There’s been a lot of talk about how venture investment is moving overseas, particularly to China and India.
A new report shows the scale of the continuing Chinese boom: Venture capital investments in China increased 46 percent during the first quarter, compared to the same period last year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
That kind of growth is particularly impressive when you recall that in the United States, venture investment actually dropped by more than 5 percent, year-over-year, due largely to the economic downtown and the weak market for IPOs and acquisitions.
VCs invested a total of $719 million in 39 deals. Interestingly, despite the substantial increase in money, that’s actually the lowest deal count in three years. Media and advertising companies drove a lot of that growth. Transit ad company Skyflying Media, for example, raised $83 million in later stage financing — more than 10 percent of overall venture investment during this period.
Business and consumer services accounted for $491 million of venture investment, an increase of 136 percent. IT companies, on the other hand, saw investment fall off by 72 percent.
As we noted yesterday, China and India aren’t the only foreign countries where venture investment seems to be booming — there’s increasing action in Latin America, especially Brazil and Chile. As for China, the mainland’s VC dollars are still dwarfed by the United States’, but it looks like things are changing.
