The University of San Francisco’s recurring survey of Bay Area venture capitalists, which measures their estimation of the venture growth environment over the next 6-18 months, has recorded five consecutive quarters of rising confidence. The latest quarterly survey published this week has captured the highest measurement of confidence since Q3 2007.
This steadily rising confidence among Bay Area VCs signifies that they have adjusted to new economic uncertainties and are refocusing on the business of finding emerging growth companies and fostering innovation, according to USF Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the report’s author, Mark Cannice, PhD.
The key driver of this high level of confidence that the surveyed VCs point to is the improved liquidity environment with an improving public stock market and rising corporate interest in acquiring early stage startups. In addition, the VCs surveyed are seeing increasing market opportunities for innovative new products and services being developed by their current and prospective portfolio companies.
Top concerns among the venture capitalists surveyed include difficultly in raising new funds from LPs, which is limiting the amount of startup funding available, and political wrangling in Washington, which may stifle the country’s entrepreneurial environment. Other concerns cited included difficulty in finding quality talent for startups and fewer truly groundbreaking new ideas being developed.
Sectors that were mentioned in the report as drawing a great amount of VC enthusiasm include: Big Data, the Cloud, and mobility, healthcare IT and digital health companies.
To download the full report, click here