Baltimore companies raised $100M from VCs in the first quarter of 2018

Venture capitalists invested $100 million in Baltimore companies over the first quarter of 2018, getting the year off to a strong start.
According to data from the most recent MoneyTree report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and CB Insights, the total was more than 6 times the amount invested in the first quarter of 2017.
The bulk of the investment went to five companies:

• $40 million for Dracen Pharmaceuticals, a Johns Hopkins spinout developing cancer-fighting drugs which attracted most of its investment from New York–based Deerfield Management.
• Catalyte’s $27 million round, which is helping the company using data to hire software engineers acquire another company and expand to more cities.
• eNeura Therapeutics’ $17 million Series D, which followed FDA clearance for the company’s device to treat migraines, and included participation by the Abell Foundation and Camden Partners Nexus.
• Protenus’ $11 million Series B, which will help the healthcare data protection company expand sales and hire more people.
• Tissue Analytics‘ $5 million Series A, which was led by San Francisco–based DigiTX Partners and came as the company opened a new office in Kansas City.

The big numbers for Baltimore mirrored a big quarter for Maryland overall. The data states $405 million total was invested across the state, with $250 million of that coming to Gaithersburg-based biotech a company Viela Bio as it spun out of MedImmune. That total is double the first quarter of last year.
Overall, the MoneyTree report showed larger rounds were becoming more prevalent, but the number of deals decreasing slightly.