VC Buzz – $542.75+ Million in Today’s Deals

SAN MATEO, Calif. –Onebox.com, a communications application service provider, raised $50 million in its Series C round, bringing the total amount of private funding to nearly $70 million. This mezzanine round was led by Meritech Capital Partners and includes Bowman Capital Management, Vision Capital and Macquarie Technology Funds. IVP and Brentwood Venture Capital, having led the company through its first two rounds of funding, also participated in this round. Onebox.com has a highly scalable, reliable pure IP infrastructure, providing services for phone carriers, ISP’s and Internet. In other news, Marc Linden was named as vice president and chief financial officer. Linden joins Onebox.com from Oneworld Systems, where he was senior vice president and chief financial officer.

NEW YORK — IntelliSpace, a provider of Internet Protocol-based business solutions, received a $35 million investment from Chase Capital Partners and Weston Presidio Capital. The company connects commercial multi-tenant buildings with multiply redundant fiber optic systems capable of delivering dedicated, scalable access at speeds of 64 kilobits to 100 megabits per second on demand.

BERKELEY, Calif. –NightFire, a provider of e-infrastructure solutions for broadband service deployment, completed a $30 million funding round led by New Enterprise Associates. Each of the first-round investors — U.S. Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital

, and The Roda Group — also increased their investments in NightFire. NightFire’s flagship products, SupplierExpress and CustomerExpress, streamline the service order management and deployment process for large DSL service providers.

twood Venture Capital, Maveron Equity Partners, Venture Strategy Partners and Silicon Alley Venture Partners also participated.

WASHINGTON — Cogent Communications, a commercial business ISP offering high-speed Internet access, raised $26 million in first-round funding from Jerusalem Venture Partners, Worldview Technology Partners, Oak Investment Partners, Boulder Ventures and C.Blair Asset Management. Worldview general partner James Wei and Jerusalem Venture Partners general partner Erel Margalit will join Cogent’s board of directors. Cogent Communications is offering Internet access at 100x the speed of a T-1 connection and priced at a discount to a single T-1.

BURLINGTON, Mass. — PurchasingCenter.com, a full-service business-to-business portal focusing on the industrial supplies market, raised $26 million in a second round of private financing, led by California-based Sigma Partners. Rho Management, a new investor, also participated in the round along with existing investors, Charles River Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. PurchasingCenter.com offers industrial supply buyers a one-stop shop for sourcing products, auction goods, industry news, expert advice and job listings.

its latest round of venture financing. The $19 million round was led by MCI WorldCom Venture Fund with additional investments from Columbia Capital, Boston Millennia Partners and HIG Capital. TeleCommute Solutions’ bundle of workforce connectivity services — including its managed VPN services, intelligent voice solutions and support services — are now available to enterprise customers in 10 markets around the country.

NEW YORK– ClickThings, an Internet services company, secured $16.6 million in the latest round of venture capital funding. Psilos, a Silicon Alley based venture fund led the round, which included Paine Webber Group, the New York City Investment Fund, members of the Rudin family, Holden Ventures and Chase Capital Partners. Stephen M. Krupa of Psilos Group and a senior representative of PaineWebber will join the company’s board of directors. The official launch of ClickThings and its first service offering, a small-to-medium-sized business Web site solution, are slated for the first quarter of 2000.

MIAMI — SportsYA!, a Spanish and Portuguese-language sports portal, raised $15 million in a financing round led by IMG/Chase Sports

Capital. Other investors include Fred Wilpon, co-owner of the New York Mets Baseball Club; and all of SportsYA!’s initial investors: Chase Capital Partners, Flatiron Partners and Ventech LLC, among others. SportsYA! Will be the exclusive Spanish and Portuguese-language global sports portal for IMG and its Internet affiliates, including TransWorld International. TWIi produces signature sports websites, including those for the Brazilian National Soccer team and Manchester United.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — SPS Commerce, an Internet-based, business-to-business e-commerce services provider, secured $15 million in financing from new investors including Brinson Partners, as well as certain current investors: St. Paul Venture Capital, Damac Al Baraka Investment Co., Granite Private Equity and Axiom Venture Partners. SPS Commerce’s services allows each vendor to retain their current business processes, while enabling them to trade electronically via any of the Trading Partner Enablement program’s options, including WEB EC, application conversion, fax conversion and manual conversion.

