Haute Secure Scores $1.6M, Second Ave Invests in Fanzter, LookStat Gets Funded, & More Seattle-Area Deals News

It was a very quiet week for deals in the Northwest, with just a trickle of activity in software, security, and biotech.

—Seattle-based Haute Secure, a software firm focused on computer security against malware, raised about $1.6 million in Series A funding. Investors in the round included Silicon Valley firms Baseline Ventures and Sherpalo Ventures.

—LookStat, a Seattle-area startup that makes software for analytics and workflow automation for the microstock photography industry, has received an investment from Founder’s Co-op, a Seattle-based seed-stage fund. (The news was mentioned in passing by investor Andy Sack at a financing talk.) The amount of the investment and the closing date weren’t announced, but Founder’s Co-op tends to invest between $250,000 and $500,000 in early-stage tech companies.

—Luke reported that Seattle-based VPDiagnostics received a $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to run a clinical trial of its MRI technology for determining a patient’s risk of stroke. The technology is based on 15-plus years of research at the University of Washington.

—Seattle-based Second Avenue Partners renewed its investment in Fanzter, a Collinsville, CT-based new media company. The $2 million Series B financing round was led by Steamboat Ventures. Fantzer, which was also backed by Seattle investors Curious Office Partners and Rich Barton (from Zillow), runs a celebrity website called Coolspotters.com.

—Seattle startup TrafficGauge, a provider of road traffic information in real time, was acquired by Networks In Motion, a mobile navigation and search company based in Aliso Viejo, CA. Financial terms were not disclosed. TrafficGauge first rolled out a mobile traffic map in Seattle in 2003.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.