Dealmakers were busy over the past 12 months in the Seattle area, with money flowing into IPOs, venture capital rounds and acquisitions. Welcome to the Deal of the Year category in this year’s GeekWire Awards.
This is the most competitive field we’ve seen in this category, including two Seattle area companies that completed IPOs (Impinj and Apptio) and two blockbuster acquisitions of startup companies that raised relatively little in venture capital (Turi and Pitchbook). The field also includes Rover, which scored a massive $40 million venture capital round and then announced the acquisition of its biggest rival, DogVacay. It’s going to be hard to choose among these amazing five finalists.
Make sure to cast your vote below, and a big shout out to the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which is sponsoring the Deal of the Year Category.
Past winners of this award have included: IBM’s acquisition of Blue Box; SAP buying Concur for $8.3 billion; and Zulily’s IPO.
Over the next two weeks, we’re opening voting in 14 GeekWire Awards categories, with GeekWire readers choosing their top picks from finalists selected by our panel of judges from community nominations. Check back on GeekWire each day to cast your ballot. All of the winners will be revealed at the GeekWire Awards — presented by Wave Business — on May 4 at the Museum of Pop Culture. You can vote for Startup of the Year here, and Next Tech titan here.
Tickets are on sale for the big Awards show, but we sell out each year, so don’t snooze if you want to join the fun. Tickets available here. Now, let’s get to the voting
And here are links to the GeekWire stories about each of these deals:
- RFID pioneer Impinj prices IPO at $14, raises $67 million as shares soar.
- Machine learning startup Turi, led by University of Washington computer scientist Carlos Guestrin, sells to Apple for $200 million.
- Venture capital and private equity database PitchBook sells to Morningstar for $225 million after raising just $14 million in venture capital.
- Apptio prices IPO at $16 per share, raising more than $95 million.
- Online pet sitting service Rover.com raises $40 million in venture funding from Foundry, Menlo Ventures, Madrona Venture Group and others, buys rival DogVacay.
