It's been a mild summer in the Capital, but for a few D.C. companies, it's been hot, with loads and loads of cash thrown their way. And while Labor Day unofficially counts as the end of the summer months, technically fall doesn't start until the 21st. So in honor of a last ditch summer celebration, here are six companies who made the most of summer with huge fundings:
- Intrexon ($160 million) – The Blacksburg-based biotech company (author's note: go Hokies!) recently transplanted itself into the D.C. scene with offices in Germantown, Md., after going public. Currently valued at $1.52 billion, the bioindustrial engineering company is innovating DNA technology to control biological molecules and work with cell types across a broad range of species.
- Applied Predictive Technologies ($100 million) – In June, Goldman Sachs put $100 million into Applied Predictive Technologies, who claims to be the world's largest purely cloud-based predictive analytics software company. Arlington-based APT revolutionizes the way big companies use big data through measuring the profit impact of decision-making and optimizing returns on investment.
- Clarabridge ($80 million) – Just this week, Clarabridge – the Reston-based analytics firm – closed an $80 million private equity and venture round from three investors: Summit Partners, General Catalyst Partners and Yuchun Lee, founder of Unica Corp. After doing so, CEO Sid Banerjee also hinted at the possibility of a near-future IPO for his company.
- Audax Health ($20 million) – This K Street healthcare startup grabbed $20 million from a variety of investors in late August to close a Series B round. Based on the platform Zensey, Audax uses data and social media to create lifestyle plans for its users, allowing them to connect and compete with others like them, track progress towards goals, and earn rewards through the HIPAA-compliant platform.
- Optoro ($23.5 million) – Local venture stars Grotech and Revolution put $23.5 million into Optoro's Series B round, which ended in July. One of the coolest companies out there, Optoro helps other companies with asset recovery by solving the problem of waste through customer returns, overstock and refurbished items.
- Virtustream, Inc. ($40 million) – Also this week, SAPcompletely funded Virtustream's Series D round with $40 million. The cloud-solution providing company will look now to build on its brainchild product, xStream, a highly secure, high performance enterprise class cloud solution for private, virtual private, public and hybrid clouds.
These big fundings go to show that the D.C. startup scene is not only growing, but thriving, and in a well-rounded way. Most of these companies hit on different fields of innovation, though there was some overlap. Still, it goes to show that entrepreneurs are not just looking to climb the wall of bureaucracy to get loads of government funding, but rather innovate in all sectors, both private and public.
