Also, if you believe that seed deals made by larger funds who don’t reinvest present a signaling risk, this list of prolific re-investors is also valuable.  Note: The signaling risk argument is one that was popularized by folks like Chris Dixon (Andreessen Horowitz), Mark Suster (GRP Partners) and David Hornik (August Capital).  Unfortunately, the argument about seed VC signaling risk is not supported by the data as we’ve previously shown.

Below is a list of the 30 most active Seed VC investors over the two-year time frame ranked based on number of Seed VC deals they participated in followed by a ranking of the Top 10 most frequent re-investors:

In terms of re-investment rates, the top 10 is led by two international firms, German early-stage firm High-Tech Gründerfonds and London-based venture capital firm Atomico, followed by Philadelphia-based First Round Capital and Chicago-based Lightbank.

The ranking of all 30 most active seed investors by re-investment rate can be found on the ‘Research’ tab here, after logging in to CB Insights. (Note: The list of investors is only available to paid subscribers with access to CB Insider.)

But it appears times have certainly changed.  PaidContent founder Rafat Ali has dubbed the interest in and funding to companies such as Buzzfeed, Cheezburger Network, and Vox Media as the “dawn of fat content.” From blog networks to GIF hubs, companies that specialize in the production and distribution of content have drawn more than $143M in financing in the last year. While YoY funding activity has actually dipped 6% primarily because Q3’11 saw $55M in venture capital financing go to TechMediaNetwork and Bleacher Report, YoY deal activity has jumped nearly 36%.

Since the exits of Bleacher Report (acquired by Time Warner in 2012) and The Huffington Post (acquired by AOL in 2011), deal growth among companies in the digital content space has been strong with a number of early, mid- and late-stage financings.  Among the content companies that got fatter in the last year were SAY Media, which raised a $27M Series E round from investors including New Enterprise Associates and Maveron as well as Glam Media which raised a $5M Series F round from pre-IPO investor Keating Capital. Investors are also giving the nod to newer content-based companies such as Freestyle Capital-backed 9Gag and EDM news site DJZ, seeded by investors including Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. In the past two years, nearly 53% of deals have come at the seed/angel stage as investors make bets on future fatties (sorry – we love alliteration).

As a global media capital, New York saw close to 39% of deal activity in the past two years for content-driven companies such as Buzzfeed, Business Insider and Thrillist Media. Interestingly, significant deal growth in fat content came from outside of the major US tech hubs as well, in both international and domestic locations. FTB Pro (Battery Ventures) and The Business of Fashion (Index Ventures) are based in London, for example, while companies such as Benzinga (Lightbank) and GameSkinny (CLR Ventures) were founded in Michigan and Virginia.

Details on the most active investors in the fat content (digital content) space can be found on the ‘Research’ tab here, after logging in to CB Insights. (Note: The list of most active investors is only available to paid subscribers.)

Based on M&A and financing data since 2010, London-based publisher Pearson tops the list with 15 acquisitions or investments in Ed Tech companies and is followed by Providence Equity Partners-owned education software provider Blackboard.  The top 3 was rounded out by the Macmillan Group which acquires and invests in Ed Tech companies through two separate arms – Macmillan New Ventures and Macmillan Digital Education. Six of the top 10 are publicly traded education companies as can be seen below:

Data Integrity Note: This list contains only education companies involved in acquisitions and investments and does not include private equity firms and others who may be invested in or acquiring in Ed Tech.

Of course, not everyone (Mark Suster for one) is so sanguine on the celebrity-startup connection. Interestingly, however, GRP Partners has partnered with Rachel Zoe on two deals – NuORDER and DailyLook. (Note: there was some debate at CB Insights about whether Rachel Zoe is a celebrity but the fact that she is the top Google auto-suggest result ahead of Rachel Maddow led to her inclusion.)

So after Brooklyn-based media company Mass Appeal raised funding from hip-hop artists Nas and Pusha T, we wanted to dig into the trend a bit and see which celebrities (or their investment vehicles) have backed the highest number of tech start-ups as well as which venture capital firms most frequently co-invest with celebrity backers.

First, celebrity as we’ve defined it includes the actors, singers, rappers, etc. themselves, as well as those in their inner circle.  As can be seen below, actors account for the highest number of celebrity investors with at least 11 actors holding stakes in private tech companies. Music artists followed close behind with at least 10 singers and 8 rappers involved in tech financings since 2007.