NEW YORK– PressPoint announced that Warburg, Pincus Equity Partners invested $14.5 million in exchange for equity in PressPoint. The company has developed a system that uses the Internet to distribute current editions of out-of-town publications in print format to readers located in major cities throughout the world. PressPoint “distributes-then-prints” in a high quality, large-page, all-digital format from content edited solely by the newspaper’s publisher. Sandler Capital Management is also an investor in PressPoint.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif — Rentals.com, an online residential rental resource, named the sources of its November 1999 $12 million “B” round of funding as Sequoia Capital and SOFTBANK Venture Capital. Sequoia received 23% ownership of Rentals.com while SOFTBANK now owns 17% of the business. Mike Goguen, partner at Sequoia Capital, and Scott Russell, managing director of SOFTBANK, joined Rentals.com as board members. The site is expected to launc

h in March 2000.

MAYNARD, Mass.– Ucentric Systems completed a $10 million first round of venture capital from Polaris Venture Partners. Ucentric will use the proceeds to continue development of its home server product that provides the “last yard of the last mile” and makes the Internet a household utility. The system, comprised of Ucentric-developed software atop a Linux OS and standard hardware, offers a residential platform for providers of Internet-based content and services that can touch any device in the home.

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.– FatWire Corp., developer of UpdateEngine, content management software for the enterprise, closed its first round of funding at $9.25 million. Wheatley Partners led the financing round. UpdateEngine allows non-technical users to easily update Web site content in a safe and controlled environment.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Tacit Knowledge Systems, a provider of automated enterprise knowledge discovery and exchange systems, secured an additional round of funding from lead corporate investor, Reuters Greenhouse, along with Draper Fisher Jurvetson and other prominent private investors in the technology industry. According to the company, KnowledgeMail and KnowledgeMail Plus work with large enterprise e-mail systems to automatically discover the knowledge, skills and work focus of each employee and make that information available enterprise-wide in a way that requires no administration or facilitation and respects the privacy of each user.

RADNOR, Pa. — Cross Atlantic Technology Fund completed an investment in Doublespace.com totalling $6 million along with Angelo Gordon & Co., Apex Investment Partners, and other investors. Glenn Rieger, managing director of XATF, will join Doublespace’s b

oard of directors. Doublespace functions as an Internet incubator, using a process that encompasses three stages: building the strategy, building the brand, and building the technology.

WAYNE, N.J.– Cutler Systems Management, a provider of Internet application management services, closed a $6 million round of venture capital financing from Trident Capital. Trident managing directors Venetia Kontogouris and Todd A. Springer are joining Cutler’s board of directors. Cutler focuses exclusively on helping organizations manage, maintain, support and evolve their Web-based business applications.

WALTHAM, Mass.– Gold Wire Technology, a vendor of network configuration management tools for large data communication providers, closed a $6 million round of funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and St Paul Venture Capital. The funding also included investments by The Hatch Group and Teradyne. Ernie Parizeau, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and Zenas Hutcheson, partner at St. Paul Venture Capital, joined Gold Wire Technology’s board of directors. Gold Wire Technology’s software product will help large data communications companies configure and manage networks and offer additional IP services in a secure, controlled and audited environment.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.– Osprey Systems, an end-to-end e-business solutions provider, received an additional $5 million in funding from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Bank of America Ventures. Earlier last year, Bank of America Ventures and Morgan Stanley Venture Partners made a first round investment in Osprey of $16 million.

BERKELEY, Calif. — CaregiverZone, a comprehensive Internet site for information, resources, community, products and services th

at helps provide care for the elderly, secured $4 million in funding from Angel Investors LP, Tenex Medical Investors, UK-based Eden Capital Fund and Alpenside International.

SAN DIEGO– Keylime Software closed its first round of venture funding by San Diego-based Sorrento Ventures, amounting to $2 million. Keylime provides a real-time, Web-delivered analysis service that allows e-business managers to get immediate feedback on the business and marketing issues that drive their Web site’s success. The solution provides a complete view of Web site activity and visitor dynamics including marketing effectiveness, user segmentation, site performance, and content stickiness.

WASHINGTON– aviationX Inc. raised more than $1.6 million in equity funding. The funding comes from Tim Stojka, Nick Stojka, Wired@tlantic and a group of aviation industry insiders. Tim and Nick Stojka are co-founders of PlasticsNet.Com, a B2B e-marketplace for the plastics industry, and its parent company Commerx Inc. The company’s aviationX.com network will offer buyers, sellers and intermediaries a range of value-added services, from message boards and user group forums to advanced e-commerce applications with decision support capabilities.

