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Posts Tagged ‘Medical Devices’

Norwest Venture Partners raises $1.2B fund

Norwest Venture Partners has has raised a new venture fund of $1.2 billion — the eleventh fund in the firm’s history, and its largest.

Managing partner Promod Haque says the new money will help the firm expand — in terms of geography, industry, and the type of deal it gets involved with. The fund is so much larger than Norwest’s $650 million tenth fund because many of the new strategies that Norwest started pursuing in the last few years are bearing fruit.

Geographically, the firm has been expanding beyond the United States, with offices in India and Israel, as well as investments in China. It’s also adding health informatics and medical devices to the already varied group of industries it invests in. And it’s looking to expand beyond its traditional early-stage focus into growth investments in later-stage companies.

In each case, Norwest has added staff to make the expansion happen, and Haque is emphatic that Norwest isn’t abandoning any of its existing investment areas. For example, growth equity investments are a natural next step as its portfolio companies mature, but Norwest also has two first-round deals in the works.

“We’re not changing emphasis, we’re adding some stuff,” he said.

Norwest has invested in 450 companies in its 48-year history. Recent successes include Rackspace, the hosting company that went public last year, and LifeSize Communications, which was recently acquired by LogiTech.

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Athena captures $2M for women’s health services

Athena Feminine Technologies, provider of medical devices tailored to women — particularly to treat incontinence — has raised $2 million in a first round of preferred stock from vSpring Capital. Based in Emeryville, Calif., the company plans to use the money to build its sales and marketing operations.

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Venture Capital Dollars Stabilize in Second Quarter at Mid-1990s Levels

Venture capital dollars going to startups in the U.S. stabilized in the second quarter at $3.7 billion, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The venture money invested in the quarter is still only about half of what it was a year ago (when it was $7.2 billion in the second quarter of 2008), but is 15 percent above the low point in the first quarter of 2009 (when it was $3.5 billion). All in all, VC investments are trending at mid-1990s levels, which isn’t such a bad thing.

The average deal size came up a little bit to $6 million, from $5.3 million last quarter. Seed and early stage investing picked up after venture capitalists fled to the perceived safety of later-stage investments in recent previous quarters.

The rebound, if you want to call it that, hasn’t hit the Internet sector yet. Internet deals brought in only $524 million in the quarter, down from $593 million the quarter before and $1.7 billion a year ago. Clean tech isn’t doing so hot either, with only $274 million invested during the second quarter compared to $911 million a year ago. Most of the action came from biotech and medical devices, which saw bigger jumps in funding during the quarter to $88 million and $628 million, respectively.

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