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U.S. angel investment activity falls in 2015

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A picture illustration shows a 100 Dollar banknote laying on one Dollar banknotes, taken in Warsaw, January 13, 2011. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

U.S. angel activity fell last year, but investors were willing to pay more for their deals, according to a report by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

During 2015, angels in the United States completed 71,110 deals, a decline of 3.1 percent, the report found. The number of active investors fell by a similar 3.7 percent to 304,930.

At the same time, a three-year correction in valuations continued with the average deal value falling 13.1 percent to US$2.32 million.

In contrast to the shrinking deal total, invested capital rose 1.9 percent to US$24.6 billion and the average deal size climbed by 5.1 percent to US$345,390, the report found.

Eighteen percent of deals were software-related and 13 percent involved biotechnology.

Photo courtesy of Reuters/Kacper Pempel