There were, surprisingly, quite a few Seattle-area technology deals this week, breaking the typically slow summer deals trend we’ve seen recently. In the last week we’ve seen a local supercomputing company nab a pretty hefty Department of Defense grant, a cleantech startup partner with the Environmental Protection Agency, and an info commerce company settle a nasty dispute with the Washington State Attorney General’s office. Take a look at the highlights:
—Seattle-based supercomputing company Cray (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CRAY]]), was part of a team that was awarded a $25 million U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant to further develop supercomputer technology. The four-year research project is being led by Nvidia (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NVDA]]), a graphics processing unit (GPU) developer, and includes Oak Ridge National Laboratory and six U.S. universities. The objective is to develop a new class of supercomputers 1,000 times more powerful than those in existence today.
—Local IP service provider Telekenex raised $5.5 million in debt financing from Wellington Financial, a specialty firm out of Canada. Though headquartered in Seattle, Telekenex was founded in San Francisco in 1994, and is backed by a number of Bay Area firms, including Walden Venture Capital, Altos Ventures, and Industry Ventures. The funding will provide the company with the necessary capital to “continue its growth and penetration of the managed voice and data service market,” according to Wellington.
—Bend, OR-based search engine marketing company G5 closed a $15 million round led by Boston-based Volition Capital. The funding will be used to further the company’s software development platform. As part of the deal, Volition managing partner Roger Hurwitz and principal Sean Cantwell are joining the G5 board of directors.
—Bellevue, WA-based Intelius, an online background check and information commerce company, agreed to pay $1.3 million in a legal settlement with the Washington State Attorney General’s office, according to a report by TechFlash. The dispute was part of an ongoing effort on the part of the Attorney General to prevent “post-transaction marketing” tactics. Intelius has been called out in a number of class action lawsuits recently, including one case in October accused the company of violating the state’s Consumer Protection Act.
—DepotPoint, a Bellevue, WA-based Web company that develops a tracking platform for the real estate foreclosure market, raised $2 million in equity out of a $4.5 million offering. In 2008, as the mortgage meltdown accelerated, the company launched a free site that provided access to street addresses for some 1.2 million properties undergoing foreclosure across the U.S. In the same year, it raised a $7 million Series C found led by OVP Ventures Partners and Trident Capital.
—Woodinville, WA-based Calico Energy Services told Xconomy of an recent partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star program. Although the energy management company hasn’t officially announced the deal yet, Calico chief marketing officer Thomas Doggett said the partnership, which has no financial terms, validates the company and acknowledges its ability to help utilities companies and energy providers “meet Energy Star certification goals.”
—San Francisco-and Seattle-based Jambool, the virtual currency and virtual goods management developer, was acquired by Google for an undisclosed amount. The four-year-old company behind the Social Gold platform, has raised $6 million in venture financing to date from Palo Alto, CA-based Bay Partners and Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group.
—A brand new online travel venture here in Seattle—AirlineTickets and Airport Parking—received $90,000 in startup financing out of a $200,000 round. A number of local angel investors contributed to the round, including Andy Liu and David Niu of BuddyTV, Geoff Entress, Bob Senoff, and Fred Hsu, the co-founder of oversee.net. The sites, led by former Internet marketer and first-time entrepreneur Sujan Patel, will take a new spin on the online travel searching and booking market—making the process of traveling easier and more enjoyable, Patel says.
