THE WIRE — Friday 5/3

LONDON — Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Incorporated (“HMTF”), through its portfolio company Premier International Foods (?Premier?), today announces the acquisition of the ambient food businesses of Nestlé (the “Ambient Food Businesses?) in the UK and Republic of Ireland which operate a number of leading food brands, for an undisclosed sum. These brands include such UK household names as Crosse & Blackwell, Branston Pickle, Sarson?s vinegar, Waistline salad dressing, Gale?s honey, Sun-Pat peanut butter and Rowntree?s jelly, and join the stable of existing Premier brands such as Hartley?s, Typhoo, HP, Chivers and Cadbury.
MONTREAL — A group led by CDP Capital – Technology Ventures (formerly CDP Sofinov), including First Capital Group and E2 Venture Fund, announced today that they have invested US$6.3 million in The Telemetry Co. (TTC), alongside US$3.0 million invested by existing shareholders and strategic partners. TTC, based in Dallas, develops and markets proprietary wireless monitoring solutions for fixed assets in defined vertical markets.

MINNEAPOLIS — ORIGIX Corp., a metro optical network (MON) service provider, announced today that it has raised $4.2 million in Series B funding. The investment will enable the firm to deploy its Phase I roll-out of optical services in Minneapolis, delivering Gigabit Ethernet (Gig E) data communications networking, high-speed Internet access and on-net data storage services. Des Moines, Iowa-based Equity Dynamics, which invested in ORIGIX previously, led the new funding round. The round also included investments from Riverstone Networks Inc., Principal Financial Group Inc., Gainsborough Investments and private investors.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — ChemCodes, an early stage chemistry company with a proprietary technology platform for drug discovery, has closed on an additional $1 million of venture capital financing from Emerging Technology Partners of Rockville, Maryland. Intersouth Partners of Durham, North Carolina and Noro-Moseley Partners of Atlanta, Georgia initially led the investment in late November 2001 which, with existing investors, totaled $7.5 million. This new investment increases this round of financing to $8.5 million.

NEWS FROM THURSDAY 5/2ATLANTA — Movaz Networks, a leading provider of optical networking solutions for the Metro Edge, Metro Access and Metro Core, today announced the closing of $60 million in funding consisting of Series C financing and strategic business agreement. Eight existing and new top tier investment firms participated in the financing, including Oak Investment Partners, Worldview Technology Partners, Menlo Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Anschutz Investment Company, Telus Ventures, Silicon Valley BancVentures, Inc. and GATX Ventures, Inc.

ST. LOUIS — RiverVest Venture Partners, a national venture capital firm focusing on seed and early-stage life sciences investments, has named Scott R. Naisbitt, M.D., Ph.D. an associate.Dr. Naisbitt brings a broad background in molecular biology, neuroscience and clinical medicine to RiverVest. Prior to joining the firm, he was an associate of Seedling Enterprises in Newton, Mass., a medical device fund and incubator, where he performed early-stage investment diligence.

SAN DIEGO — Sanderling Ventures, one of California’s oldest venture investment firms dedicated to building new biomedical companies, today announced the appointment of Timothy J. Wollaeger as the Managing Director for the firm’s new San Diego office.

Mr. Wollaeger has been a General Partner of Kingsbury Associates, LP since its formation in 1994 and has been involved in several Limited Partnerships including Merrill Lynch, HCA Healthcare and Hillenbrand Industries. Some of Kingsbury’s successful investments include Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Aurora Biosciences, PHAMIS, Health Data Sciences, Transkaryotic Therapies, Sequana Therapeutics, Micro Therapeutics, Senomyx, Digirad, Sub-Q and Althea Technologies. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wollaeger gained medical products experience while working with Baxter International and as a member of senior management with his first entrepreneurial company, Hybritech Incorporated, which was acquired by Eli Lilly & Co. in 1986.

