The WSJ's Start-up Journal has an excellent overview of the current themes and focus of investment professionals. Q3 financing trends continued at the $5B and 250 transactions level seen for the last 3 years. What has changed is a growing appetite for Chinese, a renewed interest in Internet plays, a decreasing number of VC firms but larger funds and the emergence of clean technology as a viable investment category. Where the Bets Are In Venture Capital using data from VentureOne is a good read.
PWC's Moneytree (as .pdf file) has a complete breakdown of investment for the period. Even with an increasing number of offshore investments, Silicon Valley remains the favorite locale of investment professionals - 219 deals and $2.1B followed by New England with 89 deals and $610M. Los Angeles/Orange County (44 deals and $340M) falls just behind the Southeast (49 and $360M). And for the third quarter the top 3 themes software (185 deals, $1.0B), Biotech (94, $1B) and telecom (65, $600M) combined represent half the deals and dollars invested. By stage during the 3rd quarter there were 49 start-up financings ($96 M), 168 early stage ($900 M), expansion (250 deals, $1.6 B) and later stage investments (248, $2.6B).
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