Washington companies in the technology, biotech, and cleantech sectors rolled up nearly $32 million in financing in September, according to data compiled by our partners at research firm CB Insights.
Leading the way was RF Surgical Systems, a Bellevue-based company that raised $12 million last month. As Luke wrote last year, the company is working to embed radio-frequency tags in surgical sponges, so hospitals and doctors can track whether the common tools are left behind in a patient. Investors in the round were Stanford University, Menlo Ventures, and Split Rock Partners.
Coming in second was Theraclone Sciences, an antibody drug discovery company, which raised $10.6 million in an extension of its Series B financing that started way back in March 2007. That round has now grown to $41 million overall. Previous investors Arch Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, MPM Capital, Healthcare Ventures, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Amgen Ventures, and Zenyaku Kogyo participated in the Series B extension.
Social media monitoring company Visible Technologies claimed the third-highest total for September with a $4 million round from existing investors, including Investor Growth Capital, Ignition Partners, and Joe Grano. Visible also said that its sales in the first half of 2011 were up 71 percent compared to the previous six months, with a large number of clients added to its roster.
In cleantech, Seattle’s 3Tier Group landed a $2.5 million round from Good Energies, according to CB Insights’ data. 3Tier, which uses supercomputers to map the best spots in the world for setting up solar and wind energy projects, also announced a partnership with Bloomberg to provide businesses with information on thousands of wind projects worldwide.
Symform, a Seattle-based cloud-storage provider, ranked fifth for September with a $1 million extension of the company’s previous Series A round. President and co-founder Praerit Garg said the new money was based on hitting milestones, and came as Symform was preparing a headquarters move to accommodate its growth.
The company’s system is based around data being distributed among a large number of small nodes in a network, rather than in a big data center. Symform previously raised about $5.5 million in two rounds from OVP Venture Partners and Boston-area firm Longworth Venture Partners.
Finally, in the sub-million category:
—Generic Medical Devices of Gig Harbor pulled in about $900,000 in debt financing.
—Seattle’s X2Impact, which makes hit-sensing mouthpieces for athletes, raised about $350,000 in equity financing.
—Personal-finance gamification startup Bobber Interactive added about $325,000 to its previous round, upping the tally to about $1.4 million.
—Redmond’s Wag Mobile registered a $130,000 round with regulators.
