VC Money For I.T. Up 11%

Companies in software and other IT sectors got $3 billion in venture funding in the second quarter, 11% more than in the first quarter and more than any other industry, according to a survey by Ernst & Young and VentureOne.

Software companies received $1.2 billion in venture-capital funding in the second quarter, tops among IT categories, according to the separate MoneyTree survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics, and the National Venture Capital Association. Software companies attracted $250 million in first-time investments in the second quarter versus $185 million for biotech companies.

In the first half of the year, software outpaced biotechnology, attracting $2.2 billion in VC investment versus biotech's $1.9 billion, according to the MoneyTree survey.

Early-stage investments were $1.2 billion in the second quarter, a two-year high, according to the MoneyTree survey.

Transera Communications Inc., a maker of software for monitoring call centers, was one of those early-stage companies to get funding. It opened its doors in the second quarter with a $10 million investment from Accel Partners, Apax Partners, and Storm Ventures. Early next year, it will start shipping software to help companies monitor call-center activities throughout the world, letting managers gather critical statistics such as call duration, wait times, and abandonment rates from multiple call centers, regardless of location or whether managed internally or by an outside party, CEO Prem Uppaluru says. Uppaluru cites three trends in its favor: globalization of call centers, growth in IP phones, and increasing use of Web services for integration.