今日VC

PEI Funds Joins Motorola Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Allegis Capital, and Anvil Investment Associates LP in Series C Investment

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 10, 2010– Apprion, the leading provider of industrial wireless application networks, today announced the successful close of an $8M round of Series C funding. Participating in this round of investment were PEI Funds along with current Apprion investors Allegis Capital, Motorola Ventures, CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, and Anvil Investment Associates LP.

“Facing the most challenging business environment in years, Apprion has continued to grow and thrive,” said Doug Donzelli, CEO of Apprion. “Apprion’s industrial wireless applications are delivering what manufacturers value most — cost-effective, reliable, turn-key solutions that address their most pressing compliance and operational challenges. This round of financing will allow us to build on our momentum and accelerate the development of new products that will extend our market, technology, and thought leadership.”

Apprion delivers wireless application networks and services for the process manufacturing industry. Apprion’s ION System enables industrial facilities to cost-effectively deploy and manage multiple wireless applications as one unified, integrated system. The ION System consists of the Apprion IONosphere and IONizers. Integrated into the ION System are five applications that are core to industrial wireless application networks: Video Monitoring, Communications, Condition Monitoring, Workforce Mobility, and Location.

“We have seen how wireless technologies and applications have transformed how manufacturing facilities operate by providing more secure, safe, efficient and reliable industrial operations,” said Lara Druyan, General Partner at Allegis Capital. “As the only company to have thoughtfully integrated industrial wireless infrastructure, applications, and services, it is apparent that the Apprion team is leading this transformation.”

About Apprion

Apprion delivers wireless application networks and services for the process manufacturing industry. Apprion’s industrial products and services enable the deployment of wireless applications with the lowest total cost of ownership. Customers include market leaders in oil/gas, chemical, pulp/paper and power/utilities. For more information, visit http://www.apprion.com/.

Apprion and all other Apprion Inc. product or service names are trademarks of Apprion Inc. in the USA and other countries. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright 2010 Apprion Inc. All rights reserved.

Funding Validates Innovative SaaS Approach to Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence

NEW YORK, March 10, 2010– 1010data, providers of data warehouse and business intelligence products and services, today announced a $35 million minority equity investment from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a leading global venture capital firm. 1010data’s “transparent database” approach represents a paradigm shift for the industry that helps business users make critical decisions by closing the gap between users and their data. The company’s namesake service eliminates upfront design and development cycles, data marts, OLAP cubes, indexing and key-field definition, and allows the most granular or even raw data to be stored and accessed by users via a Web browser.

“We believe that 1010data is transforming the data analytics market, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to make this investment in the company,” said Jon Kossow, Partner, Norwest Venture Partners. “1010data has an experienced team and offers a truly disruptive solution. We are proud to be associated with the company, and look forward to great things in 2010 and beyond.”

For over a decade, 1010data has provided analytics, business intelligence and data publishing/warehouse services to companies in the financial services, retail, consumer packaged goods, and pharmaceutical sectors. 1010data works with leading companies such as: Bank of America, Dollar General, Equifax, GameStop, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, NYSE Euronext, and Procter & Gamble.

The company was founded in 2000 by pioneers of large-scale data systems on Wall Street. Drawing on that experience and new technologies, 1010data developed an Internet/intranet-based service and the underlying software that makes it easy to acquire, organize, manage, and analyze large volumes of complex, interrelated data.

1010data’s database management system differs significantly from others on the market in that it is architected to handle very large databases at a fraction of the cost, with much higher performance, and without the extensive upfront investment in time and effort of competing products.

“The capital from NVP will enable us to put added momentum behind our marketing and sales goals for 2010,” said Joel Kaplan, President, CEO and Co-Founder of 1010data. “NVP also brings a great deal of experience and marketing intelligence to the table, and we appreciate their confidence and support.”

The transaction closed March 4, 2010. With this commitment, Jon Kossow of NVP, will join 1010data’s board of directors.

About 1010data

1010data offers a data and analytics platform that is the only complete approach to performing the deepest analysis and getting the maximum insight directly from raw data, at a fraction of the cost and time of any other solution. 1010data’s extensive history in business intelligence and data warehousing has enabled the company to create this powerful solution.

About Norwest Venture Partners

Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a global venture and growth equity investment firm that manages more than $3.7 billion in capital. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, Mumbai and Bangaluru, India and Herzelia, Israel. NVP makes early to late stage venture and growth equity investments in U.S. and global companies across a wide range of sectors including: information technology, business services, financial services, infrastructure, technology enabled services and consumer. NVP has actively partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 49 years and has funded over 450 companies since inception.

Notable investments include Actel Corporation, Airespace (acquired by Cisco Systems), Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Corio (acquired by IBM), Cray Research, Documentum, Extreme Networks , Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Kace (acquired by Dell), LifeSize (acquired by Logitech), National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), Open-Silicon (acquired by Unicorn Investment Bank), PeopleSoft, Qumranet (acquired by Red Hat), Rackspace (NYSE:RAX), Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks), SideStep (acquired by Kayak), Spinnaker Networks (acquired by Network Appliance), Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM), Transaction Systems Architects (Nasdaq: ACIW), Verio (acquired by NTT), Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola) and Yipes (acquired by Reliance/Flag Telecom). For more information, please visit www.nvp.com.

