Tornado Insider is reporting that early-stage funding is on track for a record year, suggesting that investors are pretty optimistic about the tech sector. In particular, they report that early-stage investments — both seed and first-round — in tech companies are on the rise, constituting 50% of all VC deals.

These are pre-bubble numbers.

• Most of the activity is occurring in Germany, France and the UK, but Germany shows the highest proportion of early-stage activity: 62%.
• The UK has the highest total number of early-stage rounds, but as a percentage of total funding activity, the UK is only at 42%, which places it behind Germany (62%) and France (46%).
• Of note, 69% of all European Internet deals are early-stage rounds.
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  High-Tech Gründerfonds has been the most active investor, with 18 seed and first-rounds investments. Index Ventures and Big Bang Ventures follow with 6 early-stage deals.