By Evan Vitale
As we now head into the final month of 2016, let’s see what stories are making headlines in the world of venture capital.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, one of Chicago’s most active venture capital funds, is ramping up its presence in Los Angeles, where it sees opportunity in health care, artificial intelligence and consumer-facing businesses.
The firm announced Tuesday that two of its Chicago investment staff have moved to Los Angeles, a step leaders hope will help it tap into more deals in the city that is home to YouTube and Snapchat. Details: http://trib.in/2gOvKVB
Venture capital funding has dropped off leaving some small firms defenseless, so says an article published in Investor’s Business Daily.
Declines in the venture capital market are hitting startups of all sizes, but the ones left particularly vulnerable are the thousands of young companies that raised seed funding during headier times just a year or two ago.
The seed frenzy peaked in the first quarter of 2015 when more than 1,500 startups raised their first rounds of capital, according to research firm PitchBook Data. Many of those companies are now running out of cash, and most won’t be able to get more. Details: http://bit.ly/2gOAlXW
Data Center Knowledge has published an article on “Deep Tech” and how its dominating the plateauing European venture capital market.
For years, the rap on Europe’s technology scene was that it was dominated by consumer-oriented e-commerce companies, some of which were blatant knock-offs of successful U.S. businesses, while the real pioneering innovation was taking place back in Silicon Valley.
That is no longer the case, London-based venture capital firm Atomico says in its latest annual report on the state of European tech. Startups focusing on deep technology — which would encompass the kind of artificial intelligence developed by Google’s DeepMind, or typing prediction from Microsoft-acquired SwiftKey — are drawing an increasing share of European venture funding. Deep tech accounted for $1.3 billion of European venture investments in 2015 and an estimated $935 million this year, up from just $289 million in 2011, Atomico said in its report, which was jointly commissioned and released in conjunction with the Slush technology conference in Helsinki, Finland. Details: http://bit.ly/2gJwcbb
