San Diego’s Slight Rebound in Venture Investing Reflects Broader Trends—Region’s Top Deals List

PhotoThera (Carlsbad, CA) — $50 million
(Investors: De Novo Ventures,Delphi Ventures, Hamilton BioVentures (FKA Hamilton Apex Technology Ventures), Individuals, Solstice Capital,TheVertical Group, Warburg Pincus.)

Intellikine (San Diego) — $28.5 million
(Investors: Abingworth Management, Biogen Idec New Ventures, CMEA Capital, Novartis Venture Fund, Sofinova Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners.)

Par Accel (San Diego and Cupertino, CA) — $22 million
(Investors: Bay Partners, Menlo Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Walden International.)

SkinMedica (Carlsbad, CA) — $9.4 million
(Investors: Domain Associates, EuclidSR Partners, Fog City Fund, HealthCare Ventures, Montreux Equity Partners.)

Medsphere Systems (Carlsbad, CA) — $6 million
(Investors: Azure Capital Partners, Epic Ventures, Thomas Weisel Venture Partners)

Nirvanix (San Diego) — $5 million
(Investors: Intel Capital, Mission Ventures, Valhalla Partners, Windward Ventures)

MojoPages (San Diego) — $4.1 million
(Investors: Austin Ventures, individual investors)

Afraxis (San Diego) — $3.3 million
(Investor: Avalon Ventures)

Loop’d Networks (San Diego) — $800,000
(Investors: Tech Coast Angels, undisclosed investors)

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.