TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

AdReady, the Seattle online advertising startup, has landed an additional $5.3 million in financing, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The new money comes five months after former aQuantive executive Karl Siebrecht took over the reins as CEO.

Logo for the Richland H.S. Bombers

The Tri-Cities grew to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s with the founding of Hanford, which produced the plutonium used in the first nuclear bomb. Now, two former wireless executives are hoping to help transform the Tri-Cities into a hotbed of innovative technologies that could actually help save the planet.

Former McCaw Cellular executives Wayne Perry and Cal Cannon are spending about $10 million of their own money to build a new Innovation Center for emerging companies in the clean tech sector, reports The Puget Sound Business Journal's Steve Wilhelm. [Subscription required]. The Richland facility, which could welcome the first tenants in the next 12 months and span some 7.9 acres, is located next to the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

I always get a kick out of seeing startups in their own environments. That's why I loved this short video from Zpop Media's Scott Weiss, who goes behind the scenes at the Founder's Co-op in Seattle.

In the video, you'll see everything from dogs wandering around to Founder's Co-op general partner Chris DeVore pouring whiskey drinks. Just one question: Isn't Maker's Mark too high-end for startups? I thought they'd be drinking something like Early Times.

Weiss is planning to shoot more videos of startup life in the coming months, and we'll showcase those here on TechFlash.

The Seattle 2.0 Awards are less than three weeks away. We're excited to be a media sponsor of the startup celebration this year, and as part of that we've got an opportunity to give away tickets for the big show.

If you want the free tickets, all you have to do is answer this trivia question about keynote speaker Jonathan Sposato of Picnik: Sposato is well known for selling two startup companies to Google. But what was the entrepreneur's first job in the technology industry?

Sposato

Astute readers of TechFlash will have an edge on this one, and if you need a hint just let me know in the comments. The first person to email me at johncook@bizjournals.com with the correct response will win two tickets. Please include your contact information. (Editor's note: Post updated with the contest winner, as well as the correct answer to the trivia question).

ReVolt Technologies, a maker of rechargeable Zinc-air batteries which is moving its headquarters from Switzerland to Portland, has received one of the largest federal research grants in the latest funding round from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. ARPA-E, as the agency is known, yesterday announced $106 million for 37 projects.

ReVolt, which raised just over $5 million, wasn't the only organization with ties to the Pacific Northwest to receive funds. ARPA-E also awarded $6 million to a joint project between the University of Washington and University of California, Berkeley. The project is tied to a Boston company created by five MIT PhDs called Gingko BioWorks, which is developing ways to engineer the E. coli organism into the liquid fuel isooctane. ARPA-E said that isooctane works well with the U.S. transportation system.

Sure, you've got a plan for a tech startup. You're going to revolutionize the world, and make billions in the process. Join the club. Thousands of people are thinking the same thing. Ideas are cheap. The real challenge is crafting a 15-page business plan and convincing some banker or venture capitalist to fund your big idea.

Or is it? At our next TechFlash Live event, June 15, we'll examine that conventional wisdom -- exploring the creative ways people are building businesses in 2010, and looking ahead to how new generations of entrepreneurs will shape the groundbreaking ventures of the future. Tickets available for purchase here.

Harding

Some of Seattle's most prominent angel investors and venture capital firms are lining up behind Bonanzle, a 2-year-old company which has created a fast-growing (and profitable) marketplace where small merchants can sell everything from purses and antiques to jewelry and collectibles. Until now, founder Bill Harding has bootstrapped the startup, growing it into an up-and-coming force in e-commerce with 250,000 registered users and nearly two million unique visitors a month.

"For 'normal' startups, raising money from investors is usually one of the first matters to get taken care of," writes Bonanzle founder Bill Harding in a blog post. "If not for the strong support of our community and dear old Google search, we would have needed to do this a year ago. But because of Bonanzle's fast-spreading reputation (and thus sales), we have been able to bide our time and wait until we saw a deal that was simply too good to pass up."

Eric Fogel of Emergent Detection pitches his idea at the UW business plan competition.

So many business plans, so little time. That's how I felt after stepping into the University of Washington's HUB Ballroom today for the Michael G. Foster School's annual Business Plan Competition. The event offered a true smorgasbord of innovative startup ideas, with three dozen entrepreneurial teams vying for the attention -- not to mention the virtual dollars -- of more than 200 judges made up of Seattle area lawyers, venture capitalists, journalists and entrepreneurs.

I too had the distinct honor of being one of the judges, helping to whittle the field down from 32 to 16 teams. It wasn't an easy task, and some of the judges I spoke to (Enrique Godreau of Voyager Capital, Gauruv Oberoi of Precision Polling and Rob Brown of Zino Society) said they were impressed with how far some of the teams had come. There certainly was entrepreneurial diversity in the room, from a developer of a mobile translation services to a maker of premium vodkas to a creator of an environmentally-friendly road surface.

