10/05/2008 – Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) has made its return to the local venture capital industry. The fund announced today that it had made the first closing of its fifth fund on $100 million. The fund, which has a target of $150 million, will be earmarked for investment in media ventures. The first closing of the new fund brings the total funds managed by JVP to $770 million. JVP has a track record in raising funds at times of crisis. It raised its fourth fund in 2001 at the height of the previous crisis.

09/12/2008 – Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Enterprise, which owns HCL Technologies and HCL Infosystems, is planning to form a venture capital (VC) arm and tap the bourses to raise close to $1 billion (Rs 4,500 crore) through an initial public offer (IPO).
The venture, on the lines of Kishore Biyani’s Future Ventures India, will focus its investments in the information technology sector, said a source familiar with the development.

08/05/2008 – Nintendogs for the DS was a brilliant game. Its premise — pick a puppy and nurture it to adulthood — played on the digital pet theme that has driven high sales from Tamagotchi to Pikachu, and let you teach your dogs fancy tricks and skills that would improve over time, almost like it was learning.

But it wasn’t. A Nintendog’s behaviors were scripted, its personality restricted to a handful of breeds. On the other hand, Novamente, a company that aims eventually to develop a super-smart artificial intelligence (AI), says that its current technology will make such limitations remnants of the past.

07/31/2008 – Investing is all about timing. And Google Inc.'s possible plans, reported in The Wall Street Journal, to start up a venture capital arm seem to be at an excellent point for early stage investing, coming as some funding is drying up in Silicon Valley.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, but the signs are there of a slow down in venture funding, especially at the early stage level. New start-up companies are starting to have a tougher time getting funding. According to the National Venture Capital Association, the dollar value of first-time deals fell 12% in the second quarter, versus a year ago.

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.

07/24/2008 – SUN-Apollo Ventures Limited has announced the closing of the $630 million SUN-Apollo India Real Estate Fund LLC, which will pursue real estate development and investment opportunities in India. SUN-Apollo Ventures is a joint venture between the SUN Group, a leading Indian business and investment group principally owned by the Khemka family with operations predominantly focused on India and the countries of the Former Soviet Union (”FSU”), and Apollo Real Estate Advisors, one of the most active global real estate investors and fund managers.

06/12/2008 – The new Ontario Venture Capital Fund, which has raised $205 million from six different partners, has named a fund manager and is throwing open its doors.

TD Capital Private Equity Investors, whose group already manages a $400-million venture and small-cap buyout portfolio for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, will manage the new fund.

06/11/2008 – Madrona Venture Group has raised a $250 million venture fund, the largest in the 13-year history of the Seattle venture capital firm.
The speed at which the firm raised the new cash -- less than four months -- and the commitment from existing investors -- Kauffman Foundation, University of Washington and others reupped -- speaks to Madrona's recent success.

Managing director Matt McIlwain noted that among Madrona-backed companies, four were sold and one went public in the past 18 months.

05/28/2008 – Hunt Ventures today announced the formation of Hunt Ventures Fund I, L.P., which includes a significant capital commitment from an unaffiliated institutional investor.

Total partnership size is $140 million, of which a portion relates to existing Hunt Ventures portfolio companies with the remainder available for new and follow-on investments.

05/13/2008 – Lightspeed Venture Partners, flexing its success in the ongoing shakeout of venture capital business, announced Monday it had closed a new $800 million investment fund.

Issuing press releases in English, Mandarin, Hindi and Hebrew - a reflection of Lightspeed's global reach - the Menlo Park firm said it had exceeded the $675 million target because of strong demand from limited partners.

Lightspeed has consistently performed in the top quartile of venture firms since it was founded in 2000, said Ravi Mhatre, a co-founder and managing director of the firm. Lightspeed, he said, could have easily raised more but decided that $800 million was the most that could be effectively managed.

03/29/2008 – We are pleased to see that one of the tech industry pundits decided to list Cognitive Code in his top ten list of net technologies!

