02/11/2015 - Zetta Venture Partners has closed its first fund at $60 million, double its original target, according to founder and Managing Director Mark Gorenberg. Zetta is investing in startups specializing in the emerging field of data analytics and announced its first eight investments. The firm is aiming to invest in about 20 industrial and enterprise analytics companies.“About every decade there’s a cataclysmic shift that leads to disruptive growth for investors,” Mr. Gorenberg said.

Mr. Gorenberg is a former managing director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners who before that ran engineering groups for Sun Microsystems, now a part of Oracle Corp. Since he held a first close on the fund in November, 2013, he has hired another managing director.

01/17/2015 - DeepMind's acquisition by Google crystallized the returns to be made in AI. Now investors from Khosla Ventures to Len Blatvanik's Access Industries are making bets on many artificial intelligence startups.

The $650M acquisition of DeepMind Technologies last January helped clarify for venture investors that there is money to be made in artificial intelligence investments. And investors clearly gained interest in the hot AI space through 2014 pouring $309M into AI startups across more than 40 deals, according to CB Insights data prepared for Bloomberg Business.

08/27/2014 - It’s been 28 years since ARCH Venture Partners spun out of the University of Chicago in 1986, but the partners at the venture firm specialized in biotech are still going strong due to an investment strategy one of its own partners calls “a little crazy.”

Crazy has worked for ARCH historically, except for a bad patch in the late 1990s. And limited partners are trusting it will work again, as the firm announced Wed. it has closed its eighth investment fund, for more than $400 million.

07/16/2014 - A Greater Cincinnati investment firm is part of a joint venture that has launched one of the nation's first venture capital funds focusing on the aging market.

Deerfield Township-based Link-age Ventures and Chicago-based healthcare investment bank Ziegler launched a $26.6 million Ziegler Link-age Longevity Fund LP last month. The fund will invest in companies providing healthcare services, healthcare technology and other products to meet the growing needs of seniors and senior living providers.

Link-age Chief Executive Scott Collins said the fund will also serve as a platform for innovation for limited partner investors. Limited partners primarily include about 70 senior living providers and healthcare organizations.

06/21/2014 - A Wilmington native who has been involved in a series of venture capital funds has announced a new $26 million fund that will make investments in early and growth stage technology companies.

David Jones, who grew up in Wilmington and graduated from Cape Fear Academy, has publicly launched Bull City Venture Partners Fund III with fellow fund manager Jason Caplain. The two operate out of an office in Durham, and previously worked with Southern Capitol Ventures.

06/19/2014 - Greycroft Partners, a New York firm that saw its early investments in Maker Studios, Buddy Media, Huffington Post and Braintree Payments Solutions turn into large payouts, has now closed on its first growth fund at $200 million.

Greycroft set out to raise its growth fund in late February with a target of $160 million and with a hard cap of $200 million.

The new fund means there is another expansion-stage investor in New York, which has few such firms. “So many of our companies are not in San Francisco and have a harder time tapping into these expansion-stage funds in the Valley,” Mr. Sigalow said.

09/23/2013 - It’s official- startups can now publicly advertise that they are seeking investments, but it does come with additional responsibilities of which all entrepreneurs must be aware.
Three Things You Must Know About It:

1. Allow only accredited investors into the funding round.
(you can have up to 35 non-accredited investors participating in your round as long you have a pre-existing relationship with them.)

2. Verify that all these investors are accredited.
you will be required to provide official documentation to confirm that each investor meets the accredited investor threshold, according to the SEC requirements.

3. Declare that a 506(c) publicly advertised offering was undertaken as part of the Form D filing.
Just as of today, you will have to file a Form D within 15 days of receiving your first investment. This means you will have to declare that you publicly advertised your offering, under new 506(c) regulations.

08/06/2013 - According to cbinsights report VC-backed IPOs hit a 5-quarter high spurred by healthcare companies. Funding levels were down 14% vs. last year and deal activity slipped after a steady uptick over the last 5 quarters.

Q2 2013 was a mixed bag for venture capital. The exit environment showed some signs of life with twenty two venture capital-backed companies IPO’ing in Q2 2013. This marked a five-quarter high for VC-backed IPOs. But while IPOs were strong, M&A of venture-backed companies was weaker making the overall exit picture relatively weak.
On the financing front, the $7.0B invested in 807 deals in Q2’13 represented a decline in deals on both a sequential and YoY basis. Funding was up marginally from Q1’13 ($6.9B) but was down 14% vs. Q2’12 when funding came in at $8.1B. The Q1 to Q2 funding and deals bump seen last year didn’t make a repeat performance.

07/11/2013 - After a year-long wait since the announcement of the JOBS Act in April 2012, the SEC finally made a much anticipated vote of 4-1 yesterday in favor of lifting the ban on general solicitation for Title II of the JOBS Act. This is exciting news for fundraising entrepreneurs with private companies.

Essentially, this means that startups and other private companies will be able to publicize that they are fundraising, instead of relying solely on word of mouth within their own personal networks of accredited investors with whom they have an existing relationship. This move amends an 80-year-old regulation that previously restricted access to capital. It’s a step towards democratizing access to funding for private companies.

06/05/2013 - Bloomberg LP announced this morning that it has formed a $75 million early-stage venture capital fund called Bloomberg Beta. Its initial focus areas are "producing insights from data and making the experience of work better."
The initial portfolio includes Newsle, MkII, Nodejitsu, Codecademy, Errplane and ProsperWorks. Notice the lack of financial services and pure content in there (Bloomberg already makes synergistic investments via an existing platform called Bloomberg Ventures).

05/16/2013 - SAP announced Thursday that it plans to increase the size of SAP Ventures’ $155 million HANA fund to $405 million as part of a broad effort to “define what a next-generation corporate venture capital organization looks like,” SAP Ventures Chief Executive Nino Marakovic told VentureWire. SAP is the sole LP in the SAP HANA Realtime Fund, which was launched by SAP Ventures in April, 2012 to invest in early-stage venture capital funds and in startups building technology around SAP’s HANA in-memory database.

04/09/2013 - Foundation Capital announced its seventh fund today, a $282 million pool of money that the venture firm plans on investing in early-stage startups.

Monlo Park, Calif.-based Foundation Capital has handled a total of $2.7 billion since it was first founded 17 years ago. This firm primarily invests in early-stage companies and plans to focus this current fund on consumer technology, information technology, and clean technology.
Eight of the venture firm’s partners will invest from this funding, including Charles Moldow and Ashmeet Sidana who we chatted with last year about the state of venture capital and then unique relationship VCs have with each other. Moldow refers to it as “coopatition” a little cooperation and little competition mixed in together.

Some of the most well-known companies that Foundation Capital has invested in includes Chegg, Ebates, and Netflix.

02/21/2013 - San Francisco-based early stage investor Accelerator Ventures is seeking $25 million for a planned second fund, according to a securities filing.The filings lists Alexander Lloyd, Accerator’s founder and managing partner, as the sole general partner. Prior to founding the firm, Lloyd was a venture partner at Rustic Canyon Partners, where he oversaw development of their seed-stage investment strategy. Also on board at the firm are Ben Smith, a venture partner, and John Paul Milciunas, an entrepreneur-in-residence.
Accelerator has been making investments for about a decade, but did not close its first institutional fund, a $5.75 million Fund I, until 2008.

01/18/2013 - Venture capital for 2012 hit $28.3 billion invested across 3267 deals. Funding was down 7.5% and failed to reach the $30 billion mark seen in 2011 ($30.6B) while deal volume climbed 7% from 2011 on the back of continued strong activity at the Seed VC stage (from 3051 to 3267 deals). Q4 2012 saw VC funding dip for the 2nd consecutive quarter as it fell back significantly from the heady $8.1B seen two quarters ago in Q2 2012 and the $7.5B seen in Q3 2012. On the deal activity front, Q4 maintained the record-setting pace seen in Q3 ending at 834 financings (compared to 835 in Q3).

01/03/2013 - Some Silicon Valley attorneys leave their firms to pursue venture-like returns. Former Cooley attorney Kirk Dizon, who last year cofounded the fund of funds Institutional Global Investors, is one example.

