Convoy’s latest investment round was the largest for a Seattle-area startup in the past three years.
The 3-year-old trucking startup reeled in a whopping $185 million in new funding on Friday. Google’s late-stage venture capital arm, CapitalG, led the round, which was the fourth-largest ever for a Washington-based company. The fresh cash propelled Convoy to unicorn status with a $1 billion-plus valuation, one of few Seattle-area startups to reach that milestone.
But other local companies are certainly still reeling in dough. Seattle-area startups raised a combined $793 million during Q2, the highest since 2015, and the second-largest amount since the dot-com era, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. That’s up from $591 million the quarter prior, and more than double from Q4 of 2017.
Though venture capital dollars are flowing in at near-record numbers, most of the cash is going to more mature startups. And while total amount invested increased, deal count stayed flat — there aren’t necessarily many more startups in the region compared to years past, but companies are raising larger rounds.
Seattle companies are drawing more attention from out-of-town investors and particularly from Silicon Valley firms, which participated in 69 investments for Seattle-area startups in 2017, up from 28 deals in 2009.
Here are the top financing rounds in 2018 for Seattle startups after Convoy, according to data provided by PitchBook and past GeekWire reporting:
- Rover ($155 million)
- Spaceflight Industries ($150 million)
- Dreambox Learning ($130 million)
- Remitly ($115 million, completed in February)
- Privateer Holdings ($100 million)
- Qumulo ($93 million)
- Outreach ($65 million)
- Nohla Therapeutics ($56 million)
- Auth0 ($55 million)
- RealSelf ($40 million)
