Corporate venture capitalists are again placing more bets with startups, particularly software and cleantech companies, according to a new study.

Corporate investors during the first half of the year participated in 16.3% of venture deals, according to the report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters, publisher of this blog. This is an increase from 14.7% in 2011 and 12.9% in 2010.

The increase returns corporate participation in venture to levels common in the middle of the last decade. In 2008, a peak year, 20% of venture deals had corporate VCs in their syndicates.

Dollars have lagged a bit behind deals. Corporate VCs so far this year have invested $1.03 billion in 280 deals, the study found. This compares with $2.3 billion for all of last year. Still, this year’s six-month dollar total represents 7.8% of venture dollars invested compared with 7.7% last year.

Over the past 11 years, 7.8% participation is the average. Still, stateside startups shouldn’t get too excited–Intel’s venture arm is looking to take on deals overseas, one of its senior leaders recently stated .

So far this year, corporate deal size is $3.67 million, down from $4.01 million last year. Over the past six quarters, 27.1% of dollars went to software companies and 18.8% to cleantech startups.

Find a link to the study here.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.