Champaign-Urbana A Hub for Venture Capital Deals

A Brookings Institute study of venture capital deal flow has shown that Champaign-Urbana is among the tops in the nation for annual venture capital first fundings on a per-capita basis, with 3.2 times the national average. 

Major metros (Boston, San Francisco, Austin etc.) dominate total number of deals. But when looking at early-stage deal flow per capita, “new names crack the top 20: Boulder; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Champaign-Urbana, Ill.; and Charlottesville, Va., to name a few. These metros happen to be home to some of the most prestigious public universities in the United States and indeed the world,” wrote Ian Hathaway, a nonresident senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, where he publishes research on technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth.

The full article can be found online.