Sigh, Canada, as adventurous as ever:

Venture capital sluggish locally

Venture capital activity in Ottawa showed some improvement in the second quarter, but has remained largely unchanged since the beginning of 2003, a new study says.

According to the quarterly venture capital report released yesterday by OCRI, there were four deals in the second quarter of 2006, for a total of $43.3 million.

"While venture capitalists appear to be investing at a cautious rate, they are maintaining their support of their portfolio companies," said Stephen Daze, executive director of OCRI's entrepreneurship centre. "In addition, we are starting to see an increase in the overall deal flow in the city and remain cautiously optimistic moving forward."

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Venture capital funding falls 80%

Despite an 80-per-cent decline in venture capital funding for Ottawa-area firms in the June quarter compared with the same period last year, the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation is expecting some improvement in coming months.

Four startups landed $43.3 million in the latest quarter, according to OCRI, a big drop from the $209 million of venture capital funding a year earlier when three big deals averaging $50 million each drove a healthy rebound for the full year.

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OCRI said that many venture-capital-funded companies are now well funded, and thus follow-on investment is likely to remain light.

However, of the 39 startups that got venture capital financing in 2003 and 2004, only 15 have received additional funding. Nine other companies died, were bought or left town.