The U.S.:
“VentureOne reports that the number of deals and amount invested fell 9% and 16%, repectively, from a year ago to 474 deals and $4.6 billion in the first quarter of 2005.” More
The EU:
“According to a new report by Go4Venture, a fund-raising specialist for European technology companies, a sudden jump in the company’s proprietary industry activity indicator shows that the slump in the European venture-capital market has come to an end.” More
I can confirm that London Seed Capital and London Business Angels are significantly busier than last year, which supports the EU case. Anecdotal evidence gathered on a recent trip to Silicon Valley suggests that seed and early stage fundraising in the US is difficult- and that VCs there prefer to support their portfolios, supporting the VentureOne report.
However, the fine print in the VentureOne report suggests otherwise for the early stage market:
Early-stage (US) deals are on the rise. They comprised 32% of all deals in Q1, compared to 30% in Q4. The amount invested in early-stage companies, $235.2 million, was the highest since the fourth quarter of 2000. It seems VCs are wasting no time putting all the new funds they’ve raised to work.
Lies or statistics? I would welcome your comments and feedback.
Filed under: Venture Capital
