage and expansion stage were down. Seed stage investment activity, however, is well below its levels five years ago.

Read the NVCA/PwC Moneytree report…