The majority of celebrity tech investments in the past five years have gone to Internet companies but celebrities have also backed at least 28 mobile-based start-ups. Leonardo DiCaprio, for example, was involved in a round into photo sharing app provider Mobli while seed investors in Blackjet, a fractional jet sharing company of sorts with a mobile app, include Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment.

The list below shows the most active celebrity tech investors since 2007. The top 10 is led by A-Grade Investments, the investment vehicle headed by Kutcher, talent manager Guy Oseary and Ron Burkle and is followed by Troy Carter and Justin Timberlake who round out the top 3. Eight of the top 10 celebrity tech investors concentrate on early-stage investments at the seed/angel and Series A level.  Frequent celebrity co-investors include SV Angel, Menlo Ventures and CrunchFund.

Based on their own prior business success, hip-hop artists have enjoyed some of the more notable exits. Note: these were not always investments by these individuals but firms in which they had a stake:

• Jay-Z’s sale of Rocawear to Iconic Brand Group for $204 in March 2007
• Dr. Dre’s sale of a majority stake in Beats Electronics to HTC in August 2011
• Curtis Jackson (50 Cent)’s minority share of Energy Brands (Vitamin Water/Glaceau) which was bought by Coca-Cola for $4.1 billion

But beyond some anecdotal data points, most of the companies backed by celebs are still young making analysis of exits premature at this stage.  Some of the celebrity investors who have re-invested in/followed-on in tech companies which they initially funded can be found on the ‘Research’ tab, after logging in to CB Insights. (Note: The list of celebrity investors who’ve re-invested is free to anyone once they log on to CB Insights)

Below is a list of acquisitions by 3D Systems since 2009:

While venture capital activity into the 3D printing category is still in its early stages (only $11M invested across 4 deals in Q1’13), we identified ten start-ups ranging from Red Dot Ventures-backed 3D printer maker Pirate3DP to 3D scanning company Matterport, infused with a $6M Series A investment in March from investors including Greylock Partners and Qualcomm Ventures that may eventually fall into 3D Systems’ eventual acquisition path.

The complete list of 10 3D Printing companies can be found on the ‘Research’ tab, after logging in to CB Insights. (Note: The list of companies is only available to paid subscribers with access to CB Insider.)

Home Automation & Energy Management – Companies that offer technologies that control energy, security and other basic functions in homes or commercial spaces. This includes companies like iControl Networks and Nest Labs.  As we’d already previously detailed, the home automation industry is increasingly getting crowded with an eclectic cross-section of telecom, technology, industrial and private equity firms entering the fray.

Networks, Sensors & Platforms – Companies that provide network, sensor and/or platform-based systems for a variety of applications. This includes companies like GainSpan, Streetline and ThingMagic.

Healthcare – Companies that provide remote patient monitoring or machine-to-machine products for the healthcare industry, specifically for use by physicians or home healthcare providers. This includes companies like MobileHelp, Airstrip Technologies and AliveCor.

Monitoring & Tracking – Companies specializing in the monitoring and tracking of different objects and goods. Examples include SepSensor and Cantaloupe Systems.

Quantified Self – Companies that offer tools for knowing your own mind and body, which include MapMyFitness and Jawbone.

In the last year, nearly $752M has been invested into IoT companies as deal activity into the growing sector climbed close to 28% versus the same period in the prior year. While YoY funding growth dropped nearly 46%, it’s important to point out that a majority of the $810M invested in Q1’12 went to a mega debt financing to to home automation and security monitoring company Vivint, now owned by the Blackstone Group. If we strip out that single mega-deal, funding to IoT also grew by 20.7%.  IoT deal activity, meanwhile, spiked in Q4’12 to 41 deals from 21 in Q3’12 largely due to a boost in seed-stage investments.

While venture capital financing into the IoT industry is heavily concentrated at the seed/Series A stages (>56%), IoT is by no means an ‘immature’ investing concept as later stage deals (Series E+) are increasing. Jawbone, for example, which just recently acquired another IoT start-up – BodyMedia – for over $100M, raised its sixth round of funding in 2011.

Geographically, Silicon Valley and Mass. both saw over 19% deals for IoT start-ups in the past two years, with So Cal seeing close to 10% of all deals in the category. Texas saw the most deal growth for IoT start-ups at over 100%, with notable fundings including patient monitoring platform Airstrip Technologies, backed by Sequoia Capital and Qualcomm Ventures and Austin Ventures-backed MapMyFitness.

