It’s been another slow deals week for Seattle-area tech companies. Maybe everyone is so distracted by the sunny October skies that they’ve forgotten to carry on with business as usual. Don’t worry, the rain will set in soon enough. In the meantime, take a look at the highlights from the last week:
—Redmond, WA-based Microsoft (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MSFT]]) participated in a $50 million Series C investment round for New York-based AppNexus. Microsoft has been a customer of the display advertising software company for a long time. The AppNexus software let advertisers bid on ad impressions sold through auction sites run by Microsoft’s Advertising Exchange, Google’s DoubleClick, and others.
—This isn’t a deal, but it has to do with a big one—the recent acquisition of San Francisco-based TechCrunch by AOL (NYSE: [[ticker:AOL]]). Folks at Redmond, WA-based startup lab Conceivian are so curious about when TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington will call it quits under the AOL payroll that they’ve set up a website that allows people to take a guess for a chance to win an iPad.
—In the cleantech space, Seattle-based software company Optimum Energy raised $1.2 million in debt financing, out of a round that could be worth as much as $4 million. The company, which develops energy efficiency management software for HVAC systems, plans to use the money to support the expansion of its partnerships.
—This isn’t directly a deal either, but does speak to one in another big Northwest industry—mobile. Bellevue, WA-based mobile software company Motricity (NASDAQ: [[ticker: MOTR]]), expected to raise around $250 million when it first filed for its IPO in January. Instead, the nine-year-old company ended up settling for the much lower sum of $50 million. We talked to founder and chief executive Ryan Wuerch about the public offering, and why the company isn’t letting the disappointing outcome hinder its ambitious international expansion plans.
