Private Equity Week Wire for Wednesday 8/29

LIVONIA, MI — Valassis (NYSE: VCI) announced that it will not continue to fund its Internet couponing investment, Save.com. Since the venture has been unable to secure additional outside financing sufficient to carry it to profitability, Save.com will close operations immediately. Valassis cited the reason for discontinuing its backing was due to Save.com’s inability to garner a critical mass of advertisers interested in an internet couponing vehicle. DENVER — Deuxo, a provider of sales lead optimization solutions and services, today announced a $10 million Series B financing. Anschutz Investment Company led the round, with significant participation from founding investors SBVC (SOFTBANK Venture Capital) and Sequel Venture Partners. The Series B financing is one of the largest early stage financings in the Lead Optimization space this year. deuxo has raised total capital of $20.5 million since its launch in Fall 2000. Steven Cohen, vice president of Anschutz Investment Co. has joined the Deuxo board of directors. SEATTLE — Nimble Technology announced that it has raised $8 million in its third round of financing. Nimble Technology has developed the Nimble Integration Suite(TM), an XML-based enterprise data integration platform used to power web services and applications. The suite can query multiple, disparate data sources as if they were a single database, which helps businesses quickly and cost effectively build more powerful applications. In conjunction with this third round of funding, Nimble Technology announced that the Nimble Integration Suite is slated to ship in mid-September.BOSTON — BDirect Capital Inc., a Boston-based financial services firm that offers a complete range of alternative investment solutions, today announced that it received approval from the Securities and Futures Authority (SFA), the UK equivalent of the Securities & Exchange Commission, to expand its alternative asset business to the UK. BDirect Europe opened a London office this spring.

OTTAWA & MONTREAL — Skypoint Capital Corp., a rapidly-growing venture capital firm that focuses exclusively on telecommunications and information technologies, today announced the opening of its Montreal office. Louis Desmarais, a newly appointed Skypoint partner will be responsible for the new operation. Mr. Desmarais joined Skypoint in July 2001, prior to that he was a partner in Wynnchurch Capital, a $200 million private equity firm based in Chicago and Montreal, where he was responsible for sourcing and monitoring the fund’s early-stage ventures. He has also managed Desmarais Capital Corporation, a family-owned financial advisory firm.For yesterday?s Wire, click here