03/28/2008 – Novamente, a company in Washington DC which built the AI program that controls a Virtual dog, says that the demonstration is a foretaste not just of future virtual pets but of computer games to come. Their work, along with similar programs from other researchers, was presented at the First Conference on Artificial General Intelligence at the University of Memphis in Tennessee.

03/23/2008 – CMEA Ventures said Thursday that it closed its largest fund ever, having raised $400 million for its seventh fund. The firm will continue to look for opportunities in energy and materials, information technology, and biology companies.

"The great challenge in venture capital today is finding truly disruptive opportunities," said Jim Watson, managing director of CMEA. "We strongly believe that among the best and most interesting investments are those with a great team and very complex technology across various disciplines and markets."

01/20/2008 – Venture capitalists pumped a record $9.1 billion into privately held U.S. biotechnology and medical device companies last year, in hopes of making discoveries they can sell to larger drugmakers.

Biotechnology and medical device companies raised 20 percent more cash in the U.S. last year than in 2006, according to a report by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. More than 4,000 biotechnology companies manipulate genes and cells to develop drugs for diseases including cancer, and arthritis.

12/11/2007 – Arch Venture Partners put the finishing touches on its seventh fund, a $400 million vehicle that gives the seed and early-stage investment firm about $1.5 billion under management. ARCH Venture Fund VII LP will continue the firm's focus on newly-minted companies in the biotechnology, advanced materials and specialty semiconductor sectors.
Chicago-based Arch likes to back startups that are commercializing technology coming out of universities, national laboratories, and corporate research laboratories. Its roots go back to 1986, when it spun off from an innovative technology commercialization initiative originated by The University of Chicago.

11/08/2007 – U.S. private equity firms have passed the $263 billion fundraising mark this year, besting the $258 billion record set last year with more than six weeks left in the year.
The ability of private equity firms to continue to raise billions of dollars, even as the buyout industry has begun to struggle to invest capital, demonstrates sustained investor confidence in the industry.
PE firms - including buyout, venture capital, funds of funds, mezzanine and other operations _ had closed 364 funds as of Nov. 7, down from the 403 funds closed last year, according to Dow Jones & Co. publication Private Equity Analyst.

09/22/2007 – SoftTech VC 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.

09/05/2007 – European venture capital investment climbed to €1.14B in the second quarter, despite a decreased deal flow of 213. The 5% increase in amount invested over 1Q07, despite a 20% drop in deal flow, is primarily due to increased deal sizes in early-stage investments. Year-over-year, investment was up and deals were down in nearly every industry, the report found, with healthcare companies seeing the biggest change, raising 10% more capital (€290 million v. €265 million) in 34% fewer deals (41 v. 62) than in the second quarter of 2006.

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.

06/07/2007 – AI company, Novamente, partners with Electric Sheep Company, the largest company in the world dedicated to designing experiences and delivering add-on software for 3D worlds, such as Second Life. During the upcoming Virtual Worlds Conference in San Jose, CA, Novamente CEO, Dr. Ben Goertzel plans to unveil a groundbreaking application utilizing Novamente AI in Second Life. At Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA, Dr. Goertzel presented a talk entitled, "Artificial General Intelligence: Now Is the Time", explaining a ten-year road map for reaching human-level Artificial Intelligence.

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.

05/17/2007 – The Menlo Park-based firm said the new fund brings its committed capital to more than $2.2 billion, and is the largest fund raised in IVP's 26-year history.
The fund will continue IVP's strategy of investing in rapidly growing later-stage technology companies in the U.S. and will focus on three target sectors: communications and wireless, Internet and digital media, and enterprise IT companies.

05/15/2007 – Milestone Venture Partners (http://www.milestonevp.com/), 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 – Venture capital investment into U.S. headquartered companies climbed 8% in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the same period last year to reach $6.96 billion, according to the Quarterly Venture Capital Report released today by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young LLP. The report showed that deal count reached 584 deals for the quarter, down by 31 deals from the first quarter of 2006.
Coming off a five-year high for both deals and investment in 2006, the report indicated that momentum for the venture capital market is continuing in 2007. The notable trends in the first quarter include a significant level of early-stage activity with investors financing proportionally more seed- and first-round deals and dramatically increasing investing in life sciences. In fact, the $2.88 billion invested in healthcare companies in the first quarter was the highest investment level on record.

