VC Buzz – $304.45+ Million in Today’s Deals

PORTLAND, Ore. — 800.COM Inc., an online retailer of consumer electronics and home entertainment products, closed on a $57 million third round of financing. This new funding brings the total of private investment for 800.COM to $73 million, supporting the company’s continued growth in its second year of operation. Amerindo Investments Advisors Inc. of New York, which led the round, was joined by other principal investors including: Advent International, Asia Pacific Ventures, Attractor, Berkman Capital, Levrick Limited, Olympic Venture Partners, Sofinov Societe Financiere d’innovation Inc., Trinity Ventures, Vulcan Ventures and WI Harper Group.

BETHESDA, Md.– Chromatis Networks Inc. received $38 million in its second round of financing. Total financing to date is $50 million. New investors include second round co-leaders Eucalyptus Ventures and investment affiliates of Soros Private Equity Partners, Anschutz Family Investment Company, Chase Capital Partners, and Hambrecht & Quist Access Technology Partners. First-round investors ComVentures, Crosspoint Venture Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners, and Lucent Venture Partners also participated in second-round financing. Chromatis products combine optical networking with existing data and transport technologies to provide seamless integration of Dense Wave Division Multiplexing technology for real-world metro network applications.

BOSTON– CO Space Inc., a Somerville, Massachusetts-based provider of carrier-neutral collocation space and related operations services to the communications market, completed an additional round of venture capital funding. The investment of $28 million by Beacon Ventures, along with Alta Communications, AEW Capital Management, and Latona Associates, will allow CO Space to accelerate its aggressive nationwide and international buildout schedule.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Connected Corp., a provider of Internet PC backup, secured $23.5 million in new funding from two new investors, the Baker Communications Fund and Fidelity Ventures, as well as from existing investors Hambrecht & Quist, Softbank, Intel and Applied Technology.

BOSTON, Nov. 29 — Intranets.com, a provider of free intranet portals, raised an additional $20 million of venture capital. Hikari Tsushin Inc., Japan’s largest distributor of wireless communication devices and Internet services, led the financing round for the idealab! venture. Also contributing to the round were: idealab!; MDT Advisers; Lazard Technology Partners; Friedman, Billings, Ramsey and Company; Hambrecht & Quist; Graystone Ventures; and Tritech Partners.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.– Xros received $20 million in venture capital funding from Menlo Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Greylock. The company is developing optical networking systems using a new micro-mirror technology. This brings the total 1999 investment in Xros to $25 million.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.– Growth Networks Inc. raised $16 million in a second round of venture funding to be used in the company’s development of a new category of networking silicon known as Internet Switching Fabrics. The funding was obtained from new investor Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners and from original investors Institutional Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates. With a $6 million first round raised in March 1999 from IVP and NEA, total funding comes to $22 million. The switching fabric, one of two major hardware components in any networking system, is responsible for the fast transport of data.

SAN FRANCISCO, — Guru.com, an Internet startup focused on serving the needs of independent professionals secured $16 million in second-round financing. The round was co-led by Greylock and August Capital, and also included several individual investors. This financing follows a $3 million angel round that closed in July 1999.

SAN FRANCISCO– TheMan.com, an integrated online resource that provides customized solutions to improve men’s lives, raised $15 million in equity financing, led by Highland Capital Partners. Keith Benjamin, general partner at Highland Capital and previously top ranked Internet research analyst, will join Bob Davis, CEO of Lycos, and Eric Chin, managing director of Infinity Capital, on the company’s board of directors.

SAN JOSE, Calif.– Centerpoint Broadband Technologies Inc., a newly formed Silicon Valley company in the high-speed telecommunications industry, closed a $9.25 million second round of financing. Investors include ComVentures, Cisco Systems, with participation from its first round of investors, BancBoston Ventures Inc. and Viventures Inc. Founded in March of 1999, Centerpoint is spearheading the development of low-cost high-speed transport products, which increase network capacity and simplify network architecture.

WATERLOO, CANADA– PixStream Inc., a developer of video networking solutions, announced the successful completion of its third significant round of financing. The company plans to invest the $8.47 million (C$12.5 million) in continued development of its video networking systems and the expansion of its global sales and marketing efforts. All existing external investors participated in this round along with a new investor, J.L. Albright Venture Partners.

LINCOLN, Mass.– Unica secured a $6.75 million investment led by Summit Accelerator Fund L.P., an emerging growth venture capital firm focused on technology and Internet investments, with participation from JMI Equity Fund LP, a venture capital firm focused on investments in emerging growth ebusiness, software and services companies. Unica is a leader in providing electronic Customer Relationship Management and Enterprise Marketing Automation solutions for Internet and traditional marketing channels.

SEATTLE– Viathan Corp. completed its first funding round, receiving $6.5 million led by ARCH Venture Partners, with follow-on investments from the Madrona Investment Group and The Phoenix Partners; Fluke Venture Partners and Seapoint Ventures also participated in this round. Initial seed round funding was received from The Phoenix Partners, the Madrona Group and others. Viathan is building a scalable data management technology that supports mass storage of Internet data.

SAN FRANCISCO — ShortCycles Inc., a provider of business-to-business e-services for dynamic information exchange, received $6.4 million from New Enterprise Associates, Sigma Partners, and several private investors. ShortCycles has developed a comprehensive web-based application that improves sales and marketing effectiveness.

