Venture Investment Falls, but Number of Deals Increase

While the total number of dollars involved has dropped by 5%, there’s been a 2% increase in the number of deals by venture investors in U.S. companies in Q3 2010, compared with the same period last year. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, venture investors dropped $5.5 billion into a total of 662 deals. And even though the third quarter saw a drop in money, the first three quarters of 2010 saw a total of $18 billion put into 2,016 deals; that’s a 10% increase in both investment and deal activity over the same period last year.

The median size of deals during Q3 was $5 million, which is on par with Q3 2009. And during the first three quarters of 2010, both angel groups and venture capital firms funded 68 deals to the tune of $282 million, up from the same period last year. The first three quarters of 2009 saw only 59 such deals totaling $236 million.