VC Buzz – $137.4 Million In Today’s Deals

PALO ALTO, Calif.–Norwest Venture Partners announced a $4.9 million investment in Octane Software Inc., a privately-held provider of electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) solutions.

Norwest Venture Partners led the $13 million round of financing for Octane, which also included investments from Sigma Partners, Lucent Venture Partners and Greylock. Octane will use this second round of financing to accelerate the company’s growth by expanding its sales, marketing, and research and development efforts.

StreamSearch is a global audio and visual search engine that offers live events, full-length motion pictures, sports, weather, entertainment news and pay-per-view events on the Internet.

Two other venture capital investors, Brentwood Ventures and Advantage Capital, participated in the $9 million round of funding.

SAN MATEO, Calif.–HelloAsia.com, the first online network to reward users throughout Asia for their social and commerce relationships, has received more than US $20 million in first-round funding. Investors include financial institutions Greylock, H&Q Asia Pacific and TMCT Ventures and technology companies Critical Path, Inc. and Intel Corporation.

PALO ALTO, Calif.–Data warehousing firm Acta Technology Inc. announced that it has raised $14.5 million in its third round of financing. This latest round of financing brings the company’s funding total to $24 million.

SAN JOSE, Calif.–TeraStor Corp. announced it has raised $23 million in its latest round of financing. New investors, including Fayez Sarofim & Company, W.R. Hambrecht & Company, and several private individuals, join existing investors UTIMCO (The University of Texas Investment Management Company), Information Technology Ventures, Charter Ventures, Vulcan Ventures, and Winton Capital as contributors to this round.

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.–XIOtech Corp., manufacturer of the centralized storage subsystem MAGNITUDE and virtual disk storage pioneer, announced that it has secured an additional $20 million in funding.

The financing included existing XIOtech venture investors and a new lead investor, Technology Crossover Ventures of Menlo Park, California. The newly raised capital will be used to accelerate the company’s sales and marketing activities, as well as fund additional product development.

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. — InternetConnect received its first round of funding. The $20 million dollar commitment was made by Crosspoint Venture Partners and Spectrum Equity Investors.

NEW YORK — Indulge.com, an online specialty store delivering a combination of prestige beauty, style accessories and everyday indulgences, announced the close of $9 million of financing. This first round is led by the prominent New York-based venture capital firm RRE Investors, and includes North Bridge Venture Partners and Charles River Ventures. The funds will support Indulge.com’s soon-to-launch breakthrough branding campaign, positioning the site as synonymous with ease of shopping, modern luxury and trust.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Docent Inc., a provider of education commerce solutions, announced that it has closed a $17+ million round of financing with a group of global investors including Gilde IT Fund, a global venture capital investor specializing in information technology companies. Gilde IT Fund has contributed to the worldwide growth of companies such as BAAN, Insignia Solutions and Uniface.

DALLAS–OfficeExchange.Com is a new company providing an on-line trading center where sellers of pre-owned corporate office furniture can showcase their inventories and buyers can conveniently shop merchandise from dozens of companies via one Internet site. The company is backed by private partners with seed round funding of $1.2 million and company principals.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — PlaceWare Inc. unveiled MyPlaceWare, a personalized free Internet service that enables business professionals to experience the power of an extraordinary new medium of business communications-Web conferencing. MyPlaceWare is a complete service that offers anyone the ability to deliver live, interactive, content-rich presentations in real-time over the web to up to 4 other audience members anywhere in the world, so long as they have an internet connection, a web browser and a telephone.

PlaceWare has completed two rounds of financing totaling more than $11 million and backed by some of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists. Investors include Apex, Bay Partners, Rick Magunson, Kanwal Rekhi ,Dan Lynch, founder and chairman of CyberCash, and Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Novell

BOSTON and RALEIGH, N.C.– GE Capital launched NetOriginate.com, a new E-business designed to provide mortgage lenders and brokers with a suite of technology tools they need to streamline the loan origination process and increase profits.

LOS ANGELES — Click2Asia.com launched its English language site offering the Asian online community a channel for members to come together to discuss Asian-related issues, political, lifestyle and business topics that are specifically focused on the unique needs of Asians and those interested in Asia.

Click2Asia.com’s investors and board members include Gareth Chang, chairman, StarTV; John Tu, co-founder and president, Kingston Technology; Thomas Yuen, chairman, SRS Labs and co-founder, AST Research; John Chen, chairman, CEO and president, Sybase, Inc.; K.H. Wun, president, Anixter Far East; and AsiaTech Ventures, a venture capital firm co-headquartered in the Silicon Valley and Asia.

SAN MATEO, Calif. — Viador Inc., a provider of enterprise portals, announced the Viador E-Portal Suite is interface certified for the SAP Business Information Warehouse solution. Viador’s enterprise portal capabilities complement and can extend mySAP.com in the areas of Web access and reporting from databases, and content classification and searching from unstructured sources such as Microsoft documents, Lotus Notes and Intranets. Viador’s E-Portal Suite can also enable visitors of mySAP.com to publish and subscribe to documents, and take advantage of Web-based online analytical processing analysis.

LOS ANGELES–Pacific Capital Group announced that former California governor Pete Wilson, has joined the firm as a managing director. Wilson will be a member of the Pacific Capital Group senior management team. He will take an active leadership role in the firm’s private investment activities.

EATONTOWN, N.J.–Renowned telecom visionary Roy A. Wilkens has accepted a position on the board of directors of Tachion Networks Inc., creators of the Collapsed Central Office switching system for next-generation carrier infrastructures.

Privately held, Tachion Networks received first-round funding from Walden International Investment Group and Morgenthaler Venture Partners.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — chipshot.com, the Internet’s direct source for tour-quality golf equipment, accessories, apparel, and information, announced that Brian Sroub has joined the company as chief executive officer, effective October 7, 1999. Sroub comes to chipshot.com from Beyond.com, where he served as Vice President and General Manager of the consumer division.

chipshot.com was founded in August 1995, and is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company’s investors include Sequoia Capital, Oracle Venture Fund, and others.

AUSTIN, Texas — AV Labs, code name for the early-stage Internet fund recently spun out of Austin Ventures, launched a unique program to speed time-to-market for its portfolio companies. The Venture Fellows program delivers the hands-on management and operational talent critical to the success of early-stage companies. Mike Turner, former vice president and general manager of Tivoli Systems’ Enterprise Solutions Group, and Mark McClain, former Tivoli vice president of worldwide marketing, have joined the program as founding members.

SAN FRANCISCO — eve.com announced it has hired Charla Krupp, Beauty Director of Glamour magazine, as Editor-in-Chief and Vice President. Krupp, a recognized personality among millions of consumers due to her frequent Today show appearances and to Glamour’s broad reach, will be leading eve.com’s editorial offices in New York City. eve.com is the first online destination created expressly to offer an array of prestige cosmetics products on the Web.

eve.com is a member of the idealab! family, which includes successful Internet commerce sites like eToys and CitySearch. Additional funding comes from Menlo Ventures, Charter Venture Capital, Weiss, Peck and Greer and Crosslink Capital.

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