The value of venture capital deals in the county rose 57% in the first quarter to $201.6 million from a year earlier, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
The amount of funding is the highest since mid-2008. It also stood ahead of every quarter since 2006’s third quarter when venture capital investors pumped $395.9 million into companies here.
Eleven deals were recorded in the first quarter. That was down from 12 a year earlier and 17 in the fourth quarter.
Healthcare companies made up four deals. Seven other sectors had one deal apiece.
The biggest transaction involved Irvine’s Fisker Automotive Inc., developer of a hybrid luxury car. It
raised $93 million in a single deal.
Before its first quarter infusion of venture capital, Fisker had raised about $200 million in private financing.
In September, Fisker received approval for $528.7 million in federal loans.
Without Fisker, deals were on par with the slower rate of the past two years, according to Mike Schoenfeld, a partner at Ernst & Young LLP in Los Angeles who analyzed the data.
“The first quarter was dominated by a few large deals,” Schoenfeld said. “If you take away the Fisker transaction, for example, it would leave deal valuations about average with what we’ve seen since mid-2008.”
The next biggest first quarter transaction involved Neomend Inc. The Irvine medical products maker raised $33 million.
Neomend was founded in 1999 and makes sealants and products that prevent scarring during surgeries.
Nationally, venture investors put $4.7 billion to work in 597 deals during the first quarter. That was up 12% from the $4.2 billion invested in 522 deals during the same period in 2009, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, a unit of New York-based News Corp.
A similar study released late last week based on data by Thomson Reuters found a similar trend.
