Venture capital funding to Utah companies dwindled to $21 million in this year's second quarter — nearly one-fifth of the $103 million during the same quarter a year ago, according to the latest MoneyTree survey.

Four Utah companies representing the software and computer sectors received funding in this year's second quarter.

Salt Lake-based Oakley Networks captured the most venture dollars, at $12 million. The funding came from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fidelity Ventures, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich LLC and two undisclosed venture firms.

The second quarter is typically the strongest quarter for funding, according to Joe Strain, a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Salt Lake office. However, this year's second quarter represented the lowest funding in a second quarter since 1997. "We've kind of developed a baseline that our funding is really between $20 million to $60 million a quarter," Strain said. "And that really isn't a bad thing. That's a pretty healthy range."

Strain said he does not believe the slowdown indicates a negative trend.

"This quarter, we were just at the bottom end of that range," Strain said. "Last quarter, we were at the top end of the range."

Brad Bertoch, president and chief executive officer of the Wayne Brown Institute, a Salt Lake-based nonprofit that helps businesses find venture funding, was surprised by the quarter's small funding figure.

While the quarter's funding was low, Bertoch said, at least one Utah company went public. Omniture debuted on Nasdaq in June, raising net proceeds of roughly $50.1 million.

"We always have one stinker quarter," Bertoch said. "Utah is still young enough that you sort of have 'invest, invest, harvest, harvest.' You don't have quite the mass where you have the two going on sort of simultaneously."

Bertoch had thought Utah could reach $250 million to $300 million in venture funding by the end of this year.

"We haven't even hit $100 million yet, and we've got two quarters to go," Bertoch said. "Personally, I was forecasting that we could do $300 million this year and do a half-billion in 2007. I may be off a year."

Nationally in the second quarter, venture capitalists invested the highest dollar amount into the most deals since the first quarter of 2002, the report said, with investing growing to $6.3 billion in 856 deals. That represented a 2 percent increase in dollars and a 5 percent increase in deals from the prior quarter. The increase was driven by strength in the biotechnology, industrial/energy and networking and equipment sectors.

"We are encouraged by the upswing in the number of seed and early stage deals — these companies represent the future of our industry," said Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, in a prepared statement. "But equally as important is the diversity of the investment dollars into multiple industry sectors. Rather than pouring money into a lot of 'me-too' deals, venture capitalists are finding unique opportunities in emerging industries that allow the industry to scale up responsibly."

Heesen, who was in Salt Lake City earlier this month, said Utah's venture capital community is light-years ahead of states such as Florida and Tennessee but could improve in commercializing more ideas from its universities.

The MoneyTree survey is produced by Thomson Financial, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

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