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Print Edition StoriesTuesday, March 9, 2010
Report: Mobile VC dollars plummeted in 2009
By Mass High Tech staff
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Venture capital dollars stayed away from mobile technology companies in droves in 2009, according to a report issued yesterday by the industry group Mobile Monday Boston. VCs put $338.65 million into local mobile plays in 2009, slightly more than half of 2008’s number of $565.28 million.
Deal flow overall was up, however, as the dollar volume in M&A deals involving local mobile companies soared to $1.16 billion, more than double the amount in 2008 of $473.4 million. When those two numbers are combined, the total investment in mobile firms jumped to $1.49 in 2009 from $1.01 billion in 2008.
The low dollars coming from VCs marked a drop to numbers not seen since 2005, the Mobile Monday data shows.
Among the notable M&A deals last year that helped cause the spike in that number were:
72 Mobile Holdings LLC’s purchase of Chelmsford’s Airvana Inc. for $530 million;
Burlington-based Acme Packet’s $22.8 million buy of Convergence Inc. of Maynard;
E Ink Corp. of Cambridge selling to Taiwanese company Prime View International for $215 million; and
Compuware’s $295 million purchase of Lexington’s Gomez Inc.
The number of New England mobile companies involved in a deal also dropped in 2009 to 38, from an industry high of 45 in 2008, the report shows. That mirrors the overall trend in all New England tech industries the report states, citing its data from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ MoneyTree Report.
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