VC Buzz – $468+ Million in Today’s Deals

SAN MATEO, Calif.– AUNET, which is in the process of changing its name to iAsiaWorks, raised $85 million from U.S. and Asian investors to accelerate the build-out of its Internet solutions business model across Asia. The round of funding was led by Newbridge Asia and the Sprout Group. Also participating were Samsung Corp., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Bechtel Enterprises, Hambrecht & Quist, Korea Technology Banking Corp. and Richard Li of Hong Kong’s fund, Internet Elite Limited. Previous investors who also participated in this round of financing include Enterprise Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Zesiger Capital, Walden Group of Funds, Salomon Brothers, Generation Partners and BT/Alex Brown. Total capital raised to-date is approximately $110 million.

BOSTON, Mass. — HarvardNet secured $70 million in new funding from private equity investment firms. The Sturm Group and Vulcan Ventures Inc., the investment organization of Paul G. Allen, join existing investors, including Fidelity Ventures, M/C Venture Partners, and Osborn Capital. The additional capital will fund the continued build-out of HarvardNet’s DSL network from Maine to Virginia as well as the construction of additional Web hosting centers to serve its collocated, dedicated and shared Web hosting customers.

SAN FRANCISCO — Law.com, a destination for professional, student, business and consumer legal information, commerce and services, signed a definitive agreement for an investment of $50.4 million from SOFTBANK Capital Partners. SOFTBANK Capital Partners will own an undisclosed minority interest in Law.com. Bill Burnham, former Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. e-commerce analyst and now general partner of SOFTBANK Capital Partners, will join Law.com’s board of directors. Law.com was acquired in July 1999 by U.S. Equity Partners L.P., a private equity investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein Perella, & Co, as part of a strategic initiative to create the dominant content resource and e-commerce site serving the $130 billion plus legal services market.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.– Asera Inc., a provider of business-to-business e-commerce solutions that enable companies to improve channel effectiveness, sales volume and customer loyalty, completed its Series B funding of $47.4 million. Cisco Systems Inc., GE Capital Equity Investments Inc., and Intel Corp. participated in a Bowman Capital Management-led funding round along with other investors that include Itochu Corp./ Itochu Technology Inc., Integral Capital Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Presidio/Sumitomo Corp.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Niku Corp., a provider of software and business portals that enables businesses to source, manage and deliver professional services using the Internet, completed a $40 million financing. Participants in the round include new institutional investors Amerindo Investment Advisors Inc., Charter Growth Capital, Essex Investment Management and investment affiliates of Soros Private Equity Partners LLC and strategic partners, CNET and TATA Consulting, India’s largest IT consulting firm. Previous Niku venture investors J.H. Whitney & Co. and Venrock Associates also participated in the financing.

PALO ALTO, Calif.– OfficeClick.com Inc., which launched its Online Workcenter for admins in November, announced the completion of a second round of venture financing totaling $30.5 million. Funding comes from new investors, InterWest Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors and Forrest Binkley & Brown, as well as first-round investors, Doll Capital Management, Sigma Partners, and St. Paul Venture Capital. The completion of the second round of financing brings the total capital raised to $38 million.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Riffage.com, a site for experiencing new music from breakthrough bands, closed $21 million in second round financing. Riffage.com’s second round investors include BMG Entertainment, America Online, Bertelsmann Ventures, Mayfield Fund and Trans Cosmos USA. Bertelsmann Ventures and Mayfield Fund participated in the first round.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Evoke Software Corp., a pioneer in data profiling technology, obtained an additional $16 million of venture capital funding in November, bringing the total amount of capital invested in the company to $30 million. Signal Equity and GE Equity led the expansion round and were joined by existing investors, including Wheatley Partners, Axiom Venture Partners, and RRE Investors. Evoke Software provides data profiling and mapping solutions that shorten time-to-benefit, reduce cost and risk, and increase the quality of results for IT projects involving data migration, integration or consolidation. These projects include data warehouse and data mart implementations, ERP and CRM systems, application integration projects, e-business systems, and data consolidations associated with a merger or acquisition.

SAUSALITO, Calif.– Coactive Networks, a leader in connecting open control systems to Internet technologies, secured $14 million in funding from new investors including 3Com Ventures, a business development group within 3Com Corp. that invests in emerging technology companies, and Technology Associates, and existing investors including Chase Capital, TechFund Capital, and Charter Ventures.

