Thursday, January 20, 2011
Rocky Mountain Region Sees $292M In Q4 Venture Capital
The latest numbers from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters, were released this evening, finding that investments in the Rocky Mountain region totaled $292M in Q4. The investment amounts were well above the $159.2M invested in the region in Q3, bolstered by a banner quarter in Colorado, where $253.8M was invested across 24 deals. The increase in investments reflected an overall, national trend, where venture capital deals were up 19 percent in terms of dollars and 12 percent in terms of deal count.
State by state, Colorado saw 24 deals totaling $253.8M. Arizona had 4 deals worth a total of $20.0M, Utah had 3 deals totaling nearly $10M in total, with Idaho seeing a surprisingly robust quarter with $7.5M in investments across two firms.
Idaho's quarter was particularly good in terms of venture investment dollars; the firm had its largest VC investment quarter this year, from a normally lackluster number of deals in any particular quarter. On the other hand, Utah saw a very steep dropoff in investments, with only $9.99M in deals compared with last quarter's $53.4M in investments.
Nationally, venture capital had its best year since 2007, with investors putting $21.8 billion into 3,277 deals. For Q4, nationally there was $5.0 billion in 765 deals, or a 2 percent increase in dollars and a 3 percent decrease in deals from Q3.
Seth Levine, one of the Managing Directors of Boulder-based Foundry Group, said in a conference call discussing the results that his experience reflected those numbers, with the firm seeing a "significant increase" in deal flow in 2010. Levine said Foundry--which invests not just in the region but nationally--saw a 25 percent increase in 2010 over 2009 deals that the firm considered. That was even stronger for Q4, where Levine said his firm tracked a 50 percent increase in deals considered over 2009. Among the areas Levine said his firm is most interested in were mobile, particularly with devices like the iPad; advertising technology, with the move of advertising online; and personal instrumentation, which is companies working on ways to track things for individuals such as weight, health, and exercise.