NEW YORK — TouchPak, a broadband wireless applications company, today announced the closing of its second round of institutional investment. New investors, WatchPoint Ventures and Meerkat Management, joined by Beehive Ventures, contributed $3.5 million to fund the company’s expansion of wireless customer engagement solutions for the hospitality and retail industries. The two-year old firm has raised a total of $7.2 million in capital investment.

SAN FRANCISCO — At its annual conference today, the National Venture Capital Association’s (NVCA) Board of Directors elected Howard Cox to serve as its Chairman for the coming year. Mr. Cox is a partner at Greylock, a leading venture capital firm headquartered in Waltham, MA and San Mateo, CA. With over $2 billion under management, Greylock invests in communications, enterprise information technology, and healthcare.

Howard Cox has served as a NVCA Director since 1997 during which time he has chaired the Capital Formation Committee. As Chairman of NVCA, Mr. Cox will be responsible for setting the public policy agenda and overall strategic direction of the country’s premier venture capital association. He replaces Tom McConnell of New Enterprise Associates, who successfully completed his one-year tenure.

The NVCA Board also announced five new Directors who will each serve four year terms: Ted Dintersmith of Charles River Ventures, Alan Ferguson of 3i, Bob Grady of Carlyle Venture Partners, Bon French of Adam Street Partners, and Don Hebb of ABS Capital Partners.

COLUMBIA, MD — Paratek Microwave Inc., a manufacturer of electronically tunable components and scanning antennas for wireless original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers, today announced it has raised $17 million in new financing, bringing the company’s total capitalization to $53 million. The capital raised will be used to further enhance the commercialization of Paratek’s product portfolio.

The investor group was led by Morgenthaler Ventures and Novak Biddle Venture Partners. Investors also included Investor AB and DB Capital Venture Partners as well as a number of undisclosed financial investors.

SAN FRANCISCO — The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) honored four individuals from the venture capital community today at its 2002 Annual Conference. The three awards, The Lifetime Achievement Award, The Outstanding Service Award and The American Spirit Award, recognize members who helped build the venture capital industry, set a consistent standard of excellence, dedicated substantial time and resources to furthering Association efforts, and provided philanthropic and public service leadership.

Lionel Pincus, the founder of Warburg Pincus, was honored with the Lifetime Achievement in Venture Capital Award. Steven Lazarus of ARCH Venture Partners and Harry Rein of Canaan Partners received the NVCA Outstanding Service Award. Floyd Kvamme of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers received the American Spirit Award.

SAN FRANCISCO — meVC Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund I (NYSE: MVC), an information technology venture capital fund providing individual investors access to venture capital investments, today announced a $10 million Series E investment in CBCA Inc., a web-based administrator of employer-sponsored self-insured health benefits. Other investors in the round, which totaled $30 million, included Trident Capital, ABS Ventures, Mobius Venture Capital (formerly SOFTBANK Venture Capital), WestLB Asset Management, and Richard L. Scott Investments.

MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray (Piper Jaffray), a top national investment firm focused on growth companies, today announced the appointment of Thomas Schnettler to president of Equity Capital Markets. Schnettler has been with the firm 16 years and was previously head of the Piper Jaffray’s Investment Banking division, which provides public and private equity and M&A advisory services to leading growth companies, private equity and venture capital firms. Paul Karos, previous president of Equity Capital Markets, has decided to retire from the business to spend more time with his family and to pursue personal interests. Karos will remain with the firm to June 2002 to ensure a seamless transition and will continue to sit on the firm’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds boards going forward.

NEWS FROM WEDNESDAY 5/1NORTHFIELD, MN — Sheldahl Inc. announced today that it had filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 reorganization with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota. The Company said it intends to reorganize by selling substantially all of its assets under a Section 363 sale pursuant to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Ampersand Venture Capital, Molex Inc. and Morgenthaler Partners, Sheldahl’s three largest shareholders have indicated their intention to acquire the assets of Sheldahl in such a transaction. Sheldahl expects to continue to operate its business and meet all customer requirements.