03/09/2007 – Angle Technology Ventures is creating a new imaging software company called Kaloptics with technology from New York University.
The venture capital firm licenses technology from research institutions, as it did from NYU for Kaloptics, and typically invests from $500,000 to $2 million to create a company that commercializes the research.

03/02/2007 – San Francisco, CA - 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."

02/26/2007 – Imagekind.com, a Web site where artists can sell their works online, said it's raised $2.6 million in Series A financing.
The Seattle company also said that former Expedia Inc. CEO Erik Blachford participated in the investment round and has been named an adviser to the company.
Leading the financing round was Holtzbrink Ventures of Germany. Also participating was Tom Hughes, a co-founder of Seattle-based Getty Images Inc.

02/17/2007 – 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 – MINO Wireless, a Sunnyvale, CA-based company that provides voice-over-IP solutions for mobile and wireless communication, today announced it has received $7M in funding from the venture capital firm Canaan Partners. MINO’s technology makes international calling from mobile phones easy, convenient, and affordable by routing calls via existing internet connections found on mobile phones.

02/07/2007 – ActoGeniX has closed a €20m first round of financing led by GIMV and Life Science Partners. ActoGeniX raised the €11.5m first tranche of its funding from GIMV, LSP and Biotech Fund Flanders in 2006.
It has now raised an additional €8.5m from Aescap, Ventech, Baekeland Fund and Biotech Fund Flanders. ActoGeniX was set up in 2006 to develop its proprietary TopAct platform, a delivery system based on living non-pathogenic micro-organisms for the oral administration of therapeutic proteins and peptides.

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.

01/18/2007 – Marketing company Genius.com said Thursday it raised $10 million in its second venture funding round. MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures led the round, and Nancy Schoendorf, a general partner there, took a seat on Genius' board of directors.
Emergence Capital Partners and Walden International, both previous investors, gave money in this round, too. The San Mateo company makes software that tracks people's web site behavior for use in selling.

01/11/2007 – EBay Inc. is buying rapidly growing online ticket broker StubHub Inc. for $310 million in cash, further expanding the Internet auctioneer's electronic bazaar.
The San Jose-based company announced the deal late Wednesday after the news had already been leaked to the media.

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. www.hgcapital.com

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.)

12/18/2006 – PixSense announced today that it has secured $5.4 million in equity funding, led by ATA Ventures and Innovacom. PixSense will use the funding to accelerate product development, service deployments, and increasing partnerships with mobile carriers worldwide.

12/18/2006 – RemoteReality Inc. has landed its first round of private funding and added a new CEO to help bring its 360-degree video camera and tracking software to the commercial security and enterprise markets, officials report.
The $7.3 million round was co-led by Battelle Ventures LP of New Jersey and Chart Venture Partners of New York. Battelle Ventures' affiliate fund, Innovation Valley Partners, also participated in the round for the startup, based in Westborough.

12/01/2006 – Web content delivery startup BitTorrent ended perhaps its best week ever with an announcement Friday that it scored $20 million in its second round of funding, which it plans to use to raise its profile as a leading brand in the content distribution market.
On Wednesday, two-year-old BitTorrent said it had signed Internet distribution deals with about eight film studios and TV networks, and was on its way to establishing itself as a service that drives other web sites that frequently move large files, à la “Intel Inside” (see BitTorrent Hooks Big Studios).

11/16/2006 – SeeSaw Networks, a leading out-of-home digital media company, today announced it has closed $10 million Series A financing from Sutter Hill Ventures. As the sole institutional investor in SeeSaw Networks, Sutter Hill Ventures holds two positions on the board of directors for Tench Coxe and Jim Gaither, both managing directors at the firm.
Seesaw Networks is the only out-of-home digital media company that makes it easy to plan, buy and measure advertising on the world’s most extensive network of digital venues. Unlike static billboards and posters, digital media can present constantly changing, computer-generated, full-motion video, photo-realistic graphics, text and animation, engaging people on the go.

