VCs have already invested $3B more in 2014 than they did in all of 2013

Article written by Ruth Reader, Contributor for www.venturebeat.com

Venture capitalists are�already surpassing last year�s investments in terms of dollars and are increasingly interested in�later stage companies, according to a new report by PwC/NVCA MoneyTree based on data from Thomson Reuters.

The report says VCs have invested $33 billion dollars�this year, compared to last year�s total investment of $30 billion � and there�s still another whole quarter�to account for.

Much of this year�s investments�went towards software startups, which took home a�little more than a third of the $9.9 billion�invested in quarter three, the report shows. The media industry followed, with $1.8 billion invested, a 23 percent increase from the previous�quarter. Investment in life science trailed behind, with $1.1 billion invested in 110 deals.

While Q3 showed investment was down from the previous quarter for seed and expansion level companies, there was some investment growth in�later stage companies. Investment in later stage companies increased 3 percent to�$3.3 billion. �This is the largest quarterly total of dollars invested in later stage companies since Q3 2007,� the report notes.

Though expansion stage companies saw the largest investment of $3.4 billion, it still saw less investment than last quarter.

The slight increase in investment for later stage companies may mark the beginning of a�shift. Early�stage investments took less investment this quarter than their later stage counterparts and were down 22 percent from the quarter before. It shows that�VCs may be beginning to put more faith in�later stage companies than fledgling startups.