Venture Funding Rises 10% in 2011 as Consumer Web Attracts Cash
U.S. venture investing rose 10 percent last year as firms made bets on consumer Web companies such as Zynga Inc. and Twitter Inc. as well as startups that are digitizing health records, according to Dow Jones & Co.
Venture capitalists poured $32.6 billion into 3,209 deals in 2011, Dow Jones VentureSource said today in a statement. The median investment rose 16 percent to $5 million.
Backers of Zynga, Twitter and LivingSocial.com spurred a 23 percent increase in consumer information services investments, with that market attracting $5.19 billion. After raising venture capital, Zynga held its initial public offering in December, the last of a wave of emerging Web companies to do so in 2011. Twitter and LivingSocial remain closely held, with multibillion- dollar valuations.
Companies focused on electronic health records and other medical-related applications reeled in $633.4 million, a 22 percent increase from 2010.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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