But the attorneys who stick around at Cooley also manage to place bets on some of the many interesting startups to which they have access. Indeed, according to a new SEC filing, Craig Dauchy, Kenneth Guernsey, Mark Tanoury and James Kitch are right now organizing a new fund under a limited liability company called GC&H Investments so the firm’s attorneys can seize on investment opportunities that become available to them.

12/07/2012 - The University of Minnesota wants to create two venture capital funds to invest in startups that are trying to take university-created technology to market. The funds could fill a void left by traditional venture capital funding, which has shied away from backing startups and early stage technology companies lately because of the higher risk and the long wait until they pay off

One fund, which would require $2 million a year for 10 years, would provide seed money for young companies trying to prove their business ideas will work, John Merritt, spokesman for the Office of the Vice President for Research, said Friday.

11/08/2012 - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.

Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more per investor. It puts the firm on the same footing as more established corporate venture funds such as Intel's Intel Capital, which typically invests $300-$500 million a year.

10/24/2012 - Lerer Ventures, a seed-stage investment firm in New York, has raised its third and largest fund to date. Founded by Eric Hippeau, Jordan Cooper, Ken Lerer, and Ben Lerer, Lerer Ventures has raised $36 million.
It will continue to pump that money into early stage companies, primarily in New York City, where it's based.
In the past two years, Lerer has been one of the most active early-stage firms in New York. It invested in about 70 companies since its second fund was raised last May.

09/15/2012 - The Boulder-based Foundry Group finished raising its third $225 million venture capital fund and will invest it in software and information technology companies. Foundry Group still has money to invest from its last fund, raised in October 2010. That means investments from the new fund won’t begin until later this year or early 2013, said Jason Mendelson, one of Foundry’s four managing directors.

Though Foundry doesn’t focus its investments by geography, about one-third of its investments have gone to Colorado startups.

09/12/2012 - Lerer Ventures, one of the better known seed stage venture capital funds based out of New York, is raising a $30 million fund, according to its Form D filed today with the SEC. It’s the third fund in the venture firm’s history and aims to raise the bar a bit from Lerer’s second fund, of $25 million, which it raised in May 2011. (Its maiden fund was worth $8 million and was raised in early 2010.)

08/14/2012 - Catalyst Investors, a New York-based venture firm focusing on tech startup investment, has closed a new fund. This fund will be the firm’s third, and it includes commitments totaling $213 million from a diverse pool of investors. New investors in the third fund are Liberty Mutual Insurance, Pathway Capital Management, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, and Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management.

The firm says it will continue its strategy of investing in lower middle-market cloud computing, wireless infrastructure and digital media companies.

07/25/2012 - VMware is buying Nicira for $1.26 billion in cash and equity, adding technology that helps networks run more efficiently to broaden its appeal to companies seeking to cut hardware costs.

The acquisition is making the investor, Andreessen Horowitz, an estimated $300 million return on $17.7 million investment, paying back its entire 2009 fund. Ever since Marc Andreessen formalized his startup investing by creating a firm, Andreessen Horowitz, back in 2009, the firm itself has been treated like one of Silicon Valley's top startup investors.

05/15/2012 - EDF has defined the investment scope of the fund, and will contribute its own expertise in "cleantech" solutions. The fund will be managed autonomously in accordance with the industry's best practices. EDF is contributing €30 million to Electranova Capital and Allianz, the first financial investor to be won over by the ambition and approach adopted by the fund, is committing €10 million to the project. Comprehensive discussions are underway with other prestigious partners who are keen to be involved in this project alongside EDF, and the search for investors will continue throughout 2012.

05/09/2012 - New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has closed on $2.08 billion toward a fund that could grow in size to become one of the largest ever raised. The firm said in a regulatory filing that it plans to raise up to $2.56 billion, up from an original $2.3 billion target disclosed in March. A person familiar with the matter said NEA increased the fund's size due to strong investor demand. In a separate investor letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, NEA said it plans to hold a final close for the fund by this summer.

03/21/2012 - ATP Capital said Wednesday it is re-branding itself under the new name of Relay Ventures. The news comes as the company is commencing a new $150 million mobile fund, called the BlackBerry Partners Fund II. Independently managed, it is an early stage venture fund focused solely on mobile computing.
In addition, Relay Ventures said it has opened a permanent office in Menlo Park.

01/20/2012 - Funding for startups rose 19 percent in the fourth quarter as venture capitalists fueled money into more companies in the Internet, clean technology and other sectors.

According to a study released Friday, startup investments grew to $6.57 billion in the October-December quarter from $5.52 billion in the same period in 2010. The volume of deals, though, did not keep up with the amount of money invested. There were 844 deals completed in the fourth quarter, down from 861 a year earlier.

For all of 2011, venture investments jumped 22 percent to $28.43 billion, in 3,673 deals. That's up from $23.26 billion in 2010, when the money went to 3,526 deals.

Called the MoneyTree report, the study was conducted by PriceWaterHouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters.

11/08/2011 - The quest to develop technologies for managing and analyzing "big data" is attracting the attention of the venture capital community. Tuesday Accel Partners launched a $100 million fund to provide financial backing for companies developing technology "at every level of the Big Data stack," the company said in a statement.

"Accel's Big Data Fund aims to fund transformative companies throughout the Big Data ecosystem, from next-generation storage and data management platforms to a wide range of revolutionary software applications and services, including data analytics, vertical applications, mobile, and many more," Accel said, describing the fund's goals in a statement.

09/06/2011 - Perfect World Co. Ltd., a leading online game company based in China, announced its investment of $100 million (about RMB 643.5 million) in a venture capital fund focused on the technology, media and telecommunications sectors.
The unnamed fund will be formed by one of Perfect World Co.’s consolidated entities and one or more general partners unrelated to Perfect World. The fund will be managed by the general partners, and Perfect World has agreed to invest as a limited partner over a nine-year period.

07/18/2011 - Former First Solar CEO, Michael Ahearn, officially launched his $300 million greentech fund. The firm says in a release Monday that it will focus mostly on early stage companies, with investments ranging from $100,000 to $25 million, and will look for startups across the energy, water, agriculture and waste industries. While Ahearn is still Chairman of First Solar, and was CEO until 2009, the thin-film solar panel giant isn’t involved in the new fund.

05/21/2011 - Hawaii start-up businesses will soon get some of their initial funding from the government, Gov. Neil Abercrombie said Wednesday as he announced an award of federal money to support small businesses.

The state received a $13 million grant from the U.S. Department of Treasury that was expected to be matched by another $130 million from private investors over the next seven years. The money comes from the State Small Business Credit Initiative, which was established by the Federal Small Business Jobs Act of 2010.

Venture Capital investments up, deals down in Q1 2011

04/14/2011 - Venture capital firms invested $5.9 billion in 736 transactions in the first quarter of 2011, up from $5.6 billion in 827 deals in the fourth quarter, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
The first-quarter deal total is the lowest in a single quarter since the third quarter of 2009. By comparison, venture capital firms invested $5.2 billion in 787 deals in the first quarter of 2010.
Software companies received the most capital in the first quarter, with $1.1 billion in 187 deals, compared with $41.3 billion in 237 transactions in the fourth quarter and $809 million in 170 transactions in the first quarter of 2010.

01/02/2011 - Shanghai-based online game developer and operator The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY), along with VC firms Huayan Capital, Chengwei Ventures, and China Renaissance K2 Ventures, today announced the joint establishment of a USD 100 mln mobile internet domestic and overseas investment fund called Fund9.

The9 also launched the localized China version of its licensed mobile SNS platform OpenFeint today, which will officially launch in March 2011. The Chinese edition of OpenFeint will first be available for Android, followed by iOS and other smartphone platforms.

12/14/2010 – H.I.G. BioVentures is raising a $250 million second venture fund, according to a regulatory filing.

H.I.G. BioVentures invests in companies developing innovative products for significant unmet medical needs in therapeutics, medical device technology, specialty pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. A natural extension of the broader H.I.G. Capital platform, H.I.G. BioVentures invests across a broad range of stages.

