Useful Stats: U.S. Venture Capital Dollars and Deals by State, 1995-2010

Though U.S. venture capital (VC) investment grew in 2010 after a disastrous 2009, overall venture activity remains well below 2006-2008 levels. Last year, U.S. venture firms invested $21.8 billion in American companies, 27 percent less than in 2007 (the last peak year before the current economic downturn). Most U.S. states experienced a similar pattern over the past five years, peaking in 2007, hitting a decade low in 2009, and recovering a bit last year.

California continues to have the highest level of venture capital activity by far, followed by Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Washington. Both Illinois and North Carolina had a strong 2010 and both joined the top ten states for total VC dollars invested for the first time since 2003. Though Georgia ranked 13th in VC investment dollars, the state ranked in the top 10 for total number of deals.

SSTI has prepared a table of state venture capital deals and dollars invested from 1995 to 2010. View the dollars by state table at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/042011t.htm. View the deals by state table at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/042011ta.htm.

SSTI has also assembled several additional tables with information on U.S. venture capital investment by state from 1995 to 2010. In the coming weeks, the SSTI Weekly Digest will provide venture capital data by state, including:

• Venture capital dollars invested per capita;
• Deals per one million residents;
• Average deal size;
• Change in dollars and deals over the last one, three, five, 10 and 15 years; and,
• Each state's share of total U.S. VC dollars and deals.

Each table will remain available at http://www.ssti.org