SSTI updates key technology area investment data tool

The Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (Tech Hubs) and National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines (Engines) programs require regions to advance a critical technology area that already has traction in their region. However, identifying such critical technologies might be challenging as applicants face deadlines, such as the August 6, 2024, NSF Engines preliminary proposal deadline and the subsequent February 11, 2025, full proposal deadline. Fortunately, SSTI recently updated a data tool comprised of two interactive visuals and a downloadable data file that can assist in identifying the critical technologies in an applicant’s geographic location.

The tool leverages PitchBook data exhibiting investment activity across 18 PitchBook industry verticals aligned with many of the 10 key technology focus areas (KTFAs) established with the passage of the 2022 Chips and Science Act. SSTI initially launched the tool in August 2023 and has since updated the underlying data through June 30, 2024.

To create an example of how the tool could be used, SSTI utilized the tool’s functions to find data on technologies in Nevada, where the Nevada Tech Hub won an EDA Tech Hubs designation and implementation award in the advanced energy and industrial efficiency technologies KTFA. The data tool showed that Nevada had 16 deals in 2013, growing to 38 in 2023, with an additional 11 already captured by the data in 2024. Approximately half of the net growth in deal count from 2013 to 2023 has been driven by three industry verticals—manufacturing, clean tech, and climate tech—all of which directly relate to the Tech Hub’s KTFA.

As the above example shows, the data tool can be a valuable instrument for quickly determining a state’s strengths in an investment activity area and how robust each state's investment capital market is for the given key technologies.

All individuals and organizations can access the data tool for free through SSTI’s Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Community of Practice, supported by EDA.

Methodological overview

SSTI analyzed the 59 industry verticals for which PitchBook collects investment data, comparing them against the 10 key technology-focused areas defined by CHIPS. SSTI identified 18 PitchBook industry verticals as aligned with the KTFAs.

Across all 18 industry verticals, data on the number of investment-backed companies, investment deals, and amount of capital invested by each state, year (January 1, 2013-June 30, 2024), and investment stage (e.g., seed, angel, venture) is included.

For this update, data was downloaded on July 15, 2024, reformatted for ease of use, and built into the provided visualizations and spreadsheet available for download on the data tool webpage.

Note that because many investment deals are not subject to disclosure, it is difficult to identify investment activity immediately, leading to investment data for more recent years normally being less complete. This issue is especially important to consider when exploring 2024 data.

The data used to develop this tool comes from Pitchbook and is published by SSTI with permission. For more information, see the Methodology and Notes section of the data.

How to use the data tool

The following are brief instructions on how to use the data tool, which can also be found on the data tool’s page.

The example below uses the first interactive visual, which focuses on industry verticals and has filters for each state. The second interactive visual focuses on states and has filters for each industry vertical.

Image of the state-level investment data visualization.

Using the dropdown menus located under the title, users can select the region and metric that the data tool’s visualizations will use to represent investment activity—the number of angel, seed, early-, or late-stage investment deals, the number of companies receiving investment, or the amount of capital invested. By clicking through to the final tier of the visualizations or accessing the data file, users can see each of those metrics by deal stage, year, state, and technology area.

Deal count may be the best single indicator, as it shows a breadth of activity without being subject to skewing from a single large investment.

SSTI encourages users to consider one vertical at a time rather than combining multiple verticals, as PitchBook verticals are not mutually exclusive—one company may be represented in multiple verticals.

The data tool can be accessed here or at ssti.org/key-technology-area-investment-data-tool.

Contact tbedcop@ssti.org with questions or for more information.

This article was prepared by SSTI using Federal funds under award ED22HDQ3070129 from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Administration or the U.S. Department of Commerce.