did you know? part I

Since I come across a lot of studies and statistics on various aspects of entrepreneurship, I thought I would start a series of posts highlighting some of the more interesting ones (me being the judge of what is interesting, of course). To start off, let's start with how important start-ups to the economy.

Number of businesses in the U.S.: 6 million + businesses with employees; 29.7 million self-employed

Size of businesses: 60.9% have <4 employees; 89.7% have < 20 employees; 99.7% have <500 employees

Number of businesses started each year: 649,700 new employer firms (another 2 million struck out on their own) (in 2006)

Number of closures each year: 564,900 (in 2006)

VC money received: In 2007, a little less than $30 billion in VC was given to 3800 firms. Of these, 415 were for seed funding (about .06% of new firms)

Angel money: About 50,000 businesses receive $20-25 billion angel money per year

These numbers are from the SBA, the NVCA and the last number is from a magazine article I read (can't remember the source now).

-Mina