Venture capitalists continued to pour money into Chinese startups in the third quarter, writing checks for $964 million – a 22 percent increase from a year ago.
Through the first nine months of the year, investments of $3.29 billion topped the previous record of $2.88 billion set in 2001, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
Startups developing consumer services, business and financial services, and products for the information technology and energy markets received the lion’s share of the money so far this year. Investments over the nine-month period favored first-round deals.
However, the third-quarter saw a 17 percent decline in information-technology investments and a sharper 32 percent drop in spending on Internet-related “information services” businesses.
At the same time, the majority of investment dollars went into later-stage firms.
The spending comes as VCs have become cautious about investing in U.S. companies because of the economic downturn.
