Private Equity Week Wire for Monday 6/25

MENLO PARK, CA — Knowledge Networks, an emerging leader in providing market intelligence to consumer businesses, has secured $40million to fund further growth. The financing was led by new investor Maveron, with participation from existing investors Oak Investment Partners, Alloy Ventures, Meritech CapitalPartners and Oak Hill Venture Partners.

PALO ALTO, CA — Visionael Corp., a leader in delivering network inventory and configuration management solutions to service providers, today announced that it has secured $16.75 million in its third round of financing. Visionael’s new institutional investors are Banc One Venture Partners, Charter Ventures and Mingly Capital. The existing investors who have invested in this round are Capital Communications, GE Capital and VantagePoint Venture Partners.

NEWTON, MA — Sockeye Networks, the emerging leader in the intelligent routing market, today announced that it has officially launched the company and has received $28 million in first round funding from Baker Capital, Battery Ventures, CSFB Private Equity and Polaris Ventures. Sockeye Networks is the first to add intelligence to IP networks by combining real-time data on global Internet conditions ? exclusively licensed from Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) ? with proprietary local IP traffic information. Sockeye Networks? service optimizes IP network performance, efficiency and visibility. Focal Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: FCOM), a leading national broadband services provider, has signed up as Sockeye Networks? first trial customer. Sockeye Networks also announced that Valeri Marks, formerly president and CEO of SBC Internet Services, will serve as Sockeye Networks? chairman and CEO.

SANTA CLARA, CA — iVAST, a the premier MPEG-4 software platform provider, today announced two additions to its board of directors:Carl Rosendahl, founder of Pacific Data Images (PDI) and SBVC (SOFTBANK Venture Capital) principal managing director, and David Likins, a partner at Venture Strategy Partners.Rosendahl and Likins join David Hull of Centennial Ventures, Paul Cataford of BCE Capital, Larry Schwerin of Vanguard Ventures, Chris DeMarche, CTO of Verio, and ElliotBroadwin, iVAST CEO, on the iVAST board. Also announced today, iVAST completed a $25 million financing round with participation from BCE Capital, Centennial Ventures,Macrovision Corporation, SBVC, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Vanguard Ventures, Venture Strategy Partners and Vulcan Ventures.

NASHUA, NH — Altaworks Corp., a leading developer of performance management software for eBusiness infrastructures, today announced it has completed $25.8million in funding. The funding was secured in two parts from a prestigious list of institutional and private investors including the leading investors St. Paul Venture Capital, PrismVenture Partners, and YankeeTek Ventures.

IRVING, TEXAS — TrinTel Communications Inc., oneof the largest full service tower infrastructure companies in the U.S., todayannounced that it has secured an additional $50 million in equity funding.This financing brings TrinTel’s total committed capital to approximately$200 million. Austin Ventures led the equity round for TrinTel’s initialfinancing in 1999, and is joined in this latest round with investors GECapital Telecom, Capital Resource Partners and others.

SOUTHBOROUGH, MA — Storability, Inc., the world’s leading provider of Automated Storage Management Solutions, today announced that it closed $30 million in its second round of funding. Led byTechnology Partners and Sprout Group, the round also includes an investment from Lee Munder Venture Partners and additional funding by Storability’s initial investors BatteryVentures, Madison Dearborn and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The new funding will support continued deployment of Storability’s breakthrough AssurENT(SM) Architecture, a unique automated enterprise storage management delivery systemthat provides storage operation and management services anywhere in the world. The AssurENT Architecture enables Storability to deliver highly customized, highly secure StorageAssurance(SM) Services to enterprise customers and service providers.

PROVIDENCE, RI — Watch Hill Partners, a strategic technology and business process consultancy focusing on customer relationshipmanagement (CRM), announced that Ascent Venture Partners has provided its initial round of $3 million in venture funding. Watch Hill Partners offers business process expertise andstrategic methods for capitalizing on technology investments to Fortune 100 companies in markets such as financial services, insurance and pharmaceuticals.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — MS2, Inc., leader of therapidly growing product lifecycle automation (PLA) market, today announcedthat it has secured $20 million in its fourth round of financing, led byBowman Capital Management. Since introducing MS2 Accelerate(R), the firstapplication designed to give organizations the power to define, develop andmarket winning products faster, MS2 has extended its leadership position anddeveloped an impressive list of blue-chip customers and partners, includingAspect Communications, Lucent Technologies and KPMG Consulting.

