Technical.ly Pittsburgh Pittsburgh’s VC numbers get well within the third quarter however are nonetheless beneath final yr’s

Editor’s Note: This quarter’s numbers may vary slightly as some deals don’t take into account until weeks after the VC quarterly reports are released.

National venture capital stocks continue to break records. But while Pittsburgh’s numbers for the quarter are the highest this year, they still lag behind previous years.

Published in quarterly data by Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association this week, VC deal frequency and dollar numbers continued to spike. Overall, transaction activity saw investment of $ 82.8 billion in the third quarter. These figures show once again that while job postings are lagging behind, investment interest is greater than ever, reflecting continued confidence in the full recovery of the economy after the Pandemic shows.

“There’s no denying that the startup ecosystem is driving America’s economic comeback,” said NVCA President and CEO Bobby Franklin in a press release on the new data. “Washington lawmakers looking for ways to improve our economic future should look at these record breaking numbers. The VC industry is the country’s biggest job engine, and we have the numbers to back it up. “

And after a shaky first half of the year, Pittsburgh seems to be part of this success. As of July, the city has invested a total of $ 121.37 million in 24 deals, nearly tripling the $ 44.51 million in 21 deals it attracted in the second quarter (updated from NVCA’s original numbers with $ 40.36 million for 11 deals).

But Pittsburgh is still lagging behind last year’s activity. The first three quarters of 2021 grossed $ 228.08 million, less than $ 264.04 million in the same period in 2020. And if the city doesn’t have an even more outstanding fourth quarter than last year, Pittsburgh is most likely behind that last year’s total investment lagging $ 550.7 million. This quarter’s numbers also represent a small percentage of Pennsylvania’s third quarter investments, which were over $ 1.5 billion and were mainly driven by large businesses in the Philadelphia area.

Yet there are signs of hope in these recent discoveries. The top two deals in Pittsburgh – UPMC Cancer drug discovery company Novasenta for $ 20 million and a research firm Citizen Science for $ 15 million – were also the ninth and tenth largest deals in Pennsylvania. Duolingos The IPO was also one of the key moves for Pittsburgh, which came out as the top exit for the state and the third largest exit for the Mid-Atlantic region.

The main driving forces behind Pittsburgh’s VC surge this quarter were deals with life science companies – a growing trend for the city, the Technically has been reflected in previous reports and under ours Technology + Health Month this October.

Aside from Novasenta’s $ 20 million deal, Pittsburgh saw a $ 11 million deal for the biotech company Carmell Therapeutics, $ 9 million for healthcare companies Spark360, $ 8 million for medical device manufacturers Apollo Neuro, $ 6 million for pharmaceutical startup CytoAgents, $ 6 million for diagnostics companies Cernostics and $ 5 million for the molecular imaging maker SmartBreast. This inflow of capital into the life sciences via the top 10 deals for Pittsburgh could signal a new recognition of the commercial potential of the city’s medical expertise in the city’s academic and hospital systems. But the huge clinical trial expenditures and FDA approval process will require far more capital than those deals if Pittsburgh is to successfully pursue its mission to become a center for life sciences.

Outside of the life sciences, other top deals were $ 12 million for a softball app company Diamond rate and $ 10 million for Food Service AI Startup Agot.AI.

Sophie Burkholder is Corps member 2021-2022 for Report for America, an initiative of the Groundtruth Project that connects young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Foundations.

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