In 2006 1,668 venture-backed companies in the UK raised a total of just under £1.4 billion ($27.7 billion), an increase of 27 per cent from 2005, according to research commissioned by UBS Wealth Management from research consultancy Library House. The report Funding Growth in a Changing World: The UBS UK Venture Backed Report – 2007 analyses every company in the UK that is currently venture-backed and shows that the rise was driven by increases in activity in both the information technology and services and retail sectors. The fastest growing sector, with investments up 91 per cent by value from 2005-06, was services and retail, driven by the robust returns delivered by the sector, estimated at an internal rate of return of 66 per cent at a company level. Although the UK is leading Europe, the key competition is coming from the US and Asia: the Chinese venture capital market overtook the UK’s during 2006 in terms of absolute size and India is likely to follow suit by 2009. Meanwhile the US venture capital market continues to be approximately three times larger than the UK on a per capita basis. The top investor in 2006 by syndicated deal amount was 3i, followed by Accel Partners. DFJ Esprit and Abingworth were also in the top ten. Looking at investors by number of deals, the top investor was the Scottish Enterprise Fund which completed 51 investments over the period. The Oxford Technology Venture Capital Trust was in second place for the second year running, with 22 investments.