Contact:
Fusion Public Relations for 1010data
Heather Lukens, 212-651-4227
heather.lukens@fusionpr.com
or
Norwest Venture Partners
Katie Belding, 650-321-8000
kbelding@nvp.com

SHANGHAI, and SAN FRANCISCO, March 10, 2010– Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, Inc. (http://www.amec-inc.com/ ) (AMEC) today announced that it has closed its Series D financing round by securing $46 million from existing investors. They include: Shanghai Venture Capital Co. Ltd. (http://www.shvc.com.cn/ ), Walden International (http://www.waldenintl.com/ ), Lightspeed Venture Partners (http://www.lightspeedvp.com/ ), Goldman Sachs (http://www.goldmansachs.com/ ), Redpoint Ventures (http://www.redpoint.com/ ), Global Catalyst Partners (http://www.gc-partners.com/ ), InterWest Partners (http://www.interwest.com/ ), Bay Partners (http://www.baypartners.com/ ) and Qualcomm Ventures (http://www.qualcomm.com/ventures ).

Since its inception in 2004, the company has raised more than $150 million from venture capital sources.

“I am very pleased that AMEC held its ground during the severe economic crisis and semiconductor industry downturn,” said Pingao Wang, President of Shanghai Venture Capital Co. Ltd. “The company has made major progress in plasma Etch equipment development and achieved good product positioning momentum. At the same time, they have played a leading role in the development of China’s semiconductor equipment industry. Looking ahead, I believe that AMEC is very well positioned to ramp up volume production and provide the best equipment solution along with excellent technical support to IC makers. Shanghai Venture Capital Co. Ltd. will continue to support AMEC’s execution of its business and technology strategy.”

Lip-Bu Tan, Chairman of Walden International, noted, “As the semiconductor industry moves to advanced device nodes (32/22-nm process), foundries are expanding capacity to keep pace with stringent new technology requirements. AMEC raised sufficient capital to build a tool that offers the best performance, highest yield and lowest cost of operation for this advanced production environment. I’m confident that the management team will rise to the challenge and help the industry meet the new demands.”

“AMEC’s management team continued to execute on its business plan through the downturn and has emerged with a compelling offering at a time when capital equipment demand is growing,” said Chris Schaepe, Managing Director of Lightspeed Venture Partners. “The steady adoption of the company’s technology by leading chipmakers is very encouraging, as is the company’s product roadmap. We look forward to AMEC’s continued growth as the industry rebounds and demand for the company’s differentiated Etch product continues to rise.”

“The financing provides extra bandwidth to further position our product and accelerate volume production,” said AMEC’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. Gerald Z. Yin. “Despite tight capital markets and a generally difficult environment for start-ups, we kept our aggressive innovation initiatives on track. This enabled us to deliver a best-in-class plasma Etch tool to customers working on very advanced devices. With its industry-leading productivity, performance and cost advantages, the tool has gained a strong foothold in fabs across Asia. We’re grateful to our investors and customers for their confidence and continued support.”

Since the last funding round, AMEC has focused on positioning its Primo D-RIE(TM) Etch tool at customer sites. Today, five companies in Asia have installed the system. They include foundries and memory IC companies fabricating devices at nodes of 65 nm and 45 nm, with extendibility to 32 nm and beyond. Repeat orders have already been received and smooth system start-ups are underway at the customers’ respective fabs. Additional tools are slated for delivery throughout 2010. Some will go to existing customers for volume-production; others are bound for new customers.

Chipmakers are drawn to the PRIMO D-RIE system for its novel architecture — a cluster tool with a dual-station chamber with single-station independent control — along with its very high radio frequency Decoupled Reactive Ion Etch (D-RIE) technology. When combined with superior engineering design and high-quality manufacturing, these features make AMEC’s Primo D-RIE one of the most productive, reliable and cost-efficient Etch tools on the market. Last year, the system received the 2009 Best Product Award from leading US trade publication, Semiconductor International. In addition, AMEC and its technology received nine other regional awards during this time.

Other recent corporate developments include the settlement of all outstanding disputes with Applied Materials, with a mutual commitment to evaluate collaboration opportunities.

About Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, Inc.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, Inc. (AMEC) is a leading Asia-based semiconductor equipment company with proprietary wafer fabrication solutions designed to advance technology, increase productivity and reduce manufacturing costs for leading global semiconductor manufacturers. AMEC’s systems combine unique technology solutions with economic innovations for the 65- 45- and 32- nm nodes and beyond. The company maintains R&D, manufacturing, business and support operations in China, with sales and support organizations in Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. To learn more, please visit http://www.amec-inc.com .

Primo D-RIE is a registered trademark of AMEC.

