今日VC

Cisco Joins Strategic Investors Best Buy, Panasonic & Samsung to Accelerate Consumer Adoption & Expansion of WirelessHD Solutions

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 9, 2010– SiBEAM, Inc., the leading innovator of millimeter wave (mmWave) solutions and developer of high-speed wireless communications platforms, today announced the closing of $36.5 million in Series D funding led by Foundation Capital. All of SiBEAM’s original investors contributed to this round including U.S. Ventures Partners (USVP) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), joined by new partners in SiBEAM’s success, Lux Capital and Hatteras Funds. Best Buy Inc, and Cisco have also contributed strategic equity investments to support SiBEAM’s growth and propel its second generation 60 GHz wireless high definition chipsets into the mainstream consumer electronics marketplace, as well as fund future projects for personal computing and mobile devices.

“SiBEAM continues to deliver on its promise to bring high-quality, lossless wireless high definition capabilities to the A/V home entertainment market. Their team has executed well on its plans and has brought in nearly all leading CE manufacturers as customers through its work with the growing WirelessHD® Consortium,” said Adam Grosser, General Partner at Foundation Capital. “This market adoption further supports our confidence in SiBEAM’s technology and the team’s capabilities to drive and solidify the company’s leadership in the exciting and high-growth wireless connectivity market.”

SiBEAM’s 60 GHz semiconductor solutions with OmniLink60™ Technology have won multiple awards, most recently being honored with a 2010 Design Vision award in the semiconductor components category. The second generation of SiBEAM’s WirelessHD chipsets, brought into mass production earlier this year, represents the company’s movement into mass market applications with low cost, low power functionality. SiBEAM’s latest chipsets also support advanced features demanded by today’s consumer electronics market including 3D, HDCP and DTCP content protection that can be designed into A/V receivers, home theater-in-a-box systems, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, media center PCs, and consumer laptops.

“We’re proud to be SiBEAM investors,” said Peter Hebert, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Lux Capital. “With exceptional leadership and committed corporate partners, SiBEAM has become the indispensable technology innovator in wireless home networking.”

As a founding member of the WirelessHD Consortium that includes 50 worldwide leaders in consumer electronics and personal computing industries, SiBEAM’s OmniLink60™ Technology is the first WirelessHD-based solution capable of streaming uncompressed high definition video, audio and data.

“This round of financing is a significant milestone for SiBEAM as it demonstrates the continued growth of our business and potential for significant investment return even in a challenging economy. With these funds, we can grow our business toward profitability in the burgeoning wireless A/V market,” said John LeMoncheck, President and CEO of SiBEAM, Inc. “SiBEAM continues to receive extensive interest from CE and PC manufacturers worldwide that are eager to integrate simple, cost effective and high quality wireless streaming capability into their products.”

Based on the WirelessHD standard, SIBEAM’s semiconductor systems provide the first and only available option to deliver lossless, uncompressed wireless high definition audio, video and data. SiBEAM’s advanced wireless technology solutions are designed for consumer electronics manufacturers, PC manufacturers, network infrastructure providers and others to incorporate into their next generation product lines for wireless communications. SiBEAM is currently expanding global sales and manufacturing operations to support the company’s elevated growth rate and customer demand for wireless A/V connectivity solutions.

About SiBEAM, Inc.

Founded in 2004, SiBEAM is a fabless semiconductor company developing intelligent millimeter wave technologies and leveraging the latest manufacturing methods to meet the demand for high-bandwidth services. SiBEAM is the first to build 60 GHz chipsets using CMOS technology. The first of many applications for SiBEAM’s innovative technology is based on WirelessHD®. As a founding member of the WirelessHD® Consortium, SiBEAM is a leader in driving the architecture and semiconductor implementation for the distribution and presentation of high-definition content in the consumer electronics and personal computing markets. For more information please visit: www.sibeam.com.

Contact:
Stearns Johnson Communications
Pamela Njissang, 415-397-7600
sibeam@stearnsjohnson.com

ALPHARETTA, Ga., March 9, 2010– Carticept Medical, Inc., a developer of innovative products for the treatment of cartilage injuries and osteoarthritis, today announced that it has completed a $20 million Series B financing round. New investor SonoSite, Inc. joined existing investors Domain Associates and New Enterprise Associates. The financing will provide funding for the expected commercial launch of the Company’s NavigatorTM Delivery System, an integrated, computer-controlled, fluid delivery system designed to automate the delivery of medication for the benefit of both the patient and physician, as well to complete patient enrollment in the clinical study of the Company’s CartivaTM Synthetic Cartilage Implant.

