After a major venture funding surge in Connecticut last year, 2015 is off to a much slower start.
Venture capitalists injected only $23.5 million in Connecticut companies during the first quarter of 2015, down from $196.6 million a year earlier. Nationally, venture investment also slowed.
Overall, eight Connecticut companies received funding during the first three months of 2015, compared to 12 a year earlier, according to the latest MoneyTree report, a joint effort of PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), using data from Thomson Reuters.
Avon’s iDevices, which makes app-enabled cooking thermometers and probes, and Milford medical device maker SurgiQuest, were Connecticut’s breadwinners each raising $10 million.
Bloomfield’s LiquidPiston, which announced last month that it signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop efficient and light combustion engines for portable and small applications, and Farmington healthcare software maker Innovatient Solutions were the only other Greater Hartford companies to attract venture funding, raising $1.1 million and $500,000 respectively.
Nationwide venture funding fell 10 percent to $13.4 billion.
Connecticut’s drop-off may not be a huge surprise, considering the surge of venture cash that flooded the state last year, when investors poured $518.2 million in 53 Connecticut companies. That was the highest level of annual investment in the state since 2001.
