US VC dealmaking rebounds to pre-recession levels

The most recent quarter to beat the latest figure was Q3 2008, when $8.4bn was put to work in 699 deals.

The second quarter’s deal count represents a 13 per cent increase from the 656 deals closed during the same period last year, and capital raised is up 26 per cent from the $6.1bn invested in the year-ago period.

Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource, said, “Fueled by investors’ need to keep current portfolio companies funded and to begin investing from new funds, venture capital financing had a strong quarter. Deal activity and capital invested in venture-backed companies is once again near levels seen before the start of the economic recession in 2008.”

IT and healthcare continued to be the strongest industries for deals closed and dollars invested, though no clear leader emerged as IT garnered the largest proportion of deals but healthcare claimed more dollars, according to the Dow Jones data.

Healthcare companies raised $2.7bn for 201 deals, a 13 per cent increase in capital raised from the $2.4bn put into 189 deals during the second quarter of 2009. Within healthcare, the biopharmaceuticals sector continued to see the highest level of activity. Ninety-five biopharmaceuticals investments raised $1.2bn, a 30 per cent increase in deals, but a slight drop in capital raised from the same period last year.

In IT, 231 deals raised $1.9bn, up from the second quarter of 2009, which saw 208 deals raise $1.6bn. Software garnered the greatest chunk of capital as 156 deals raised $908m, up from the 132 deals that raised $761m in the second quarter of last year.

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