Twelve Triangle technology companies raised $112.2 million in venture backing in the second quarter, with five hauling in more than $10 million each, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data provided by Thomson Reuters.
North Carolina ranked 14th among states in the total amount raised in the quarter.
Nationally, venture capitalists invested $17.5 billion in 1,189 deals in the second quarter, a 30 percent increase over the first quarter. Software companies raised a record-setting $7.3 billion in the quarter, the highest quarterly amount in MoneTree Report history.
“In addition to a significant uptick in total investing in Q2, the $7.3 billion invested in Software companies exceeded the total VC dollars invested across all industries in 51 of the last 82 quarters,” remarked Tom Ciccolella, US Venture Capital Leader at PwC, said in a statement.
Quarterly venture capital (VC) investment increased 30 percent in terms of dollars and 13 percent in the number of deals, compared to the first quarter when $13.5 billion was invested in 1,048 deals. The second quarter is the sixth consecutive quarter of more than $10 billion of venture capital invested in a single quarter.
Best since 2011 for the Triangle
The largest Triangle deal was Innocrin Pharmaceutical’s $28.1 million raise. Nationally, the biotechnology industry captured the third largest total for dollars invested in the quarter with $2.3 billion pumped into 126 deals. This amount is the largest quarterly investment total going into Biotechnology companies since the inception of the MoneyTree Report in Q1 1995.
Triangle companies have raised $196.4 million in the first two quarters of this year, the best since 2011.
Jason Caplain of Bull City Venture Partners, Durham, told the Raleigh News & Observer he thinks the next couple of quarters “Will be pretty robust.”
Venture capitalists invested $5 billion into 290 Internet-specific companies during Q2, a 64 percent increase in dollars and a 25 percent rise in deals compared to the first quarter of 2015 when $3.1 billion went into 232 companies. “Internet-Specific” is a discrete classification assigned to a company with a business model that is fundamentally dependent on the Internet, regardless of the company’s primary industry category.
Ciccolella said that “We saw 26 megadeals (deals $100m or greater) in Q2, including yet another billion dollar investment. After seeing the very first billion dollar VC investment in Q1 of last year, we now count four of the last five quarters with companies receiving billion dollar investments, adding to the ever-growing herd of unicorns which is approaching triple digits. Given the current pace of investing, VC in 2015 is on track to well exceed the $50 billion invested in all of 2014.”
“Driven by a strengthening fundraising environment, the venture ecosystem deployed more capital to the innovation economy in the second quarter than any period in the last fifteen years. While this uptick can be partly attributed to non-traditional investors joining funding rounds, venture continues to lead the way in deploying capital to the most promising new technologies and companies,” said Bobby Franklin, President and CEO of NVCA in a press release.
