Venture Capital Firms Invested in Ohio at Record Levels in 2018
12 Mar 2019
Ohio leads the Midwest in attracting growth capital
Some of the best-known early companies, such as IBM, Genentech, Apple and Intel, were backed by venture capital (VC). What has changed since then? In a word: everything.
As an industry, VC firms have gone from providing a few million dollars in funding per year in the 1960s, to funding over 8,900 deals worth more than $130 billion in 2018, according to Pitchbook/National Venture Capital Association data. VC firms still invest the largest share of their funds in technology and biotech firms. However, the funding shift within technology is dramatic – from mostly hardware in the 1960s and 1970s to mostly software in 2018. Software was by far the largest sector beneficiary of all VC funding in 2018, accounting for about 36 percent of the total. The second largest recipient sector, pharmaceuticals and biotech, accounted for about 18 percent.