Venture financing perked up last month, at least for a handful of Seattle-area startups and young companies. VCs and corporate investors poured $76.9 million into five Washington-based companies in September, according to data provided to Xconomy by ChubbyBrain, a New York-based information services company that develops tools for investors, startups, and entrepreneurs. There were also two debt financings worth a total of $8 million.
The total funding of Washington companies, $84.9 million, is up from $51.4 million in the previous month (and that figure included a couple of companies whose headquarters are out of state). But the September increase is largely due to one especially big transaction.
The largest deal by far was Seattle-based Calypso Medical’s $50 million Series E financing, led by Skyline Ventures and Frazier Healthcare Ventures. It’s the biggest venture deal in the Northwest so far this year, and you can read about the story behind the financing here—Calypso has overcome some challenges in the past year. The company makes a medical device that pinpoints radiation in ways that are supposed to help minimize the side effects of prostate cancer treatment.
The September deals were concentrated in medical devices and healthcare, with a few smaller deals in software and tech. The biggest financing in software was Bellevue-based VoiceBox Technologies, which raised about $13 million from corporate investors in Asia, including AutoNavi, Inventec, MiTAC, and the Morningside investment fund. But that money was raised over the course of the past year, with the company officially announcing it in September after a regulatory filing let the cat out of the bag. VoiceBox makes speech recognition systems for cars and mobile applications.
The venture deals (see Table below) were spread evenly among early, mid, and late-stage financings. The only Series A deal was Seattle-based Integrative Diagnostics, which raised $7.5 million for early cancer detection. The company was founded by biotech pioneer Leroy Hood.
In addition to the venture deals, Redmond-based Spiration (which makes a medical device for treating lung diseases) raised $7 million, and Kirkland-based SchemaLogic (which makes software to manage metadata) raised $1 million in a pair of debt financings.
