Useful Stats

As the Great Recession wanes, an increasing amount of research has been conducted to assess its impact on entrepreneurship in the United States. Authors with the Kauffman Foundation found that firm formation in the United States is remarkably constant over time, although the death rate of companies rises during recessions. Others found that despite the Great Recession causing many businesses to close their doors, the rapid rise of unemployment also drove an increase in entrepreneurs. Still, others argue that increased entrepreneurial activity was found to be related to unemployment only in those states that had already established strong levels of entrepreneurship prior to the recession.

Anchored by the largest ever investment since the MoneyTree Report began covering venture capital investment in 1995, the $13 billion total dollars invested in the second quarter of 2014 marks the largest total quarterly investment since $13.1 billion was invested in the first quarter of 2001, according to new data from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) MoneyTree survey. Likewise, the $22.7 billion invested in the first half of 2014 is the highest first half total since 2001.

Between Q1 and Q2 of 2014, investment activity rose 34 percent in dollar terms and 13 percent in number of deals. First half investments in 2014 were 71 percent greater in dollars and 9 percent greater in number of deals than the first half of 2013.

State agencies in New York spent more on research and development than agencies in any other state in FY11, according to data released by the National Science Foundation. The NSF data provides an overview of state agency investments in R&D, broken down by the source of those funds and the types of organizations that eventually performed the research. Ohio, Florida and California also ranked among the top states for total agency investment. West Virginia and Ohio led in R&D investments as a share of state GDP in FY11.

New York’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation, Department of Health and Energy Research and Development Authority led the state’s agency-based research investments. New York state agencies spent $182.7 million on R&D in FY11, equal to about 0.016 percent of state GDP. Investments were nearly equally distributed between research at academic institutions and private researchers. New York has been a national leader in agency investments for many years, but still managed to increase those investments over the 2006-11 period. Agency R&D spending grew by 76.4 percent during that time.

With Earth Day just around the corner, SSTI is taking a closer look at environmental science research spending in the states.  Even as climate change emerged as a key political topic during the first decade of the millennium, spending on environmental research at American colleges and universities declined as a percentage of all R&D, according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey. Between 2003-12, environmental science expenditures fell from 5.3 percent of all R&D expenditures to 4.8 percent. California universities spent the most in FY12, but Wyoming and Nevada devoted the highest percentage of their R&D spending on environmental science.  The District of Columbia and Maryland spent the most per capita.

North Carolina universities receive a larger share of research dollars from businesses than higher education institutions in any other state, according to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey. The most recent survey provides data on research expenditures by source for each state and territory for FY12. Wisconsin and the District of Columbia received the greatest share of R&D funding from nonprofits, while Wyoming, Maryland Guam and the Virgin Island receive the largest share of funding from the federal government.

Between FY2007-12, research and development (R&D) spending at U.S. universities grew 27.5 percent, from about $51.6 billion to $65.8 billion, according to the latest edition of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey. The survey provides a look at R&D spending at U.S. universities, with data broken down by state, institution, research area and funding sources. California remained the leader in university R&D spending, but spending in the state grew at a slightly lower rate than the national average. Most of the other top 20 states experienced gains that exceeded the national average.

U.S. patents continued their rapid pace of growth in 2013, according to statistics from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  USPTO granted 122,593 utility patents last year, a 10 percent increase over the previous year and a 72 percent increase over 2008. Much of the increase in activity is due to the growth of IT and software patenting, as discussed in a separate SSTI Digest article. California leads the country in utility patents, representing about 27 percent of patents granted in 2013. Massachusetts narrowly leads California in per capita patenting activity, followed by Vermont and Washington.

The U.S. remains the global leader in research and development (R&D) spending, but its share of global research is on the decline, according to the National Science Board’s (NSB) Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 report. U.S. R&D expenditures, including government, private and academic spending, reached about $428 billion in 2011 (see our previous Digest article on U.S. R&D spending), representing a 21.4 percent increase over 2006. Over the past decade, however, the U.S. share of global spending has fallen from 37 to 30 percent. Much of the decline is due to growing research activity in East, Southeast and South Asia.

Last year, U.S. venture capitalists invested about $10.7 billion in seed and early stage companies, 17.1 percent higher than 2012, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Moneytree survey.  Though the overall venture capital (VC) market has returned to about the same level of activity as before the economic crisis, investment in seed and early stage companies has grown by more than a third. Most of this increase is attributable to growth in early stage investment, but seed activity has grown as well (as discussed in another article).

After hitting an all-time high in 2012, California’s dominance of the nation’s venture capital activity receded a bit last year. California continues to receive about half of the country’s venture investment dollars and about 40 percent of its dealflow, but in 2013, the state’s share of dollars fell from 53 to 50 percent, according to data from the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association (PwC/NVCA) Moneytree survey. Massachusetts, which has been host to about 10 percent of national venture activity in past years, also saw its share of total U.S. activity decline. Gains in second tier venture capital states appear to account for the shift, including upticks in Florida, Maryland, New York, Texas and Virginia. Massachusetts continue to lead the country in terms of dollars and deals per capita, though for the first time that lead was threatened by the rise of Washington, D.C., as a venture capital hotspot.

Powered by strong growth in the Internet and Software sectors, U.S. venture capital activity grew by about 7.5 percent in 2013, according to new data from the NVCA/PWC Moneytree survey. Both venture dollars and deals ticked up last year, bouncing back to 2011 levels after a slow 2012. SSTI has prepared tables of U.S. venture capital investment levels by state in terms of deals and dollars for the 2008-13 period.

Despite a small decline in research investment in 2011, New Mexico continues to have the country’s most research-focused economy, according to the National Science Foundation National Patterns of R&D Resources survey. Maryland, Massachusetts, Washington and California also ranked among the top most R&D intensive economies in 2011. SSTI has prepared tables, based on the NSF data, showing total R&D spending and R&D intensity at the national and state level from 2006-11.