In Good Company Corporate VC funding's on the up. Could you be in the money?

Looking for an influx of both capital and credibility for your growing company? Try corporate America. Thanks to a resurgence over the past 18 months, corporate VC investment is at its highest level since the first quarter of 2002, according to the "Money-Tree Report" by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

That's good news for companies like Virtual Iron, a Lowell, Massachusetts-based software firm that scored $3 million in funding from Intel's corporate venture arm. "For an IBM, a Cisco or an Intel, it's hard to be innovative and also manage your business against quarterly results," explains Mike Grandinetti, Virtual Iron's chief marketing officer. "So they're looking to young venture-backed companies for R&D and product development."

That doesn't mean corporate venture funding is any more accessible than traditional VC capital, notes Virtual Iron's founder and CTO, Alex Vasilevsky. "It's difficult for a small startup to get attention from a corporate investor," he says.