Private Equity Week Wire for Monday 4/30

PALO ALTO, CA – Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati(WSGR), the nation’s leading technology law firm, announced today thatRobert S. Fore has joined the firm as a Partner in the Fund Services Group,which provides legal services and counsel to venture capital and otherprivate equity funds. Fore comes to WSGR from the Bank of America family of companies, where heserved as general counsel to their worldwide private equity businesses andworked with leading venture capital and buyout firms. Recently, he alsoserved as an investment banker with Banc of America Securities.

NEW YORK — Jeff Martin has joined Rothschild as a Managing Director in its Corporate Finance Group, it was announced today by Gerald Rosenfeld, Chief Executive Officer of Rothschild North America. An investment banker with 20 years experience, Mr. Martin specializes in advising companies in mergers and acquisitions. At Rothschild, in addition to general M&A, he will also focus on healthcare. Mr. Martin, age 46, joins Rothschild from San Francisco-based Thomas Weisel Partners LLC where he was responsible for the firm?s East Coast M&A practice. Prior to Weisel, Mr. Martin was, from 1982-1998, a senior investment banker at Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. Mr. Martin worked in several departments at Merrill Lynch where, during his career, he was a Managing Director in their Mergers & Acquisitions Group, their Direct Investment Group, and their Latin America Leveraged Finance Group.

SAN DIEGO — Mohomine Inc., the leader in advanced software solutions for unstructured data management, announced today that it has secured its initial Series C round of funding from leading venture capital firms Windward Ventures and In-Q-Tel Inc. The capital raised will enable the company to focus on further development of its core technology, product marketing and sales activities.

ROCKVILLE, MD — Wisor, an innovative developer of Service Order Management solutions for next generation communications providers, announced today the closure of its second round of funding at US $10 million. SAIC Venture Capital Corporation extended the presence of its parent — Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) — in the telecommunications marketplace by leading this funding round with an investment of $8 million. Existing investors continued their support with a total of $2 million.

NEW YORK — Jungle Interactive Media, publishers of MBA Jungle and JD Jungle magazines that target the career and lifestyle needs of young professionals, today announced it has closed a second round of venture capital financing led by three major investors: Kingdon Capital, Korn/Ferry International and Ridgewood Capital. The Company also maintains the popular websites MBAJungle.com and JD Jungle.com.

WALTHAM, MA & PALO ALTO, CA — Advanced Technology Ventures, a leading early-stage venture capital firm, today announced that Jerry Maus has joined the firm as partner and chief administrative officer. In this new position, Maus will manage and strengthen the financial, administrative and overall business operations of the firm, which employs a staff of 29 and currently has $1.5 billion in investments under management. Maus has more than twenty years of experience managing financial, administrative and business operations in the financial services industry. Most recently, he was executive vice president, finance and administration of State Street Research and Management Company, an investment management firm with over $56 billion in assets and revenues in excess of $200 million. In addition to directing all corporate operations, Maus was closely involved with mutual fund sales and service. Business plans he helped develop and execute resulted in the firm’s growth from $15 billion AUM to $56 billion assets under management as revenues and profits grew at CAGRs of 17% and 46% respectively.

SACREMENTO, CA & NEW YORK — The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and Sports Capital Partners L.P. today announced that CalPERS has committed to invest a total of $122 million in SportsCapital Partners, a private equity fund targeting investments in sports, media, leisure, lifestyle and entertainment-related businesses. As part of its investment, CalPERS is acquiring the investment positions previously held by JP Morgan Chase Capital and is also committing additional capital. Following the CalPERSactions, Sports Capital Partners will reach $214 million in total capital commitments. Sports Capital Partners was established in March 1998 by IMG, the world’s largest sports marketing andmanagement firm; Sports Capital Chairman and CEO David Moross; and Chase Capital Partners. Grove Street Advisors, based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, acted as advisor to CalPERS in this transaction.

MALVERN, PA — Orthovita Inc. (Nasdaq:VITA / Nasdaq Europe: VITA), a leading developer of orthopaedic biomaterials, announced today that it hascompleted its private equity financing through the sale of 740,000 additional shares of its Common Stock to Meridian Venture Partners in a private equity financing for aggregate grossproceeds of $2,960,000. The shares were purchased at $4.00 per share.

SANTA CLARA, CA — Tharas Systems, provider of electronic design automation (EDA) hardware accelerators, today announced it raised $4.2million in its second round of funding, bring the total amount raised to more than $10 million. Funds will be used as working capital Investors include all of its initial investors — Alliance Venture Management, LLC, Redwood Ventures and Prabhu Goel, private venture capitalist and interim chief executive officer (CEO)of Tharas Systems.

