Private Equity Week Wire — Monday 3/18

NEW YORK — DuoCash has announced the close of theirSeries B financing led by OCI Venture Group, an early stage strategic privateequity group focusing on IT, communications and digital media industries, andthe venture investment arm of OCI Group, a multi-national Asian conglomerate.

NEW YORK — Dave Williams, chairman of White Williams Private Equity Partners, today signed an agreement with the management of the Hungarian-American Enterprise Fund for investment assistance in Hungary to the European Accession Fund.

The Fund, currently in an asset raising phase, will make private equity investments in companies located in Central and Eastern European countries that are expected to join the European Union in 2004-5. The Hungarian-American Enterprise Fund, a private equity fund established by the U.S. Government in 1990, is managed by MAVA Capital of Budapest, Hungary. The same investment team manages a parallel private fund, Hungarian Equity Partners.

SAN FRANCISCO ? NeoCarta Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on leveraging its strategic network on behalf of its portfolio companies, today announced that Andre Turenne has joined the firm as a Managing Director in its San Francisco office. Mr. Turenne previously led and managed 20 equity investments for Intel Capital, Intel Corporation?s strategic investment program, including Red Hat (RHAT), SilverStream (SSSW), WebLogic (sold to BEA Systems, BEAS), Active Software (sold to webMethods, WEBM), and Selectica (SLTC).

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Akceli, a cellular systems biology company, today announced the completion of its Series A venture funding of $6.5 million. The company will use the funding to develop and exploit its transfected cell microarray technology, invented by Whitehead Institute Fellow and company co-founder David M. Sabatini, M.D., Ph.D. The financing was led by Atlas Venture, with a significant investment from Apple Tree Partners.
HUDSON, MA — SynQor Inc., a manufacturer of next-generation, high-efficiency dc/dc power converters, announced today that Morgan Stanley Capital Partners has made an $18 million investment in the company. SynQor will use funds from the investment to expand its manufacturing and design capabilities, support new product development and expand its worldwide sales.

HONG KONG & SAN FRANCISCO — Walden International, a leading global venture capital firm, today announcedthe appointment of Norman Chen as Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Based in Hong Kong, Mr. Chen brings more than 12 years of experience as anentrepreneur and industry professional to Walden International. He will focuson healthcare and life sciences investments in Asia. The appointmentreinforces Walden International’s strategy of leveraging the strengths of Asiaas a spearhead of innovation. The firm is focused on identifying promisinginvestment opportunities in high-growth industries, and healthcare and lifesciences are important components of that strategy.

DALLAS — Contrado, a Dallas-based Enterprise Software company focused on the Software Supply Chain(TM), today announced it has secured an extension of $2.7 million for its Series A round of funding, bringing the company’s total investment capital to $7.7 million dollars. Investors for the extension include Feld Ventures, Mobius Venture Capital, formerly SOFTBANK Venture Capital, and TIBCO Software. All three companies, in addition to Support.com (Nasdaq:SPRT), supported Contrado in its original Series A round of funding.

NEW YORK — Millennium Partners LP, an investment company with over $3 billion incapital and one of the largest shareholders of meVC Draper Fisher JurvetsonFund I (NYSE: MVC)(“the Fund”), today announced it intends to vote against thetwo new proposed investment advisory agreements at the Fund’s annual meetingon March 27, 2002. Millennium asserts that, if approved, the proposedagreements would disenfranchise the Fund’s shareholders.

Currently, the Fund is required to obtain a majority shareholder vote torenew or extend its investment advisor agreements. Under the proposed newagreements with the Fund’s current advisors, only a vote from the Fund’s boardof directors — which is composed entirely of principals of the advisors andthree “outside” directors selected and compensated by meVC Advisers — wouldbe needed to renew the term of an existing advisor.

On February 20, 2002, Millenco LP, a subsidiary of Millennium Partners,filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Fund against one of the Fund’s advisors, meVCAdvisers, alleging breach of fiduciary duty under the Investment Company Actof 1940. The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Districtof Delaware, Index no. 02-142, alleges that excessive, unreasonable andunearned fees have been received by meVC Advisers,

EATONTOWN, NJ — Alphion Corp., a leading provider of enabling photonic technologies for the deployment of all-optical networks, today announced that it has completed its second round of private financing totaling $15 million. The investment was led by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and Tallwood Venture Capital. First-round investors Battery Ventures and Cypress Semiconductor, also participated in this round of funding, bringing the aggregate venture investment to $32 million. Alphion will use the funds to complete the development of its suite of products for next-generation photonic networks. The product line will be formally announced in the second half of 2002.

SAN JOSE, CA — Polaris Networks, a developer of new generation optical transport switching systems, today announced completion of $52 million in new venture funding. This brings the total funds raised by Polaris Networks to $74 million since its incorporation in June 2000, and represents the largest round raised in metro core network equipment since the start of this year.

The latest funding, which was reported in today?s edition of Private Equity Week, was led by Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), with other new equity investors including WK Technology, First Hand Capital Management, Granite Global Ventures, Riverside Management Group, Presidio Venture Partners, Western Technology Investment, Pac-Link Management and KTB Ventures. Previous investors, Redpoint Ventures, Venrock Associates and SToRM Ventures, also participated in this round.

SUNNYVALE, CA — Sanera Systems, Inc., a start-up building a highly reliable and scalable datacenter-class switch for enterprise storage area networks (SANs), announced today that it has secured $10 million in equity financing from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs joins Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Greylock, Storm Ventures, CMEA, E*Trade, Acorn Venture Partners and others as investors in the company. Total venture funding raised to date is $66 million, including recent Series B funding of $38.3M in September 2001.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Arkivio, an innovator of storage management technology, announced the closing of its Series B equity round, during which the company received $9.5 million in financing from a group of leading venture capital firms. This latest show of confidence from the investment community brings the total amount of equity financing to $12.5 million since the company was formed in December 2000 to solve the challenges in the enterprise storage resource and data management market. The additional capital will enable Arkivio to bring the first release of its groundbreaking storage management technology to the market this year, as well as develop sales and marketing channels and establish customer service operations.

OXFORD, UK — PowderJect Pharmaceuticals Plc (LSE: PJP), one of the world’s leading vaccine companies, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its drugs business to the rapidly emerging US pain management company, AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The agreement, which completes PowderJect’s transformation into the world’s largest pure vaccines company(1), places an equity value of $10 million on the company’s drugs business. In addition, PowderJect will receive royalties on future sales of the PowderJect drugs included in the transaction.

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