Startup Funding In March Doubles to $260M; Internet Edges Out Healthcare

Spring has sprung for the state’s tech and life sciences startups. After raising a slim $130.9 million in February, things really warmed up last month. Thirty-nine startups pulled in a whopping $260 million in equity-based funding, with a few sectors in particular taking sizeable chunks of cash, according to data from CB Insights’ FundingFlash, a daily roundup of companies receiving venture capital, angel investment, and growth equity funding.

Investments in the Internet sector took the top spot for dollars raised, at $66.1 million across 11 deals. They have the $32 million raised by Cambridge, MA-based online marketing company HubSpot to thank for that. Lexington, MA-based Gemvara, an online jewelry customization retailer, also helped out with a $15 million Series C round.

Healthcare came in at a close runner-up, at $63.2 million raised in nine deals. That’s not a super sunny statistic for the industry, though. Investments for the healthcare sector actually dropped in March, from the $73.6 million brought in by seven deals in February for life sciences and biotech companies.

Waltham, MA-based Harvest Power took the top deal for the month, with a $51.7 million Series B round. The waste-to-energy startup got some of the funding from Generation Investment Management, a London-based firm co-founded by Al Gore and David Blood. New investors DAG Ventures and Keating Capital also participated in the round, alongside existing Harvest backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Waste Management, Munich Venture Partners, and TriplePoint Capital. The energy sector came in third for dollars raised, with $55.8 million.

The mobile sector hasn’t been known for its big monthly funding pots, but a $25 million round for Littleton, MA-based Movik Networks pushed the mobile and telecom space to fourth place in dollars raised, with a total of $43.6 million. Movik, which makes hardware and software systems for helping mobile devices better deliver video and Web-based content, raised $25 million in Series C funding.

We’ll have to see next month if the state’s innovation community can sustain the strong fundraising throughout the spring. Meanwhile, read below for the full March details.

Companies also pulled in a sizeable pot of non-equity based funding, at $19.3 million. Check below for the details on those nine financings.

Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.