VC Buzz – $227.5 million in today’s deals

SAN JOSE, Calif.–Datasweep, a leading provider of Web-centric supply chain manufacturing solutions, announced that the company received $12 million venture funding from the leading e-commerce venture capital companies bringing the total amount invested to $14 million.

The second round of funding included additional investments from existing Datasweep backers Mohr, Davidow Ventures as well as new investments from Accel Partners. Datasweep will use this equity financing to expand in sales, marketing, customer support and professional services.

MENLO PARK, Calif.–Mambo.com, an online marketplace for activities and events, announced it has secured $6 million in funding from venture capital firm Hummer Winblad and several, key angel investors. Hummer Winblad’s investment of nearly $5 million is fortified with the additional funding of nearly $1 million from Mambo.com’s angel investors, including Layne Gray, president and founder of LKE Productions; Jennifer Bailey, former senior vice president of Netscape Netcenter; Randy Komisar, a strategic advisor to Mambo.com; John Matheny, vice president of Software Products and Services for WebTV Networks, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corp.; and Warren Adams, a strategic advisor to Mambo.com.

BOSTON–Extraprise, a leading e-services firm, announced that it has closed $25 million in a mezzanine round of venture funding. Leading the round were Weiss Peck & Greer Venture Partners of San Francisco and Palo Alto-based Meritech Capital. Participating firms were Brentwood Venture Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, OneLiberty Ventures and First Analysis Corporation.

Extraprise will use these funds to expand its e-commerce services, which include strategy, creative and technology offerings. The funds will also power international expansion, acquisition activity, and the development of the company’s direct sales channels. Additionally, this round will enable the founding of Extraprise University, the company’s innovative knowledge management and employee-focused training program.

PALO ALTO, Calif.–Recourse Technologies Inc., an Internet security start-up, announced that it has closed its second round of funding. Recourse raised $6,750,000 from investors led by Menlo Ventures. Other investors include existing Recourse venture capital partner Doll Capital Management. Recourse plans to use the funding to expand operations and continue development of its full line of covert security products.

REDMOND, Wash.–imandi.com, the largest “reverse-market” e-commerce company, has secured $15 million in its first venture capital round of funding. Founded by two Microsoft alumni, imandi.com is a one-stop service that connects consumers with local and national merchants providing a wide array of tailored products and services, as well as hard-to-find antiques and collectibles.

Led by Menlo Ventures, other venture capital firms backing imandi.com include Bertelsmann Ventures (the independent venture capital fund of the world’s third largest media company — Bertelsmann AG), Madrona Investment Group, and Northwest Venture Associates.

FOSTER CITY, Calif.–DoveBid Inc., — formerly Dove Brothers — one of the world’s leading business-to-business auctioneers and capital asset sale advisors, announced the completion of a $12 million second round of venture financing. Participating in this round were Fremont Ventures and Mayfield Fund, which led the round. Total private investment in the company in 1999 now stands at $16 million.

WYNNEWOOD, Pa.–RealTIME Media Inc., one of the nation’s leading online promotional agencies, announced that it has received an $8.5 million round of financing from a consortium of firms led by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE) and including NewSpring Ventures L.P., Ben Franklin/Progress Capital Fund, L.P., and Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners. The capital comes on the heels of an aggressive expansion by RealTIME, during which the company developed and executed a number of instant-win prize and incentive-based online promotions for many of the Internet’s largest online players.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.–Escalate Inc., a pioneer in the E-commerce Service Provider market, announced a $26 million investment led by Accel Partners and Norwest Venture Partners. The Barksdale Group and Discovery Ventures also contributed to the round. Other leading members of the retailing, e-commerce, portal and venture communities participating in the investment through Angel Investors, LP include: Patrick J. Connolly, executive vice president, Williams-Sonoma; Ron Conway, General Partner, Angel Investors, LP; Esther Dyson, member, Angel Investors LP; Peter Godfrey, CEO, founder, Micro Warehouse; Ben Rosen, chairman, Compaq Computer Corp.; Rodney Schrock, CEO, AltaVista; and Stratton Sclavos, CEO, VeriSign.

As part of the investment, Bruce Golden, partner of Accel Partners, and Promod Haque, managing general partner of Norwest Venture Partners, have joined Escalate’s board of directors. Formerly known as Just Like TV Internet, Inc., the company also unveiled its new name: Escalate Inc.

