Overall, venture capital investment totalled $4.8bn spread among 637 deals, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the US National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on Thomson Reuters data.

That’s up 17% sequentially from the second quarter, when investment was $4.1bn. There were fewer deals, however. Compared with the third quarter of 2008 – the last quarter before investment fell off a cliff with the global recession – the latest total is down 32.8%.

Venture