Photo by James Sanna | Banker & Tradesman Staff

An uptick in venture capital funding and other growth indicators is likely to boost leasing activity in Greater Boston’s tough-tech and beaten-down life science markets, according to new research from JLL.

After a four-year slump, lab leasing activity is likely to rebound, the commercial brokerage’s top researcher said.

JLL is tracking over 2.3 million square feet of tenant requirements in the Greater Boston area market, JLL’s Director of Boston Research Mark Bruso said, with approximately 20 new companies entering the market for space in recent months.

“For a while, there was a paralysis across the sector and it was a frozen landscape,” Bruso said. “Now it feels like it’s alive again, and the next year is going to be better for the first time in years.”

Tenant requirements had risen as high as 8 million square feet in 2021, when COVID catalyzed private investment in life sciences, and developers responded with an unprecedented wave of local lab construction.

Since then, the Greater Boston lab market’s historic vacancy rate of 34 percent has spotlighted the biotech funding meltdown, and overbuilding by developers and lenders who launched large speculative projects just before the Federal Reserve interest rate hikes of 2022.

But Greater Boston actually has more occupied lab space today than in 2019, illustrating continued life science industry expansion. According to JLL research, life science companies now occupy 34.3 million square feet in Greater Boston, compared with 24.2 million square feet at the end of 2019.

Recent data suggests the region can build upon that foundation. Venture capital funding to Massachusetts companies surpassed $6 billion in the first quarter, the highest level since 2022. The awards reflect investor confidence in the climate tech, life science and AI industries.

“The growth story for Boston is going to be those three pillars, and right now they’re all trending in the right direction,” Bruso said.