In 2012, Philly region raised $400M in VC, the lowest since ’96: PACT President Dean Miller comments

Dean Miller (far left)

This summer, a MoneyTree report said that 2012 was on pace to be the weakest year since 1996 in Philly-area venture capital funding. The report was right: the Philly region raised $400 million last year, the lowest in more than a decade, a recent MoneyTree report found [press release here, but not the full report].

Earlier this week, PACT (Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies) President and Novitas Capital partner Dean Miller read those numbers out to the crowd at the University City Science Center‘s Coffee and Capital at Quorum. He made two points:

• Philly’s venture capital funding was driven by the life sciences sector. The roughly $200 million in biotech funding made up half the region’s investment. That’s due in part to the fact that life sciences startups require more money than technology startups, he said. 
• There’s been an uptick in funding for software startups in the area, which Miller called a “nice growth story for the region.”

Miller, who was Safeguard Scientifics‘ first intern (he said he interviewed there seven times before they said to him, “You know this is just an internship, right?”), also spoke about the impact of the recession on the venture capital industry. It was the worst hit industry, he said, and it’s been the slowest to bounce back.

Read more about Dean Miller in our Q&A with him here.