Private Equity Week Wire for Tuesday 3/27

LONDON – Parc Technologies Limited, the UK-based company that develops application software for planning, optimising and managing telecommunications networks, today announced that it has received £15 million in private funding from a group of investors including Cisco Systems, CSFB Private Equity, investment affiliates of Soros Private Equity Partners and NTT Corporation (the latter is managed by Advent International Corporation).

STOCKHOLM, SWEEDEN — Ericsson Venture Partners today announced that it has named Mark Maybell as its Senior Managing Director, to be based in New York. The partnership is also setting up an office in London. Previously, Mr Maybell worked for the international financial services firm Merrill Lynch & Co, where he was the founder and co-head of the Global Communications Group in the Investment Banking Department. During his 11 years at Merrill Lynch, he also was responsible for other groups within the Department, including Technology, Media, Financial Sponsors, Private Equity and Leveraged Finance. In addition, Mr Maybell had served for six years as a member of the Executive Committee of the Department. Ericsson Venture Partners is a venture capital fund, focused on investments in mobile Internet ventures and technologies, concentrating on Europe and North America. The partnership was formed by Ericsson, Industrivarden, Investor AB and Merrill Lynch. Each venture partner will commit $75 million, totaling an aggregated committed fund capital of $300 million.

STOCKHOLM, SWEEDEN & SAN DIEGO — ideaEDGE Ventures, a corporation developing global businesses in the mobile Internet space, and Startupfactory, a venture capital firm focusing on enabling technologies and applications for the mobile Internet industry, today announced that it has formed an international partnership. The international partnership will support the mutual goal of launching mobile Internet businesses that span the globe.

BOTHELL, WASH — Optical networking componentsdeveloper Lumera Corp., a subsidiary of Microvision, Inc. (Nasdaq: MVIS), announced today that it will complete a $24 million round of financing led by Cisco Systems, Inc. Lumera is developing a new generation of unique active and passive components for optical networks that are expected to deliver increased bandwidth at very competitive costs while requiring less power than currentdevices. The company says that its technology also sets the stage forintegrated optical systems-on-a-chip.

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ — Alexander Wilmerding, principal, Boston Capital Ventures, has been appointed to the board of directors of KhiMetrics, Inc., announced Brent W. Lippman, KhiMetrics’ president and CEO. KhiMetrics is the first solution provider to deliver a comprehensive revenue management that includes pricing optimization as part of its application suite, enabling traditional, multi-channel and Internet retailers to create recurring incremental revenue streams and double-digit net profit improvements.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — CarParts Technologies, the leading developer of supply chain management solutions for the automotive aftermarket, today announced it has closed its third round of funding led by St. Paul Venture Capital, a $3 billion venture capital fund, and @Ventures, the affiliated venture capital arm of CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI). The capital will be used for product development, working capital, and increased marketing sales and engineering resources. Since its founding in 1997, CarParts Technologies has secured a total of $68 million in funding.

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND — Commtag today announced a US $5,000,000 funding commitment from leading European venture capital firm Amadeus Capital Partners. Thefunding will be used to continue the development of Commtag’s recently announced unplug+play platform, and other wireless peer-to-peer networking products. Commtag is a rapidly expanding wireless technology company, specialising in enabling technology for person-to-person wireless applications andservices. Its unplug+play wireless platform enables the rapid development and deployment of applications using Bluetooth, 2.5G and 3G wireless networks.

GERMANTOWN, MD — ZeroPlus.com, Inc.(Nasdaq: ZPLS) announced today that it has received a $2 million bridge loanthat will allow it to proceed in implementing the expansion of the ZeroPlusVoice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network in order to serve more customers.The 90-day loan is fully secured by ZeroPlus’s assets. The loan was extended by a high net worth individual investor who has requested not to be identified. The Company said the investor has been highlysuccessful as an investor in emerging technologies.

MIAMI — IFX Corp. (Nasdaq: FUTR) announced today that UBS Capital Americas III, L.P. and affiliates have agreed to provide approximately $15 million in additional capital by investing in newly issued IFX Series B Convertible Preferred Stock. Each share of Series B PreferredStock will have a purchase price of $3.50 and will be convertible into one share of IFX common stock. In addition, UBS Capital Americas will invest approximately $1.8 million and IFX approximately $3.2 million in Tutopia.com Inc., a leading Latin American consumer dial-access provider.

IRVINE, CA — VSK Photonics Inc., a supplierof active photonic components for fiber-optic telecommunications, todayannounced it has received first round investment financing from MorgenthalerVentures and Intel Capital. This total investment of $18 million provides VSKPhotonics with additional resources to help aid its growth and deploy its coretechnology.

SAN JOSE, CA — Novera Optics, a developer and manufacturer of photonic subsystems for communications equipment suppliers, announced today that it has raised $83 million in equity and debt in its second round of funding. The transaction was led by Octane CapitalManagement. Other participants in the round included Agilent Technologies,Amerindo Investment Advisors, Essex Investment Management, Intel Capital, KLMCapital Group, Meritech Capital Partners, and Van Wagoner Capital Management.First-round investors Enterprise Partners and Redpoint Ventures continuedtheir support of Novera Optics by participating in the second round offunding. In addition to raising $53 million in equity investment, the companysecured a $30 million lease line from Western Technology Investment.

SAN JOSE, CA — LongBoard Inc., a leading telecommunications infrastructure software company, today announced the completion of a $24 million second round of financing. LongBoard provides Application Servers and an Infrastructure Software Platform (LMAP) that powerthe convergence of voice and data for the new public network. Participating in this latest investment round are a number of new strategic investors, including Berkeley International, Sun Microsystems,Nissho Iwai, and CrossBridge Partners. Leading this investment round is ABSVentures (Alex Brown). LongBoard’s initial backers — Enterprise Partners,Storm Ventures, Interwest Partners, Charter Growth Capital, and Brad PeeryCapital Ventures — also participated.

NEW YORK — Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures (DFJ Gotham) today announced the $5 million Series A financing for Lumeta Corporation. Co-investors in the round included Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund VII and meVC Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund I (NYSE: MVC). As part of the investment, Ross Goldstein and Daniel Schultz, Managing Partners of Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham, have joined Lumeta’s board of directors. Lumeta, a spin out of Lucent New Ventures Group and Bell Labs, provides breakthrough technology in network management and security services.