Companies in AgTech cover a wide range of technologies ranging from consumer-focused firms such as AgLocal (backed by Andreessen Horowitz) or Farmigo (Benchmark Capital) or Good Eggs (Baseline Ventures & Harrison Metal – both top 10 Seed VCs, by the way) as well as more farm performance/farmer-focused technologies such as Solum (Andreessen Horowitz/Khosla Ventures), a developer of field measurement technology and Farmeron (NextView Ventures and SoftTechVC), a farm performance data company.

The Ag Tech market is still relatively immature, as the figure below illustrates, with nearly 78% of deals at the seed/angel and Series A stages.  But as concepts and technologies are validated, mid and later-stage funding will pick up as evidenced by the strong growth of Series B transactions.

Just 20% of Ag Tech companies that received funding in the past two years originate in Silicon Valley. Many (>50%) are instead based in locations that align closer with the needs of agriculture-heavy markets. AgLocal and DuPont-backed Farms Technology, for example, are based in Kansas while others such as Y Combinator alum FarmLogs and backed by Hyde Park Venture Partners and Huron River Ventures, based in Michigan, and Minnesota-based farm software start-up Conservis, might appeal to farmers in the Midwest.

The majority of cross-border tech M&A activity involving US companies was in the internet sector (48% of transactions).  Software saw the second-highest cross-border tech M&A activity representing 18% of deals globally.  However, on a country-by-country basis, we see some interesting deviations and trends.  For instance, 38% of US tech companies acquired by Japanese firms were in the electronics (chips & semis and components) sector.

A geographic breakdown of cross-border tech M&A data from last year reveals that 32% of companies acquired by foreign owners were based in California with NY-based companies making up 12% of overall cross-border M&A deal activity.  Interestingly, innovation hub Massachusetts which is the consistent #2 or #3 for tech venture capital investment was not in the top 5 for cross-border M&A activity.

The graphic below illustrates a sub-section of international companies that acquired U.S.-based entities in 2012, ranging from British publishing and education conglomerate Pearson to South Korean tech conglomerate Samsung.

There are 20 VC or angel-backed private app discovery companies that together have raised almost $149M of investor funding. Close to 1/2 of that venture capital financing came in just the the last year with deals including AppGratis’s $13M Series A round from Iris Capital and the Orange Publicis Fund and AppHero’s $1.8M seed round from investors including ENIAC Ventures and OMERS Ventures. Not included were companies that started in the app discovery category but have since shifted their approach such as JP Morgan-backed mobile ad network Tapjoy (its then-incentivized app promotion offers were banned from the iOS store in 2011 when Apple cracked down on so-called “pay-per-install” campaigns) and Ooomf (shut down its app discovery platform last month). Of course, it is worth noting that Apple actually acquired app discovery start-up Chomp, which was backed by SV Angel, in 2012.

Below is a list of several investors in the app discovery space including Charles River Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, which both have completed three in app discovery venture rounds/ deals over the past five years.

A full list of venture capital-backed app discovery startups can be found on the ‘Research‘ tab, after logging on to CB Insights. (Note: The list of companies is only available to paid subscribers with access to CB Insider.)

First, we compiled a list of the most active investors in Seed VC deals from the 2010 and 2011 vintages based on deal activity. We didn’t evaluate 2012 seed investments as that vintage has investments which may still be too immature to evaluate fairly.  Below are the 30 most active Seed VC investors over the two-year time frame ranked based on number of Seed VC deals they participated in:

But of these 30 most active seed investors, whose seed investments have the highest rate of receiving follow-on investment?  Below is the list of the top 10 ranked by follow-on rate, and while there may be some names you know well, the data also uncovers some atypical suspects. The top 10 is led by east coast-based firm LaunchCapital (founded by Elon Boms) and followed by Silicon Valley’s Baseline Ventures (founded by Steve Anderson) and Floodgate Fund (founded by Mike Maples Jr.) to round out the top 3.  Interestingly, these three firms – at least relative to many other most active seed investors on the list – keep a relatively lower profile (based on a review of their news mentions using CB Insights news archive).

Overall, the top 10 highlights a mix of the top seed venture capital firms who will withstand the eventual Seed VC shakeout as well as larger multi-stage funds which participate in seed venture rounds.

The ranking of all 30 most active seed investors by follow-on rate can be found on the ‘Research’ tab here, after logging in to CB Insights. (Note: The list of investors is only available to paid subscribers with access to CB Insider.)