A new report set to be released by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) is said to show that the second great tech bubble may be in full swing, with venture capital in the first quarter of 2015 hitting its highest level since 2000.

According to figures from the report obtained by Re/Code, venture capital investments hit $13.4 billion over 1,020 deals in Q1, up 26 percent from the same quarter of 2014, and the high figure since Q1 2000.

Twelve deals in the quarter passed the $100 million mark, and one-third of all deals were late-stage funding, easily demonstrated by rounds into Unicorns such as Slack Inc.

Software startups are hot, with startups in the sector grabbing 42 percent of the venture capital pie in Q1, up from 21 percent in the same quarter of 2006. The Biotech sector came in second, grabbing $1.7 billion doing over 124 deals.

Will history repeat itself?

While few would argue against the concept that we are definitely seeing signs of a bubble, the question is whether the market is fundamentally different today versus the heady days at the beginning of the new millennium.

The comparison in the report to the first quarter of 2000 is a history mark of note, as it was March 2000 when the NASDAQ hit its peak during the first dot com bubble, but also of note historically is that the original bubble was primarily driven by a massive chase for initial public offerings (IPOs) and inflated prices investors could get by startups listing.

We’re simply not seeing the same fury of IPO’s that we saw in the late 1990s, although the ones we do see, like Etsy Inc., are starting to show manic price inflation on listing, along with similar fundamentals to the 90’s dotcoms: they’re not making any money.

But the IPO angle aside the Cloud may be the fundamental difference this time round.

In 2000, the idea that we would do everything from team management through to doing a spreadsheet, or even using a service like Photoshop online was an unknown concept. Record stores still existed back in 2000, along with Travel Agents, let alone productivity software being shipping on a CD, versus being online.

There will be a correction eventually, the cycle of markets going back centuries proves that it’s a given, but software as a service (SaaS,) as it becomes the norm in everyday business and consumer use will provide a far softer landing when the bubble does eventually burst; although it’s easy to joke about the startups that don’t even think about actually making a profit, this is not to say that there aren’t a range of SaaS providers who actually are making money from their ideas, and are for all intents-and-purposes essential services for their users.

It’s not clear when PwC will release the report in full, but we’ll have updates once we get our hands on it.

photo credit: Ember, classic via photopin (license)