PLEASANTON, Calif.–Ironside Technologies Inc., a leading supplier of sell-side business-to-business electronic commerce solutions for the manufacturing and wholesale distribution market, announced that it has completed its latest round of private financing, securing a third-round total investment of $28.5 million from leading capital firms. In addition to continued contribution from existing investors GE Capital, Euclid Partners, Working Ventures, Beamscope Canada Inc. and Covington Capital, Ironside has received funding from new partners American International Group (AIG), CIBC World Markets, Damac, River Cities Capital and Vengrowth Capital.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.–Veridicom Inc., a leading provider of silicon-based fingerprint authentication solutions, announced it has secured $22.3 million in a third round of funding. The funding will be used by Veridicom to evolve its focus on enabling secure e-commerce and protecting user privacy on the Internet — providing security for personal data.

Led by Deutsche Bank, several new investors participated in Veridicom’s third round of funding, including CSK/SEGA, General Electric Investment Corp., GEO Capital, SEIKO Instruments and Venture Partners of Switzerland. In addition, Veridicom’s third round of funding included each of its current investors: Allegro Capital, AT&T Ventures, Hambrecht & Quist, Intel, Lucent Technologies and U.S. Venture Partners.

KANATA, Ontario–COVENTUS Inc., an eServices Provider of secure end-to-end Internet-enabled services for business travelers, announced that it has secured $1.25 million in strategic round equity funding from Hollinger Digital Inc.

COVENTUS’ Internet-based applications, called eServices, will allow business travelers to access their offices as well as hotel information via a COVENTUS Web presence located in the guestroom or conference room. COVENTUS is the first company to offer this type of end-to-end Internet-enabled solution for business travelers.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Chordiant Software Inc., an innovator in the convergence of eBusiness and customer interaction software, announced it has completed $23 million in mezzanine financing.

Lead investor in the placement was General Motors Private Markets, joined by Tudor Investment Corporation, and all of Chordiant’s existing venture investors, including Battery Ventures, Brentwood Capital, Bluewater Capital, Foundation Capital, Norwest Venture Capital, T. Rowe Price and Vertex Management. To date, Chordiant has raised a total of $62 million in pre-IPO funding to develop and market the Chordiant solution, which was introduced in mid-1997.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Embark.com announced it raised $24 million in funding on Sept. 30, 1999, prior to filing a registration statement relating to the proposed public offering of its common stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This most recent round of funding comes from several strategic investors including Recruit Co., Ltd. Of Japan, Excite@Home, ITOCHU Corporation, a leading trading conglomerate, JGE Capital Management and Avalon, Inc. In addition, existing investors Doll Capital Management, Norwest Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Venture Partners, Vertex Management and Sienna Holdings participated in the private financing.

Embark.com is a provider of online information, products and services to facilitate the achievement of higher education goals.

PLEASANTON, Calif.– Furthering its leadership position as the first e-business archiving service available via the Web, Zantaz.com announced that it received its third round of venture capital financing in the amount of $16.2 million. The company has received an investment total of $22.7 million in less than two years. The investment was made by a number of leading venture capital firms that have funded several successful Internet start-up companies. Led by ComVentures, funding was also made possible by Red Rock Ventures, GC Technology Fund, Athena Technology Venture Fund and Novus Ventures. In addition, Critical Path, Inc., a leader in business-to-business Internet messaging solutions, contributed to the investment.

LOS ANGELES — eteamz, the online destination for recreational sports participants, announced that it closed an oversubscribed $1 million seed round with the Tech Coast Angels. Eteamz provides free Web sites, instruction and community to players, coaches, officials and families around the world to help improve their sporting experience. The Tech Coast Angels invest in and work directly with emerging technology companies.

The Tech Coast Angels is a group of 120 former CEOs and venture capitalists that invests in and assists early-stage, Southern California companies. With chapters in Los Angeles and Orange County, the group generally funds seed or start-up businesses with capital needs of approximately $1 million, which they believe have the potential to become substantial national or international enterprises.

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Trans Cosmos USA Inc., a leading strategic international investor and business development firm, announced the closing of a $100 million round of private equity financing. This new round of funding comes under a $300 million round closed by parent company Trans Cosmos Inc. of Japan. Lead underwriters in the second round were Nikko Securities and Solomon Smith Barney.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to expand Trans Cosmos USA’s already aggressive strategic investment, business development and joint venture activities for U.S. Internet-based technology companies. Trans Cosmos USA focuses on companies in the areas of New Media, e-Commerce, Marketing Services, and Customer Care technologies and services.

