Boston startups raked in 31 percent more venture capital funding during the second quarter of 2015 than they did during the same quarter last year, according to a new MoneyTree Report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association (based on data from Thomson Reuters).
During Q2 this year, venture capitalists invested $1.39 billion into Boston-area startups, compared to the more than $1.06 billion logged during the same period a year prior. The total number of Boston-based startup deals also increased, from 99 to 115. Here's a link to download the full Mattermark report.
The biggest funding in Boston so far in 2015: Needham-based data storage company Infinidat Inc., which raised a $150 million round led by TPG Growth LLC during Q2.
And if there's a bubble in venture funding for software right now, it showed no signs of deflating in the latest quarterly MoneyTree Report. More than $490 million was invested into Boston companies in this space during the second quarter of 2015—a notable jump from more than $218 million in the Q2 of 2014. These figures mark a record high for Boston's software industry since 2000.
Interestingly, though, the number of software deals didn't change much: There were 32 in Q2 of last year, and 37 in Q2 of 2015. Other areas that saw a surge in funding across Boston between Q2 2014 and Q2 2015 are financial services (from $8.17 million to $64.4 million), media and entertainment (from $21.69 million to $39.93 million) and medical devices and equipment (from $33.88 million to $55.99 million).
Here are the top 10 Boston deals of the second quarter:
- Infinidat Inc.: $150 million
- Virgin Enterprises: $92 million
- Unum Therapeutics: $65 million
- Dimension Therapeutics: $65 million
- Voyager Therapeutics: $60 million
- VionX Energy Corp: $58.8 million
- Jounce Therapeutics Inc: $56 million
- Circle Internet Financial: $50 million
- SciFluor Life Sciences: $30 million
- Spero Therapeutics: $30 million
National trends
Across the U.S., the report showed $17.5 billion invested in 1,189 deals during the year's second quarter, including $7.3 billion that went to the software industry. That total marks a high for the software industry since the MoneyTree Report began tracking fundings in 1995, and 491 software deals that benefited from that funding represented the highest count since the third quarter of 2000.
Outside of software, other industries remained hot zones for investment as well, with $2.7 billion in VC money invested across 118 media and entertainment deals and $2.3 billion invested across 126 biotechnology deals. Software led the way, but it was part of a larger wave that could very well continue for the rest of the year.
"In addition to a significant uptick in total investing in Q2, the $7.3 billion invested in Software companies exceeded the total VC dollars invested across all industries in 51 of the last 82 quarters," said PwC U.S. Venture Capital Leader Tom Ciccolella in a statement issued with the report. "We saw 26 megadeals (deals $100m or greater) in Q2, including yet another billion dollar investment. After seeing the very first billion dollar VC investment in Q1 of last year, we now count four of the last five quarters with companies receiving billion dollar investments, adding to the ever-growing herd of unicorns which is approaching triple digits. Given the current pace of investing, VC in 2015 is on track to well exceed the $50 billion invested in all of 2014."
Nationally, Dow Jones reported $19.2 billion in venture capital invested for the quarter. Here's a link to download the full Mattermark report. CB Insights data is expected out next week.
Galen Moore and Brian Warmoth contributed to this report. Image of Kendall Square buildings via Shutterstock.