ORLANDO, Fla.– DigitalOwl.com completed its second private funding round with a $1 million investment by Draper Atlantic, the East Coast fund of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The investment joins contributions by the original first round angel investment team, bringing DigitalOwl.com’s total second round funding to $1.5 million. Draper Atlantic’s Dan Rua will serve on DigitalOwl.com’s board of directors. DigitalOwl.com enables content publishers to sell high value digital content on demand.

AUSTIN, Texas– Journee Software, a provider of self-service and customer care Internet solutions, received bridge funding from several Austin high-tech pioneers including Peter Zandan, CEO of Pazzaz and founder of IntelliQuest; Lee Walker, former president of Dell Computer Corp.; Craig Malloy, founder and GM of Polycom; and Martin Neath, president & COO of works.com and Journee board member; as well as some of Dell Computer’s most senior executives. M

urphree Venture Partners provided seed and first round of funding as well as subsequent bridge funding.

NEW YORK– UConnections.com, a provider of e-commerce and information for the college market, announced that KnowledgeCube Inc., a Silicon Alley based eBusiness Accelerator, invested the seed funding and is providing strategic services for the company. Richard Berman, chairman of KnowledgeCube has joined the board of directors.

WOODSTOCK, IL Webmodal, a business-to-business e-commerce venture focused on the domestic intermodal shipping industry, completed an initial round of funding through institutional and private investors. Webmodal is building an online interface, launching in the second quarter of 2000, that aims to improve the process of arranging for and purchasing domestic intermodal transportation services. Webmodal re

travel distribution leader, acquired TRIP.com, an online travel service and technology provider. Galileo plans to combine its existing Internet assets into TRIP.com, consolidating all Web activities into one entity. TRIP.com recently acquired THOR, a 24-hour online reservation service which operates the industry’s largest negotiated-rates hotel program. Galileo had previously invested in TRIP.com in 1999, acquiring a 20 percent stake in the company. It will purchase the remaining ownership interest for $269 million, in a combined stock and cash transaction.

PITTSBURGH– Birchmere Investments announced the formation of a new venture capital fund to be based in Pittsburgh. The new venture, Birchmere Ventures II LP, is raising $75 million for venture capital investments in early-stage information technology companies in the mid-Atlantic and Western Pennsylvania region. Richard P. Simmons, chairman and former CEO of Allegheny Technologies, will invest a minimum of $10 million in the new fund. Birchmere Ventures II will be managed by Sean D.S. Sebastian, managing principal of Birchmere Investments, and Ned J. Renzi and Gary G. Glausser, both general partners of CEO Venture Fund III. Birchmere Ventures II will establish a technology incubator in Pittsburgh to provide value-added support services and seed capital to early-stage companies.

PHOENIX — Incubate.com, a new Arizona-based company dedicated to helping New Economy companies grow ideas into sustainable, profitable businesses, launched in Phoenix, Arizona. Incubate.com is backed by outside private investors and by Kaibab Industries, and will be open to continually adding new investors for its portfolio companies. The company is also creating an investment fund for Arizona start-ups. R. Bruce Whiting, Incubate.com’s CEO, also serves as president of Kaibab Industries, a Phoenix-based holding company with operations in Arizona, California, Utah and Washington and representatives nationwide. In 1998 and 1999, Whiting served as CEO of law.com.

NEW YORK– New York’s Silicon Alley-based Deliverex appointed Brian Smiga as chief executive officer and president. Most recently, Smiga served as senior vice president for marketing and business development at 1ClickCharge.com. Deliverex recently completed a second round financing of over $10 million. Deliverex is a priority, permission-based, simple to use, and fully outsourced content delivery exchange service for all digital content, aimed at individuals and businesses. It is expected to launch during the third quarter of 2000.

AUSTIN, Texas — AV Labs, the new accelerator fund spun out of Austin Ventures, announced that Dean Cruse, formerly vice president of marketing at Acuity Corp., joined the firm as a Venture Fellow. The Venture Fellow program is unique to AV Labs, providing portfolio companies with access to entrepreneurial operating talent. AV Labs is an early stage venture fund focused on seed and first round investments in Internet companies delivering B2B, B2C, applications and infrastructure products and services through the Internet.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — Tim Breidigan, a former publisher of Microsoft Networks and director of field marketing, joined the board of directors of The Uniloc Company, a provider of electronic software delivery technology and systems. Uniloc is venture-backed by Digital Age Ventures.

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