U.S. venture capital firms invested $10.7 billion in 862 companies in the first quarter, up 18% in capital invested but down 10% in the number of deals from the fourth quarter of 2013 when firms invested $9.1 billion in 956 companies, according to the Dow Jones VentureSource quarterly report released Thursday.
By comparison, venture capital firms invested $7.48 billion in 891 transactions in the first quarter of 2013.
The top two venture capital-backed deals in the first quarter were Cloudera, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based software company, which raised $740 million from Intel; and Lyft, a San Francsico-based travel company, which raised $250 million from Alibaba Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, Founders Fund, Mayfield Fund and Third Point Reinsurance.
The most active venture capital firms in the first quarter were New Enterprise Associates, 500 Startups, Khosla Ventures, Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