Life science companies currently backed by H.I.G. include:Alder Biopharmaceutical ; Apollo Endosurgery; Avera; CardioFocus; Clarus Therapeutics; Gemin X; HyperBranch; Metastatix; NeurAxon ; Novadaq; OncoGenex; Quinnova Pharmaceuticals, Inc; RxStrategies; Salmedix and Tranzyme Pharma.

11/27/2010 – Ventureast, a venture capital and private equity firm focusing on life sciences, technology and emerging sectors, is planning to launch a new fund of $200 Mn next year. The fund wil invest in three areas - agriculture & food processing, clean environment and healthcare.

Nearly one-third of the target corpus has already been tied up, with the balance expected to come in few months.

08/27/2010 – Two University of Michigan MBA graduates have formed Resonant Venture Partners in Ann Arbor to invest in seed-stage IT, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, alternative energy and defense companies in their state.

Founded by Michael Godwin and Jason Townsend — classmates who completed their Master of Business Administration degrees this year –Resonant Fund I has raised $510,000 of a targeted $20 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

05/26/2010 – San Francisco-based venture capital firm Burrill & Company is partnering up with Chile's Austral Capital Partners to put together an initial $40 million to $50 million life sciences venture capital fund in Chile.

"We expect to initially have between $40 and $50 million committed over the next few months...although the idea would be to have between $100 million and $150 million over the next several years," Steven Burrill, the chief executive of the U.S. company, told Dow Jones Newswires.

The fund, called the Burrill Chile Fund, will be invested in the life sciences fields, mainly industrial biotechnology, bio-energy, bio-fuels, bio-processes, health care, and agricultural and food technologies, he said.

04/14/2010 – Rembrandt Venture Partners has closed a second fund in the amount of $160.5 million. It will be invested in early-stage companies with ground-breaking technology offerings. Rembrandt Venture Partners' Fund Two was oversubscribed, exceeding its initial target by $10.5 million.

Rembrandt has been a participant in several recent successes in the high tech space, like Cavium, Good Technologies (acquired by Motorola), Ironport (acquired by Cisco), LGC Wireless (acquired by ADC Communications), and MetaLINCS (founded by Rembrandt, acquired by Seagate).

03/01/2010– Seeking startup funding may soon get easier. A group of venture capital firms led by Andreessen Horowitz on March 1 unveiled a Web site www.seriesseed.com designed to streamline the way startups apply for seed funds, cutting the number of documents young companies need to fill out.

The Web site, formed with the help of startup lawyer Ted Wang, contains 30 pages of free documents entrepreneurs can fill out to apply for $300,000 to $1.5 million of initial funding. Typically, such documents run about 100 pages and have to be customized by lawyers. The 30-page term sheet would have to be customized as well, but it would dispense with some sections typically unnecessary for early-stage investments, such as those dealing with prior investors. The idea behind the effort is to “save start-ups time and money,” Wang tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “The negotiations process will also be shorter.”

01/26/2010– LORD Drayson, the science minister and former technology entrepreneur, has said that the economy remains "very fragile" and requires further Government support.
His comments came as he launched a £125m venture capital fund with Hermes Private Equity that will invest in young, fast growth environmental companies.
Lord Drayson said that technology companies expanded more quickly than others as economies recovered from recession and it was critical to ensure that they were not starved of capital.
"As a former science entrepreneur I absolutely know now is the time to invest in UK technology businesses. They are key to future growth and prosperity," he said.

01/06/2010– New Enterprise Associates closed a $2.48 billion venture-capital fund, the largest since before the financial crisis, as buyouts of startup companies languish and the pace of initial public offerings remains near a 35-year low.
The world’s largest venture firm announced the closing today in a statement. NEA 13 took a year longer than expected to fund after Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. collapsed, and stopped short of a onetime $3 billion goal. Yet it captured almost 20 percent of the money that institutions invested in venture capital in 2009, partner Dick Kramlich said.

The new fund already has invested in 15 startups. Four are drug-development companies, including Clovis Oncology Inc., which raised $146 million in 2009’s biggest deal for a newly formed company, according to National Venture Capital Association data. More than 60 percent of the money that NEA 13 has invested so far has gone to drugmakers, the firm said.

12/26/2009 – Venture capitalists expect a modest increase in investments and exit options in 2010, according to a recent report from the National Venture Capital Association.
The association surveyed more than 325 venture capitalists in the last month. Here are some of the findings for 2010:

• 44 percent forecast total U.S. investments of $21 billion to $25 billion.
• Half think more companies will receive venture financing.
• Clean technology (54%) and e-commerce (46%) will see the most money.
• The biggest investment declines are expected in the semiconductor industry (64%) and wireless (37%).
• 48% predict more foreign limited partners will invest in U.S. venture funds.

12/01/2009 - Norwest Venture Partners has raised $1.2 billion for a new venture capital fund, an optimistic sign for technology start-ups.
Norwest, which announced its new fund Wednesday, said it would use the fund in part to finance large investments in mature companies, which are typically not a focus of venture capitalists. This strategy, shared by some other firms, has provoked debate over the nature of venture finance.

11/30/2009 - The British Columbia government has committed $55 million to four venture capital funds in the hopes the funds, and their partners, will invest much more than that in venture companies in the province.
The money is part of the $90-million B.C. Renaissance Capital Fund announced in 2008, aimed at helping fund B.C. startups in information technology, life sciences, digital media and clean technology.

11/12/2009 - The Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index for the third quarter of 2009, based on an October 2009 survey of 35 San Francisco Bay Area venture capitalists, registered 3.37 on a 5 point scale (with 5 indicating high confidence and 1 indicating low confidence.) This quarterly index reading stayed exactly constant from the previous reading of 3.37 and indicates a leveling off of confidence after rising the previous two consecutive quarters following a five-year low in confidence in Q4 2008.

The quarterly Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index (Bloomberg ticker symbol: USFSVVCI) is based on an on-going survey of San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley venture capitalists. The Index measures and reports the opinions of professional venture capitalists in their estimation of the high-growth venture entrepreneurial environment in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next 6 - 18 months.

11/03/2009 - Greylock Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, today announced the closing of Greylock XIII, a $575 million fund. The firm also announced the addition of a new investing partner, LinkedIn Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman.

Greylock will use the funds to invest in and support promising enterprise and consumer software, services and infrastructure ventures.

10/22/2009 - General Electric is starting a $250 million venture capital fund to invest in startup health care technology companies, The Financial Times reported.

G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, said the company would focus on companies specializing in health care I.T., life sciences and diagnostic technology to promote preventitive medicine. “Most of the health care money in the U.S. is spent on chronic disease,” Mr. Immelt said. “We need to focus on chronic disease and preventing disease.”

10/02/2009 - So far, $4 million has been committed to the sidecar fund, which requires investors to put up at least $60,000, said Johns Martin, managing member of the Texas Women Ventures Fund. She hopes to finish fundraising by November.

The Boone Family Foundation is the lead investor, with a $1 million commitment, said Jim Adams, vice president of the foundation started by Container Store founder and chairman emeritus Garrett Boone and his wife, Cecilia.

08/31/2009 - Vinod Khosla, former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner has been investing hundreds of millions of his own dollars in green technology companies for the last several years.
Khosla Ventures, the firm he founded in 2004, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $1.1 billion in two funds that will invest in green technology and information technology start-ups.

This is the largest amount raised by a venture capital firm since 2007 and the largest first-time fund raised since 1999, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

07/12/2009 - A pioneer of the commercial Internet and a dot-com mega-millionaire, Andreessen recently raised a $300 million fund that takes an older school approach to investing in emerging technology companies. The fund is designed to make smaller bets on more startups.

While fund-raising for venture capital firms nationwide plunged by nearly two-thirds to $5.1 billion in the first half of 2009, Andreessen and partner Ben Horowitz apparently had little trouble courting limited partners. The fund will invest as little as $50,000 (and all the way up to $50 million) in mostly Silicon Valley-based Internet startups. The partners have the Rolodex to source the next Twitter (of which Andreessen was an angel investor) and the capital to maintain their investment interest through an IPO or acquisition.