SEATTLE — Voyager Capital, Seattle’s leadinge-business venture firm, today announced it has moved its Seattle headquartersto the Millennium Tower Building located at 719 Second Avenue. The largerspace will support the firm’s growth with Voyager Capital Fund II, a$215 million fund targeting investments in early stage enterprise softwareand services, Internet infrastructure, and wireless companies. Unlike manyventure funds, which are retrenching in today’s market, more than half ofVoyager’s Fund II is still available to invest in private companies.

MANCHESTER, NH & and PADOVA, ITALY — Syntrex, aleading international developer of secure data exchange technology over publicnetworks, today announced that 3i Group, a leading international venturecapital firm, has approved an investment of US $9.2 million. The funding willenable Syntrex to further its growth through aggressively increased sales andmarketing efforts in the United States and Europe. Founded in Italy in 1995 as CSI, Inc. (Communication ServicesInternational), the company also announces its name change to Syntrex. Theconcepts synergy, transportation and exchange better communicate the company’svalue to the global business community through the name Syntrex.

WIXOM, MI — Rockwell Medical Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMTI), a leading, innovative hemodialysis concentrate manufacturer in thehealthcare industry, said today that it has closed $500,000 in private equity funding, net of expenses. In addition, the Company has received Nasdaq approval to issue additional commonshares pursuant to this offering without shareholder approval.

BEDFORD, MA — Incentive Systems, the leader in Enterprise Incentive Management (EIM) solutions, today announced that it has secured $18 million in a fourth round of venture financing led byThomas Weisel Capital Partners, the company’s lead third round investor, bringing total capital raised to $54.3 million. Also participating in the fourth round are Polaris Venture Partnersand BancBoston Ventures, leading private equity firms that have invested in the previous three investment rounds for Incentive Systems. The additional funds will be used to furtherdevelop Incentive’s market-leading EIM technology and services, and enable the company to meet its goal of profitability.

GILROY, CA — Indian Motorcycle Co., the oldest U.S. manufacturer of heavyweight motorcycles, announced today that it hadcompleted the sale of up to $45 million of preferred stock to Audax Group, a leading private equity firm based in Boston, MA. Specific terms of the investment were not disclosed. Proceeds from the Audax investment will be used primarily to invest in designing and engineering the continued development of a broader line of proprietary Indian motorcycles,selectively broadening the Company’s dealership base and expanding the existing organization with strategic hires. The Company also announced that Frank O’Connell, the current interim Chief Executive Officer, will assume full time duties as CEO effective immediately. Mr. O’Connell, an avidmotorcycle enthusiast, has an accomplished background running branded consumer product companies, including experience building innovative lifestyle brands such as HBO Video,Reebok, Skybox and Gibson Greetings. During an extensive career, Mr. O’Connell has also successfully relaunched several dormant brands.BOULDER, CO — LeftHand Networks, a pioneer of Network Unified Storage (NUS) solutions that offer significant advantagescompared to existing network storage offerings, today announced it has received follow-on funding for its Series A round, bringing the total to $13 million. Boulder Ventures and SequelVenture Partners led the round, with additional funding from Ironside Ventures, Portage Venture Partners and Vista Ventures. As a Garage.com portfolio company, LeftHand Networksreceived some of its venture funding and human capital through the Garage.com network. The NUS architecture combines the performance of a Storage Area Network (SAN) with theease-of-use of Network Attached Storage (NAS) in a stand-alone, integrated network storage module.

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Biopure Corp.(Nasdaq: BPUR) today announced that it has entered into a $75 million equityline stock purchase agreement with Paris-based Societe Generale, a majorglobal bank. Under this agreement, Biopure has the option of drawing funds asneeded during the next 24 months to support its operational and capitalrequirements, subject to certain limitations. Biopure had approximately 25 million shares outstanding and $71.3 millionin cash and cash equivalents as of the close of the second fiscal quarter onApril 30, 2001. This cash position plus the Societe Generale financing, iffully drawn, could fund operations through fiscal 2003 (ending October 31st)under the company’s current operating plan. In addition, Biopure has begunengineering for an $85 million biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility inSumter, South Carolina, which will be constructed and financed by SumterRealty Group, LLC.