Friday, July 18, 2014
Southern California Startups Raise $761.12M in Q2 2014
The latest venture capital totals from the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association's MoneyTree Report was released this evening, tallying up $761.12M in investments in Q2 of 2014 in Southern California, up from Q2 of 2013, when $616.83M was invested in the region. The numbers are based on data provided to the two by Thomson Reuters. According to the report, there was $472.15M invested in Los Angeles, $222.4M invested in San Diego, and $66.53M invested in Orange County during the period.
The biggest investments for the quarter were for Culver City-based NantHealth, the digital health venture of billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, which raised $135M in a funding; El Segundo-based Prodege (aka Swagbucks), which raised $60.1M for its consumer loyalty and advertising efforts; nearly $49.0M for San Diego-based biopharmaceuticals firm Otonomy; and $48.0M for San Diego's Veredezyne, which is developing biofuels and biochemicals processes.
The most active venture and angel investment groups investing in the region were the Tech Coast Angels, with 8 investments; the Pasadena Angels (5 investments); followed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (4 investments); Avalon Ventures (4 investments); Upfront Ventures (4 investments). True Ventures and Redpoint Ventures both had 3 investments each.
Nationally, there was $13.0 billion invested in companies across the nation, which PwC and the NVCA said was the highest level since Q4 of 2000. Those numbers were 34 percent higher in terms of dollars, and 13 percent in the number of deals compared with the first quarter of the year.
Image courtesy Bigstock.