By Amanda Becker
Monday, February 28, 2011; 12

When President Obama broke bread with Silicon Valley leaders on Feb. 17, he had assembled a team of tech all-stars to hash out the White House's plan to encourage innovation.

But long before Obama called the country the "the nation . . . of Google and Facebook" and emphasized that "cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine" during his recent State of the Union Address, Silicon Valley's start-ups and stalwarts have been at the ready, hiring influential lobbyists in Washington to push their agenda on Capitol Hill.

Here's a look at the K Street firms that have assisted Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Genentech, Google, Oracle, Netflix and Yahoo, which all sent executives to the high-profile powwow at the home of Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr. The lobbying firms that can snag high-paying tech work are poised to do well as the industry ramps up its efforts, even given recent reports that overall lobbying spending has plateaued. After all, the social networking site Twitter, also present at Doerr's table, has yet to hire its first lobbying firm.

Apple hired its first outside lobbyist more than a decade ago; Google brought on its first K Street firm in 2003; biotechnology company Genentech and softwaremaker Oracle have spent millions on lobbyists for more than a decade. Over the past 10 years these companies have gradually expanded their legislative influence, in large part thanks to the help of several firms that got into tech lobbying around the same time Silicon Valley arrived in Washington.

The Podesta Group was one of the first shops to represent industry giants like eBay, Microsoft and America Online; the addition of Google, Oracle and ICANN to its roster of clients in recent years has cemented the firm's position in the tech lobby. In 2010, when Podesta brought in $29.4 million in federal lobbying revenue, Google paid the firm $600,000 and Oracle wrote a $360,000 check for work on cybersecurity, defense information technology and other issues, according to OpenSecrets.org data.

"Our tech work continues to flourish because we have a bipartisan team that understands that branding these companies for the government market is very different from doing so in the commercial market," said Podesta's David L. Marin.

Since McBee Strategic Consulting opened its doors in 2002, the firm's savvy with innovative tech companies has helped propel its annual revenue from federal lobbying from $1.3 million to $13.2 million, prompting a McBee outpost in Silicon Valley. One of the firm's first clients was NetCoalition, a public policy group that represents Internet companies, which paid McBee $38,000 in 2002. In the years since, McBee has lobbied for the software companies Dimension4, Kofax and On Time Systems, as well as industry mainstays like Google. In 2010, Dimension4, Google and Oracle all paid the firm at least $200,000 for its legislative work, as did the solar energy company Solyndra.

Other firms that have seen their fortunes rise in part because of Internet-related lobbying include Dutko Worldwide, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti and Capitol Tax Partners, which has advised companies like Google, Microsoft and video game maker Electronic Arts.

Over the past few years, next-generation Internet start-ups have generated work for a second set of K Street firms that were either established to service the technology sector or realized its potential.

The Franklin Square Group, for example, was founded by Cisco veteran Matt Tanielian and Josh Ackil from the Information Technology Industry Council as a boutique alternative to behemoth firms. Since opening its doors for business in 2008, the technology-specific shop has increased its annual federal lobbying revenue from $790,000 to $2.5 million by signing clients that include Apple, Cisco, Google, Intel and Research in Motion, the maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry.

"We saw an opportunity and a gap in that traditional lobbying [shops] in D.C. weren't always well suited to work with these companies," Tanielian said. "By specializing in technology and innovation we're able to sort of have a level of expertise with some of these issues . . . understanding that gives you a real leg up in telling that story, it's not an easy story for everyone to tell."

Other firms that have exploded onto the tech lobbying scene in recent years are Monument Policy Group, Kountoupes Consulting and Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzok. Two companies at Obama's sit-down, Google and Genentech, put Tallahassee-based Liberty Partners of Florida on the national map last year, when its revenue from federal lobbying work skyrocketed from $360,000 to $2.6 million. Fierce Isakowitz & Blalock in recent weeks signed on to represent Apple, Oracle and Facebook, making the Republican shop one of the social networking site's first outside lobbyists.