St. Paddy’s Day caps a relatively busy week for deals in the Northwest, with activity in business software, gaming, and biotech.
—In the big funding news of the week, Seattle-based Skytap scored a $7 million Series B round from existing Seattle-area investors Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and WRF Capital. Skytap develops cloud-computing software to help companies set up virtual machines over the Web. Its “virtual labs” handle data storage, networking, and processing for intensive computing tasks like software development, quality assurance, and IT operations testing.
—Seattle-based Azaleos, a software startup that helps companies manage e-mail services through Microsoft Exchange, merged with M3 Technology Group, based in Charlotte, NC. Terms of the deal weren’t announced, but the merged company retains the Azaleos brand name and management team.
—Luke reported that ZymoGenetics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ZGEN]]), a Seattle biotech company, received a $20 million milestone payment from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which is co-developing an experimental treatment for hepatitis C called pegylated interferon lambda. The payment is part of a larger partnership that could be worth as much as $1.1 billion to Zymo.
—Blade Games, a Bellevue, WA, maker of game development tools that was formed in the recent merger of Issaquah, WA-based Digini and Shanghai, China-based Vyk Games, scored a $4 million funding round led by California Technology Ventures. Blade Games sells subscription-based software tools for developing Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 video games.
—Bellevue-based Complaints.com received an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Seattle-area investor Rob Monster, who has joined the company as chairman of the board. Complaints.com makes software that lets companies track, manage, and respond to complaints lodged against them on websites, blogs, and social networks.
—It was a productive week for Bellevue, WA-based Ignition Partners. The venture firm also co-led a $5.5 million Series C funding round in Enclarity, a healthcare IT company in Aliso Viejo, CA. The round was co-led by Bain Capital, based in Boston. Enclarity makes software to help businesses manage healthcare provider information and records.
