For the first time since 2001, the United States venture economy saw three consecutive quarters amounting to more than $6 billion in investments.

According to the latest figures from Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young, year-to-date investment hit $19.45 billion over 1,851 deals.That represented modest growth over 2005, with the third quarter racking up 2 percent more deals than the year-ago quarter. Overall capital invested jumped 5 percent over the same period.

But early-stage financings were the sweet spot.In the third quarter, 38 percent of all venture capital rounds went to seed- and first-round deals, the highest allocation percentage this year, and the most capital invested at this stage in 2006. Moreover, the quarter stood out as the first of 2006 when seed and first-round deals outnumbered later-round deals.

Steve Harmston, director of global research at VentureOne, called the early-stage focus a positive sign but noted that healthcare investments were favored over good old IT. Forty-four percent of healthcare investments were early stage, over 32 percent in information technology.

“These early-stage financings are particularly taking off in some key segments such as biopharmaceuticals, where more than half the rounds are seed and first rounds, and medical devices, where 38 percent of them are concentrated in these round classes,” he said.

Record Biopharma Deal Levels

By industry, capital investment in healthcare companies increased 3 percent over the same quarter a year ago, reaching $2.05 billion in 159 rounds, much of it focused on biopharmaceuticals.As a category, biopharma took in $1.27 billion over 72 deals.

Median size for biopharma deals also ramped up to record levels, with $14 million in the third quarter, the highest on record. The median size of an overall healthcare deal was $7.5 million, down slightly from $8 million a year ago.

On the IT front, deal count notched up slightly, climbing by nine deals to 365, and investment increased 4 percent over a year ago to $3.56 billion

Software companies took in $1.47 billion, up 8 percent from a year ago. Investments in software companies rose 8 percent to $1.47 billion from a year ago, although 28 fewer software deals were completed.

In communications, $861.6 million was invested, a 10 percent increase. The largest deal of the quarter was an IT deal—the $132-million later-stage round in telecommunications semiconductor company Cortina Systems of Sunnyvale, California. The median size of an IT deal was $7 million, up from $6.6 million a year ago.

Joseph Muscat, director at Ernst & Young’s Venture Capital Advisory Group, attributed the growth to an improved liquidity environment fueled mainly by mergers and acquisitions, but also some decent technology IPOs.He added that VCs are also focusing on emerging sectors—alternative energy in particular, which saw dealflow more than triple from a year ago.

Web 2.0 companies were no slouch either, he said. The information services segment where many of the outfits are tracked brought in 82 deals, up 41 percent over the year-ago quarter. Capital for the segment dropped 9 percent from a year ago, to $490.5 million for the quarter, or $1.74 billion for the year thus far.

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