I brought my handy video recorder along and took some short videos of the pitches I saw. Also, below you'll find descriptions of the 16 teams that advanced to the final round where real prize money is on the line. That event will take place May 27.

A press release issued today from the Washington State Department of Commerce caused me to do a double take. The headline read: "Washington tax system is 5th best for entrepreneurship and small business."

Yep, you read that right. According to a new report out today from the nonprofit Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, Washington has one of the most entrepreneur-friendly tax systems in the country.

Bellevue-based Intelius has quietly purchased US Search, a longtime rival in the people and records search business.

Ed Peterson, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Intelius, said the acquisition closed late last month. It was not publicly announced at that time because Intelius remains in a quiet period awaiting an initial public offering.

"We have been chatting on and off with the US Search crew for quite a while," said Peterson in an interview with TechFlash today. "It is a great company. They have a great brand. And they are sort of the godfather of the public records space." [Posted updated with comments from Intelius' rival WhitePages]

Spiration, a Redmond medical device company working on treatments for emphysema, has secured $6.5 million in debt financing, according to a filing with the SEC. The company confirmed the amount, and noted in an email to TechFlash that the money would be used to continue funding clinical studies as well as sales of its IBV Valve System.

Garden.com attracted more than $100 million in venture capital during the late nineties, going on to raise another $49 million through an initial public offering in 1999. But, like so many of the high-flying startups of that era, the Austin, Texas startup withered and died. In 2001, Walmart and gardening company W. Atlee Burpee & Co. gobbled up the assets for just $4 million.

Now, Garden.com co-founder Cliff Sharples is cultivating a new idea. It's called DigtheDirt.com, and it is picking up where the Internet entrepreneur last left off.

"I am so excited to be in the gardening space again," said Sharples, who now calls the Seattle area home.

Bezos

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Dell Computer founder Michael Dell and comedian Drew Carey are among the new investors in Qliance Medical Management, a Seattle startup that's trying to shake up the health care industry by delivering high-quality and affordable primary care to patients by eliminating insurance companies from the process. Qliance today is announcing $6 million in fresh capital, bringing total funding in the 4-year-old health care provider to $13.5 million. The cash will fuel an expansion at Qliance, which is looking to open new clinics in Washington state this year and expand to a second state next year.

Dell

Bezos, Dell and Carey represent one of the more interesting investment syndicates we've seen in some time. But their involvement starts to make sense when you realize that Qliance was initially bankrolled by Nick Hanauer, the Seattle venture capitalist who was one of the earliest backers of Amazon.com.

Michael May has been named vice president of sales at DataSphere Technologies, a Bellevue company that is developing a hyperlocal blogging and online advertising platform. May most recently served as vice president of Qwest's Small Business Sales and Service group and before that worked at MCI.

Isilon Systems, the Seattle maker of digital storage technologies, has appointed Chee Keong Chan as vice president of sales for the Asia Pacific region. Chan previously worked at NetApp and Data Domain, competitors to Isilon. The company also announced that the Beijing Genomics Institute at Shenzhen has deployed more than one petabyte of storage via Isilon as part of its DNA sequencing efforts.

Novinium has moved its corporate headquarters from Kent to Federal Way, getting out of the Green River flood plain and doubling the amount of office space in the process to 8,000 square feet. The company -- led by CEO Glen Bertini -- has developed a technology to revitalize underground cable wires.

The Msnbc Digital Network today unveiled a new mobile site designed for smarthphones, allowing users to easily watch video or set content categories. The site is kicking off with Hilton Hotels as an inaugural advertising sponsor. In addition, the company's hyperlocal news service EveryBlock also unveiled a new mobile offering today.

Market Leader, the Kirkland company that provides online marketing tools to real estate agents, today posted revenue of $5.8 million and a net loss of $3.4 million. That compares to a net loss of $2.8 million for the same period last year. Shares of the company were down more than four percent, trading at $2.20. It finished the quarter with $49 million in cash and cash equivalents.

Redfin's Scott Nagel chats with NPR's Tess Vigeland about the history of the company as well as the initial reaction to the product from the real estate industry. Full transcript and audio interview here.

Seattle Genetics today reported "strong" financial results for the first quarter, posting revenues that increased by more than five fold over the same period last year and net income of $11.5 million. The biotech company saw revenue soar to $46.5 million, up from $9.1 million during the first quarter of last year. The revenue surge was boosted in part by a collaboration deal with Genentech. The company's cash position also was strengthened -- to $331 million -- driven in part by payments from Millennium and GlaxoSmithKline.

Alley Insider's Chart of the Day shows how Amazon.com's revenue is diversifying, with less than half of sales now coming from books, movies and music.

EnerG2, a University of Washington spinout that is developing advanced materials to increase energy storage in electric vehicles, has raised an additional $3.5 million in financing, according to a filing with the SEC. The investment follows a $21 million federal grant which EnerG2 announced last summer, money that the Seattle startup said it planned to use to build a facility in Albany, Oregon to produce "high energy density nano-carbon for ultracapacitors."