MELVILLE, NY — DealerTrack Holdings, Inc., the leading technology services company enabling finance transactions between automobile dealers and lenders, has raised over $30 million in additional equity financing. This significant investment round indicates strong investor support for DealerTrack’s multi-lender automotive finance platform.

New investors in DealerTrack include affiliates of Capital One Financial Corp., GRP Partners, Wells Fargo Financial, Inc. and WFS Financial, Inc. Several existing investors, which include affiliates of AmeriCredit Corp., Automotive Lease Guide (alg), LLC and JP Morgan Chase & Co., also participated in this financing round. Robertson Stephens, Inc. acted as the sole placement agent for this financing.

WAYNEPA — Safeguard Scientifics Inc. (NYSE: SFE), a leader in building and operating technology companies, announces that a conference call to discuss the company’s first quarter 2002 results has been scheduled for Thursday, May 9 at 9:00 a.m. ET.

NEW YORK — Benjamin Duster and Hugh Rovit have joined Leary, Masson & Associates LLC, a turnaround management and financial restructuring firm based in New York.

Duster will head financial restructuring at Leary Masson. Before joining Leary Masson, Duster was a managing director at Wachovia Securities, Inc. Before his tenure with Wachovia, Duster worked for 17 years at Salomon Brothers, where he served as vice president, mergers and acquisitions, specializing in bankruptcy reorganizations, financial restructuring, and distressed company acquisitions. While at Salomon, Duster represented debtor and creditor groups in the U.S. and internationally. Included among those he represented are: Circle K, the New York Daily News, Mid-way Airlines, BAESA (Pepsi in Argentina and Brazil), Jacor Communications, Resorts International, Grupo Tribasa (Mexico), and Alto Parana (Argentina).

WASHINGTON — Group MENATEP’s GM Investment and Co. Ltd. today agreed to invest up to US $25 million in Blackstone Capital Partners IV L.P., a private equity investment fund managed by The Blackstone Group, an investment bank with offices in New York and London. The announcement was made by Platon Lebedev, director of Group MENATEP. Primary targets for investment, which was facilitated by UBS Warburg and Clifford Chance, will be major industrial, service and communications-related companies in the United States and Europe, many of which will be made in partnership with leading global corporations.

DENVER — KFx Inc. (Amex: KFX) today received an additional $6 million in equity financing from the same investor group that provided $5 million last month. The $11 million aggregate amount was raised through the sale of common stock of KFx at $2.50 per share and warrants which are exercisable at $2.75 per share, on similar terms to the prior financing. The investor group has an option through July 31, 2002 to invest an additional $9 million, if needed by KFx, on similar terms.
STAMFORD, CT — Precom Technology Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: PMMT), announced today that it has entered into a partnership arrangement with Prospect Street Ventures, a New York venture capital firm based in Manhattan. Prospect Street Ventures was recently ranked as one of the top 20 leading venture capital firms in the New York area by Crain’s New York Business. Precom, doing business as Concilium Group (“CGI”), also reported it has opened an office in New York City to better serve its financial services clients.

NEWS FROM TUESDAY 4/30COLUMBIA, MD & WARREN, NJ — iBiquity DigitalCorp., a domestic developer of digital AM and FM broadcast technology, announced the closing of its Series C Financing, indicatingit had raised $45 million. Susquehanna Radio, the country’s eleventh largestbroadcaster, joins 14 of the 20 largest U.S. radio broadcasters, strategicequipment and automobile manufacturers and leading financial institutions thathave previously invested in iBiquity. Most of iBiquity’s existing investorscontributed additional funds, with Grotech, JP Morgan Partners, New VenturePartners and Pequot Capital leading the round.

PASADENA, CA — Motia announced today that it has closed a $5 million round of financing. Led by Kodiak Venture Partners, the round also included investment by Axiom Venture Partners and Carrot Capital.

