Investors are making bets on Seattle companies including family organizer Cozi and X2Impact, which aims to prevent sports head injuries, while angel groups the Keiretsu Form Northwest and Northwest Energy Angels closed the books on 2012. And what happens if you locate an accelerator inside an incubator? An accelerbator? An inculator? 9Mile Labs and SURF Incubator aim to find out. Read on for details on all that and more:
—Family organizer Cozi has raised $5.8 million, according to an SEC filing. Our past coverage of Cozi and prior SEC filings suggest total investment in the Seattle software and services company is now about $32.6 million since its founding in 2005. I’ve asked the company to confirm those numbers and provide details on this latest investment round and will update as appropriate.
—X2Impact, a Seattle company pairing sensors and software to detect concussions in football and other contact sports, has raised $2.1 million, filling out an equity round that began last summer, according to an SEC filing. The company sold equity to 18 investors. It previously raised about $2 million through convertible debt. Last fall, it landed a deal to provide its Concussion Management System software, which uses Windows Azure, to NFL teams.
—Angel investors affiliated with the Keiretsu Forum Northwest pumped $20.1 million into 34 companies in 2012, down from $24 million and 36 companies in 2011 (a record bolstered by significant investment in real estate companies). Twenty-seven of the 2012 investments were made in Northwest-based companies. By category, tech businesses claimed 43 percent of Keiretsu Northwest investment, followed by life sciences (30 percent), real estate funds (20 percent), and consumer/retail (7 percent). Keiretsu now has chapters in Seattle, Kirkland, Portland, Boise, Spokane, and Vancouver, B.C., and added 85 new members in 2012, bringing total participation to 250.
—The Northwest Energy Angels invested nearly $4.7 million in 15 companies last year, a record for the cleantech investing group, as we reported in December. Eight new investments spanned sectors including lighting, energy efficiency, data management, and power electronics. NWEA’s elevated activity in 2012 came against the backdrop of declining venture investment in cleantech. “We will continue to be a unique and valuable resource for clean technology entrepreneurs seeking seed capital for innovative new products and technologies,” says Lars Johansson, NWEA co-chair, in a statement.
—Nascent startup accelerator 9Mile Labs will hold its initial class in the SURF Incubator space near Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. The business-to-business focused accelerator program has also extended its application deadline to Feb. 22, in part to accommodate interest from entrepreneurs working out of the SURF space. 9Mile Labs had earlier eyed an Eastside location for the accelerator. Partner Sanjay Puri tells Xconomy that the “objective is to blur this Eastside vs. Seattle divide, it’s needless and counterproductive.” 9Mile is maintaining its Bellevue office, where mentor/entrepreneur meetings will be held. It is also contemplating holding its demo day on the Eastside, and considering running its fall cohort there, too, Puri says. He praised the SURF Incubator facilities, which opened last year and are now expected to be at full capacity by May.
—Startups located at the SURF Incubator will be in good company, as a new map of technology businesses in Pioneer Square illustrates. Bryan Rush at Colliers International prepared the map, which lists upwards of 100 businesses from startups to established giants. It would be interesting to see other enterprising real estate pros prepare similar maps of other hot Seattle tech neighborhoods such as Fremont, Capitol Hill, the Eastside, and South Lake Union.
—Washington will have at least 17 companies at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to the Washington State Department of Commerce, which helps businesses based in the state develop export markets, the following companies will attend the show: 9SLIDES, appenique, Asentria Corporation, Bsquare, Buddy, CENTRI, Etelu, Excelerate Systems, General UI, Glympse, INRIX, Medio, RootMetrics, UIEvolution, Viafo, WildTangent, Zoomingo.
—Leanplum, a service to help companies rapidly optimize mobile applications, and a graduate of the 2012 TechStars Seattle class, has raised $825,000 from angel investors including Kima Ventures and VoiVoda Ventures. The company, co-founded by former Google engineers, has relocated to San Francisco.
—If you’ve got the chops to land an internship with Microsoft Research, you can expect to be paid $7,050 a month, according to Glassdoor’s report on companies hiring interns. One would assume that the job will require more than fetching coffee—maybe something along the lines of building a robot barista. Amazon offers software development engineer interns $5,564 a month, while financial analyst interns at the retail giant can expect $3,138. At Nordstrom, an intern might earn $2,000 a month. Interns give Google the highest rating in the Glassdoor report (and say it’s the toughest interview). Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, and Qualcomm, share the next-highest rating, followed by Nordstrom in a tie with GE, PwC, and Intel.