06/02/2009 - Canada’s battered tech sector is getting a helping hand courtesy of the Business Development Bank of Canada, which Monday announced a new venture capital fund aimed at early-stage growth companies focused on technology.

The Tandem Expansion Fund, set up as a sort of public-private partnership, will start off with $75-million in federal government money and plans to raise at least $250-million from institutional investors over the next few months.

05/15/2009 - Venture funding in the Bay Area fell off the proverbial cliff in the first quarter of 2009, dropping 43 percent compared with the quarter before, the largest quarter-to-quarter drop in at least 15 years. Year over year, findings were down 61 percent, the worst annual drop since 2001.

Here is a listing of the Bay Area firms that received venture capital financing in Q1 2009

05/01/2009 - New Enterprise Associates, Silicon Valley’s largest venture capital firm, has raised another $1 billion for its 13th fund, bumping the fund’s total size so far to $2.15 billion. That’s an impressive feat in today’s economic climate. The target for the fund is $2.5 billion, lowered from the $3 billion initially posed to the firm’s limited partners last year, reports VentureWire.

02/04/2009– Venture capital investments in “cleantech” reached record levels in 2008 with $4.7 billion raised in 186 financing rounds. The analysis by Ernst & Young LLP , based on data from Dow Jones Venture Source, showed that cleantech companies received $954 million from venture capitalists in the fourth quarter of 2008, significantly surpassing the $681 million invested in the same period in 2007 but lagging behind the record $1.7 billion invested in the third quarter of 2008.

01/26/2009– According to the MoneyTree survey of venture capital investments, the fourth-quarter plunge was enough to pull down investment figures for the entire year. Investments dropped 8.4% for the year to $28.3 billion from $30.9 billion for the previous year. VCs invested $5.4 billion in U.S. companies in the fourth quarter -- a 33.2% drop from their investments made in the fourth quarter of 2007. The drop in VC investments was the first decline in annual venture investments since 2003.

01/02/2009 – The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center is looking for applicant companies that will create jobs, contribute to the scientific base of knowledge in the Commonwealth and improve the quality of life for citizens. State officials will also give consideration to the geographic distribution of grants around the state. The state has $15 million dollars to hand out. The state allotted $25 million for the grants, but it was reduced due to the state budget deficit.
Starting Jan. 1, private biotechnology companies can apply for public funds through the state’s Life Sciences initiative.

12/06/2008 – Last week, something turned. We found out that not only are we in a recession, but it started a year ago. Tech layoffs went into overdrive (12,000 at AT&T, 600 at Adobe, 130 at Real Networks), bringing the total unemployed tech workforce to at least 90,000, by our count.

Capital is drying up, and things may still get worse before they get better. So far in this downturn, we’ve seen startups batten down the hatches (as they should) and hope to survive long enough to make it out the other end.But what about venture capital firms? When will we start to see the VC layoffs and fund closures?

It is already happening to some extent. The number of partners listed on some VC Websites is already quietly shrinking. Some new VC funds are having difficulty raising money and even existing funds are running into problems collecting commitments from strapped limited partners.

11/28/2008 – As venture-capital funds face a cash crunch driven by the financial downturn, they are taking extreme measures to ensure they can fund their investments.
Some venture capitalists are selling their equity stakes in start-up companies at fire-sale valuations so they don't have to keep funding those businesses, allowing them to husband their remaining cash for other investments.
Others are considering so-called annex funds, which are side funds that can provide an extra pool of money. And some are scaling back on new investments to increase the cash reserves in their funds.

10/27/2008 – Markham - York Region businesses looking for financing to grow their young companies now have access to new funding opportunities with the launch this month of the region's first angel investment group.
Called York Angel Investors Inc. (YAI), the group has been created to service companies in Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Markham, Newmarket, Aurora and King City and provide investors in these communities with access to local investment opportunities that promise above average returns.

09/12/2008 – Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's No. 1 mobile operator, launched a venture fund on Thursday with an initial 2 billion rupees ($44 million) to promote content and technology development. India, with nearly 300 million mobile users, is the second-largest wireless market in the world after China, and still has the potential for further huge growth as only just over a quarter of its billion-plus population use cellphones now.

07/08/2008 – Longitude Capital today announced the closing of its first investment vehicle, Longitude Venture Partners, L.P. (the "Fund"), a $325 million venture capital fund dedicated to life sciences investments. The Fund exceeded its target of $250 million.

The team at Longitude Capital includes: Managing Directors Juliet Tammenoms Bakker, Patrick Enright and Marc-Henri Galletti, Venture Partner Jeffrey Gold, Principals Douglas Foster and David Hirsch, and CFO Elaine Erickson. The firm was formed following the team's spin-out from Pequot Capital, where they were responsible for venture capital investments in life sciences companies since 1997.

06/26/2008 – Venture Capital Bank (VCB), which has maintained a consistent growth pattern since its inception in 2005 and posted maiden year profit of $30.5 million 2006 and $33 million in 2007, announced the launch of a $15 million Venture Capital Fund Bahrain. The fund is targeting an IRR of 30 per cent per annum net of all expenses, before performance fees.

The new fund, according to the top management, is the first Bahrain-dedicated venture capital fund. This Fund, a first in a series of such funds to target Bahrain and other promising MENA countries, will tap opportunities in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or start-up businesses, Abdullatif Mohammed Janahi board member and CEO Venture Capital Bank said.

05/29/2008 – Fundraising by private equity firms in the commodities and energy sectors is up 85% compared with the same period last year following the latest fund close of $2bn (€1.3bn) by US-based Denham Capital Management. The close, the fifth in the energy and commodities sectors so far this year, takes 2008 fundraising in the sectors to $7.8bn, an increase of $6.6bn on the same period last year, according to data provider Private Equity Intelligence.

03/27/2008 – Bucking the recent financial turmoil and capital scarcity prevalent in the Indian and global markets, Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (KIAL), a subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank, today announced the first & final closure of their third Private Equity fund ? Kotak India Growth Fund II with a total commitment of USD 440mn. The Fund has been raised within a period of less than three months from the client base of Kotak Mahindra, both institutional investors and high net worth individuals. KIAL, which focuses exclusively on managing the Alternate Assets business of the Kotak Mahindra Group, now has Assets Under Management USD 1.4bn split almost evenly between two asset classes namely ? Private Equity and Realty Funds.

12/10/2007 – Arch Venture Partners, the 21-year-old venture capital firm whose Seattle area investments include Allozyne, Trubion Pharmaceuticals and VLST, has raised a $400 million venture fund.
Arch's Robert NelsenIt is the firm's seventh fund. The money will be invested in early-stage companies in the biotechnology, advanced materials, nanotechnology and semiconductor sectors.
Arch maintains offices in Austin, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. Its three managing partners here include Robert Nelsen, Patrick Ennis and Steve Gillis, a former Immunex executive who previously founded Corixa.

BASF Venture Capital America Inc., Fremont, CA, has invested in ARCH Venture Fund VII

09/22/2007 – SoftTechVC just announced a new $12 million early stage venture fund today at the TechCrunch40 conference. The new fund will be called SoftTech VC II.

SoftTech VC, has been actively investing in startups over the last few years and has had notable successes such as Truveo (acquired by AOL for a rumored $50 million), Userplane (acquired by AOL for a rumored $35 million), MyBlogLog (acquired by Yahoo for $10 million), Kaboodle (acquired by Hearst for a rumored $30-40 million), Mayas Mom (acquired by BabyCenter for $7 million), Dogster, Kongregate, Edgeio and many others.
The firm most recently formed a $12M seed fund that will also focus on the consumer Internet space, aiming at investing in 30 to 40 companies over the next 3 years.

08/10/2007 – With early-stage investments showing new strength during the second quarter, venture capitalists reported the largest number of deals since 2001. There were 977 deals, up 15.6% from the 856 funded in the first quarter of this year and up 6.1% from the 920 deals funded during the second quarter of 2006.

