Angel investors in Keiretsu Forum Northwest chapters plowed $21.2 million into 35 companies in 2013, according to a tally set for release today. Most of the funding went into startups based in the Pacific Northwest.
That’s up slightly compared with 2012, when the group backed some 34 companies to the tune of $20.1 million. In 2011, the Keiretsu Forum Northwest invested $24 million in 36 companies.
“I’m as encouraged as I’ve been in a long time in terms of the state and health of the market,” says Keiretsu Forum Northwest president Nathan McDonald.
Keiretsu, which describes itself as the world’s largest angel investor network, has 29 chapters in the Northwest, including Seattle, Kirkland, and Spokane, WA; Portland, OR; Boise, ID; and Vancouver, British Columbia. Members share duties such as identifying investment opportunities and performing due diligence, which can entail 60 to 80 hours of work, yielding a 50 to 250 page report on each company, McDonald says.
Its 2013 portfolio includes 24 Northwest-based companies. Twenty-six of the 35 investments last year were new and nine followed earlier bets.
By industry sector, technology companies claimed 49 percent of the investment total, followed by real estate funds (24 percent), life sciences companies (23 percent), and consumer/retail (4 percent).
Keiretsu, founded in the San Francisco area in 2000, now has more than 1,400 members. McDonald says the group syndicates investment deals among Northwest chapters and with chapters in the mid-Atlantic region and the Bay Area.
Some 75 new members joined Northwest chapters last year. Total membership is about 280, McDonald says. (Like any organization, Keiretsu gains and loses members each month. While 27 percent of the group’s Northwest members are new in the last year—including many previous members who re-joined—the membership did not increase by that amount, he adds.)
Since the first Northwest Keiretsu chapter was established in 2005, the organization’s members have invested more than $132 million in some 215 companies.
In 2013, Keiretsu Forum Northwest made the following investments, broken down by the state where each one is based:
Washington—Alder Fund, Avnew Health, BYNDL, Exponential Entertainment, LumiThera, Marketfish, Minetta Brook, NorthShore Bio, OraHealth, OtoMetrix Medical Technologies, Phytelligence, Pyattt/Broadmark Fund, Royal Bluff Orchards, Tether Technologies, Vega Performance Marketing, Vibrant Games, Vizit, Zoomingo
British Columbia—Paradigm Environmental, Stealth Networks (ZanttZ)
Oregon—Avatron, DesignMedix, Fairway America, Indow Windows, Portland Seed Fund, Puralytics
California—EV Connect, Perkville
Arizona—Guardian 8
New York—Linkstorm
Massachusetts—Correx, Snaptiva
Pennsylvania—EyeIC, Immunomic Therapeutics, Molecular Detection
