October 2019 PNW Venture Deals

Here are the PNW startups that announced new fundraising rounds in the month of October. These 18 companies raised $480M+ last month!

Series B and Later Rounds 🚀

• Vacasa - full-service vacation rental management services - $319M Series C led by Silver Lake
• ESS - cleanest, low-cost, long-duration energy storage systems - $30M Series C led by Breakthrough Energy and Softbank Energy
• Ally - scalable OKR software for startups, teams, and enterprises - $15M Series B led by Tiger Global

Series A Rounds 🛫

• Icosavax - computationally designed virus-like particle vaccines - $51M Series A led by Qiming Venture Partners
• Twistle - unified, streamlined platform for patient engagement - $16M Series A by MemorialCare and Health Enterprise Partners
• Modus - software to automate title and escrow process in real estate transactions - $12.5M Series A led by NFX
• Shujinko - cloud compliance software intended to secure cloud environments - $7.5M Series A led by Unusual Ventures
• SEngine Precision Medicine - diagnostic platform for personalizing cancer treatments - $5.1M Series A led by Bangarang Group
• Pela Case - compostable smartphone cases - $5M deal led by Marcy Venture Partners (Jay-Z’s VC firm)
• Integris Software - automated data compliance software intended to help companies manage data privacy - $3M round
• The Dyrt - campground search and review platform - $1.1M Series A

Seed Rounds 🌱

• Logixboard - customer engagement platform for freight forwarding - $4.2M Seed led by Social Leverage
• OctoML - end-to-end stack for optimizing and deploying ML models - $3.9M Seed led by Madrona
• Tenacious Entertainment - mobile game studio developing a competitive arena combat game - $3.3M Seed
• Beatdapp - blockchain platform to help music labels and artists track songs to collect royalties - $3.2M Seed led by Panache Ventures
• Koan - simple, collaborative approach to manage goals and OKRs - $3M Seed led by Uncork Capital and Crosslink
• Blue Canoe Learning - AI app to help non-native English speakers improve their pronunciation - $2.5M Seed led by Tsingyuan Ventures
• Apex Trading - trading platform for wholesale cannabis operations - $1.67M Seed led by 7thirty and Welcan
• Dewey Scientific - breeding services, terpene diagnostics, and genomic analysis for cannabis growers - $1.25M Seed

Some observations from me on this list:

• Congrats to Vacasa - the newest PNW unicorn! Their $319M raise was the largest PNW venture financing in the last three years, and they are the 34th unicorn in the DL’s PNW unicorn tracker
• OKRs are 🔥. Two startups that help manage OKRs raised money this month (Ally and Koan). Hit reply, and tell me what you think of OKRs
• It’s spinout month - OctoML is Madrona’s 18th UW spinout! And…
• Icosavax is a UW spinout, Shujinko is a PSL spinout, SEngine is a Fred Hutch spinout, Blue Canoe is an AI2 incubator grad, and Dewey is a WSU spinout

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