Key Technology Area Investment Data Tool
Venture, seed, and angel capital are the most common financial tools for growing tech-focused young companies, and so the number of investment-backed companies, number of investment deals, and amount of capital invested can all help indicate the vibrancy of a region's innovation economy. This data tool leverages PitchBook's platform to provide these measures at the state level by year and by investment stage for selected technology areas.
The technology areas included in this data tool align with the 10 key technology-focused areas (KTFA) that have been defined by the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act and are important aspects of programs such as the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (Tech Hubs) and National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines (Engines).
Note that the alignment between the industry verticals defined by PitchBook and the federal government's KTFA definitions is not perfect—some entire or partial KTFAs are not included, and some KTFAs are represented across multiple verticals—but the data should still help inform how robust each state's investment capital market is for the given technologies.
Using the dropdown menus located under the title of each interactive graphic, 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.
In the first chart, use the filters at the top to select a state and your preferred metric to reveal a map of investment across tech areas by year. You can click a tech area and then a year to zoom in for a better look.
In the second chart, use the filters at the top to select a technology area and your preferred metric. You can click a state and then a year to zoom in for investments by stage.
The data underlying these tools is in an Excel sheet.
For assistance in understanding the underlying investment activity data, or how to use the information to better understand your region, see the notes below or contact SSTI's Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Community of Practice team at tbedcop@ssti.org.
Methodology and Notes
All data is from PitchBook Data, Inc. Published by SSTI with permission.
The company and deal "state" is the current headquarters location of the company receiving the investment.
"Vertical" is based on PitchBook's analysis of the technology area in which the company is engaged. These are not mutually exclusive—one company may be represented in multiple verticals. Therefore, we encourage regions to consider one vertical at a time rather than combining multiple verticals. For total state-level activity, see SSTI's separate articles on venture capital investment or the most recent PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.
The amount of capital invested is missing for many transactions, and smaller deals are probably less likely to be represented than larger deals.
Because many investment deals are not subject to disclosure, immediate identification of investment activity is difficult. This means that investment data is normally less complete for more recent years.
To procure the actual data used in the above graphics and data file, 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 identified industry verticals, data on the number of investment-backed companies, investment deals, and amount of capital invested by each state, year, and investment stage (e.g., seed, angel, venture) is included.
For the most current update, data was downloaded from PitchBook on July 15, 2024, reformatted for ease of use, and built into the provided visualizations and spreadsheet, which are available for download under the second graphic, or through the following link: https://ssti.org/tbed/keytech2024
This data tool 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.