VC wars: Big Apple v. Boston

The New York-Boston rivalry is heating up — and it has nothing to do with baseball.

The Big Apple continues to lead Boston when it comes to Internet start-up dollars. The city raked in $568 million in 73 Web deals in the fourth quarter, pushing its total venture capital raised to $2.5 billion in 2011, according to SoHo-based research firm CB Insights.

However, New York failed to beat Boston in overall venture-capital deals. Boston ended the year at No. 2, with $3.5 billion in total funding, behind Silicon Valley with $15.2 billion.

That’s despite a blow-out third quarter for New York, when it topped Boston for the first time in years in terms of total venture capital funding.

Beantown regained the No. 2 spot thanks to capital-intensive deals in Massachusetts’s sweet spot of health care and biotech.

By comparison, New York was awash in money going to early-stage Internet companies, like Fab.com, run by Chief Executive Officer Jason Goldberg.