Maybe the world of venture capital has stabilized—albeit at a lower but more sustainable level. Last month, companies in Washington state raised about $53.5 million in 10 venture deals. The stats are almost identical to the $57 million invested in eight deals back in January—and still up from the anemic $22 million invested in just four deals last December.
That’s according to data provided by our partner, private company intelligence platform CB Insights. See the table below for a full list of February venture financings.
The biggest deal of the month came from BlueKai, the Bellevue, WA-based Internet data exchange firm, which raised a $21 million Series C round, led by new investor GGV Capital. This continues the trend of one tech company dominating the monthly stats with a large mid-stage round—in January, it was fellow Bellevue firm Visible Technologies raising its $22 million Series C round.
The bad news is that only two of the month’s deals were Series A fundings, and they totaled just $2.5 million. That’s not enough to get all the promising new companies I’m hearing about off the ground. We’ll be watching to see if this trend starts to turn around later this year.
Half of the investments (five) were made in the Internet sector, while two were in energy and cleantech (Infinia and 3Tier), and one was in healthcare and biotech (Hemaquest Pharmaceuticals).
As an aside, I’m pleased to see that Mercer Island, WA, has at least one other tech startup besides Napera Networks—Spectrum Networks raised a $1 million Series A round.
Here’s the list of February venture deals for Washington companies:
