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Venture Capital Totals $603.2M In Southern California In Q3

Venture capital investments in Southern California for Q3 of 2011 are up from last year, but down from last quarter, according to the latest numbers from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data provided by Thomson Reuters. The latest MoneyTree report from the three find that $603.2M was invested in Q 3in Southern California companies, up from the same quarter last year, when only $443.8M was invested in the region. The investment was down from the $829.47M invested in the quarter in Q2.

Los Angeles received $260.0M in investment in Q3, followed by $201.8M in San Diego, and $141.4M invested in Orange County. The largest deals for Los Angeles were Coda Automotive in Santa Monica, which raised $40.375M, KYTHERA Biopharmaceuticals in Calabasas, which raised $37.425M, and JustFabulous in El Segundo, which raised $33.1M. In Orange County, the largest deals were for Aliso Viejo's GaiKai, which raised $30.0M, Anaheim-based Fisker Automotive, with $25.0M raised in the quarter, and Laguna Hills-based Vessix Vascular, which raised $23.0M. In San Diego, the top deals were for oneRoof Energy, with $50M raise, MeLLmo, which recently raised $30M, and AwarePoint, with $27.42M raised in venture capital in Q3.

In terms of industries, Software gained the most investments with a total of $165.7M invested, followed by Industrial/Energy--boosted by many clean technology investments--at $135.92M. Other large investment sectors were Biotechnology, with $65.8M invested, and Medical Devices, with $63.6M.

On the other side, the most active firms investing in Southern California were DFJ Frontier, New Enterprise Associates, and the Tech Coast Angels, all with four deals each in the quarter; they were followed by 500 Startups, Siemer Ventures, Google Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, all of whom had three deals each.

Nationally, venture capital was down 12 percent in temrs of dollars, and 14 percent in terms of deals, dropping to $6.96 billion across 876 deals, compared with Q2, when $7.9 billion was invested in 1,015 deals.