Austin Business Journal March 18-25, 2022 pp22 |Special Report|America’s New Main Streets:COVID’S Boomtowns and Busts|”MONEY AND CAPITAL”
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Summary by 2244
Around Austin-Cesar Chavez and San Antonio with Google's building in the background nears completion. VC Funding, SBA Loans and NIH grants to the Austin Metro area organizations are likely to continue increasing.
Austin founders in the past have worried about ready access to VC funding with most of those firms being located on the coasts. Having said that, as the data presented below show, the “Austin area continued to punch above its weight for SBA lending” but it is not yet “one of the nation's top financial hubs” or a healthcare R&D hub. That more VC firms are adding offices to Austin should help increase private equity investment and with the growth of the Dell Medical Center, Austin is likely to have growth in the medical research arena.
The Data
Venture funding awarded for Travis county businesses; 2016 239 Deals/$890M, 2017 293 Deals/$1.4B, 2018 327 Deals/$2.3B, 2019 326 Deals/$2.5B, 2020 307 Deals/$2.3B, 2021 387 Deals/$4.9B
SBA lending shows that the Austin area ranked as the 28th largest metro area but received the 9th largest amount of SBA funding at $324M on 328 loans between March 2020 and September 2021. Houston led with $772M followed by LA $748M, Phoenix $399M, Brooklyn $388M, Las Vegas $381M, Chicago $365M, Dallas $335M, and Denver $325M.
Austin ranks only 66th in NIH funding grants awarded in 2021 at only $93M but that’s up 23% from 2016. Top ten are Boston $2.8B, NYC $2.6B, Durham NC $1.4B, Seattle $1.3B, Philadelphia $1.1B, Baltimore $1.1B, LA $1.1B, La Jolla $938M, Chicago $925M and SF $829M. Houston ranks 11th at $751M.