Venture capitalists invested $7.12 billion during the recent second quarter, according to statistics released last week by the National Venture Capital Association of Arlington, Va., PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP of New York and Thomson Financial, a New York unit of Stamford, Conn.-based Thomson Corp. The investments represented a 2.5% increase from the $6.9 billion invested during the second quarter of 2006, but a drop of 4.1% from the $7.43 billion invested in this year’s first quarter.

05/30/2007 - Lehman Brothers has raised a $300M venture capital fund as the firm continues to grow its private equity business. The fund is the same size as Lehman’s last VC fund, which was raised in 2003, according to the firm.
Lehman’s roots in venture capital go back to 1995, when it first started a technology venture capital effort.
Since then the firm has racked up investments in 70 companies in the software, semiconductor, electronic and communications equipment sectors, and generally invests $8m to $12m in each company.

05/16/2007 - Milestone Venture Partners, a New York city-based, early stage venture fund, today announced it has raised $50 million across two closings for Milestone Venture Partners III LP and its affiliates.
Milestone will continue to invest in technology-enhanced service businesses in the greater New York metropolitan area. The firm seeks business plans from entrepreneurial companies with unique offerings, marquee customers and proven
management.

04/23/2007 - Pension funds, financial institutions, family offices and other investors pumped $258 million into the Edison Venture Fund VI, 82 percent over the previous fund launched by Lawrenceville-based Edison Venture Fund. Led by founder and managing partner John Martinson, the fund engages in such transactions as venture capital, expansion, acqusisition, management buyout, recapitalization and secondary stock offerings. Edison has invested in 151 companies since its inception in 1986, including financial technology, pharmaceutical business services, communications and application software firms. Currently, Edison has $525 million under management with investments in 48 companies. Initial investments range from $4 to $7 million.

03/02/2007 - O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV) today announced the closing of its initial $51 million fund. The fund will focus on seed and early-stage investments that leverage partner O'Reilly Media, Inc.'s previous investments and relationships with the technology early adopters they have dubbed the "alpha geeks." The fund's Managing Directors include Mark P. Jacobsen and Bryce T. Roberts. Said Roberts of the fundraising, "We were very pleased with the reception we received from the LP community. Our differentiated story and properly aligned fund size attracted a stable of very influential individual and institutional investors."

02/25/2007 - Founded in January 2006, Los Angeles-based Passenger sells a software service that allows companies, including the Coca Cola Co., Sara Lee Corp., and ABC Inc., a division of the Walt Disney Co., to target their best customers with exclusive content and services. Think Passenger just raised $2.5 million.

02/16/2007 - Early-stage venture capital firm OVP Venture Partners (OVP) has announced a final close on its seventh fund at $250 million, well exceeding its target of $200 million and at its self-imposed hard cap. After a first close of $207 million in May 2006, OVP accepted additional investments from two limited partners, the Meketa Investment Group in Westwood, MA, and the endowment of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. OVP now has over $750 million in capital under management.

02/15/2007 - Irvine-based Sendio has raised $4M in a Series A venture capital round, socalTECH has learned, and will be announcing the round formally next week. The funding comes from KH Growth Equity Fund and Momentum Venture Management, a venture acceleration firm headquartered in Los Angeles. Sendio develops enterprise anti-spam products based on sender address verification. KH Growth Equity Fund is an investment fund run by Kline Hawkes & Company.

02/02/2007 - Cambridge-based N2N Commerce Inc. reports closing on a $30 million series A round of financing, which company officials say is one of the software industry's largest first-round investments since 2003. Investors are General Catalyst Partners, a Cambridge venture capital firm, and Ohio-based Limited Brands Inc., which operates 3,545 specialty stores, including Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, Express, Limited Stores and other retail brands.

01/31/2007 - Vizu Answers announced a $2.9 million round of financing today for its poll based market research, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Marketers can conduct self-serve polling campaigns by designing a poll, picking a demographic, and having it syndicated to relevant publishers’ sites, who get a kick-back for listing the poll by CPM varying by placement on the page. It’s like poll-based AdSense. Publishers can set a minimum CPM for the types of polls they’re willing to show in that poll zone.

01/02/2007 - UK private shop HgCapital said it has raised 300 million Euros ($395 million) for a fund earmarked to finance renewable power projects across Europe, Dow Jones reports. Backers of the fund include Dutch pension fund PGGM and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Portfolio companies in the Renewable Power Partners Fund include Wind Direct, developer of wind farms in the U.K.

12/29/2006 - Southern Capitol Ventures has closed on its second fund—oversubscribed at $15 million—and is actively looking for deals.
The Raleigh-based firm, which launched in 2003 with a first fund of $4.5 million, landed its first institutional investor (Square 1 Bank of Durham) as well as Jim Goodmon, chief executive officer of Capitol Broadcasting for its new fund. (Capitol is the parent company of WRAL Local Tech Wire.)

12/16/2006 - ITOCHU Corporation has announced that it will invest JPY 1 billion (4% of outstanding shares after investment) in solar energy company NorSun AS (Oslo, Norway), which is planning to produce monocrystalline silicon wafers for solar cells.
NorSun was established in December 2005 by Dr Alf Bjorseth, who is a founder and former CEO of the Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC), the world's largest manufacturer of solar-grade silicon and multi crystalline wafers, to develop a broadly-based business in the solar industry.

11/15/2006 - SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Real Girls Media Network, Inc., an online publishing company, announced today that it closed its Series A funding with 3i and WaldenVC. Concurrent with the funding, David Silverman, partner with 3i, and Steve Eskenazi, managing director at WaldenVC, have joined the company's board of directors.
By combining editorial, user-generated content, and community, Real Girls Media Network aims to build the leading online destinations that address the totality of women's lives, not just specific life events. Unlike existing advertising-supported Web sites, RGM will enable women of all ages to easily submit and publish their opinions and stories. The first Web site, DivineCaroline.com, which is due to launch in early 2007, is targeted for women aged 25 to 54. Additional sites aimed at other age groups will follow in 2007.

10/26/2006 - edgeio corporation, a leader in online listings announced today that it has raised $5 million in the first close of a Series A round of financing. The round was led by Intel Capital and also included an investment from Transcosmos Investments and Business Development Inc, a Japanese public company with a Silicon Valley investment arm focused on Internet-based U.S. technology companies expanding into the Japanese marketplace. Investors in the company’s angel funding had their investment converted into A round stock. These include Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Claudio Chiuchiarelli, Frank Caufield Jr., RSS Investors, Millenium Technology Ventures, Michael Tanne, Auren Hoffman, Sam Perry, Bill McCabe and Louis Monier.

10/19/2006 - NComputing out of Orange, CA has raised $8M in Series A funding from BA Venture Partners thanks to an impressive showing at the recent Demo event, an pedigreed founder and a sweet product.
Stephen Dukker, former CEO of eMachines is the founder of NComputing. His simple concept is that the standard multi desktop setting is cost wasteful. Ncomputing's answer is to combine an $11 chip and two PCI cards to a standard white-box PC, enabling it to serve up the Windows desktop and other applications, including video, to seven monitors. So for the price of a $490 server, the company delivers seven computing desktops.

09/12/2006 - TripConnect.com, the Internet's first-of-its kind social networking site for travel advice, today announced that it has closed $1 million of first round funding led by Masthead Venture Partners and individual private investors. "Online travel is the largest single segment in e-commerce, and remains a robust area for development. By focusing on the idea of leveraging one's own personal network for travel advice, TripConnect.com is uniquely qualified to serve as a definitive source of reliable destination research for travelers everywhere," says Daniel K. Flatley, General Partner at Masthead Venture Partners.

08/29/2006 - A new company called iTaggit raised $1.04 million from some big-name backers in its Series A offering. iTaggit is working on Web-based services and products to help people manage their personal assets. Further details about what the company plans to do was not disclosed. iTaggit plans to launch its service in the fourth quarter of 2006. The company was founded by CEO David Altounian, founder of Austin-based Motion Computing Inc., and Charles Zeller, iTaggit's senior vice president of development.

08/24/2006 - Pleasanton-based Arcxis Biotechnologies, a biomedical device firm developing products for rapid diagnostics, pathogen handling, and sample preparation, has raised $2.25M in Series A funding. The funding came from Claremont Creek Ventures. Arcxis said it would use the funding to hire key employee talent, make equipment purchases, and initiate commercial development programs.

