Private Equity Week Wire for Monday 6/16

PALO ALTO, CA — Garage Technology Ventures, formerly Garage.com, announced the approval by California Public Employees Retirement System (“CalPERS”) of Garage Technology Venture’s proposal to manage the Garage California Entrepreneurs’ Fund, a $10 million venture fund in which CalPERS will be the exclusive Limited Partner, as part of CalPERS’ California Initiative Program. It also closed Garage Investments II LP, with 3i, a leading international venture capital firm, as the exclusive limited partner. This fund together with the CalPERS fund give their limited partners an efficient way to invest in the top-tier, early-stage companies that become Garage clients. The funds also give Garage Technology Ventures a greater ability to meet the financing needs of their clients with directed investments. It also arranged a $13 million Series A financing round for LeftHand Networks and appointed Gideon Marks to vice president of venture finance. Marks, a veteran venture investor and seasoned high technology executive, previously served as Managing Director of Garage.com Israel. Prior to joining Garage in 1999, Marks served as CFO of The RAD Group, a world leader in networking and internetworking product solutions. Marks, who has relocated to Palo Alto, will oversee the Venture Finance group, which is responsible for sourcing and funding technology companies.

SOUTHBOROUGH, MA — Celox Networks, the company delivering the most scalable edge aggregation and IP service switch for large service providers, today announced it has closed an $80 million third round led by Putnam Investments and Firsthand Capital Management, Inc. This brings the company’s total funding received since its founding in January 1999 to $155 million. In addition to Putnam and Firsthand, other new investors in this round include Dain Rauscher Wessels, J.P. Morgan Capital, Pacesetter Capital, SG Cowen and Thomas Weisel Partners. Along with the new investors, many of the company’s existing investors from its first two rounds invested again in the third round, including: ABS Ventures, Adams Street Partners, A.G. Edwards, Apex Investment Partners, Bank One, Bay Partners, Hexagon Investments, Pilot House Associates, Rosewood Capital and the Texas Pacific Group.

AUSTIN, TEXAS & CHICAGO — General Bandwidth Inc., a telecommunications equipment manufacturer enabling the new voiceinfrastructure, today announced the completion of $66 million in fourth-round venture funding, further demonstrating the fact that General Bandwidth’s product development strategyand target market create a compelling competitive advantage and value proposition. The funding was led by Invesco, one of the world’s largest independent investment management firms. Texas Instruments the world leader in digital signal processing (DSP) andanalog, and a leading provider of DSP-based silicon and software solutions for the broadband market also joined the funding as General Bandwidth’s newest strategic investor. Othernew investors include Wheatley Partners and Granite Global Ventures. This round brings the total funds raised by General Bandwidth to almost $150 million since its inception in 1999. The company raised $12 million in first round funding inSeptember 1999, followed by $24 million in February 2000, and an additional $47 million last August. In addition to new investors, the latest round included investors from the threeprevious rounds, including Sevin Rosen Funds, Sequoia Capital, Oak Investment Partners, Venrock Associates, Trellis Partners, Thomas Weisel Capital Partners, CIT VentureCapital and HLM Management.

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Wintegra Inc., a fabless semiconductor company targeting the access infrastructure market, announced that twoadditional investors have joined the Round B funding round with an investment of $10 million, closing a $21 million second round that was initiated in April 2001. Genesis Partners, a venture capital firm out of Israel, and China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB) of Taiwan, join Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and Wintegra’s threefirst-round investors, venture capital companies Concord Ventures and Magnum Communications out of Israel, along with Marvell/Galileo Technology, a semiconductor companybased in San Jose, Calif. Wintegra’s first round early last year was $5 million.
WALTHAM, MA — Charles River Ventures (CRV), one of the nation’s leading early-stage venture capital firms, today announced that two industry veterans have joined CRV as entrepreneurs inresidence. Hailing from Inktomi and Cisco Systems, both Swapnil Shah and Robert Weinberger bring proven track records as highly successful serial entrepreneurs.Shah comes to CRV from Inktomi where he founded and built the wireless division and served as the chief strategist. Shah was previously the founder and vice president ofproduct strategy at WebSpective Software, which was acquired by Inktomi in October 1999. Weinberger joins CRV with more than 24 years of experience in the computer software and systems industry. He was director of marketing for the Cisco’s Internetcommunications software group where he helped develop Cisco’s software strategy. He joined Cisco through its acquisition of WebLine Communications, where he served as vicepresident of marketing.

