Private Equity Week Wire for Tuesday 11/13

PITTSBURGH, PA — Precision Therapeutics Inc., a provider of laboratory testing service that helps physicians to evaluate available anticancer therapies for patients, today announced that it has secured $17.5 million in series B funding. Additionally, Precision Therapeutics is announcing the addition of Stan Lapidus, chairman of Exact Sciences, to its Board of Directors.

Precision Therapeutics’ investors include such leading venture capitalists as Birchmere Ventures of Pittsburgh, PA; Draper Triangle of Pittsburgh, PA; TVM Techno Venture Management of Munich (Germany), Boston and San Francisco; and Stephens Inc. of Little Rock, AR. Birchmere and TVM served as co-lead investors.

BERLIN — Biotech company Jerini AG will announce today that it hassuccessfully raised a $20 million Series B round of private financing. It was jointlyled by TVM Techno Venture Management (Munich, Germany), 3i (London, UK)and PolyTechnos Funds (Munich, Germany). Further participants in this roundare Sanders Morris Harris’ LifeSciences Opportunity Fund (New York/Houston,United States) as well as Jerini’s previous investors IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft(Berlin, Germany) and tbg (Bonn, Germany).

During today’s Bio Europe 2001 conference in Munich, the company will also announce that it has reached a licensing agreement with Aventis Pharma.

BOULDER, CO — LeftHand Networks, a pioneer of Network Unified Storage (NUS) solutions, today announced it has received an additional $5.5 million in Series A funding. The investment comes from William Blair New World Ventures and Wasatch Venture Fund a Draper Fisher Jurvetson affiliate, and brings total funding for LeftHand to $19.4 million. Both companies are new investors for LeftHand Networks, and join a distinguished list of existing investors that includes Boulder Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, Ironside Ventures, Portage Venture Partners and Vista Ventures. LeftHand Networks is also a Garage Technology Ventures portfolio company. The funds will be used for development, marketing, and sales of LeftHand’s recently introduced NSM 100 product.

SEATTLE — InterQuest Communications, a leading provider of broadband Internet services to the multi-family real estate industry, today announced that it has closed $3.1 million Series A funding led by ComVentures, a leading communications venture firm, members of InterQuest management and other private investors. The money will be used for operations and marketing to reinstate broadband services to apartments and condominiums where service was abruptly ended by the demise of broadband service providers in the past two years. InterQuest broadband services are now available to residents in Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, Dallas, The San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, and Southern California.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sofinnova Ventures, a diversifiedventure firm specializing in early-stage information technology and lifescience companies, today announced an investment round of 11 million Euros($10 million) to launch VoluBill, a mobile Internet billing solutions company.Also participating in the investment are Telesystem-Argo Global Capital ofMontreal, Canada and Sofinnova Partners of Paris, France. VoluBill is the spin-off from Cegetel Group, the first private sectorglobal operator in France with nearly 15 million subscribers. Cegetel Grouphas an 18% equity stake in the company, which is based in Grenoble, France.

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA — Village Ventures’ newly launched affiliated venture capital fund in Central Florida, with offices in Gainesville, Orlando and Tampa, announced that former Florida United States Senator Connie Mack, has joined the Fund as a member of its advisory team. Mack becomes the third member of the Advisory Board of the fund, adding additional depth to its team of three seasoned managers, Charles Resnick, Dan Rua and Jim Boyle and special managing partner Carolyn Ticknor. During his 18 years on Capitol Hill, Senator Mack was the Republican Conference Chairman and Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, serving also on the Senate Finance and Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committees.

ATLANTA — Digital Insurance, Inc.today announced the completion of its Series B financing. Led by currentinvestors Internet Healthcare Group (IHCG) and Capital Z Partners, LLC, the$6 million funding also includes new capital partner American Life InsuranceCompany of New York, a wholly owned subsidiary of Inviva. As a national brokerage firm, Digital Insurance is focused on selling andservicing employee benefits to small business and individual customersleveraging both its Web-based and extensive call center capabilities.

SAN CARLOS, CA — Opthos Inc., a provider ofIP-managed, True Optical(TM) solutions for metropolitan core networks,announced today that Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV) and the Sprout Groupare co-leading its second round of venture funding of $21.6 million.Significant funds from inside investors Ken Oshman; the Venture Law Group; anda new investor, Crosslink Capital, are also part of this round. This Series Bround brings the total amount of funding for Opthos to $36.5 million, atestament to the confidence investors have in Opthos’ ability to deliverhigh-value product and secure customer adoption for the industry’s firstTrue Optical system for the metropolitan core network.

PHILADELPHIA, & DURHAM, NC — Sustainable Jobs Fund LP (SJF) has closed on an investment in HDS Cosmetics Lab, Inc. of Harrison, NY as part of a $1 million financing round, SJF Managing Director Dan Hoversten announced today. HDS Cosmetics Lab, which develops, manufactures and markets high-end skin-care products, expects to create at least 35 new quality, manufacturing jobs targeted to low income citizens in New York within the next four years.

AUSTIN — Dow Jones is reporting that Robert Fabbio of TL Ventures is leaving the venture firm to become president and CEO of TL Ventures portfolio company VEIO Inc.

SCOTTS VALLEY, CA — Voxeo Corp. todayannounced it has closed up to $20 million in new Series C funding. Voxeo is anintegrated voice services leader with a voice network platform that helpsenterprise and application customers reduce the cost of supporting employees,suppliers and customers. This latest round was led by existing Voxeo investorsCrosspoint Venture Partners and Mayfield. Voxeo has also appointed two newmembers to its board of directors — Rich Shapero of Crosspoint VenturePartners and David Ladd of Mayfield who replace previous representatives fromthese firms. For yesterday’s Wire, click here

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