It’s the good-old days in Silicon Valley again.
Venture capitalists poured $9.5 billion into US startup companies during the first quarter, the highest quarterly total seen since 2001 when the dot-com bubble burst, according to a new report.
Software developers were the biggest beneficiaries of the boom, accounting for $4 billion of the fresh funds. File-sharing service Dropbox got $325 million, landing the biggest deal of the quarter in its fourth round of funding.
Vacation rentals site Airbnb and mobile messaging service TangoMe tied for second place with deals valued at $200 million each.
Biotech firms placed a distant second, collectively attracting less than $1.1 billion in seed money. Media and entertainment companies got $743 million, according to the MoneyTree report by the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Share prices of tech giants such as Netflix, Twitter and Facebook have fallen lately, raising speculation that another bubble is threatening Silicon Valley.
But if Airbnb is any indication, the momentum hasn’t lagged for startups. The site has landed another $500 million from private-equity firm TPG, valuing the company at $10 billion, according to reports Friday.
Indeed, the torrid growth in funding is being fueled by bigger deals: While the number of first-quarter deals was up just 4 percent from a year earlier at 951, they spurred a 57-percent jump in terms of dollars.
California-based startups attracted the most funds, with 406 firms accounting for nearly $5.5 billion. By comparison, 88 companies in Massachusetts raised $960 million for second place, while 97 firms in New York got $754 million.