Venture capital investments in Washington state tumbled during the third quarter, falling to $374.5 million as investors bankrolled 30 deals. That was down from $447 million invested in the previous quarter, and off from $666 million for first quarter of the year.
It is also down nine percent from $411 million for the same period last year.
Nationwide, venture capital investments rose three percent to $19 billion, while the number of deals decreased 11 percent to 931, according to the latest report from DowJones Venture Source.
The report comes amid increasing chatter of a bubble forming in tech circles, primarily around so-called unicorn companies that have raised gigantic financing rounds at valuations of $1 billion or more. At the GeekWire Summit last week, nearly every CEO and venture capitalist expressed concern (or at least indicated) that a bubble was forming.
“There’s just so much venture capital chasing those unicorns, driving up those valuations, because of the fear of missing out, and because more private capital has moved into that late-stage venture asset class,” noted Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, an angel investor who also noted that it is still tough to raise early-stage financing as a startup.
(Previously on GeekWire: Is the tech bubble about to burst? Investors and CEOs offer their take on key question for industry)
Research firm CB Insights reports that there are now 142 private tech companies worth $1 billion or more — big names like Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat, Dropbox and SpaceX.
These companies have opted to avoid the public markets, instead raising huge sums from private investors. Uber alone is valued at $51 billion, about the same as H-P.
During the third quarter, just 12 venture-backed companies completed public offerings. That was a 56 percent drop in number of deals compared to the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, a new report out from Mattermark, which tracks venture capital activity, found that there is indeed a slow down occurring in the venture capital market.
“Based on the past 4 weeks of U.S. funding announcements, which totaled $5.6 Billion, if Q4 funding activity were to continue at the current pace the total capital deployed would be $17.5 Billion,” the report said. “This a 20% decline from Q3 and just above Q4 2014, which saw $16B deployed.”
Overall, according to the VentureSource report, California received the biggest haul in venture capital dollars during the quarter: A whopping $11.4 billion.
That was followed by Massachusetts ($2 billion); New York ($1.7 billion); Florida ($495 million) and Texas ($376 million).
Oregon saw $88 million invested across four deals, with the majority of the money flowing to Bend, Oregon-based G5. The digital marketing company raised $76 million in August.
Some of the largest deals in the Seattle area during the quarter included funds for Avvo, Chef and PicMonkey.
