Author: Anna Hensel / Source: VentureBeat
Seattle’s far from a nascent startup ecosystem, but despite the presence of tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon, the city still lags behind other tech ecosystems like Boston and New York City in terms of venture capital raised.
Now, a new indicates that Seattle is starting to make progress on that front.Today, the University Washington Bothell and Seattle-based advisory firm Iinnovate Leadership Network released their annual report on the health of Seattle’s startup and tech ecosystem. First, the good news: according to Iinnovate, Seattle’s VC firms raised the most new funds in 2018 than they had in any other year for about the last 10 years. However, it’s coming as Seattle startups continue to struggle to raise seed stage funding. The number of seed stage VC deals in the area decreased by 14 percent between Q4 2017 and Q4 2018.
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Seattle’s successes and struggles are worth noting because it’s one of the cities that have benefited from tech workers leaving Silicon Valley. And, as Washington, D.C., New York City, and Nashville to a lesser extent hope that the arrival of Amazon will help their tech community grow, Seattle’s ecosystem shows that Amazon’s arrival might not help them in all the ways their tech leaders think it will.
Among the uptick in new Seattle VC funds, a few stand out. First is Madrona Venture Group, which raised a new $300 million fund this year, its seventh. Madrona’s last two funds…
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