08/16/2006 - Plextronics, Inc., a world leader in developing active layer technology for printed electronic devices, is pleased to announce the close of a $13.1 million Series A financing. Birchmere Ventures led the round which included significant capital from Firelake Capital, Draper Triangle Ventures as well as other new and existing investors. Plextronics has raised a total of $16.4 million since its July 2002 inception.

08/10/2006 - Imaginova Corp., which was formerly known as Space.com, announced it has secured $15 million in a series C round of venture capital with Steelpoint Capital Partners LP leading the latest funding.The round will support the company's e-commerce and media strategy of seeking consumers with an interest in science and technology.
The company commissioned a study by the OMD advertising division of New York-based OmnicomMediaGroup earlier this year in which it identified an audience of 60 million that are avid consumers of science-related content. Imaginova CEO Daniel Stone says, "We're going to sell that audience on behalf of advertisers on one hand, and we're going to direct them to our e-commerce storefronts on the other.

07/27/2006 - GarageBand.com, a music Web site, said Wednesday it raised $2.5 million in equity financing in its first round. The San Francisco company got money from Menlo Park-based Khosla Ventures and from individual investors including David Weiden (a new Khosla partner, who joined this year) and MTV co-founder Bob Pittman. Both Pittman and Vinod Khosla took seats on the site's advisory board.
GarageBand is testing a new music-oriented social network by which it hopes to make money off of users of Cupertino-based Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes.

07/20/2006 - ShopWiki, whose Web site that allows users to write and edit product reviews in the same way Wikipedia encyclopedia articles are group-created and –edited, has gotten $6.2 million in a first round of financing from Generation Partners, a private equity firm. ShopWiki was created by three of the founders of DoubleClick, the Internet-advertising network. The money will be used for international expansion.

07/12/2006 - Engage.com, an online dating web site, raised $5 million in its first round of venture funding. The San Francisco company said Advanced Technology Ventures led the round, and that its general partner Steve Baloff will take a seat on Engage's board. Revolution Ventures, the Founders Fund and Josh Kopelman also gave money. Engage will spend the money on developing more products, hiring new employees and on marketing. Suneet Wadhwa, the CEO of Engage, and one of its founders, also helped to found Snapfish. Karen Wallace is the other founder.

07/06/2006 - Tyzx, a Menlo Park company that specializes in three-dimensional video cameras, launched with great fanfare in 2002, when its technology was leaked to the New York Times. Four years later, the company is still refining its technology and trying to break into the market. It has just raised $4 million in venture capital from Tekata, a global auto parts giant, and says it is involved in some top-secret homeland security projects.

07/03/2006 - Mozes, a Palo Alto start-up that lets you send it an SMS (text message) to get information about a person, a band or other product, has raised an angel round of $750,000. Media analyst Paul Kagan is among the investors. It is the latest move by a start-up to exploit SMS' growing popularity, especially among youth, to help companies like Microsoft market their products.

06/21/2006 - Compiere Inc. has secured its first external funding to the tune of $6 million and is planning to relocate its headquarters, the open-source midmarket business applications company said Tuesday.
The vendor makes the open-source integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management Compiere software that can be used on-premise or can be hosted. In a different take on the traditional open-source model, the company focuses on developing and supporting the software, leaving product distribution to its 70-plus global partner network. There are currently about 240 paying Compiere customers, along with more than 1 million downloads of the open-source software.

06/12/2006 - Virent Energy Systems is developing technology to turn biomass into hydrogen, natural gas, and biodiesel. Virent Energy Systems raised a $7.5-million round of venture financing Monday, another indication of interest in new sources of energy as oil prices remain above $70 per barrel. Cargill Ventures led the round. Other investors included Honda Strategic Ventures, Venture Investors, and Advantage Capital Partners.
The money will be used to accelerate development of Virent’s technology, which turns biomass—such as sugars from corn or glycerol—into energy in many forms, including hydrogen, natural gas, ethane, propane, butane, and biodiesel.

06/02/2006 - TutorVista, an online tutoring company that pairs students in the United States with tutors in India, raised $2 million in its first round of venture funding. Sequoia Capital India led the round, and the company's angel investors also gave money. TutorVista's U.S. headquarters is in San Francisco, though it is staffed by just one employee -- Patty Perry, vice president of sales and marketing for the United States. Her job is to spend some of that venture capital and shift the company's advertising strategy from an emphasis on search-engine keywords to other, more traditional methods.

05/31/2006 - Online real estate broker Redfin, a Seattle startup that wants to grab business from traditional real estate agents, has raised $8 million in new venture capital to fund its expansion into the San Francisco Bay area and develop new Web site features.
Vulcan Capital, the investment arm of Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., led the financing round. Other investors were BEV Capital of Stamford, Conn., The Hillman Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Redfin's original venture investor, Seattle's Madrona Venture Group.

05/23/2006 - Benchmark Capital has invested $15 million in Bebo Inc., a social networking Web site that is expanding in the United States. San Francisco-based Bebo's site started up in July 2005 and it now claims 24 million registered members, many of them in the United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand. It plans to spend the money from this first funding round on expansion in the United States and on a new office in London.

05/18/2006 - BioNanomatrix LLC, an emerging company developing a breakthrough nanoscale whole genome imaging and analytic platform, today announced receipt of a two-year grant from the National Cancer Institute and new seed financing from two venture investors -- New York-based 21 Ventures LLC and Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin Technology Partners has made a seed investment in BioNanomatrix and 21Ventures is providing a bridge financing to help support the company until its expected Series A financing closes later this year.

05/15/2006 - Shanghai-based Toodou.com raised $8.5 million in a Series B financing round, co-led by Granite Global Ventures and JAFCO Asia. IDG Technology Venture, the Series A round investor, also participated in the round.

05/08/2006 - DreamFactory, a leading provider of adaptive on demand applications, today announced a $5.8 million Series A round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). The funding will enable DreamFactory to expand the company’s sales and marketing operations as well as product development teams.

05/01/2006 - With plans to raise as much as $10 million in Series A financing in the coming year, Lightspeed Audio Labs Inc. has closed on an initial $1.25 million seed round from New York-based venture firm SAS Investors.

04/28/2006 - NeoAccel, a pioneering innovator of next-generation Internet security solutions, announced its Series A3 funding round of approximately $4 million led by Baring Private Equity Partners' India Fund (ING’s former venture arm) and existing investors. At next week’s Interop Las Vegas 2006, NeoAccel will introduce the next generation of its flagship product, SSL VPN-Plus Enterprise Edition Version 2.0.

04/22/2006 - It's rare for Intel Capital to lead a VC deal, much less go single handedly into a new venture. But that is what it has done with Ireland's AdaptiveMobile, a mobile security and filtering software developer. Intel invested €4.6M ($5.5 million) in what looks like a first round of funding for the three year old firm. Its software products are targeted at three markets: mobile network operatrors, companies, and mobilephone subscribers.

04/10/2006 - Jigsaw Data Corp. closed its series C round of venture funding Tuesday after raising $12 million. The San Mateo company is an online market for buying, selling and trading business information. A venture firm from Texas, Austin Ventures, led the round. El Dorado Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, both investors in earlier rounds, also gave money this time. Thomas Ball of Austin Ventures took a seat on Jigsaw's board of directors as part of the financing. Jigsaw will spend the money on creating new products and on marketing.

04/05/2006 - Rave Wireless announced today it has closed $12 million in Series B funding. This latest round of financing was led by RRE Ventures, which joined existing investors Bain Capital Ventures and Sigma Ventures. RRE General Partner and Founder Stuart Ellman will join Rave Wireless’s board of directors. In addition, the company announced Professor Bill Sahlman of the Harvard Business School will join as an advisor.
Rave Wireless’s unique business model of directly serving communities such as colleges and universities with GPS-enhanced mobile safety, social networking, academic and local commerce applications has resulted in partnerships with both leading universities and the nation’s largest wireless carriers. Market demand for Rave Wireless’s mobile applications, such as the recently launched Rave Guardian that provides students with a location-based personal alarm device, has been extremely strong. The new round of financing allows the company to accelerate its growth in line with market demand.

