Private Company Edition: The venture capital firm said it will back biopharma, diagnostics and other opportunities in health care. In addition to the Design and TScan mega-rounds, Verve raised $94m, Vera garnered $80m and Ixaka (formerly Rexgenero) closed a £40m ($54.7m) financing. 

There’s still money for early-stage innovation despite worries to the contrary, but total dollars for Series A financings remain about one-third fewer than during the high years of the mid-2000s, and investor syndicates are mindful of making those dollars stretch as far as possible. For the 2012 A-List, our ninth, we’ve decided to ask a fundamental question as the life science venture world goes through economic upheaval: does “Series A” mean the same thing, or conjure the same connotations, as it did when the class of 2004 made the first A-List?

Device companies raised a total of $801 million in 2012’s third quarter, an 18% drop from Q2’s $977 million. Approximately $2.6 billion was spent on device acquisitions, exactly $2 billion less than Q2’s total. Diagnostic/research company financings totaled $484 million during Q3 2012, up from last quarter’s $336 million. And while diagnostic/research M&A activity was not as prolific as last quarter, tech transfer deals are seeing a resurgence.

In the third quarter of 2012, start-up companies raised a total of $682 million across all industries, roughly 19% more than in the previous quarter. Of that money, 65% went to biopharmas. Several large molecule-focused companies inked deals during Q3. Four start-ups were acquired – three biopharmas and one medical device company.