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.–Zany Brainy, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZANY), a leading specialty retailer of high quality toys, games, books and multimedia products, announced it has established a joint venture with Online Retail Partners LLC to develop an e-commerce web-site. The company expects the site to be fully operational for the important holiday season.

CHELMSFORD, Mass.–WebManage Technologies, a leader in enterprise solutions for site resource and performance management, reporting and analysis, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Commonwealth Network Technologies, of Cambridge, Mass. A Boston University spin-off incorporated under the University’s Community Technology Fund’s New Ventures Program, CNT has developed a novel software-based technology that increases the efficiency and speed of Web transactions and allows Web content providers to scale up and manage their server capacity seamlessly and inexpensively.

STAMFORD, Conn.– DealTime.com, an independent online comparison shopping service, announced the launch of its first-ever advertising campaign to introduce consumers to a new and better way to do their online shopping. Targeted at anyone who has ever shopped, browsed, priced or purchased items online, DealTime.com’s new advertising positions the company as the online comparison shopping service that truly makes online shopping simple and easy.

The company obtained its first substantial financing from Israel Seed Partners, with additional funding from Odeon Capital Partners, Nomura International plc., WaterView Partners, Advanta Partners, Israel Infinity Venture Capital Fund and Axiom Venture Partners.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.– Cambridge Incubator, Boston’s first e-business incubator, has expanded its Venture Campus by leasing an additional 18,000 square feet in the next step of the rapid growth of its revolutionary new model. Cambridge Incubator’s Venture Campus offers entrepreneurial teams innovative space, a suite of services, and the capital necessary to transform ideas into successful Internet ventures.

SAN FRANCISCO –Robertson Stephens announced that it has formed a strategic alliance with OffRoad Capital to distribute select private equity offerings over the Internet. The alliance – the first-of-its-kind – provides OffRoad Capital’s high net-worth clients with the opportunity to invest in Robertson Stephens’ private equity offerings through OffRoad Capital’s proprietary Internet private capital marketplace. The two firms also announced that Robertson Stephens has agreed to terms regarding an equity investment in OffRoad Capital. The terms of the investment were not disclosed.

ALHAMBRA, Calif.–PropertyFirst.com Inc., creator of an online multiple listing service for the commercial real estate industry, announced the addition of two new board members. Joseph Azrack, chairman and CEO of AEW Capital Management and Thomas Unterman, executive vice president and CFO of Times Mirror, have joined PropertyFirst.com, Inc.’s board of directors. Both members were strategically selected to help lead the company’s commitment to transform the way transactions are conducted via the Internet in commercial real estate. The privately held company receives funding from some of the nation’s leading investors, including Brentwood Venture Capital and Eagle New Media Investment LLC, as well as Times Mirror.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–ONElist, a leading provider of active Internet communities, announced Michael Klein as President and CEO, effective immediately. Founder and acting CEO Mark Fletcher will remain as Chairman and will focus on the ONElist service as Vice President of Technology. The company received venture funding from @Ventures III, the affiliated venture capital arm of CMGI, Inc. (Nasdaq: CMGI) and Bertelsmann Ventures, the independent venture capital fund of Bertelsmann AG.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–Perfecto Technologies, a developer of innovative eBusiness security software, announced that Peggy Weigle has joined the company as chief executive officer. Weigle comes to Perfecto from Hyperion Software, where she served as vice president and general manager of the Performance Management division. Perfecto is funded by blue-chip venture capital firms and industry leaders, including Sequoia Capital and Intel Corporation.

SAN FRANCISCO– myCFO announces the appointment of Art Shaw, chief executive officer and president, and Frank Tirelli, chief operating officer of professional services. Shaw is the former senior vice president of Electronic Brokerage for Charles Schwab. Tirelli is the former managing partner, West Region of Deloitte & Touche. Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon, will continue in his role as myCFO founder and chairman of the board.

myCFO is an Internet-based financial services firm focusing on the growing market of high-net-worth individuals who want the best of personal advice and internet technology. Forrester Research recently characterized these technically adept high-net-worth individuals as the fastest growing segment of affluent Americans.