Startups Snatch $6.6 Billion in New Capital

And they pulled it off in just one quarter. According to the Washington Post, startup investments grew to $6.57 billion in the fourth quarter (October through December) – up from $5.52 billion during the same quarter in 2010. That's a lot of dough, but when you consider the amount of startups cropping up – and the endless stories of how these startups got funded – the figure sounds (for lack of a better term) right on the money. One of the beneficiaries of the 2011 venture capital boom was Visually, a site that aims to produce a visual display (read: an infographic) of data displayed on a website. The company scored $2 million in seed funding, which allowed them to build awesome tools like Twitterize, a Klout-busting infographic generator that creates a side-by-side comparison of two Twitter accounts. Prysm, a developer of mammoth TV screens, received an astonishing $100 million investment to compete with the likes of Sony SNE, Panasonic PC and Samsung. With screens built using laser phosphor, Prysm screens are supposedly beautiful – and can be as large as 225 inches! On the lower end of the spectrum is Scripted (an offshoot of an online scriptwriting community), which pays writers $2 for tweets and $39 for blogs. Scripted received $700K in new funds. Will startup investments continue to rise in 2012? Based on a recent study (which revealed that investors make 600% on the average successful startup), it seems that this could be another great year for young entrepreneurs. Follow me @LouisBedigian