Orange County Register

Venture capitalists invested much less in Orange County companies in the third quarter, compared to a year ago, according to two industry reports.

From July 1 through Sept. 30, nine O.C. companied raked in $65.83 million from venture capital funds, compared to nine companies receiving $168.9 million a year earlier, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Southern California received 9% of the $5.1 billion invested nationwide, VentureSource says. The Bay Area, as usual, pulled in the lion’s share (click on image for a larger view):

Source: Dow Jones VentureSource

A separate report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters, found 8 local deals totaling $66.86 million, compared to 13 deals worth $184.83 million a year ago.

The two studies use different methodologies.

Nationwide, VentureSource reports 616 deals worth $5.09 billion, compared to 683 deals worth $8.17 billion in Q3 2008. PricewaterhouseCoopers reports 637 deals totaling $4.8 billion.

Among the local companies receiving VC funds in the third quarter are:

• Metagenics Inc., San Clemente, $28.1 million
• United Capital Financial Partners Inc., Newport Beach, $15 million
• Clicker.com, Irvine, $8 million
• Apollo Enterprise Solutions, Irvine, $7.65 million
• Integrien Corp., Irvine, $6.5 million
• OptionEase, San Juan Capistrano, $1.5 million
• Vigilistics Inc., Mission Viejo, $1.3 million
• OrthAlign Inc., Irvine, $850,000
• FireScope Inc., Huntington Beach, $39,000

Although local investment dropped from the second quarter, nationwide, the deal flow increased. Here’s VentureSource’s look:

PricewaterhouseCoopers says that third-quarter dollar investment rose 17% from the second quarter, although the number of deals declined 3%.

“The increase in venture capital investing this quarter is very encouraging,” said Randy Churchill, director of emerging company services at the Los Angeles office of PricewaterhouseCoopers. “With the signs pointing to an economic recovery, albeit a slow one, we’re likely to see the pace of investing continue to strengthen over the next several quarters as long as the (initial public offering) markets begin to open up and (merger and acquisition) activity increases.”

Other investing stories…

• Money for high-growth firms drying up
• O.C. drug company buys skincare firm
• Asking price for local firms rise, actual sales fall
• Are these tomorrow’s superstar businesses?
• Some O.C. firms finding buyers, panel says
• O.C. print company buys San Diego firm
• Private equity investments down 91% in Q3
• O.C. tech firm buys Japanese IT service
• O.C. cancer treatment firm raises $23 million
• Local security company buys Swiss tech firm

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