Seattle's Accelerator Corp., the four-year-old incubator of biotechnology businesses, has attracted $22.5 million from some deep pocketed venture backers that it plans to use to bankroll as many as six new startups.

Carl Weissman

While two of Accelerator's recent "grads" -- VLST and Spaltudaq -- have gone on to raise
big rounds of capital, the firm's president and chief executive admits that the jury is still out on the incubator model.

"Let's face it, the only way that we are going to be able to judge this 10 years from now is what the exit rate was and how much money gets made on all of the money that gets put into all of these companies, even the failed ones," said Carl Weissman, who I interviewed for my story today on the fund raising.

New investor WRF Capital joined with existing investors Amgen Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and Alexandria Real Estate Equities in the $22.5 million funding round.

It will be interesting to see what entity ends up having a bigger impact on the biotech industry, the Accelerator or the state's Life Sciences Discovery Fund. I think I know the answer of biotech pioneer Leroy Hood, an Accelerator board member, who lashed out at the Discovery Fund earlier this year.