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Santa Barbara, San Diego Tops On Per-Capita Venture Capital

A new study released earlier this month has ranked the Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta metropolitan area, as well as the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos metropolitan area among the top ten markets for venture capital activity. The report, from The Atlantic, found that Santa Barbara-Santa-Maria-Goleta was number five in the nation in terms of venture capital activity per 100,000 people, with $59.1M in deals in 2012 and 3.3 venture capital deals per 100,000 people. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos was number 7, with $36.6M in deals and 3.3 venture capital deals per 100,000 people. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana ranked further down on the list, at number 16, at $13.1M in deals and 1.8 deals per 100,000, as did San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles with $13.0M in deals, and 0.4 deals per 100,000 people.

Overall, the top areas were: 1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara; 2. San Francisco-Oakland, Fremont; 3. Boulder, Colorado; 4. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy; 5. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta; 6. Lawrence, KS; 7. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos; 8. Austin-Round Rock, TX; 9. Provo-Orem, UT; and 10. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue. Despite the rise of investments in such areas as Santa Monica and Pasadena in recent years, that activity appears to have been drowned out by the huge population base in Los Angeles, compared to that technology investment activity, on a per-capita basis.