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Southern California Companies Raise $2.49 Billion In VC In Q2

Southern California companies raised $2.49 billion in venture capital in Q2 of 2016, according to the latest numbers from the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association, and Thomson Reuters. The number for the quarter is the biggest amount raised in the region since the dot com boom, and a major bump over Q1's $957M. The boost in funding came despite a lower overall deal count, with 89 funding deals in Q2, versus 97 in Q1. The big numbers were directly impacted by several large fundings in Southern California--most notably, a giant, $1.27 billion round for Venice based Snapchat. Other big fundings contributing to the total included a $220M funding round for San Diego biotech firm Human Longevity Inc., $111M raised by Marina Del Rey-based Thrive Market, and $100M raised by Irvine cybersecurity sofwtare developer Cylance. Southern California represented almost half of the top fundraising rounds for Q2 nationally.

The big investment dollars for Southern California in Q2 is more than the region brought in during the dot com boom, and exceed the prior recent record of $1.9 billion raised in the region just a year ago in Q1 of 2015.

Nationally, venture capitalists invested $15.3 billion across 961 deals in the quarter, which the report found was an increase of 20 percent in total dollars, with a slight decline of 5 percent in number of deals versus Q1. That said, overall dollars invested in startups was down 12 percent year-to-year, and 22 percent down in terms of deals.