The last few weeks have been slow on deals for Seattle-area technology companies, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some interesting ones to watch. Take a look at the highlights:
—Just a few days after we ran a story about the business’s strategy moving forward, Bellevue, WA-based mobile software company Motricity (NASDAQ: [[ticker: MOTR]]) inked a new deal with one of India’s largest mobile operators, Reliance Communications. The news caused Motricity’s stock to rise by 34 percent in a single day.
—Bothell, WA-based water purification company Halosource raised $80 million through a public offering on the London Stock Exchange. The company started trading today. Halosource is taking about $50 million in net proceeds from the deal, which gives the company a market valuation of about $158 million, according to Reuters.
—Seattle-based e-commerce company Avelle (formerly known as Bag Borrow or Steal), raised $1 million in debt financing. The company, founded in 2004 and humorously dubbed the “Netflix for handbags,” offers a rent service for high-end bags and jewelry from over 3,000 designer labels for a small monthly fee. The company is now competing with another online marketplace, Bonanza (formerly known as Bonanzle), which launched its new BagsBonanza site on the same day.
—This isn’t so much a deal as a lack of one—Bellevue, WA-based online background check and information commerce company Intelius withdrew its IPO last week. The company filed for a $143 million initial public offering in January 2008. In the withdrawl statement, the company said it did not appear that the public offering would be made in the foreseeable future.
—Although this isn’t a deal yet, this could amount to a few. Last week, we did a roundup of the 31 Northwest ideas participating in General Electric’s (NYSE: [[ticker:GE]]) $200 million open innovation competition, the GE Ecomagination Challenge. Competing against 3,809 ideas from around the world to help create a smarter, cleaner, more efficient, and more economically viable grid, these cleantech concepts are up for up to five $100,000 awards, and the opportunity to work with GE’s Global Research Center.