SAN JOSE, Calif.– Global Sight Corp., a provider of enterprise solutions for Web site globalization, closed a second round of funding totaling $12.9 million. J.H. Whitney of Stamford, Conn., the U.S. investment arm of the U.K.-based 3i, Hikari Tsushin of Tokyo and Draper Fisher Jurvetson of Redwood City, Calif., participated in the round. Global Sight provides global e-business technology and strategy for companies to manage their Web presence in the language and culture of target markets worldwide. The second round brings the company’s cumulative venture capital investment to $16 million.

EVANSTON, Ill.– EthnicGrocer.com, a comprehensive online source of ethnic food ingredients and consumer products from around the globe, announced a $12 million investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital. The virtual ethnic grocery store offers more than 20,000 ethnic ingredients from all over the world, as well as recipes and information about different cultures.

PALO ALTO, Calif.– Two Internet music sites have merged to form a resource for musicians on the Internet. HarmonyCentral.com Inc. was formed by a merger of Harmony-Central.com and zZounds.com. Harmony-Central.com and zZounds.com will continue to operate as independent Web sites under the parent corporation of HarmonyCentral.com Inc. At the same time, the merged company announced the raising of more than $10 million to fund aggressive expansion plans. Lead funding was provided by Vulcan Ventures Inc., the investment organization of Paul G. Allen. Also participating in the first funding round were Zilkha Venture Partners and several angel investors.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Lutris Technologies announced the receipt of $10 million in funding from Chase Capital Partners and Chase H&Q, formerly Hambrecht & Quist. Founded in 1995, Lutris is the developer and primary sponsor of the Open Source Enhydra application server and an Internet consulting and professional services organization. The company plans to use the funding to build on the acceptance Enhydra has received in the Open Source community and make it the de facto standard Java/XML application server for Internet applications.

SAN FRANCISCO — SF Interactive, a full-service digital marketing agency, will receive an investment of $10 million in growth capital by the private equity group William E. Simon & Sons. SF Interactive will use the proceeds to launch or acquire offices in several major U.S. markets as well as to develop proprietary measurement, tracking and e-commerce applications for use by its clients. The agency will show revenues of over $7 million for 1999, up from just under $2 million in 1998. Over 100 professionals are employed in its San Francisco and New York offices, and the firm manages capitalized annual billings of more than $25 million in online media.

NEW YORK and CUPERTINO, Calif.– Wasserstein Adelson Ventures L.P., the venture capital arm of Wasserstein Perella Group, is leading a $7 million venture capital investment in Mockingbird Networks, a Cupertino, Calif.-based manufacturer of voice-over-IP telephony switches. Mockingbird Networks’ innovations enable and enhance telephony applications for the Internet and other broadband networks. Wasserstein is the lead investor in Mockingbird’s venture financing, with Cabletron Systems Inc., Bayview Investors Ltd. and others also investing.

OMAHA, Neb.– Giftpoint.com, an online gift certificate provider, which supplies gift certificates to businesses for corporate gift giving as well as to individual consumers, attracted a $5 million investment from Seattle-based GreaterGood.com.

SAN FRANCISCO — eCoverage, an online insurance services company, announced that Scott L. Kauffman will join the company as president and CEO. David Riker, eCoverage’s founder who has served as president and CEO since February 1999, will remain as chairman of the board. Before joining eCoverage, Kauffman was president & CEO of AdKnowledge, an Internet software company based in Palo Alto, Calif. In October, the company completed a $15 million second round of private financing with blue-chip investors that include SOFTBANK Technology Ventures; RRE Investors; E*TRADE; David Coulter, former chairman and CEO of Bank of America; Kenneth Langone, co-founder and director of Home Depot; and Accel Partners.

SAN JOSE, Calif.– iReady Corp., a provider of Internet-enabling solutions for smart electronics, appointed Stephen Cordial as its chief financial officer and senior vice president of finance and administration. Cordial comes to iReady from Xylan Corp. and PMC-Sierra where he served as vice president and chief financial officer. Cordial began his career at Texas Instruments. iReady has raised over $22 million in financing from B. J. Cassin, Canaan Partners, Crescendo Ventures, Donald L. Lucas, Jafco America Ventures Inc., NTT, RWI Group, and Telos Venture Partners.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Red Rock Ventures, the venture capital investment partnership specializing in seed and early stage technology investments, announced that Laura Brege and Bob Marsh have joined the firm as new partners. Brege joins Red Rock from COR Therapeutics, Inc., where she was the senior vice president and CFO for seven years. Marsh was most recently with Sony Electronic Publishing as general manager responsible for developing an electronic publishing business producing document collections on CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and the web.

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