Venture-capital funding in Washington and the nation had a strong run in the second quarter, according to two reports released last week.
Washington companies brought in $359.2 million in 32 deals in the past three months, a nearly 62 percent increase from the same quarter last year and more than double what investors dished out last quarter, according to the MoneyTree report being released Friday by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
Except for the fourth quarter of 2013, when Juno Therapeutics of Seattle received a whopping $120 million, the past quarter was the best showing since the fourth quarter of 2007.
Coupled with the steady number of deals Washington continues to receive and the initial public offerings coming out of the state, Washington is in a healthy position, said Stephen Sommerville, an assurance partner in the Seattle office of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“And it doesn’t appear at this point to be petering out anytime soon,” he said.
The nation outpaced the state with an 80 percent increase in investments compared with the second quarter of 2013. The report, based on data from Thomson Reuters, said venture capitalists invested almost $13 billion in 1,114 deals during the quarter, compared with $7.2 billion in 1,000 deals the year before.
The total amount invested nationally marked the largest quarterly total since $13.1 billion was invested in the first quarter of 2001.
“Before alarmists declare a repeat of the dot-com bubble, it’s important to keep in mind that a lot of this activity was driven by a handful of eye-popping investment rounds, including a record-setting funding round of $1.2 billion,” said Bobby Franklin, president and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association.
That $1.2 billion went to San Francisco-based Uber Technologies, the ride-services company that recently began offering services in Vancouver.
The Uber deal is the largest quarterly investment recorded by the MoneyTree report since it began reporting on venture-capital investing in 1995.
Dow Jones reported $364.4 million invested in Washington companies during the quarter, a 21 percent increase from the second quarter last year — but more than three times the increase from quarter to quarter.
According to the MoneyTree report, the majority of Washington’s deals involved the software industry, which captured 14 of the 32 deals. The industry also claimed the largest amount of investment dollars — $140.1 million.
The next largest was media and entertainment, with $52 million in six deals.