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.

10/18/2006 – With Yahoo scheduling the full launch of its advertising platform for early 2007, the company’s deal to grab a chunk of Right Media seems to come at an ideal time. Not only will this give Right Media a solid opportunity to integrate its Right Media Exchange into Yahoo’s new advertising game plan, but on the flip side, Yahoo gets another opportunity to extend its advertising platform and overcome the image that Panama could just be “rebranded Google.”

09/22/2006 – Voxant, creator of the Viral Syndication Network™ for online news, has secured $10.5 million in backing for the company's unique solution for distributing broadcast, print and other types of news content across the Internet.
Voxant, which partners with major broadcasters and news organizations, today announced that SoftBank Capital of Boston and Court Square Ventures of Charlottesville, Va., have invested in its second funding round. They join Longworth Venture Partners of Boston, which provided Voxant’s initial funding and participated in this round with an additional investment.

09/12/2006 – Newton-based Enure Networks Inc., a maker of home and small home office network installation, configuration and management technologies, has landed its first round of funding, worth $8 million. The Series A round was led by Elron Electronic Industries Ltd., with additional participation from Carmel Ventures.
The company was originally founded in Israel in 2003 as Gaia bsm by Vice President of Marketing David Sayag and VP of technologies Israela Blat, both former executives at Sheer Networks Inc. and Marlborough's 3Com Corp. The company aims to help owners of complex home networks install, maintain and manage new IP services such as VoIP, IPTV, and Internet access. The technology will be deployed through service providers.

08/28/2006 – MicroSeismic has raised $7 million in a second equity round, underlining investor interest in finding oil more easily as oil prices remain above $70 per barrel.
The company has a 3D seismic imaging technology to better find and produce hydrocarbon resources.
Altira Technology Fund IV led the round. Other investors included RockPort Capital Partners and CTTV Investments, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures.

08/22/2006 – Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm De Novo Ventures has closed its third venture fund, De Novo Ventures III, on $300m. The new fund will invest in medical device and in biotech companies with initial human clinical experience.
Fred Dotzler, a founder and managing director of De Novo Ventures, said, 'De Novo Ventures III builds upon the successful investment strategy of our first two funds.

08/18/2006 – A Triangle software firm with a focus on music has reeled in $2 million in series A funding.

Durham-based eMinor said that it has closed its first institutional round of financing and that it plans to use the money to expand marketing efforts for the release of its flagship product, ReverbNation, this fall. ReverbNation is a set of online tools that allow musicians and independent bands, labels and venues to network among each other and with fans.

08/14/2006 – Having done more than a few travel expense reports and ticket booking for Interent start-ups, we can appreciate what Portaga is up to - it isn't going to be easy.
Portaga out of White Plains, NY closed Series A at $5.8M. The financing was led by the Ascend Venture Group with First Round Capital, Cove Harbor Partners and other investors. TripSync is a version of the Portaga desktop travel agent application that allows travelers to search for, book and schedule air, hotel, and car using Microsoft Outlook.

08/01/2006 – Altra Inc., a Los Angeles renewable fuel projects developer, has raised more than $120 million in a second round of equity funding, the company said Tuesday.
The company completed its initial equity funding in April 2006 and has raised or is completing the placement of more than $250 million in equity and debt financing. Second round funding will be used to fund Altra's current projects, which include acquiring existing operating assets and developing stragetic sites of biofuel refining technology as it seeks to build 500 million gallons a year in biofuel production capacity.

07/27/2006 – Limelight Networks, Inc., the world's leading content delivery network for digital media, today announced the completion of a $130 million equity financing round led by Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. As part of the financing, representatives from Goldman Sachs will join the company's board of directors.
"Consumer demand for rich media delivered over the Internet -- video, music, games, and social media content -- has exploded over the past few years. This financing round, our first significant external equity financing, sets the stage for Limelight to continue expanding its infrastructure and capabilities to meet mounting market demand," said Bill Rinehart, President and CEO of Limelight Networks. "Goldman Sachs brings a depth of experience with high growth technology companies to their role as an investor in our company and a partner for the future."