“We are excited to add SonoSite to our group of existing investors that have provided strong support to the Company,” said Timothy J. Patrick, President and Chief Executive Officer. “This additional funding provides further validation of Carticept’s leadership in the development of innovative treatments for patients with osteoarthritis or cartilage damage.”

About Carticept Medical, Inc.

Based in Alpharetta, Ga., Carticept Medical, Inc. is a privately held medical device company established in 2005 to develop innovative solutions for patients with osteoarthritis or cartilage damage. Major investors include Domain Associates and New Enterprise Associates. Additional information is available on the Company’s web site at www.carticept.com.

Contact:
Carticept Medical, Inc.
Peter Pizzo, 770-754-3800
Vice President, Finance & CFO

Names former GM HP Middleware and JBoss VP of Strategy to chairman of new board

SAN FRANCISCO, March 8, 2010– eXo, provider of Java middleware for cloud services, today announced an infusion of $6 million in venture capital financing from Auriga Partners and XAnge Capital. With the new funds, eXo accelerates its U.S. operations, including ramping up marketing and sales.

In addition, eXo has created a new Board of Directors, naming Bob Bickel as Chairman. Bickel is a 25-year software industry veteran with experience building profitable, high growth enterprise software companies, including Bluestone Software (acquired by HP) and JBoss (acquired by Red Hat). He also served on the board and as an advisor to Hyperic and SpringSource respectively before their acquisition by VMware. Philippe Granger, partner at Auriga Partners, and Nicolas Rose, partner at XAnge Capital, will also be joining the new board on behalf of eXo’s new investors.

“At eXo, we see a huge opportunity to bring higher level services that can extend installed enterprise Java applications with consumer web features such as collaboration, social and content management,” said Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo. “We now have the capital and collective business guidance of our new board to execute on this opportunity and take eXo to the next stage of growth.”

With an existing footprint in French-speaking markets, eXo opened its first U.S. office last October following a partnership with Red Hat. The new financing will help fuel sales and marketing in North America, including a strong emphasis on forging partnerships with OEMs, ISVs, SIs, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers that want to enhance their offerings with eXo’s out-of-the-box services for Collaboration, Content Management and Social Computing.

Bickel commented: “Benjamin and his team have done a great job of getting eXo to this unique position in the market where it can be the unifying, modernizing framework and user experience platform that Java needs to remain relevant in today’s web-driven world. I look forward to working with the eXo team to enhance this position in the months and years ahead.”

Auriga Partners (http://www.aurigapartners.com) is an independent venture capital firm based on Paris with more than 180 million euros under management. The firm provides seed or early stage investment in information technologies and life sciences in Europe, North America and Israel.

Founded by the French public postal operator Group La Poste, XAnge Capital (http://www.xange.fr/) invests primarily in businesses whose activities are related to La Poste’s core businesses and present potential for synergies and partnerships (e.g., electronic exchanges and e-commerce, transaction security, CRM and direct marketing, document intelligence and logistics).

About eXo

eXo (http://exoplatform.com) offers the next generation of Java middleware designed for the new era of cloud-based services. The eXo Platform makes Java websites and applications faster to build and easier to deploy, and offers modern features such as content, collaboration, social and knowledge on a services-based architecture. The company has established technology leadership and proven value by their large European installed base and strategic partnerships with Red Hat, Capgemini, Atos Origin and Bull. eXo maintains U.S. headquarters in San Francisco, Calif. with global headquarters in France and offices in Tunisia, The Ukraine and Vietnam. For news and updates from eXo, follow @exoplatform on Twitter.

Institutional Venture Partners Leads Growth Investment in Proven Leader in Online Advertising Verification

NEW YORK, NY, March 8, 2010– DoubleVerify, Inc. the pioneer and market leader in online advertising verification, today announced it has closed a $10 million series B financing round led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). The round included participation from existing DoubleVerify investors. A later-stage investor in rapidly-growing digital media and technology companies, IVP has funded many successful ventures, such as Business.com, ComScore, HomeAway, MySQL, Netflix, Quigo Technologies, TiVo, Twitter and Zynga.

DoubleVerify provides a technology solution that delivers transparency and accountability for agencies, marketers, publishers and ad networks running online ad campaigns. Advertising verification has created a fundamental shift in the online industry that for first time allows marketers to accurately verify their campaigns for brand safety, delivery accuracy and regulatory compliance. Major agencies and marketers have adopted verification in the past year, many of which have mandated the use of DoubleVerify across their entire online media spend.