03/27/2006 - Search engine provider Insider Pages Inc. said Monday it has raised $8.5 million in venture funding and will relocate to the Silicon Valley. The company said it is relocating from Pasadena to Redwood City to consolidate all its operations in one location and provide easy access to talent in the Valley.
Insider Pages said most of its new funding came from Sequoia Capital, which has an office in Menlo Park, and Softbank Capital, which has an office in Newport Beach

03/21/2006 - A new online music service called La la Media aims to offer full-length CDs for $1 by letting members trade used physical discs, in a new twist on the popular but legally challenged practice of online song swapping. La la founders argue that, unlike underground online file-sharing services, which have been sued for copyright infringement, La la is protected under an exception to the US Copyright Act. Backed with $9 million in funding by Bain Capital and Ignition Partners, La la works like an online music co-op by enabling members to trade physical CDs they own for physical CDs they want, La-la co-founder Bill Nguyen said.

03/17/2006 - Adknowledge, Inc., a technology firm focused on helping small businesses better market to online consumers, announced today that it has sold a minority ownership interest to Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) for $48 million. As part of the investment in Adknowledge, two TCV partners, Henry Feinberg and Will Griffith, will join the Adknowledge board of directors.

03/13/2006 - First round funding of $4.65 million was announced Monday by scanR Inc., which provides a service that lets camera phones and digital cameras scan, copy and fax. Palo Alto-based scanR said the financing was led by Menlo Park-based Trinity Ventures. Thomvest International, which has an office in Los Altos, joined in the round. Other investors included Don Listwin, former president and CEO of Openwave Systems, and James Joaquin, current CEO of Xoom.com and former CEO of Ofoto.

03/04/2006 - The Northwest Energy Technology Collaborative is a joint effort of business, government, non-profit and educational institutions determined to accelerate the emergence and growth of the energy technology industry in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With world-class university and research centers and more than 300 new energy companies, our region is poised to become a global hub for emerging power technology.

03/01/2006 - TelTel, a provider of SIP-based global Internet telephony services with presence-enabled features, today announced that it has secured $8.8 million in Series A venture capital. Purple Communications Ltd., Acorn Angels and Parawin Venture Capital participated in the funding. The investors selected TelTel because it is the first to offer an immediate turnkey VoIP solution that enables service providers and enterprises to rapidly deploy VoIP and multimedia solutions to their customers. With over 1.5 million registered users and partnerships with service providers worldwide, TelTel hosts the world's largest SIP-based Internet telephony user community.

02/21/2006 - Wellkeeper announces that it has closed a $1.2 million Series A financing round, led by New Mexico venture capital firm, Verge. These funds will be used to enhance product/service functionality, and grow the company’s sales and marketing efforts.
Wellkeeper is a remote monitoring company serving independent operators in the oil and gas industry. The company’s technology enables oilfield personnel to quickly locate potential problems, thus increasing production or avoiding spills, and to prioritize their time and, increase productivity. This level of affordable Internet-based support has not been available to small- and medium-sized independents until now. In the southwestern US alone, independent operators constitute a $1.2B market.

02/17/2006 - WellGen has secured $3 million in series B financing, which it will use to fund human clinical trials of its ingredients developed through nutrigenomics to target obesity and inflammation. One of the most exciting new areas in food and wellness, nutrigenomics involves working out which chemicals in foods have the ability to turn on and off certain genes that are responsible for disease prevention.
The planned human trials, expected to begin in 2006, involve an ingredient derived from orange peel. Animal studies were completed in late 2005.

02/11/2006 - Newport Media, Inc., an innovative fabless semiconductor company providing mobile TV receivers, announced the closing of a $25 million Series B financing led by Oak Investment Partners. Previous investors Benchmark Capital, Venrock Associates, Global Catalyst Partners and Pinnacle Ventures joined Oak in this round. Newport Media has raised over $36 million to date.

02/09/2006 - GameLogic announced today it raised a total of $18.6 million in Series B financing led by Bain Capital Ventures. Existing investors General Catalyst Partners and Maveron, LLC, also participated in the round, which was funded in tranches. GameLogic's new products and services, such as its unique PlayAway™ platform, provide regulatory-compliant gaming designed to enable legal casinos and government-sponsored lotteries to stay connected to their players virtually anywhere there is a computer.

02/01/2006 - InnoCentive today announced it has closed a US$9 million Series A Preferred venture capital financing round led by Spencer Trask Ventures, Inc., a New York-based venture capital firm. Additionally, joining the round were Lilly Ventures and Omidyar Network. It was also announced that InnoCentive founder, Alpheus Bingham, Ph.D., has been appointed as InnoCentive president and CEO, and will retire from his position as vice president for Lilly Research Laboratories, a division of Eli Lilly and Company.

01/24/2006 - Clarabridge, an emerging leader in the text mining software space, today announced it has received a $3 million investment from Boulder Ventures to continue product development and the expansion of Clarabridge's sales and marketing efforts. This funding occurs as part of spinning off Clarabridge from business intelligence (BI) consultancy, Claraview, into an independently operating enterprise software vendor.

01/17/2006 - Gather.com, a Web site that serves as a gateway to user-generated content, has received $6 million in a second round of funding. Primary investors are Jim Manzi, former chief executive officer at Lotus Development Corp., and Allen & Company. Gather.com of Boston will use the money to expand its membership base and Manzi will join Gather.com's board as a result of the investment.

01/11/2006 - Coremetrics founder and Shop.org board member Brett Hurt today introduced Bazaarvoice, a new company aimed at online brands who want to enlist their customers in building their business. Guided by Hurt, who successfully serviced over 400 of the world's largest multi-channel retailers while at Coremetrics, Bazaarvoice helps CMOs and eCommerce executives drive greater business impact from word of mouth, the oldest form of marketing. Bazaarvoice also announced that it has secured nearly $4 million in a Series A round led by Austin Ventures.

01/10/2006 - Index Ventures and Battery Ventures today announced they have co-led a $10M Series A investment in Spot Runner, the first Internet-based advertising agency that makes it fast, easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV. Comerica Bank and others also provided funding for this round. Spot Runner’s web-based service allows businesses to air personalized, high-quality television ads in their local markets. Spot Runner offers a full-service package – commercial production, media planning and ad time – for a fraction of the cost and time of traditional broadcast advertising. A complete campaign can be purchased for as little as $500. In contrast, traditional methods can take weeks and cost tens of thousand of dollars to produce a commercial of comparable quality.

01/03/2006 - The Stoughton, Mass., company Spirus Medical Inc. said the money will support its sales and marketing strategy for its Endo-Ease gastrointestinal device, a low cost and flexible alternative to traditional endoscopes. Along with the financing round, Spirus also announced it has won 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to market the Endo-Ease in the U.S. Venture capital firms BioVentures Investors in Cambridge, Village Ventures in Williamstown, Mass., and Point Judith Capital in East Greenwich, R.I., led the recent financing round. Spirus said a handful of individual investors also participated in the stock sale.

12/27/2005 - ClearPoint Metrics reportedly has raised $3.5 million in financing as it develops software that analyzes the performance of network security measures. VentureWire reported the amount of the funding, and Private Equity Week reported the company's backers include Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) of Cupertino, Calif. and JK&B Capital of Chicago. Cambridge, Mass.-based ClearPoint Metrics founders include Jim Acquaviva, formerly chief executive of Kada Systems, a former mobile software developer in Burlington, Mass.; and Betsy Nichols, a former developer with Computer Associates International Inc. (NYSE: CA) of Islandia, N.Y.

12/21/2005 - Web instant messaging service Meebo Inc. of Palo Alto has secured a $3.5 million first round of financing. Meebo was founded this spring by Stanford University-trained engineers Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen. Seth Sternberg, a former Stanford Business School student and Yale University graduate, is also a co-founder.