07/17/2006 – Greylock Partners said on Monday it has closed a $150 million dedicated fund which will invest in Israeli related early-stage technology companies.
Greylock Partners of Waltham, which had invested in eight Israeli companies through previous funds, said its new Greylock Israel fund, closed June 30, is its first dedicated exclusively to investments in Israel, a global center for technology innovation. Other venture capital firms, like Benchmark Capital and Sequoia Capital of Silicon Valley, also have made extensive investments and based partners in Israel.

07/11/2006 – San Jose-based Cellfire said funding was led by Menlo Park-based Menlo Ventures, and will be used to drive continued growth of the company's mobile coupon service in the mobile marketing arena. Launched initially in December 2005 to a controlled user base in California, Cellfire released its national service in June 2006.

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.

06/27/2006 – Stardoll, a social site that helps young girls create paper dolls of celebrities, has landed a $6 million investment from Sequoia. Unlike most Silicon Valley investments, Stardoll (formerly Paperdoll Heaven) isn’t a cutting-edge Web 2.0 startup - it’s a simple social network that enables 7 to 17 year old girls to create, share and discuss paper dolls. Surprisingly, the site has been a big hit - it attracts 1.2 million unique visitors a week from over 200 countries. Stardoll makes money by charging for “Superstar” membership - this costs $2.85 per month and gives users access to exclusive dolls.

06/19/2006 – ClassifEye Ltd. has secured a $1.2M equity investment from Nobska Ventures, a Baltimore, MD based venture capital firm. ClassifEye's software-only technology enables fingerprint authentication and identification using existing camera phones, for handset security, authentication and non-repudiation of financial transactions, and other identity management applications.

06/08/2006 – Gusto LLC, a new community-based travel Web site that connects travelers with each other and with relevant travel information, today announced that the company has finalized $4 million in venture capital financing, with $3 million from DHST, L.L.C., a venture group founded by William H. Darr, and the conversion of $1 million initial funding from Jeff Wasson, Gusto's CEO.

06/06/2006 – Juice Wireless said Monday it received $3.5 million in a third round of funding led by 21Ventures.
The company received about $500,000 in two previous rounds of funding over the past year and a half from New York City-based 21Ventures, bringing the total to $4 million. A private investor and a strategic investor joined in the third round.
The wireless application developer has created mobile marketing campaigns for several major brands. It also has a product called JuiceCaster that allows users and businesses to create, distribute, and access multimedia content from computers and portable devices.

06/01/2006 – 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.

05/18/2006 – Microsoft has agreed to acquire Whale Communications, a specialist in secure remote access and Web application firewalls.
The takeover is meant to broaden Microsoft's security offerings and give its customers more options in providing secure access to their networks from more locations and devices, Microsoft said in a statement Thursday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

05/16/2006 – Palo Alto-based Photobucket has raised $10.5M from Trinity Ventures, the firm said today. PhotoBucket provides an online web site that allows people to upload and share photos, slideshows, video, and images. Photobucket's web site is used by people who want to post their media and link them to MySpace, Blogger, Neopets, and eBay. The company said it would use the funding to further accelerate market share gains and revenue growth.

05/02/2006 – Iogen Corporation announced today that Goldman Sachs & Co. of New York has invested $30 Million (CDN) in its renewable cellulose ethanol technology.
“Goldman is the first major Wall Street firm to make a commitment to cellulose ethanol,” says Iogen CEO Brian Foody. “Renewable fuels like cellulose ethanol are one of the main options President Bush recently highlighted to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.
Goldman’s investment gives it a minority stake in Iogen, the only company to be operating a demonstration facility that converts agriculture materials like straw, corn stalks, and switchgrass to ethanol. Goldman joins the Royal Dutch/Shell Group as a major investor. The funds will be used to accelerate Iogen’s commercialization program.