DoubleVerify is the global leader in ad verification and pioneered the category when it launched in May of 2008. The company currently verifies over 25 billion impressions per month, which is more than all other competitors in the category combined. DoubleVerify’s dominance in the ad verification space has enabled the company to become profitable after two quarters and grow from 10 to 45 employees in less than a year.

“We feel fortunate to experience such rapid growth in the past year, and this funding will help us continue expanding quickly and innovating for our customers,” says Oren Netzer, Co-Founder and CEO of DoubleVerify. “The increased demand for verification and our leadership position in the space has allowed us to attract top-tier venture capital firms such as IVP. We look forward to working with the great team at IVP.”

“DoubleVerify has become the de facto standard for online advertising verification and is led by a strong team,” said Dennis Phelps, General Partner of IVP. “We look forward to working with management as they grow the business and transform the world of online advertising.”

“We’ve been extremely impressed with the progress that DoubleVerify has made in the past year, and the amount of interest in this round of financing further validates their dominance of the space,” according to David Blumberg, Managing Partner, Blumberg Capital.

“We’re gratified that the increasing level of trust relationship that we have with America’s leading marketers and agencies was noticed by the investor community,” said David Bell, a DoubleVerify board member.

DoubleVerify’s growing list of customers includes over 50 Fortune 500 Marketers. In December, DoubleVerify released BrandShield, the industry’s first complete ad prevention and blocking solution. DoubleVerify had previously closed a $3.5 million Series A financing in May 2009 led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from First Round Capital, Genacast Ventures and private investors.

DoubleVerify (www.doubleverify.com) is the worldwide leader in online advertising verification and the top choice of marketers, agencies, ad networks and publishers looking to ensure brand safety, campaign transparency and regulatory compliance. DoubleVerify verifies over 25 billion advertising impressions per month for dozens of leading Fortune 500 marketers. DoubleVerify is headquartered in New York City, with engineering offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. Investors in DoubleVerify include Blumberg Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures.

BOSTON, March 8, 2010– DataXu, provider of the leading real-time bidding platform for online display advertisers, today announced it has closed $11 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures. Atlas Venture and Flybridge Capital Partners, who provided DataXu’s Series A funding in April 2009, also participated in the round. The proceeds will be used to fund new product development, sales and marketing, and international expansion. John Jarve, Managing Director of Menlo Ventures, will join DataXu’s board of directors.

Since the company launched its demand-side platform (DSP) in September 2009, market response has exceeded expectations. DataXu’s technology offers a transformative approach to media buying, helping brands and their agencies use data-driven decisioning to improve media performance and reduce operating expenses. The DataXu platform creates campaign-specific data models and algorithms that value, buy and optimize ad placements across all major ad exchanges and other ad inventory sources. Unlike current solutions, DataXu’s optimization considers media context, consumer profiles, and choice of creative when making each ad placement decision.

“At Menlo Ventures, we invest in companies with significant technologies that can successfully create new markets or redefine existing ones. After evaluating the companies in the new DSP market, we chose to back DataXu, because of their proven leadership team and scalable, differentiated technology, which is delivering significant value for its customers. DataXu is well-positioned to be a market leader in the new online advertising ecosystem,” stated John Jarve, Managing Director of Menlo Ventures.

“We are very pleased with the early results that our system has achieved for some of the world’s leading brands and their agencies,” said Mike Baker, President and CEO of DataXu. “With this investment from Menlo Ventures, we gain not only a valued financial partner, but also the ability to deliver broader solutions and support to our growing customer base.”

About Menlo Ventures

Menlo Ventures provides long-term capital and management support to early-stage and emerging-growth companies. Menlo is one of Silicon Valley’s oldest venture capital partnerships, and has organized and managed ten venture funds since their inception in 1976. With over $4 billion under management since inception, and a team with over two hundred years of collective experience in technology, marketing, sales and general management, they have the resources to support the most ambitious of projects.

About DataXu

DataXu, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, provides the leading real-time bidding platform for online display advertisers. This powerful technology improves digital campaign performance and delivers unique insights to advertisers. DataXu’s executive team unites leading executives in digital media with MIT technologists. The private company is backed by Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Menlo Ventures. For more information, visit http://www.dataxu.com or follow us on Twitter at @dataxuinc.

Contact:
Colleen O’Hara
DataXu
857.244.6167
press@dataxu.com