Credit crunch? Not so for the venture capital space. According to various surveys, there is still lots of strength.
For example, the MoneyTree Report (from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association) shows $7.1 billion in VC investments for the third quarter. A report from Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ) VentureOne shows about $8.1 billion in fundings.
It certainly helps that there has been a pick-up in the IPO market. Oh, and the tech sector has had a nice rally. The most popular categories for VCs include software and biotech.
As for software, there has been a megatrend for on-demand offerings. As seen with the growth of companies like Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), VMware (NYSE: VMW) and Taleo (NASDAQ: TLEO), the enthusiasm is certainly understandable.
However, I'm not so sure about biotech. The sector has been fairly weak in terms of public offerings. But, then again, it seems biotech companies always need to raise gobs of money, right?
Something else: There's been a pick-up in cleantech deals. After all, with high energy prices, there appears to be lots of opportunity.
Visit DealProfiles.com if you want to see other recent VC fundings.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook
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