Top U.S. cities for venture capital investment

Venture capital firms—and the high-tech startups they support—historically concentrated in suburban office parks, such as Silicon Valley and North Carolina's Research Triangle.

Richard Florida, co-founder and editor of The Atlantic Cities and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute, has crunched the available data and found (along with some other studies) a shift underway within the venture capital community away from the suburbs and towards urban areas.

Florida's MPI team took 2012 venture capital data from sources, such as the National Venture Capital Association, and matched it (approximately) to the institute's economic and demographic data for more than 100 metros.

The data illustrates how venture capital has become more distributed than in the past. Silicon Valley is still a leader. But it's no longer the only influential VC hub in America.

The top 10 locations for venture capital investment and the total investments in 2012 are listed below. For additional detail check out Florida's write up in the Atlantic Cities.

1. San Franciso-Oakland — $6.896 billion
2. San Jose-Sunnyvale, Calif. — $3.985 billion
3. Boston, Mass. — $3.1 billion
4. New York — $2.268 billion
5. Los Angeles — $1.677 billion
6. San Diego — $1.134 billion
7. Seattle — $886 million
8. Austin, Texas — $626 million
9. Chicago — $547 million
10. Washington D.C. — $484 million
11. Philadelphia —$ 347 million
12. Denver — $264 million
13. Atlanta — $262 million
14. Boulder, Colo. — $256 million
15. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. — $256 million
16. Santa Barbara, Calif. — $251 million
17. Phoenix — $214 million
18. Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina — $184 million
19. Pittsburgh, Penn. — $167 million
20. Provo-Orem, Utah — $162 million
    

Photo: Flickr user Bill David Brooks

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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com