Private Equity Week Wire for Monday 2/11

SANTA CLARA, CA & YOKNEAM, ISRAEL — Mellanox Technologies Ltd., the leading provider of InfiniBand silicon, announced today it has secured $56 million in its third round of funding. The round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, includes both existing and new corporate and financial investors. In addition to Bessemer, new investors participating in the round include: Banc of America Securities, China Development Investment Bank, Dell Computer Corp, Gemini Israel Funds, Jerusalem Global Ventures, JNI Corporation, Quanta Computers, Sun Microsystems Inc., Walden Israel Venture Capital and additional corporate and private investors. Previous investors also participating in this round of funding include Intel Capital, Raza Venture Management, Sequoia Capital, US Venture Partners and Vitesse Semiconductor.
SUNNYVALE, CA — Virtual Silicon Technology Inc., a leader in semiconductor intellectual property (SIP), today announced it has closed $20M in Series C funding from several leading high-technology venture capital firms. Leading the Series C equity round was US Trust Private Equity.

Also participating in the round were Gemini Investors, Pacific Venture Group and SCP Private Equity Partners. Previous investors participating in this round include Information Technology Ventures, Walden International, Hotung Group, Singapore EDB Ventures Pte Ltd, Sunrise Capital and Band of Angels Fund. Virtual Silicon will use these new funds to expand its product offering and its worldwide sales channels. Needham & Company served the company as exclusive investment bankers for the financing.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Solsoft Inc., a leading provider of visual security policy management solutions, today announced that it has received over $8 million in financing. This brings the total invested in the company to more than $23 million. CLAM Private Equity led this round of funding for Solsoft and was joined by new and existing financial investors including The Carlyle Group, Intel Capital and Rothschild.
SUNNYVALE, CA — Intransa, a privately-held company focused on developing an intelligent network storage solution, today announced it has secured an additional $10 million in venture capital financing from Sofinnova Ventures, Sofinnova Partners and US Venture Partners, bringing total funding for the company to $27 million. Intransa reopened its Series B round of funding, co-led by Advanced Technology Ventures and US Venture Partners, to include the additional capital. Intransa’s network storage architecture will enable a new generation of affordable, easily scalable and manageable, high-performance storage solutions for workgroup and enterprise markets.
ATLANTA — Servigistics Inc., a leading provider of supply chain planning, forecasting, and optimization software for service parts, announced today that it has raised $18 million in venture capital funding. The company will use the proceeds from the financing to capitalize on strong customer demand, to continue broadening its product suite, and to expand internationally to support its global clients.

Leading the round is new investor Bain Capital Ventures, the venture capital arm of Bain Capital, one of the most experienced and successful private equity firms in the world. Bain Capital Ventures is joined by new investor Symphony Technology Group, as well as previous investors SSM Ventures, Cordova Intellimedia Ventures, Robinson-Humphrey Netlanta Fund, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, and Encubate Technology Ventures.
BALTIMORE — New Enterprise Associates (NEA) today announced that it has invested $20 million in Inhibitex, Inc. Inhibitex, headquartered in Atlanta Georgia, is a biopharmaceutical company that is pursuing the development and commercialization of products for the infectious disease market. New Enterprise Associates joined Essex Woodlands Health Ventures as the co- lead investor in this issuance of Series D Convertible Preferred Stock, which closed with $41.4 million of an expected $45.4 million financing. The syndicate further included CDP Sofinov, Alliance Technology Ventures, William Blair Capital Partners and Pacific Horizon Partners. Upon completion, Inhibitex will have raised a total of $65 million.
BOSTON — BancBoston Capital, the private equity investment arm of FleetBoston Financial, and the São Paulo based team of ABN AMRO Capital, announced today a US$4.1 million investment in Cimcorp, a Brazilian network systems integrator. The investment provides Cimcorp with the necessary financial resources to continue to expand and enhance its infrastructure, systems and software technology.

VANCOUVER — Colligo Networks, Inc., formerlySynchroPoint Wireless, a provider of collaboration software for mobileworkers, today announced that it has closed its Series A funding totaling US$3.5 million.
PORTLAND, OR — The Board of Directors of Williams Controls, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: WMCO) has elected David S. Eberly to the board, effective January 24, 2002. Mr. Eberly is a managing Director and co-founder of GMA Capital, a private equity and investment-banking firm representing a variety of key suppliers in the automotive and truck markets. Mr. Eberly has a wide range of experience in corporate acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and private financings, and is a founding shareholder and was a member of the Board of Directors of European Gateway Acquisition Corp. Eberly, 38, graduated from Miami University (Ohio) in 1985 with a B.S. in Finance and Management.

NEW YORK — Argentina’s financial crisis aside, Latin America still offers good investment opportunities, especially in Mexico and Brazil, according to a recent poll by professional services firm KPMG LLP of fund managers at the Latin American Private Equity Investment Conference in Miami. According to the survey of more than 140 fund managers, more than 80 percent of respondents will focus their investments in Mexico and Brazil over the next two years. And, almost two-thirds will increase investing in Latin America by more than 25 percent between 2003 and 2005.

SAN FRANCISCO — Fox Paine & Company, LLC, the San Francisco-based private equity firm, announced the creation of Cradle Holdings, Inc., a new cosmetics business entity. Formed to acquire and nurture promising prestige beauty companies, Cradle Holdings will provide the expertise needed for high-quality, well-established brands to maximize growth and realize synergies of management and operations. Headquartered in New York City, the privately held company has to-date acquired, in separate transactions, Erno Laszlo and Penhaligon’s, based in New York and London, respectively, with other acquisitions slated for the future.