05/01/2006 – Greycroft Partners, a venture capital firm recently established by Apax co-founder Alan Patricof, has launched a new digital media fund with an initial $50m of capital.
The new fund will focus on investments at an early revenue stage in the new media sector, including wireless, media and entertainment companies.
Patricof said, 'I established this fund because I believe we are now at a significant moment in the development of digital media.
'Digital technology, flexibility and power have been proven, but we have only started to see the range of applications that I am confident will transform the communications and media industries in the next decade,' Patricof continued.

04/28/2006 – Cartasite, a leading provider of remote monitoring solutions for fleet management, today announced it has completed $3.2M round of venture funding. Acadia Partners V, LLC and Canterbury Partners, LP are top contributors to the multi-million dollar funding round. The Company’s new product will be publicly introduced in the next few weeks.

04/19/2006 – US-based Focus Venture Partners has closed its $250m third fund, Focus Ventures III. The latest fund brings the firm’s capital under management to $850m. Steve Bird, general partner of Focus Ventures, said, ‘With the success of our prior funds—Focus Ventures I, which was a top-quartile vintage 1997 fund, and Focus Ventures II, which closed in late 1999 and is on track for a similar result—Focus Ventures III was oversubscribed and appealed to a wide range of investors, by investing in top-tier, expansion-stage companies funded by premier, early stage VC funds, we have kept our loss rate low and produced strong returns for our limited partners.’

04/18/2006 – Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), promoted by US-based venture capitalist Pramod Haque, on Monday announced a $650m fund, targeted at technology firms in India and the US. This is the largest fund the firm has raised to date. ET had reported in its February 16 edition that NVP was close to announcing its new fund with a focus on cross-border firms in the consumer and Internet segments.
The fund — NVP X — is targeted at early, mid and late stage investments in the US, India and Israel, with focus on emerging growth opportunities in the global information technology sector, NVP said in a statement in Mumbai.

04/16/2006 – Madrona Venture Group, a top-tier venture capital firm focused on early-stage information technology investments in the Pacific Northwest, today announced that it has closed its third venture capital fund with commitments of $167 million, exceeding its $150 million target fund size. Including Fund III, Madrona has more than $400 million under management and 23 active investments. With 27 company exits for gain in the past 10 years, Madrona has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to recognize high-quality teams and actively help them to maximize their potential. As a result, Madrona attracted a premier group of investors to the new fund including university endowments, foundations and funds-of-funds.

04/13/2006 – Magink Display Technologies Inc. today announced that it closed a $10.5 million financing round. Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) led the round, joined by previous investors Formula Ventures and VantagePoint Venture Partners.
Founded in 2000 by CEO Ran Poliakine, Magink (originally called eMagin) develops and markets reflective digital ink, considered a breakthrough in daylight displays. The company’s technology is a plastic-coated non-drying ink whose display colors can be changed by computer commands.
Magink has raised $50 million to date. The company raised $27 million in its previous financing round in 2004, despite a dispute among shareholders that almost shut down the company.

04/11/2006 – JBoss Inc., which raised just $10 million in venture capital, has agreed to be acquired by Red Hat Inc. in a deal worth as much as $420 million.
For investors, the agreement puts an end to the rumors circulating through Silicon Valley about which software giant would eventually acquire the highly sought-after JBoss, an Atlanta-based developer of open source application server software.

03/31/2006 – Garage Technology Ventures, a seed- and early-stage venture fund, said Thursday that it created a new fund, which was led by Thomas Weisel Global Growth Partners.
In addition to Weisel other investors in Palo Alto-based Garage Technology Ventures I include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Silicon Valley Bank and E-Trade.
The primary purpose of the new fund is to co-invest with the firm's prior fund, Garage California Entrepreneurs Fund. The new fund's managing directors are Bill Reichert, Mohanjit Jolly and Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of the firm that was originally known as Garage.com.

03/28/2006 – Lighthouse Capital Partners said on Monday that it plans to partner with Magnolia Capital Partners on investment opportunities in Israel.

