Venture capital funding in Utah fell 31 percent in 2006 compared to the previous year, according to a new report by the MountainWest Capital Network.

The 2006 transaction value of VC and private equity deals in Utah was $287.2 million, down from $417.3 million in 2005, the report said.

"In 2006 we just didn't have any huge deals," said Devin Thorpe, president of the MountainWest Capital Network and founder of Thorpe Capital, a Salt Lake-based investment bank. "There were a couple of really big deals in '05 that were almost aberrations."

One of the largest VC deals in 2006 was a $15.8 million round captured by Control 4 Corp., a home automation products company. But that deal was small compared to a $40 million round that Orem-based Omniture secured in 2005.

Still, Omniture again made news in 2006 with $80 million raised in an initial public offering.

"Omniture had a great IPO in 2006," Thorpe said. "The stock has more than doubled since the IPO. They are really darlings on Wall Street. It's great to have a Utah company that is showing up well on the national scene."

Total public offerings in Utah in 2006 fell to $382.9 million, down from $1.9 billion in 2005, the report noted.

Brad Bertoch, chief executive officer of the Wayne Brown Institute, a Salt Lake-based nonprofit that helps businesses find venture funding, said VC deals were down in 2006 because many local VC firms were busy raising new funds.

"They're not making new investments," Bertoch said. "They're putting money in existing deals, and so that tends to make things a little bit slower."

The report said mergers and acquisitions of Utah companies in 2006 had a value of $2.3 billion, down from $6.9 billion in 2005. The biggest acquisition in 2006 was a $450 million buyout of LANDesk Group of South Jordan by Avocent Corp.

The MountainWest Capital Deal Flow report differs from a similar VC report released earlier this year by Thomson Financial, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. That report tracked total Utah VC deals for 2006 at $167 million, down 33 percent from $249 million in 2005.

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