Startups in the Advanced Technology Development Center’s current portfolio raised $56 million in investment capital in the first half of 2018. The figure also includes $4.9 million in non-dilutive funds companies received — with assistance from ATDC — through federal grants and awards.

The funds raised — mostly seed and Series A funding — tracks with ATDC’s record-setting year in 2017 and is more than three times the amount portfolio companies recorded at mid-year in 2016.

ATDC’s graduate companies raised an additional $229 million in the first half of 2018, and that, combined with the incubator’s current member companies’ results, brings the total investments in the first half of 2018 to $285 million.

Companies that raised funds in the period included Greenlight Financial Technology, which completed a $20 million Series A round; Rimidi, which closed a $6.57 million Series A round; Cypress, which raised $4 million; Volantio, which secured $2.6 million, and RoadSync, which completed a $2.5 million round.

“In addition to the sizeable amount of funds raised, it is important to note that companies in their earlier stages of development, those that participate in our Accelerate program activities, closed 23 investment deals,” said Michael A. Maziar, ATDC’s investor relations manager.

This is the same number of deals that companies further along in their maturity, those in ATDC’s Signature program, achieved.

“This level of activity is significant because national trends keep pointing to larger and later stage investments, making earlier stage funding even harder to raise. We are proud to buck this trend which is a testament to the coaching and program activities that we provide.” Maziar said.

“ATDC has been key in helping us build our momentum at a critical part of our growth stage,” said Robin Gregg, CEO of RoadSync, a digital payments platform for the transportation industry. “Michael was instrumental in this funding round because he made the introduction our lead investor.”

Pro-actively connecting companies with sources of funding is among the key program activities that ATDC provides, Maziar said.

“Our investor connections are not only locally based but we continue to increase the number of investor relationships through the ATDC Venture Showcase events we host in New York City, on the West Coast, and now, Boston, where we’ll be taking 12 companies in September to meet investors based there,” he said.

Thegoal of the ATDC Venture Showcases is to give out-of-state investors who may not be as intimately familiar with Atlanta’s technology ecosystem, a sense of the innovative, investable startups that are here.

“Not only do we want to foster and deepen the relationships in other cities and impress them with a sample of the investor-ready startups we have in Atlanta, but we also see the results when they visit in-person to see all the potential opportunities we have here,”

At the April 2018 Venture Showcase in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, ATDC presented 10 Georgia companies to 44 venture capitalists from 40 area firms, including San Mateo, Calif.-based Sierra Ventures, which has more than $1.9 billion in investments under management.

“ATDC brought carefully selected, early-stage startups to Silicon Valley and allowed us to meet with them in an informal setting,” said Jim Doehrman, Sierra Ventures’ operating partner.

“We are impressed with the quality of the companies and I don’t feel that we could have identified these companies as potential investment opportunities through our standard network,” Doehrman said. “We would like to increase our investment presence in Georgia and the Venture Showcase was a great step for us.”