Monday, April 21, 2008

Venture Investments Slow In Q1

Venture capital investments slowed in Q1, as numbers from two groups showed venture investments were off from last quarter. PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) reported over the weekend that venture capitalists invested $7.1 billion in 922 deals in Q1 of this year, down from Q4 when $7.8B was invested in 1,045 deals, based on data from Thomson Reuters. Dow Jones VentureSource, which also tracks venture deals, also released its tallies for the quarter, and found that there was a 7% drop in Q1 deals to $6.84 billion -- what the firm characterized as the fewest deals since 2005. Locally, Dow Jones found that investments in the Pacific Northwest fell by 37% compared with a year ago, with only $249M invested in 23 deals.