Lighthouse, which has offices in Menlo Park and Cambridge, Mass., also said it plans to raise money for its sixth fund, LCP VI, beginning in the third quarter of this year, focusing on its core sectors of technology and life sciences. Specific details on the size and closing date of the fund were not disclosed.

03/27/2006 – Court Square Ventures has closed its second venture capital fund, Court Square Ventures II, with total commitments of $118m. With its new fund, Court Square will continue to focus on early stage opportunities at the intersection of communications, information technology and media technology. CSV II is expected to build a portfolio of between 12 and 15 companies. The fund recently made its first investment, leading a $15m Series C investment in SNOCAP.

04/07/2006 – While raising its second venture fund, Silicon Alley Venture Partners has decided to forego independence and team up with New York-based investment bank Greenhill & Co. Inc.
The two firms together have closed Greenhill SAVP with $80 million, with a plan for Silicon Alley to continue its investment strategy of targeting start-ups launching technology-enabled services or business information services in the New York tri-state area.

04/05/2006 – Dropping plans for an initial public offering after
legal tangles with UTStarcom Inc., fiber-to-the-home
chip company Passave has agreed to be acquired by
semiconductor giant PMC-Sierra Inc. in a $300 million
stock deal.

03/31/2006 – U.S.-based venture capitalists don't seem too ready to
tire of staking new investments in India, staking out
hot technology with cheap price tags. In a twist on
that model, one Bangalore-based company recently
gobbled up the assets of an American start-up at a
fraction of the amount invested by VCs.
The assets of defunct drug delivery company Nobex
Corp., which raised some $78 million in venture capital
funding, will be folded into Biocon Ltd. after the
publicly traded Indian biotech company won
post-bankruptcy bidding with a $5 million offer. Biocon
had to revise its initial stalking horse bid of $3.5
million upwards after U.S. private equity firm Aisling
Capital placed its bid at $3.65 million, Dow Jones
Newswires reported last week.

03/29/2006 – Intel Capital, the venture arm of the world's largest chip company, has launched a new $50 million fund for investments in Brazil.
Intel's launch of its Brazilian venture capital fund comes a little over three months after it announced a $250 million venture fund for India and four months after the announcement of a $50 million fund for investments in the Middle East. Though Intel has invested in Brazil since 1999, the new fund represents its strongest commitment there to date. Intel Capital has invested more than $35 million in 13 companies in the country since it began committing capital there.

03/28/2006 – Signs of improvement in the industry include slower
rates of company and investor consolidation in 2005,
according to the annual Venture Insight study released
today from Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young LLP.
In 2005, the pool of active venture firms in the U.S.
declined by 5.6%, down from 7.5% the prior year. That
represents a tapering off of a consolidation trend that
has seen the number of VC firms shrink 49% since 2000,
partly because many first-time VCs closed shop after
failing to raise new capital.

03/25/2006 – Siemens Venture Capital, a EUR700 million corporate venture body for Siemens AG (SI), said Thursday that it is setting up activities in India from June to look at investment opportunities both in India and China. Siemens Venture Capital, or SVC, will invest in infrastructure technologies in the field of information and communications, medical solutions, automation and control, power, automotive technology, transportation systems and lighting, the company said in a news release.

03/22/2006 – Devon Park intends to focus primarily on investments in therapeutics – companies that are actively developing compounds that will be advanced through clinical trials prior to being marketed as FDA approved drugs.
Devon Park will also invest in medical device, diagnostic or drug discovery technology companies if they believe that the companies being considered are developing products and/or technologies with the potential to produce a transformation in the way in which a disease is treated or diagnosed or drugs are developed.

03/20/2006 – Sony Online Entertainment Inc. is starting to move away from the Oracle databases that are the foundation of its online games, opting instead for a 2-year-old commercial open-source database EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB is built on PostgreSQL and processes business transactions and handles data that supports gaming. CEO and co-founder is Andy Astor who was a VP at webMethods.

03/20/2006 – 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.

