Venture capital funding in the second quarter jumped to the highest level in almost two years, as investors increased their bets on alternative energy and biotechnology.

VC Firms invested $6.52 billion in the U.S. during the period, a 53 percent increase from a year earlier and the most since the third quarter of 2008, the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC said today in a report. The number of deals rose 29 percent to 906.

Specifically biotechnology investing rose 43 percent to $1.3 billion. The biggest deal was a $50 million investment in Pacific Biosciences Inc., a Menlo Park, California-based company that’s competing to build faster, cheaper gene-mapping machines.

Source: USA Bloomberg