Deals worth $26.2 million involving local biotech companies pushed venture-based financings in Rhode Island to $51.77 million for 2008 – 12 times more than $4.18 million raised in venture-backed deals the year before, according to figures released by Dow Jones VentureSource recently.

The numbers for the Ocean State ran counter to the national trend in which venture capital investment declined to $28.77 billion in 2008, an 8.3 percent drop from 2007.

But Richard Horan, managing director of the Providence-based Slater Technology Fund, warned last week about reading too much into Rhode Island’s improved numbers.

Full Story: Venture-backed deals in R.I. grew to $52M in ’08 Source: Providence Business News, January 24th, 2009 Author: William Hamilton Added on January 30th, 2009 at 11:18 am, by Matt Mikula