useful stats

Since 2005, the distribution of U.S. venture capital (VC) investment has remained fairly steady, with California companies receiving about half of all venture dollars. California's share of total dollars reached its highest point in 2009, when the state's firms received 50.6 percent of all U.S. investment. While California's share decreased a bit in 2010, VC activity remains highly concentrated in a handful of states. Over the past five years, the top ten states for venture investment have represented about 85 percent of all U.S. venture activity. Since PricewaterhouseCoopers began tracking VC activity by state in 2005, the overall trend has been toward greater concentration in a few hotspots, particularly the Silicon Valley region.

U.S. venture capital investment per capita grew almost 19 percent in 2010 over the previous year, reaching $11.16. That increase, however, only represented a partial rebound from the plunging investment levels of 2008 and 2009. Last year's U.S. per capita figure was 28.7 percent lower than 2007 and 7.2 percent lower than 2005. The largest increases in per capita investment over the past five years occurred in the District of Columbia, Illinois, Delaware, Kansas and Iowa. Kansas, New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania had the largest increase in venture deals per million residents over the same period. For 2010, Massachusetts led the nation in both per capita dollars and deals per million residents.

Though U.S. venture capital (VC) investment grew in 2010 after a disastrous 2009, overall venture activity remains well below 2006-2008 levels. Last year, U.S. venture firms invested $21.8 billion in American companies, 27 percent less than in 2007 (the last peak year before the current economic downturn). Most U.S. states experienced a similar pattern over the past five years, peaking in 2007, hitting a decade low in 2009, and recovering a bit last year.

After declining last year for the first time since 1949, U.S. personal income rose three percent in 2010 to more than $12.5 trillion, according to a release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). U.S. per capital personal income, which had also dipped in 2009, rose 14.6 percent to $40,584 last year. Both U.S. total and per capita personal income, however, remained below their peak levels in 2008. The largest percentage increases in personal income came in the Southwest region (Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas) and the Mideast region (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

U.S. real gross domestic domestic product (GDP) and per capita personal income fell in 2009 as the economic crisis spread across the country, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Most states experienced the same declines, particularly in the Great Lakes region. In 2009, real GDP fell in every state, except Alaska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia. West Virginia was the only state to increase its per capita income (current dollars, unadjusted) in 2009. The 2008 and 2009 crisis ended the period of steady growth in most states since 2001.