A medical device startup has $1.1 million in funding with goals to raise nearly $5 million as 2012 got off to a promising start with a small flurry of venture capital deals in Fairfield County.
SafeOp Surgical Inc. lists the same address in Stamford as Tullis Healthcare Investors, which recently disclosed that it is an investor in the company without furnishing more detail. SafeOp does not list a website; Tullis partner Curt Labelle, who is listed as the sole executive of SafeOp in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, did not immediately respond to a call at deadline on the startup”™s plans.
Despite Connecticut gearing up to unleash venture capital spending with matching state funding and create business accelerators like the new Stamford Innovation Center, total venture dollars dropped sharply in the fourth quarter according to the year-end MoneyTree report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P. and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.
Venture capitalists nationally increased spending 22 percent from 2010 to reach the third highest total in the past 10 years, PWC, NVCA and Thomson Reuters calculated.
In Connecticut, 12 companies received approximately nearly $15 million in funding during the fourth quarter of 2011, the latter figure off 60 percent from a year earlier. That amount does not include the full $3.3 million reported to the SEC in January by Norwalk-based Zadspace Inc., however, with the MoneyTree survey listing the company”™s funding at just $600,000. Zadspace offers to place targeted ads on parcel shipping labels.
Since the start of the year, other local companies have raised funding. Westport-based MyCare Inc. got a $1 million commitment from Connecticut Innovations and Intersection Health Partners as it readies search engines to comb medical records.
Norwalk-based LogicSource raised $2 million with the goal of securing $5 million in all, as it helps companies like arts and crafts retailers Michaels Stores Inc.”™s procure printed materials and performs other outsourced business processes. LogicSource”™s investors include Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures.
And through an affiliate, Stamford-based LiveClips raised $2.1 million while selling an app that allows people to relay or receive on mobile devices video clips of big plays at sporting events.
A larger number of Connecticut companies appear to be receiving backing at the startup phase, according to Owen Davis, a partner in the Stamford office of PWC. That is a needed area of investment that the state has worked to bolster through a tax credit for angel investors and through its Connecticut Innovations Inc. venture capital fund in Rocky Hill.
Davis said despite fewer dollars spread across more companies, the number of deals under way remains encouraging. The costs of starting a high-tech venture are lower today in part due to savings offered by cloud computing platforms that make applications and data available on demand across varying devices.
“An interesting thing is happening right now with technology companies,” Davis said. “With the cloud, it”™s not taking as much to invest in ”¦ startup businesses.”
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Sheila Carmine