Venture capital funding surges in Colorado
Venture capital funding surged in Colorado to an 8-year high and rebounded somewhat in the rest of the nation during the second quarter, but companies in the Colorado Springs area failed to snag any of it for the third consecutive quarter, according to two new reports.
Colorado companies raised $295.8 million during the April-to-June quarter, up 43.1 percent from the previous quarter and more than triple the amount raised during the same period a year ago, according to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource. Nearly half of the second quarter’s total for the state went to Boulder-based biotechnology startup Clovis Oncology Inc. and another $40 million went to Louisville-based biotechnology company GlobeImmune Inc.
A second report called The MoneyTree Report said Colorado companies raised $211.1 million. The MoneyTree Report and the Dow Jones report measure venture capital investments in different ways. MoneyTree did not include the GlobeImmune investment, another $40 million received by Englewood-based biofuels startup Gevo Inc. and only $19.2 million of the $30 million invested in Boulder-based Tendril Networks Inc. The second-quarter total was similar to the best quarters of the previous two years, according to the MoneyTree Report.
Nationwide, venture investments totaled $5.27 billion, up 31.7 percent from the $4 billion invested during previous quarter but down 36.7 percent from the $8.33 billion pumped into startups during the same quarter a year ago, according to the Dow Jones report. The MoneyTree Report said nationwide investments rose 15 percent from the previous quarter to $3.7 billion, but were down 50 percent from a year ago.
