Capital Southwest backs iMemories

Those embarrassing teen moments on VHS are no longer safe in your parent’s basement.

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based iMemories, which digitalizes home movies and pictures and helps consumers share them online, announced last week that it raised $6.2 million in Series B funding from sole investor Capital Southwest. The funding from Dallas-based Capital Southwest is the first institutional money that the company has raised.

Previously, the company raised $4.6 million in a Series A round in 2006 from individual investors. Mark Rukavina, founder and CEO, says that most of the Series A came from Dough Ducey, former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, who now serves as chairman of iMemories.

There are no near future plans to raise another round, Rukavina says. “We are close to profitability,” he says.

Rukavina says that it was difficult to raise money in the current economic climate. The company set out to raise the Series B round in early 2009. Rukavina declined to disclose how many employees are at the company. Nor did he say how many customers use the iMemories website. However, he says that Best Buy and Blockbuster have partnered with the company by promoting the iMemories website alongside digital cameras and movies.

Rukavina says the company is seeing a growth in providing online storage for all forms of media, old and new.

Rukavina adds that the company is often confused to be associated with iPhones and iPods, made by Apple, but he says there is no association with the company.

Rukavina founded iMemories in 2006. He previously co-founded KnowledgeNet, which was sold for an undisclosed amount to Thomson Corp., now known as Thomson Reuters (publisher of PE Week).