Private Equity Week Wire for Wednesday 1/24

SALT LAKE CITY — NextPage Inc., the leader in Peer-to-Peer Content Networking solutions, announced today that it has raised approximately $20 million of private equity from Oak Investment Partners, epartners, Dominion Ventures and Amp Capital Partners. This second round of funding will be used to accelerate the adoption of NextPage’s Peer-to-Peer Content Networking Platform for enterprises.

ARLINGTON, VA — Today’s decision by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to eliminate pooling accounting was not unexpected, nor does it close the book on the Board’s controversial business combinations project, according to the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). “FASB’s activity today is consistent with what they have been indicating all along,” said Mark G. Heesen, President of the National Venture Capital Association. “Their vote can be viewed as more of a procedural step in a longer process. In fact, this is not the first time that they voted to eliminate pooling. Our focus has been on working with FASB to address the shortcomings of purchase accounting before final action is taken on pooling. And we have every reason to believe that we can get to that point.”

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Lane15 Software, an emerging provider of InfiniBand management software, today announced it has received financing from leading venture capital and strategic investors. Austin Ventures led the round, joined by AV Labs, Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ), and Intel Capital.[ak2] Lane15 will use the capital to fuel its growth, and further the development and deployment of InfiniBand technology.

NEW YORK — Cyota announced today that it has closed an $11 million second round of private financing. The company will use the funds to continue rapidly expanding into the European and Asian markets. GE-Giza Managing Director Zvi Schechter led the round of financing, which also included a significant investment from Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Toshiba?s iVC company (brought in by Triangle Technologies), Poalim Capital Markets, Quan Ventures, JAFCO Asia, and Israel Seed Partners, Cyota?s initial investor. Zeev Holtzman, Chairman and CEO of Giza Venture Capital, will join the board of directors of Cyota.

NEW YORK — J. & W. Seligman & Co. Incorporated, investment advisor to one of the world’s largest technology mutual funds, announced that it has named Thomas P. Hirschfeld as Managing Director, Venture Capital Investments, within its Technology Group. In addition, Sangeeth Peruri and Reema Shah have joined the Seligman Technology Group as Investment Associates. Mr. Hirschfeld, 38, will be based in Seligman?s New York office and focus primarily on late-stage technology investments. Mr. Hirschfeld comes from Patricof & Co. Ventures, where he most recently served as General Partner, making venture investments in early-stage companies. Prior to Patricof, he worked as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers from 1986 to 1994, specializing in media and technology companies. He also served as Assistant to the Mayor of New York City during most of 1994, leading a 30-person economic policy group.

BOZEMAN, MT — RightNow Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of Web customer service systems, today announced the company has successfully completed a $15 million second round of venture financing. Participating in the round were existing investors Greylock, Summit Accelerator Fund, and all members of the board of directors. New investors joining in this round include Credit Suisse First Boston, a leading investment banking firm, and Narendra Gupta, founder of Integrated Systems and vice chairman of Wind River Systems (Nasdaq:WIND), a leading developer of embedded software applications. Summit Accelerator Fund, which is based in Palo Alto, California, acted as the lead investor. In conjunction with the financing, Greg Avis, a founding partner of Summit Accelerator Fund, joins RightNow’s board of directors.

NEW YORK — MetaMatrix, the leading provider of software for managing and integrating information across the enterprise, today announced it has secured an $8.5 million third round of venture funding from an impressive lineup of high-profile investors both in the United States and abroad. Allen & Company Incorporated, Schroder Finance Partners, Gateway Ventures, Angel Investors LP, and EDB Ventures Pte Ltd have joined MetaMatrix’s existing investors in this financing round, to bring to $17.5 million the total capital raised by MetaMatrix to date.

LONDON — Reuters Greenhouse Fund, the venture capital arm of the global information and news group, led a consortium of investors in the latest round of funding in LinkGuard Ltd., the company building the first complete map of the Web. LinkGuard, based in Maidenhead, U.K., is indexing over 100 billion links through its patented Intelligent Link Management (ILM) services. As part of the investment, Reuters executive Deepak Shahdadpuri will join the LinkGuard Board of Directors. Reuters’ investment in LinkGuard is part of a 4.8 million pounds sterling total investment that also includes financing from previous LinkGuard investors GE Equity, NewMedia SPARK and Quester. The investment follows LinkGuard’s initial round of 5 million pounds sterling in June 2000.

CUPERTINO, CA — Mockingbird Networks, a global leader in carrier-grade VoIP application switches, today announced that Steve Y. Kim had been elected Chairman of the Board. Kim, managing partner Alcatel Ventures, joined the Mockingbird Board of Directors in September. Alcatel Ventures was the lead investor in Mockingbird’s second round of funding, in which the company raised $32 million.

WASHINGTON D.C. — Telecommunications Development Fund, a DC-based venture capital firm that finances early stage telecommunications technology companies, today announced its participation as a founding sponsor of “i-DealFlow,” a venture capital initiative designed to showcase minority entrepreneurs in the technology, telecommunications, e-commerce and life sciences industries. TDF joins a notable team of leading corporations to drive this initiative, among them AOL Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting and Coca-Cola.