Slowdown in Seattle VC Dollars

We have been waiting for this one to happen, and it comes as absolutely no surprise, but John Cook, the venerable technology reporter for the Seattle PI is saying that there is a slow down in Venture Capital money flowing into Seattle. This is no surprise, people have been talking about it for months now, but it is also good to see major reporting from the Seattle PI to go along with it.

We have been thinking about the same issue at techwag, because it is important to the thriving startup community here in Seattle. Slowdown in Silicon Valley this can happen in Seattle too and Will the recession hit Seattle Startups are just couple of articles on the idea that what shows up in Silicon Valley first, will also show up in Seattle. Odds are highly likely that the same slowdowns will also hit in Texas, Boston, and other hot beds around the country.

In Washington, the two reports show radically different numbers, but the general trend in both indicates that startup investing has cooled. According to Venture Source, 23 Washington companies raised $248.9 million during the first quarter. That’s down 37 percent from the same period last year and off 43 percent when compared to the fourth quarter. Venture Blog

In all this makes for some interesting news, and something that all startups regardless of area should be paying attention to when they go out to do their pitches. Money may be tight, so funding people will be looking for the next Google, not the next Facebook application.

Keywords: slowdown, recession, seattle, google, facebook, funding, silicon valley