IRVINE, Calif.– SoftNet Systems Solutions Inc., a provider of e-commerce solutions, completed a financing round in which it has raised close to $5 million from an international investment group, Kirnaf Ltd. SoftNet is a technology consulting firm that develops custom Internet/Intranet/Extranet solutions, for corporate, startups, pre-IPO and pre-FPO entities.

RALEIGH, N.C. — MindLever.com received $4,075,000 in first-round financing from Alliance Technology Ventures, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, and The North Carolina Enterprise Fund. Two weeks ago, the company changed its name from Empower Corp. to MindLever.com. MindLever.com also announced the appointment of Salim A. L. Bhatia to chairman, president and CEO. Most recently, Bhatia co-founded and served as president and CEO of BroadBand Technologies Inc.

SAN JOSE, Calif.– HyperBanner, a global banner exchange, completed a follow-on round of equity financing totaling $4 million led by Neurone Venture Capital and Eucalyptus Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with Hambrecht & Quist. This equity deal also included investments from Cidav, Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro and Silicon Valley angel investors.

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.– EarthMed.com, an online alternative health portal, will launch Dec. 1 with three rounds of private capital investment totaling $3.5 million. The equity was raised by Robert Hurwitz, OfficeMax founder and former chairman and CEO, and other. Evolving from a two-year-old Internet practitioner referral service, EarthMed.com will launch with a foundation of alternative medicine practitioners, associations, services, articles, products, remedies and events through this financing.

SAN MATEO, Calif.– RealTimeImage, a provider of Internet-based imaging products and e-services to the medical and publishing industries, received an investment from the Intel 64 Fund. Financial details were not disclosed. The Intel 64 Fund investment will enable RealTimeImage to port its Pixels-on-Demand server-imaging technology to Intel’s upcoming IA-64 product family. This technology breaks down large, complex images into smaller components that can be quickly streamed through networks and the Internet. It is included in RealTimeImage’s RenderView Internet graphics publishing products and services, and will soon be introduced in RealTimeImage’s new iPacs Internet medical imaging software.

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. — The National Transportation Exchange Inc., which electronically matches shippers and carriers for more efficient, point-to-point ground transportation, announced that FDX Corp. has become an investor in NTE. In addition, Robert J. Quinn, staff vice president, operations analysis at FDX, will sit on the NTE Board of Directors. Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

ACTON, Mass.– Cascade Systems Inc., a provider of e-Merchandising solutions for delivering targeted promotions to Web, print and email, announced that it has signed a Letter of Agreement to merge with Pindar Systems, a U.S. / UK based supplier of multi-channel product information management systems. Cascade Systems recently received an additional $12.0 million in venture funding from a group which included Tudor Investment Corp., Adobe Ventures and H & Q Venture Associates LLC.

IRVINE, Calif.– MedicineNet.com, a privately held Internet provider of proprietary healthcare information, and Walsh Distribution Inc., a wholesale distributor of 36,000 Rx and OTC products, announced that the two companies have signed a Letter of Intent whereby Walsh will acquire a 50% interest in MedicineNet Inc. The two companies are joining forces to create a new site, HealthCareAmerica.com, to provide total e-commerce capabilities for community pharmacies that include custom Web sites, online order fulfillment, and health and medical content.

IRVINE and PASADENA, Calif. — eMachines Inc., a supplier of personal computers, and Free-PC Inc., a permission-based, one-to-one targeted marketing network, announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to merge. Both companies are privately held. Under the terms of the deal, Free-PC shareholders will exchange their stock for shares of eMachines. Free-PC was created by idealab! Bill Gross, chairman of Free-PC and also of idealab!, will join the board of eMachines. Stephen Dukker, president and CEO of eMachines, will remain in his current position. Donald S. La Vigne, CEO of Free-PC, will become executive vice president of eMachines. Additional details of the transaction were not disclosed.

BOSTON– SpeechWorks International Inc., a provider of conversational speech recognition technology and products for e-business solutions, announced that Roberto Pieraccini, a world leader in speech systems research, has joined the company to head the new SpeechWorks Natural Dialog Group. Pieraccini comes to SpeechWorks from AT&T Labs and has more than 20 years of experience focused on how people interact with speech systems. SpeechWorks has financing from venture capital firms, Intel Corp. and SAP.

PALO ALTO, Calif.– Garage.com, a Web-based early-stage capital investor, is expanding to Israel. Garage.com’s Israeli office marks the firm’s first move in a series of international expansions into burgeoning high tech markets. Gideon Marks, the former CFO of the Rad Group, a group of data and telecommunications companies in Israel, will direct Garage.com’s effort from Herzliya, Israel.

NEW YORK — OrbitGems.com, the largest estate and fine jewelry store on the Internet, announced the appointment of David L. Rieger as its chief operating officer. Rieger also serves as founder and vice president of Windsor Estate Buyers Inc., a subsidiary of Windsor Jewelers. OrbitGems.com was launched by Orbit Capital Corp., an Internet incubation and venture capital fund.

ATLANTA — Viewlocity, a global leader in providing supply chain integration and synchronization for e-Business, announced the appointment of Maurice “Moe” Trebuchon, former lead partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, as chief operating officer. The company is funded by Frontec, a European IT firm, and Battery Ventures.

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