Early-stage angel investment rises, but early-stage VC funding falls (MassDevice)
Venture capital investment is on the wane, but angel investment is increasing, according to a pair of recent reports.
The University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research reports that angel investment rose nearly 5 percent during the first and second quarters, to $8.9 billion, compared with the same period last year. Health care and medical device firms took the lion’s share of the angel cash (25 percent, according to the report), which usually comes from the proverbial “high net worth individuals” or in early-stage funding rounds.
On the VC side, early-stage funding was down 41 percent during the first three quarters of the year, according to Dow Jones LP source. VC funds pumped $2.1 billion into startups during that period, according to the report. And although VC funding was up during the first three-quarters of the year, it slid during the third quarter to $2.2 billion, down 24 percent compared with Q3 2010.