03/20/2006 – VeriSign Inc. has agreed to purchase venture-backed mobile content publisher m-Qube Inc. for $250 million, in an attempt to better position itself between big
content companies and cellphone users.

03/15/2006 – A company that's looking to build "the most comprehensive portfolio of biodefense products addressing the nation's top five threats" - anthrax, smallpox, botulism, nerve and chemical attack and nuclear radiation threats - PharmAthene Inc. has agreed to merge with SIGA Technologies Inc.

The deal brings a clinical stage smallpox therapeutic to the PharmAthene pipeline, and since SIGA trades on Nasdaq, it grants the venture-backed company access to the public markets. After the stock deal, SIGA shareholders will own about 32% of the new company, and investors in PharmAthene will own the rest. PharmAthene, which has raised around $76 million in three rounds of funding from investors including MPM Capital, Bear Stearns Health Innoventures, HealthCare Ventures, Teachers Private Capital and MDS Capital.

Eric I. Richman, PharmAthene's vice president of business development and strategic planning, said that while the transaction "may afford us an opportunity to finance the company with a different set of investors," SIGA's status as a publicly traded company was not the primary reason for the deal.

Indeed, the SIGA deal is the latest example of a business development strategy whereby PharmAthene has - through strategic acquisitions - assembled a biodefense pipeline that includes treatments for anthrax chemical nerve agent poisoning. In addition to its smallpox candidate, SIGA brings a research pipeline that includes antiviral compounds to treat hemorrhagic fever viruses, which include potential bioterror agents such as Dengue, Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever.

03/10/2006 – SJF Ventures is over halfway toward closing its second fund after raising more than $15 million earlier this year, the firm said.

03/07/2006 – Austin gaming firm Bigfoot Networks Inc. landed $4 million in financing to help get its first product on the market this summer.
Venio Capital Partners, an early stage technology venture fund, invested the money.
Bigfoot, started by a team of executive MBA students from the University of Texas, makes technology to improve performance of online video games. The company is working to make a gaming accelerator card that would cut down on "lag" in online games.

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.

03/02/2006 – RadPharm, Inc., a leading provider of centralized medical imaging and review services for global clinical trials, announced that the Company has raised $8 million in equity financing from Adams Street Partners, Tang Capital Partners and individual investors. This follows an earlier investment by Ampersand Ventures, and positions RadPharm to continue expanding its core lab service offering.

02/24/2006 – Brad Greenspan, the former chief executive of Intermix Media Inc., filed a complaint Thursday against his former company and venture-capital firm VantagePoint Venture Partners over Intermix's sale last year to News Corp. (NWS).
Greenspan charged Intermix directors with failing to carry out their fiduciary duties in the sale of the company that ran the popular social-networking site MySpace.com. The suit claims that the directors - including Richard Rosenblatt, Intermix's CEO at the time of the deal - sought personal gains and failed to act in the shareholders' best interests.

02/20/2006 – Seattle-based venture capital firm Ignition Partners said it has joined with several top China-focused investors to form a technology investment firm here.
The firm said the new company, called Qiming, has an initial 200 mln usd to invest in early-to-expansion-stage companies in the technology and export sector.
The China-focused investors include Duane Kuang, former director of Intel Capital China; and Gary Rieschel, founder of Mobius Venture Capital.

02/10/2006 – 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.

02/07/2006 – With in-game advertising forecast to grow by at least 40 percent this year and exceed $1 billion before the end of the decade, market pioneer IGA Worldwide, Inc. has secured a first close of $12 million in its initial round of institutional financing to further accelerate its growth.A consortium of investors led by New York-based Easton Capital Group and co-led by Morgenthaler Ventures and including existing investor DN Capital has subscribed to the Series A funding round, eager to capitalise on the group’s significant market traction and unique combination of ad agency and media experience, videogame culture, and cutting edge proprietary technologies.

01/24/2006 – Salix Ventures announced today its intention to raise up to $150 million for its third venture capital partnership, Salix Ventures III, L.P. The fund will focus on early-stage health care services investments with a small portion of th