RainStor’s New Approach for Retaining and Preserving Structured Data Attracts Investment from Storm Ventures and Informatica

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 10, 2010-– RainStor, an infrastructure software company that provides the leading repository for historical structured data, today announced it has secured $7.5 million in Series B funding from Storm Ventures and enterprise data integration software vendor, Informatica. Existing investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and The Dow Chemical Company also participated in the round. RainStor will use the funding to expand into new markets, grow its partner base, and invest in product development and R&D. As part of this announcement, Tim Danford, managing director at Storm Ventures, will join the company’s board of directors.

“There is an enormous opportunity to address the needs of organizations that must keep massive and growing volumes of structured data accessible for regulatory or business purposes,” said Tim Danford. “RainStor’s disruptive technology allows inactive data to be stored, managed and analyzed at a fraction of the cost of traditional databases and data warehouses. We’re excited to be funding a company that we believe will change the way companies manage their information assets and add a new dimension to the data management market.”

RainStor recently announced its entrance into the U.S. data management market with an online data retention solution that reduces the cost and complexity of preserving information in the enterprise and the cloud, RainStor 3.5. The technology lets companies manage more inactive structured data with less hardware, storage and resources.

“We initially invested in RainStor because we believed there was a gap in the market for technology that simplified and reduced the cost of retaining structured data,” added George Powlick, managing director at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. “RainStor’s success and the markets acceptance of the need for specialized data repositories have validated this view.”

“With our proven technology, established partners, and now more than 50 customers, RainStor has already demonstrated impressive traction in the market,” said John Bantleman, CEO of RainStor. “We believe with our experienced team and this injection of capital, RainStor is well positioned to become the standard technology for retaining and preserving structured data in the enterprise and the cloud.”

For more information on RainStor or to speak with a company executive, please visit: http://www.rainstor.com.

About RainStor
RainStor is a technology pioneer in online information preservation. The company’s specialized data repository significantly reduces the total cost of preserving information through extreme data compression, simplified data management and near-perfect scalability on commodity hardware. RainStor enables partners including Informatica, Adaptive Mobile and OnPoint Technologies to deliver online data retention solutions that reduce the cost and complexity of preserving information in the enterprise or the cloud. RainStor is the optimal data management and storage technology for application archiving, application retirement, SaaS Data Escrow™, and log and security event management solutions.

RainStor is a privately held company with offices in San Francisco, USA and Gloucester, UK. For more information, visit http://www.rainstor.com.

Contact:
Julie Tangen

Kulesa Faul for RainStor
831-425-1083
julie@kulesafaul.com

Focused on Discovery of Novel Microorganisms Associated with Cancer, Other Diseases

Service Business Leverages Next-Generation Sequencing and Bioinformatics Capabilities

HERCULES, Calif., March 10, 2010– Eureka Genomics today announced the closing of a $3.7 million private financing round whose participants included private individuals and undisclosed angel investors. The proceeds will further discovery research aimed at identifying novel microorganisms associated with specific cancers and other important diseases, as well as help grow Eureka Genomics’ high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics service business on a global basis. Eureka Genomics is an industry leader in the area of advanced bioinformatics analysis associated with next-generation sequencing data, and a provider of high-end services to diagnostics, pharmaceutical/biotechnology, agricultural and cleantech companies, as well as academic, public and private research laboratories.

“This funding will support the advancement of our lead programs in colorectal cancer, lymphoma and cardiovascular disease,” said Didier Perez, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for Eureka Genomics. “Our advanced next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics capabilities have already resulted in the discovery of unique microbial associations with disease in animals and plants, and we are working to extend our discoveries to humans.”

He noted that since Eureka Genomics’ founding in 2007, the company has formed a growing number of partnerships and collaborations with leading academic, governmental and private research organizations. “We intend to continue adding new partners over the coming year, including corporate collaborators for the co-development and commercialization of vaccines and diagnostics based on our discoveries.”

Eureka Genomics also plans to use the funds to help grow global sales and marketing for its high-end sequencing and bioinformatics business. “Over the course of our discovery research we have developed advanced capabilities in high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis that we leverage and bring to bear on our customers’ everyday problems,” said Heather Koshinsky, Ph.D., Eureka Genomics’ co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer. “We have already gained widespread industry recognition as the leading provider of solutions to scientifically complex problems not addressable by other high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics services. Our expertise and offerings ensure that Eureka Genomics’ customers can quickly get the information and answers they need on a cost effective basis.

About Eureka Genomics

Eureka Genomics is a privately held company and a leader in the advanced bioinformatics analysis of next-generation sequencing data. The company applies its capabilities to the discovery of novel microorganisms associated with cancers and other important diseases, as well as to providing cost-effective, rapid high-end sequencing and analysis services. Eureka Genomics is headquartered in Hercules, CA and has operations in Houston, TX. For more information on Eureka Genomics, please visit the company’s website at http://www.eurekagenomics.com.

Contact:
Eureka Genomics
Didier Perez, 415-269-0666
Chief Operating Officer
Didier@eurekagenomics.com
or
Kureczka/Martin Associates
Joan Kureczka, 415-821-2413 (Media)
Joan@Kureczka-martin.com