Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Southern California Sees Boom In Venture Investments In Q4
Think there is a technology investment slowdown? That's definitely not the case in Southern California, which saw a massive, $1.3 billion invested in venture capital in Q4 of 2015, according to the latest numbers released over the weekend by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The $1.3 billion invested in Q4 matched the $1.3 billion invested in the region in Q4 of 2014, and was only slightly less than the $1.46 billion invested in Q3, which typically has been the busiest investing quarter for the region. Southern California bucked the national trend, where venture investing dollars were down 32 percent in Q4 compared with Q3.
The PwC/NVCA MoneyTree report, which uses data from Thomson Reuters, tallied $693.17M in deals in the Los Angeles region; $276.1M in Orange County, and $334.0M in San Diego. The largest deals included $150M received by LA's Zestcash, $91.96M invested in San Diego's Sapphire Energy, and $85M invested in Irvine's Alteryx.
The most active venture firms for Southern California in Q4 were Enterprise Partners (6 investments), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (4 deals); and Interwest Partners and New Enterprise Associates, both with 3 deals each in Southern California companies. The most active Southern California venture investors -- who made most of their investments outside the area -- were Wavemaker Partners (12 investments); Correlation Ventures (11); and DFJ Frontier (4).