Houston’s VC Funding Almost Tripled to Record $2 Billion

Houston companies raised a record $2.02 billion in venture capital last year as investors piled into technology startups in the country’s fourth-largest city.

The full-year total was almost triple last year’s amount, according to the Greater Houston Partnership, a business group, which cited data from PitchBook. For the four quarters, the number of venture-capital deals in Houston climbed 27% from a year earlier to 219.

While Houston is known for its close ties to the oil and gas industry, the energy sector collected less than 4% of venture-capital investments last year. Information-technology companies were the recipients of 32% of the ...