Without the steady flow of money from investors to companies, and then back again, markets would stagnate and innovation would come to a standstill. While venture capitalists never ceased investing, during the recent recession, the number of deals in which they participated, and the dollar value of these deals, decreased noticeably. Thankfully, as of the quarter two (Q2) of 2010, venture capital investing has returned to pre-recession levels nationally, according to Dow Jones’ VentureSource. (Image courtesy: http://bit.ly/c3e8gY)In Massachusetts, venture capitalists invested $792.2 million across 81 deals in Q2 of 2010. During the same quarter last year, just $508.2 million was invested over 68 deals. New England’s largest investment deal of Q2 came from the information technology sector. Summit Partners, invested $96.5 million in Andover, Massachusetts-based network equipment designer, Casa Systems Inc. California saw the most investment activity in Q2 of 2010, with $3.96 billion invested over 296 deals.
Nationally, venture capitalists invested $7.7 billion
across 744 deals in Q2 of 2010, which was a 26% increase in dollars and a 13% increase in number of deals, as compared to the same quarter last year. Furthermore, for the first time since 2008, the average deal value surpassed $10 million. Venturesource went on to report that, despite the very active Q2, because investing during quarter one was so limited, they only project a total of $20 billion to $25 billion in deals for 2010 nationally. (Image courtesy: http://bit.ly/ada1zX)Now that venture capitalists are investing as they did before the recession, it is time to start setting new records. Recovering from the recession is clearly important, but it is also important to return to a period of steady growth. I will be hoping that the reports for Q3 and Q4 will prove even more optimistic.
[Sources: http://bit.ly/aa0psW, http://bit.ly/c3e8gY]