PRINCETON, NJ — InsureHiTech, an e-businessproperty and casualty insurance brokerage designed for middle markettechnology clients, announced today that they have received $4.35million, with a flat valuation from the A round, from J.P. MorganCorsair II Capital Partners LP, a $1 billion private equity fund, andtwo other strategic investors. InsureHiTech’s operating platformdrives greater efficiency for its sales and service personnel byremoving the paper processing that currently inundates the insurancebuying cycle. In addition to the industry leading technology platform,InsureHiTech provides insurance brokerage and risk management servicesto the high-tech, biotech, venture capital and environmentalindustries.

VANCOUVER — RoundHeaven Communications Inc., a privately held Vancouver-based managed hosting and outsourcing solutions provider announced today that it has completed a $20 million first round of institutional funding — one of the largest first round equity investments in recent history in the Canadian High Tech Sector — from M/C Venture Partners, a Boston, Massachusetts-based venture capital firm. RoundHeaven will use the funding to expand its operations into Eastern Canada, increase national marketing and sales initiatives, and develop new services.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — SteelEye Technology Inc., a provider of high availability clustering software, today announced a completion of its second round of financing. This $20 million round brings the total funds raised by the company to $33 million. The funding, led by Dali, Hook Partners, also includes equity investments from Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ), CrossBridge Partners, Hitachi, Ltd., Intel 64 Fund, Massey Burch Capital Corp. and Venrock Associates. The additional funds provide SteelEye with resources to fuel business expansion and accelerate sales, marketing and R&D activities to bring the LifeKeeper high availability clustering and data replication solutions to customers requiring continuous access to business-critical data and dependable application services on industry-standard servers using Intel processors across Linux, Windows, Solaris and MP-RAS operating environments.

JERUSALEM — Jerusalem Global Ventures, announced today that Jerusalem Global Ventures has invested $1 million in BioVirase (formerly Amidut). BioVirase has developed a test kit to measure the sensitivity of the HIV virus to drug treatments. Today, most carriers and infected patients are treated through a combination (cocktail) of antiretroviral drugs. The kit developed by BioVirase will measure the patient’s resistance to a large number of drug samples and combinations at various concentrations, and will offer quick, accurate results enabling a comprehensive process for deciding on treatment.
DALLAS — ATX Technologies Inc., the leading independent telematics service provider to the automotive industry, today announced the close of a $25 million round of financing. The investment was made by Vodafone TeleCommerce, GmbH, a division of the world’s largest mobile telecommunications company, and a private contributor in what is expected to be the company’s last round of private equity funding. With rapid customer growth — approaching 20,000 new subscribers each month — ATX intends to utilize a portion of the investment to fund the development of an additional telematics response center scheduled to open in 2002. ATX will also complete the enhancement of its system architecture to provide telematics-based customer relationship management services, real-time traffic services and third-generation, location-based emergency response services.

BOSTON, NEW YORK & MORROW, GA — Berkshire Partners LLC, the Boston-based private equity investment firm, and Investcorp, the global investment group, today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement under which Berkshire will acquire The William Carter Company from Investcorp and its clients for approximately $450 million. Carter’s is the nation’s largest branded marketer of baby and toddler apparel, and a leading marketer of young children’s apparel. Over its 136 years of operation, Carter’s has become one of the best recognized brand names in the children’s apparel industry. Morrow, Georgia-based Carter’s markets its products under the brand names of Carter?s and Carter?s Classic?s to department stores and specialty store accounts, and through its 149 retail outlet stores. The transaction, expected to close in the third quarter of 2001, involves the continuing leadership of the company’s senior management. Upon completion of the transaction, investment funds established by Berkshire and management will own all of the company’s equity. Berkshire’s equity investment will total approximately $130 million.