An infusion of new venture capital to Utah companies in this year's second quarter pushed investment to one of its highest levels in three years, according to the MoneyTree Survey.
In the three months ended June 30, seven Utah companies captured $57 million — the largest amount of money raised in a second quarter since 2001 and a 159 percent increase compared to $22 million raised during the same quarter in 2003.
Second-quarter investments also showed a marked turnaround from revised figures released for this year's first quarter, which showed $17 million in venture funding.
Draper-based Control4, a maker of home automation products, led Utah deals with a $15 million investment by multiple investors, including Salt Lake-based vSpring Capital, which contributed $4.5 million.
Other investments to Utah companies included:
Orem-based Omniture Inc. captured $14.5 million by Hummer WinBlad Venture Partners of San Francisco.
Orem-based Senforce Technologies, $12.4 million.
Provo-based IMCentric Inc., $5.1 million.
Q Therapeutics Inc., $4.5 million.
Salt Lake-based Infopia Inc., $3 million.
Ingeo Systems of Logan, specializing in digital map technology, secured $2.5 million.
"Things have turned around," said Steven Stauffer, senior audit manager of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Salt Lake City. "A lot of the money received this quarter was to early-stage companies. VCs have the capital to contribute to these companies. They are starting to focus more on early-stage companies rather than just trying to salvage their investments in their existing companies."
Utah's average deal size at $7.4 million surpassed the national average of $7.3 million. But the state's percentage of total U.S. venture investments remains low, at 0.69 percent.
Josh James, chief executive officer and co-founder of Omniture, which tracks Web site traffic, said it remains difficult to attract funding as a Utah company.
"It's been very hard," James said. "There's not enough VCs in Utah to create competition. So if you've got one person in the VC community that doesn't like you personally or your company, good luck getting funding in the state."
Omniture, which has raised a total of $27 million since its founding in 1996, has been profitable for the past 20 months. The latest round of funding, James said, will be used to shore up the company's balance sheet. He expects Omniture will go public in a couple years.
Nationally, total dollar value of venture investments increased to $5.6 billion in the second quarter, up 17 percent from $4.8 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
The software and biotechnology industries easily outpaced other industries in the number of deals and investments. Across the country, 212 deals representing $1.2 billion were made to software companies. Biotechnology firms captured 85 deals in $923 million.
The MoneyTree Survey — a cooperative effort of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association — captures only equity investments and excludes deals that involve debt, bridge loans, recapitalizations, roll ups, initial public offerings or "angel" investments.
E-mail: danderton@desnews.com