Private Equity Week Wire for Wednesday 11/28

SAN FRANCISCO — Finaplex, the leading provider of enterprise software solutions for the wealth management industry, today announced that it has secured $17.1 million in a second round of equity financing. The company will use the proceeds to fund its aggressive market penetration and product development plans while continuing to provide outstanding support to new and existing customers. Menlo Ventures is the lead investor for the round, which also includes first-round investors SOFTBANK Venture Capital and First Republic Bank. Finaplex has raised $22.7 million over two rounds of financing.

SAN FRANCISCO — Personify, a leading provider of e-business analytics software, and Angara, a leading provider of real-time marketing optimization applications, today announced completion of a merger and financing. The merger included new financing from investors ABS Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers, and Venture Strategy Partners. Personify CEO Barry Wright leads the combined company, which retains the name Personify.

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND & SUNNYVALE, CA — GigaTera Inc., a company developing high speed components for optical telecommunications networks, announced today that it has received an investment of US$ 2 million in venture financing from Cypress Semiconductor and its wholly owned subsidiary Silicon Light Machine, both based in Silicon Valley.

SAN FRANCISCO — Societe Generale Corporate Venture today announced its investment in Ponte Communications. Societe Generale Corporate Venture was established to build strong strategic relationships with Silicon Valley startups that can provide valuable technology to the bank in the areas of IT infrastructure, multi channel delivery, customer relationship management, and financial products and services.

Societe Generale Corporate Venture’s first direct investment goes to Ponte Communications, a Silicon Valley-based startup that provides network security control software for enterprises and managed service providers. Ponte’s nsControl(TM) solution allows organizations to implement security policy through the centralized control of network devices, regardless of vendor.

NEW YORK — RenalTech International LLC, the developer of the BetaSorb(TM) adsorbent polymer and the BetaSorb(TM) device, today announced the completion of a $12 million round of private equity financing. RenalTech is developing proprietary devices and systems incorporating the BetaSorb(TM) polymer that are intended for use in blood detoxification. Targeted applications include the treatment of acute and chronic kidney failure, acute liver failure and sepsis.

Use of proceeds for the current financing round includes expansion of the company’s research and development and polymer manufacturing facility located near Princeton, NJ. This state-of-the-art facility adapts the BetaSorb(TM) technology for application to different disease states and provides polymer for human studies of the BetaSorb(TM) device. The second human study of the BetaSorb(TM) device for use in the treatment of chronic kidney failure was recently completed under the direction of Claudio Ronco, M.D., at San Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza, Italy. RenalTech intends to commence a human clinical trial of the BetaSorb(TM) device for use in chronic hemodialysis at three clinical sites in the first quarter of 2002.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Packet Design, LLC, the startup formed last year by four-time entrepreneurs Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico to develop technologies that enhance the performance, scalability and manageability of the Internet infrastructure, has received a multi-million-dollar corporate investment from Sun Microsystems, Inc. The investment is Packet Design’s first from a corporate source. Packet Design had previously raised $24 million from Foundation Capital and several individual investors, a substantial portion of which remains available to the company.

IRVINE, CA — Cardiac Science, Inc (Nasdaq: DFIB), the only provider of life-saving, fully automatic external cardiac defibrillators, announced today that it has completed raising a total of $38 million in gross proceeds in two private placements of its common stock. Of the total capital raised, approximately $28 million was raised directly by the Company over the last two months primarily from existing shareholders led by Princeton-based Domain Associates and equity4life located in Zurich. The Company’s investment bankers assisted Cardiac Science in raising an additional $10 million through a placement with U.S.-based qualified and accredited institutional buyers led by AIM Investment Funds, of Houston, and New York City-based Special Situations Private Equity Fund.

The proceeds from the Company’s direct offering were used partly to finance its recently completed acquisition of Survivalink Corporation and partly to provide the Company with working capital. The funds raised in the subsequent placement will primarily be used to expand the Company’s sales force, launch its two new products — the second generation Powerheart(R) for use in hospitals, and the new AED for use by first responders and the public — and for other general corporate purposes. For yesterday’s Wire, click here

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