text: Colorado venture-capital funding drops in 2013 – The Denver Post
  PUBLISHED: January 16, 2014 at 1:42 pm | UPDATED: June 9, 2016 at 1:12 pm
  Venture-capital funding in Colorado last year reached its lowest levels in nearly a decade, with significantly less money making its way to fewer companies than in 2012 and 2011, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association.
  Venture capitalists provided $414.8 million across 79 deals in Colorado last year. That compares with 105 deals raising $589 million for Colorado firms in 2012, according to the report, which is based on data from Thomson Reuters.
  The deal count and dollar volume not only are the lowest the state has seen since 2004 but also counter the national trend, which showed a 7 percent jump in venture-capital funding last year.
  "It is definitely a Colorado thing," said Keith Parsons, a partner with PwC in Denver who oversees the accounting firm's technology practice in the region.
  Parsons said several factors could be at play. Colorado has a small contingent of venture-capital firms, and out-of-state financiers may be more focused on their backyards.
  While venture-capital firms directed more funds to early-stage firms as the year went on, they are providing zero seed funding. Many of Colorado's most promising companies are in the very early stages and may be turning to angel investors or crowdsourcing, he said.
  Another problem appears to be the mix of emerging companies in Colorado. Telecommunications, an important industry in the state, received only $5 million last year in venture funding, and that went to Tensorcomm, a Westminster wireless company.
  Clean energy, another industry the state has emphasized, no longer has the appeal it once did with venture firms, Parsons said.
  Software was the top industry funded in the state last year, to the tune of $104.3 million. Media and entertainment firms, which are trying to capitalize on the shift to mobile devices, garnered $67.4 million.
  The largest funding amount in the fourth quarter, $35 million, went to Denver-based Sympoz, an early-stage media-and-entertainment company backed by Adams Street Partners and the Foundry Group.