VentureBeat

Venture capital investments in the U.S., Europe, China and Israel in 2007 are on pace to hit their highest levels in six years.

It’s a good news, because it means there’s lots of money available for entrepreneurs with good ideas.

More than $40 billion is expected to be invested this year, according to Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young, one of the most respected research teams on the topic of venture capital. Already, more than $30 billion was invested during the first three quarters.

Clean-tech and medical device companies are seeing the most increases in investments from VCs. Worldwide investment in medical device companies surpassed $3.40 billion during the first three quarters, already an annual record. For the first half, global cleantech investment reached $1.1 billion, up 44 percent from the $764.3 million invested in the same period last year.

A relatively healthy market for IPOs and mergers and acquisitions are helping drive the growth. Notably, VCs are investing more capital because its needed for companies to establish themselves quickly in the new global marketplace, according to the study. Of course, that flies in the face of accepted thinking about capital needs for the internet sector: There, the consensus is that companies need less money because of the plunge in costs for things like bandwidth, servers, and storage.

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