FREMONT, CA — Atoga Systems Inc., the industry’s first provider of intelligent wave division multiplexing (WDM) solutions using tunablelasers, today announced it has secured more than $50 million in equity and debt financing from leading financial and strategic investors. The new funding will enable the company to enhanceproduct-development activities, boost sales and marketing operations, broaden customer service and support capabilities, ramp up manufacturing and expand into international markets. Integrating Internet Protocol (IP), Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) and WDM layers into a single platform, Atoga’s FastApp(TM) architecture simplifies today’s complex serviceprovisioning process and helps carriers dramatically reduce capital and operational spending. Additionally, Atoga’s solutions bring to market a simplified Quality of Service (QoS) andprioritization architecture that is critical for pursuing higher-margin revenue opportunities. The lead investors on Atoga’s equity financing are Silicon Valley Internet Capital (SVIC), which provides capital and operating support for Internet infrastructure companies andInstitutional Venture Partners (IVP), a fund that focuses on expansion-stage venture capital. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Sequoia Capital, Atoga’s two original investors, confirmedtheir continuing support with significant participation in this round of financing.

SAN FRANCISCO — Nth Power Technologies Inc., the pioneering venture capital (VC) firm that invests in energy-related start-up companies, todayreleased its annual study of funding in the emerging energy technologies investment category. Energy-related VC investment in 2000 topped $1 billion, a new milestone for private investment in energy start-ups. The $1.2 billion figure is up 165% from the 1999 total of $442 million.Nth Power reported that energy-related funding was some 50 times larger last year than it was in 1993, when the firm first started tracking such activity in an investment arena that was notlarge enough, at the time, to be considered a separate VC category. Nth Power monitors VC investment in six sub-sectors: distributed generation and storage, control technology, transmission systems technology, power quality, business servicesoutsourcing, and “smart” efficiency devices. Nth Power believes venture capital trends in energy could track those set by venture investing in the telecommunications sector over the past threedecades. From 1990 to 1995, energy VC investment averaged approximately $15.2 million. However, as energy deregulation began to gather momentum in the U.S. and around the world,energy-related VC investments increased. Energy start-ups received $98.2 million and $145.3 million in 1996 and 1997, respectively. In 1998, the figure rose 48% to $204 million. In 1999,investment in energy-related start-ups grew by 116% to $442.2 million and rose more sharply last year to surpass $1 billion.

CHELMSFORD, MA — Brix Networks, the leading provider of Internet service performance verification products that enhance provider revenues, today announced it has raised $22 million inits third round of venture capital financing. At the same time, the company also announced that Level 3 Communications, Inc. and e^deltacom (a division of ITC^DeltaCom, Inc.) have selected the company’s service level agreement(SLA) monitoring and measurement solutions (see companion news release also issued today). With funding totaling $47 million to date since the company’s founding in July 1999, this new round of capital will be used to further expand the emerging company’s sales, support,marketing, and product development efforts. The third round of financing included new backers Fidelity Ventures, Partech International, and STAR Ventures, joined by current Brix investors, Charles River Ventures andComVentures.

REDWOOD CITY, CA — Corticon Technologies, the innovator of a new class of enterprise software — Knowledge Automation software — today announced the close of the company’s first round of funding. American Century Ventures, the strategic investment group for American Century, and Securitas Ventures, in which Swiss Re is a limited partner, plus individual investors contributed to this round. This $3.4 million round will be used to enhance Corticon’s Knowledge Automation software, build and expand sales and support and penetrate the financial service and insurance markets.

NEW YORK — Candy Lee has joined iFormation Group as the Managing Director of Sales & Marketing. Based in iFormation’s New York office, Candy will provide leadership for the company’s marketing and branding activities worldwide. Launched in June 2000, iFormation is a partnership of The Boston Consulting Group, General Atlantic Partners and Goldman Sachs. iFormation partners with the world’s leading companies by investing in and operating new technology businesses that leverage their existing assets. Before joining iFormation Group, Candy was the President and CEO of Troll Communications, the major publishing and education company serving almost every American school, through programs for teachers, parents and students, as well as interacting directly with families at home. Troll is one of the top two brand names with teachers in America.

WESTERLY, RI — Heartlab Inc., a leading provider of cardiac image archiving systems, today announced that it has secured $23 million in private financing. Halpern, Denny & Co. and MedEquity Investors, LLC led the round and were joined by J.P. Morgan Partners. David Malm, General Partner of Halpern, Denny, and Robert W. Daly and Peter R. Gates, Managing Directors of MedEquity, will join the Heartlab Board of Directors, as will Dr. Richard Rehm, Chairman and CEO of Medscape.

WAYNE, PA & FAIRFAX, VA — Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE), a leader in developing and operating emerging infrastructure technology companies, and SRA International, Inc., an information technology firm that provides systems integration, consulting, and eBusiness and eGovernment services and solutions, today announced the formation of a joint venture company, SRA Ventures, LLC. SRA Ventures will commercialize and spin-off new companies based on the intellectual property SRA has developed over the past 22 years. These technologies will build on the Company’s data and text mining expertise, and will include applications in business intelligence for the financial services industry, bioinformatics and other emerging market opportunities. Safeguard and SRA have equal ownership (50 percent) of the new venture.

For last Friday?s Wire, click here.