Eighteen Pittsburgh companies raised $78.27 million in venture capital in the third quarter of 2009, a show of strength that has again bucked the national trend.
Nationally, $4.8 billion was invested in 637 deals in the third quarter of 2009, a 17 percent increase in terms of dollars but a three percent drop in the number of deals compared to the second quarter of 2009. The increase was driven by several large rounds in the Clean Technology sector and a strong showing by Life Science companies, according to the MoneyTree Report and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).
Innovation Works played a significant role in all but two of the companies that received funds. Sixteen are IW portfolio companies. The deals included both direct and indirect follow on investment received from outside or out-of-town investors.
"This shows how strong our pipeline is in the region for innovation and technology," says Matt Harbaugh of IW. "There's a continuum of funding from the earliest stage through the (larger) VC funds."
IW was active in nine deals totaling $27.55 million this quarter. The companies included Alung Technologies, $2.5 million; Blue Belt Technologies, $2.4 million; Silicon Vox, $200,000; Compliance Assurance, $100,000; Bueda, $50,000 and four undisclosed companies.
Other companies included Vocollect, $15 million; Plextronics, $15 million; Avere Systems, $7.63 million; Dynamics Inc. $5.70 million; Thermal Therapeutics Systems, $2.75 million; Carnegie Speech, $2.65 million; ShowClix $57,000; Knopp Neurosciences $20,000 and Glucose Sensing Tech, renamed VyTrace, $150,000.
Of the total, nine are IT firms, seven are Life Sciences and two are Energy firms.
"In a tough national economic environment, Pittsburgh is fairing very well and I think it speaks to the quality of the deals here and tremendous deal flow," says Rich Lunak, president and CEO of IW. "While we've been impacted, we're in many ways performing better than the rest of the country."
Writer:
Debra Diamond SmitSource: Rich Lunak and Matt Harbaugh, Innovation Works; Emily Mendell, NVCA
IW Chairman Ron Bianchini, president and CEO of Avere Systems
Photo courtesy of Innovation Works