By Evan Vitale
Here are the latest headlines and news in the world of venture capital.
According to The Seattle Times, venture capital activity has slowed down some in the first quarter in the state of Washington, but it’s also more in line with traditional VC levels.
Washington state companies saw a dramatic 60 percent drop in venture-capital financing during the first quarter, according to the quarterly Dow Jones VentureSource report being released Thursday.
But the funding numbers actually might be good news. The first quarter’s total for the state — $296 million in 27 deals — is much more in line with traditional venture-capital levels, said Greg Beams, a partner at Ernst & Young in Seattle.
The rest of the article is here: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/venture-capital-funding-sinks-but-thats-not-a-bad-sign/
GeekWire.com is reporting that U.S. venture capital firms raised $12 Billion in the first quarter of 2016, but overall activity has dipped for the third straight quarter.
CB Insights and KPMG released their “Venture Pulse” report for Q1 2016 and found that U.S.-based VC-backed companies raised $14.8 billion across 1,035 deals, marking the third consecutive quarter for decreased deal flow. While funding dollars actually rose by 6 percent from Q4 2015, it’s still far from the quarterly totals reported from Q4 2014 to Q3 2015.
Globally, VC firms invested $25.5 billion last quarter, down from $27.9 billion in Q1 2015.
You can get the full scoop here: http://www.geekwire.com/2016/u-s-venture-capital-firms-raise-12b-q1-deal-activity-dips-third-straight-quarter/
Bloomberg has a nice interview with Howard Lindzon, co-founder and chief executive officer at StockTwitz. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-04-14/is-cheap-money-helping-fuel-tech-venture-capital
CNN Money has an interesting article on why so few Latino-owned businesses are gaining venture capital funding.
Only about 1% of all Latino-owned businesses created between 2007 and 2012 in the U.S. received venture capital or angel investments, according to a report by the Stanford Graduate School of Business that surveyed roughly 1,800 businesses.
One big reason: Very few Latino-owned firms are even walking through the doors of venture capital firms to begin with.
Of all the firms that received VC funding, 87% had white founders, according to report from CB Insights. Asian-owned firms ranked a distant second, at 12%, while Black-owned companies represented a tiny 1% sliver. CB Insights said it did not break out a figure for Latino-owned firms.
Check out the article here: http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/12/smallbusiness/latino-venture-capital/