12/14/2005 - Solar cell developer Cyrium Technologies has secured $3 million in venture capital and officially announced Edward Sloot's appointment as the new CEO.
The developer of high efficiency solar cells using semiconductor nanotechnology is looking to capitalize on the need for alternative power sources. Cyrium was profiled as one of the OBJ's 2005 Startups to Watch and said in November it was expecting to close a VC round before the end of the year.

12/07/2005 - Trovix, Inc., a leading provider of intelligent search technology, today announced a $5.25 million round of Series A financing from USVP, 3i and Stanford. These funds will be used to support expanding sales, marketing and engineering efforts. Trovix was founded with the goal of solving one of the most challenging technical problems in computerized search: how to evaluate unstructured documents and make decisions on information the same way a person would. Trovix's first product - Trovix Recruit - is the first ever Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that uses search technology sophisticated enough to consistently identify the best candidates out of thousands of resumes. The search technology in Trovix Recruit is based on ten years of research initiated at MIT.

11/29/2005 - OrthoSupply Management Inc., a provider of outsourced services to medical practitioners, has closed a $1.5 million round of venture capital. The Andover, Mass., company said the money will support its marketing strategy and product-development efforts through early 2006, when it plans to raise a more substantial round of venture cash. OrthoSupply officials said the recent round was led by Vicis, a venture capital firm in Florida.

11/15/2005 - Seahorse Power Company of Needham, MA closed on $1.1 million in financing to expand marketing, sales and manufacturing of the BigBelly(TM) solar powered trash compactor, a machine designed to reduce collection frequency in municipalities, parks, eateries and other outdoor sites where trash volume is high.

11/07/2005 - YouTube, a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, today announced it has completed a $3.5M round of private equity funding from Sequoia Capital. YouTube, founded by Internet commerce pioneers from PayPal, has developed a new service that allows people to easily upload, tag, and share personal video clips through www.YouTube.com and across the Internet on other sites, blogs and through e-mail. The service also allows users to create their own personal video network.

11/04/2005 - Nanopoint closed its Series-A round of financing this week, raising $2.15 million.
The company plans to use the cash infusion to build and test a working model of the high-resolution microscope it has been developing -- also called Nanopoint -- within the next year. The technology would allow researchers and scientists to see inside living cells at resolutions not possible today. Normally it would be necessary to kill cells to see inside them as the Nanopoint microscope will allow. Hawaii Biotech and Queen's Medical Research Center will test the microscope before it hits the market.

10/26/2005 - DVD-sharing startup Peerflix said Tuesday it received $8 million in a second round of funding to grow its operations and fuel its efforts to build tools for users to generate their own content. Battery Ventures led the round, which was completed earlier this month, and also included first-round funders 3i Group and BV Capital.

10/17/2005 - M:Metrics, the mobile content and applications traffic and data firm, has raised a $7 million second round funding led by Prism Venture Partners. The Kantar Group, a division of advertising and marketing services group WPP and one of the world’s largest market research organizations, joined Prism in the new round alongside additional funding provided by founding investor i-Hatch Ventures. The financing proceeds will be “directed toward international expansion and new service offerings”.

10/11/2005 - Sensory Networks Inc., the leading developer of hardware acceleration technology for network security applications, today announced that it has successfully closed USD $10M in new financing led by the Individuals’ Venture Fund and the Xilinx Technology Growth Fund. Existing investors Deutsche Bank Capital
Partners Ericsson Deutsche Technology Fund, JAFCO Investment (Asia) and Technology Venture Partners also participated in the round.

10/3/2005 – Airsis Inc., a provider of communications modules and Web-based management systems to help companies remotely monitor industrial assets and facilities, said it has closed $1 million in Series A funding from the Tech Coast Angels. The round is the company's first institutional investment round. The Tech Coast Angels' co-investment partner the Serpahim Fund also participated. The firm said that it would use the funding to grow its sales force, implement marketing programs, and develop new products.

09/30/2005 – Bokee has announced that it has just raised over $10 million from four large, global venture capital firms: Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), Granite Global Ventures (GGV), Mobius Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners made the investments in China's largest blog service provider-the largest investment to date in this sector-in order to promote the continued rapid growth of China's blogosphere.

09/23/2005 – Invoq Systems, Inc., the leading provider of event resolution and interactive alerting applications, today announced that it closed $3.25 million in Series-B capital from JMI Equity Fund, a private equity firm focused on investments in the software and business services industries. This recent infusion of capital will be used to accelerate the development of Invoq's applications and to build out its worldwide sales, service and distribution capabilities.

09/19/2005 – PrimeRevenue, a developer of supply chain finance solutions, has $10 million in the bank in new venture financing as well as a new investor and board member. The funds will be used for growth initiatives, the company said. PrimeRevenue closed on $12 million in Series A financing last October.

09/10/2005 – TR3 Solutions Inc. has received $4 million in initial funding to provide radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems for retailers and consumer products companies to track inventory.
The company was created in Woburn following its founder's sale last year of TR2 Consulting to a unit of SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE: SBC) of San Antonio, Texas. TR3 said it will add at least 15 employees in the next four months.

09/05/2005 – Reaxion Corporation, a market-leading publisher and developer of mobile games, today announced it has closed two million dollars in Series A financing with i-Hatch Ventures, a $100M early stage venture fund which specializes in the mobile data services industry. i-Hatch was attracted to Reaxion's growth potential and its proven ability to create compelling cell phone games that run on a wide variety of handsets and carriers.

08/24/2005 – Irvine-based Arbor Surgical Technologies has raised $20M in a Series B funding. The company said that it raised the round from Bair Venture Partners, with new investors Affinity Capital Management and Fisk Ventures. Existing investors Delphi Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Three Arch Partners, Thomas J. Fogarty MD, Sapient Capital, Kaiser Venture Capital, David Chonette, and Sage Venture Partners, also participated.

7/12/2005 – Third Screen Media, the nation's leading provider of mobile advertising and marketing software and services, today announced it has completed a $3 million round of venture capital funding led by TD Capital Ventures of Boston with participation from Blue Chip Venture Company of Cincinnati, OH.
The funding will support sales and marketing efforts, new product development as well as existing deployments such as CBS SportsLine, TV Guide, MSN and USA Today.

6/23/2005 – The Protomold Co. Inc. is an emerging company whose technology cuts the time and expense of developing rapid-injection molded parts for designers of consumer, medical device and other products. This week, Protomold plans to announce a $2.5 million equity infusion, a 50 percent expansion of its Maple Plain plant and the opening of a facility in Great Britain to serve the European market this fall.

6/20/2005 – AdipoGenix Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of obesity and Type-2 diabetes, has secured $8.25 million of committed capital towards a $13 million Series A round, President and Chief Executive Ed Cannon told VentureWire.

6/14/2005 – Tharas Systems Inc., which is about to release a new line of hardware accelerators for electronics design automation, or EDA, has closed on $5.5 million in Series E financing.

6/13/2005 – Unitask Inc., a provider of software for managing Oracle E-business products, has raised a $2.5 million Series A round.

6/1/2005 – Columbia-based Paratek has secured hundreds of patents covering technology that improves the electronic circuitry in wireless communications networks. Executives say Paratek's advances will lead to smaller and powerful cellular devices able to better process the signal frequencies needed to transmit voice and data traffic.

5/24/2005 – Venture firm NGEN Partners said that it has raised more than $50 million in a first close of its second fund.

5/23/2005 – In order to market and sell the second incarnation of its flow-based IP router technology, Caspian Networks Inc. raised a $55 million fifth round, brings its venture funding total to the $317 million mark.

5/19/2005 – French venture capital fund Iris Capital has wrapped up the second closing of its EUR176 million ($139 million) first fund, which took approximately 18 months to raise. The last subscription has yet to be signed, said Managing Partner Antoine Garrigues.

5/11/2005 – IDG Ventures Boston, one of the regional venture capital arms of media and research company International Data Group, has closed its second, diversified U.S. fund with $180 million.

5/9/2005 – Interconnect chip company Fulcrum Microsystems Inc. has raised a $20 million Series C financing round to fund marketing initiatives and expansion of its product offering.

5/9/2005 – Turbine Inc., a publisher of subscription-based video games that can be played by hundreds of thousands of players simultaneously, said it has raised $30 million in Series B financing.