Electronic Arts’ buyout of PopCap Games is a whopper by most standards. But just how big is it in relation to other M&A deals in the Seattle area? I wanted to put the acquisition — valued at $750 million in upfront payments and up to $1.3 billion over time —  in some deeper perspective. So I reached out to the National Venture Capital Association’s John Taylor to run some numbers on the biggest M&A deals in Washington state in the past decade.

The research turned up some interesting results, and confirmed that the PopCap deal is among the biggest of a venture-backed company. How big?

Just taking the $750 million payout — which excludes the potential earnouts — is more than double the next closest deal.

Interestingly, PopCap is the only game company to appear on the list, which is led by biotech/health and medical device companies (Half of the companies are in that field).

Now, the list isn’t perfect. And close readers of the chart above will notice an obvious omission.

Isilon Systems, which sold to EMC earlier this year for $2.25 billion, is not included. (Although Isilon was backed by venture capital firms such as Atlas Venture, Sequoia Capital and Madrona Venture Group, at the time of the sale it was a publicly-traded company so it didn’t qualify as as a venture-backed deal).

Other deals such as AT&T’s proposed $39 billion buyout of Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA aren’t listed either, since T-Mobile is not considered a venture-backed company.

Previous PopCap coverage on GeekWire:

Q&A: PopCap founder on the EA deal, and the future

Report: PopCap turned down $1B buyout offer from Zynga

PopCap to Fans: EA buyout is good

Meet the venture capitalist who just made a bundle on PopCap’s sale to EA

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