BOULDER - Boulder County ranked No. 3 in 2012 - behind two Silicon Valley locations - for the amount of venture capital per capita invested into area startup companies.

In the Boulder-Longmont region, $854.94 per person in venture capital was invested in 2012, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association, using data from the news company Thomson Reuters and U.S. Census Bureau information.

Brian Lewandowski, at the business research division at the University of Colorado-Boulder's Leeds School of Business, compiled the per-capita ranking, using the Thomson Reuters data.

San Jose, California, was No. 1 in venture capital invested per capita, with $2,181.55 invested per person, according to Lewandowski. San Francisco was No. 2, with $1,532.69 per person, according to Lewandowski's data. Denver was No. 15, with $93.31 invested per person.

When investment totals were aggregated in total for 2012, San Francisco was the No. 1 city for venture capital investment, San Jose was No. 2 and Boulder-Longmont was No. 15, according to the Thomson Reuters data.

In total dollar terms, San Francisco had $5.6 billion in venture capital investment in 2012, San Jose had $4.1 billion and Boulder-Longmont had $256 million.

Other cities ranked in total dollar terms for 2012 included Boston at No. 3, New York City at No. 4 and San Diego at No. 5. The next nine cities/regions ranked for total venture-capital investment were: Oakland, California; Los Angeles-Long Beach, California; Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Washington; Orange County, California; Austin-San Marcos, Texas; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; and Atlanta.