CAMBRIDGE, MA — OmniGuide Communications Inc., a company developing hollow-core cylindrical photonic bandgap optical fibers and components, announced the closing of a Series B round of financing at $10.5 million. New investors are Alliance Technology Ventures, an early-stage high-tech venture capital firm and 3i, a leading international venture capital company. First round investors Ray Stata and Mukesh Chatter also participated in this round.

Mike Slawson, general partner at Alliance Technology Ventures, will join OmniGuide?s board of directors. He joins current board members Ray Stata, OmniGuide?s Acting CEO and Chairman of the Board, and Yoel Fink, OmniGuide?s co-founder and President. Mikko Suonenlahti, director with 3i, and Nick Papantonis, venture partner with ATV will join as observers to the board.

NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO — Behrman Capital, a privateequity investment firm, today announced that Tom W. Perlmutter has joinedthe firm as a Principal. Prior to joining Behrman Capital, Mr. Perlmutter worked at Desai CapitalManagement, a New York-based private equity firm with a focus on growthcompanies, where he led investments totaling over $265 million. Notableinvestments included TeleCorp PCS (an affiliate of AT&T Wireless), TritonPCS (also an AT&T Wireless affiliate), Lender’s Service (an informationservices provider to mortgage originators), Penn National Holdings (aproperty/casualty insurer) and Network Telephone (a Florida-based broadbandservice provider). He joined Desai in 1995.

CLEVELAND — Axentis, a provider of business processmanagement software, today announced that it received an additional $2.5million in a second closing of its Series A financing led by JP MorganPartners and Key Principal Partners. In addition, David Dame, managing generalpartner of KPPVentures, the technology investment arm of Key PrincipalPartners, has been appointed to the board of directors of Axentis.

VANCOUVER — Galian Photonics Inc., a developer of integrated optical components enabled by photonic crystal technology, announced today the completion of a US$4.4 million (CAD$7.1 million) second round financing. The financing included new investors BDC Venture Capital and Intel Capital together with prior investors Ventures West, the Working Opportunity Fund, and individuals.

MINNEAPOLIS — ProVation Medical Inc., a leading health-care software and services company, announced today the successful completion of a financing round totaling $2 million. This concludes a Series B transaction totaling $14.5 million. Clique Capital of Minneapolis led this closing while ProVation Medical’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board contributed equity as well. This closes out the round of financing led last year by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Affinity Venture Capital, Sherpa Partners, Tenet Healthcare and new outside strategic investors.

DENVER — Stonehenge Capital Corp. announced today the opening of a new office in Denver, Colorado. Stonehenge will provide equity and debt financing to Colorado companies seeking growth and expansion capital.
HAYWARD, CA— Lynx Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: LYNX) announced today it has completed an approximately $22.6 million private financing of common stock and warrants for common stock. The financing included the sale of 14.6 million newly issued shares of common stock at $1.55 per share and the issuance of warrants to purchase approximately 5.8 million shares of common stock at an exercise price of $1.94 per share. Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc. acted as sole manager for the transaction. Lynx will file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission a resale registration statement relating to the common stock to be issued in the transaction and the shares to be issued upon the exercise of the warrants.

LOD, ISRAEL — TeraChip, a developer of next-generation switch fabric, announced today that it has closed a round of financing for $11 million secured from Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital. Founded in late 2000, TeraChip has raised a total of $15.5 million to date, following an earlier investment of $4 million by Benchmark Capital in mid-2001. TeraChip, which employs 18 engineers in its development center in Israel, will move its headquarters to the San Francisco Bay Area later this year.

PITTSBURGH — Horizon Mezzanine Fund, LP, a minority-owned private equity firm, has been created to provide growth capital to small businesses located in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Fund will make investments ranging from $500,000 to $5 million in small businesses with the goal of growing them into profitable companies with annual revenues that exceed $20 million. The Fund will target small businesses with capital needs: 1) exceeding the amounts available from angel investors; 2) which do not meet the credit criteria of commercial banking; 3) falling short of the criteria required by venture capitalists.

NEWS FROM MONDAY 4/29PALO ALTO, CA — Sutter Hill Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, today announced that Jeffrey (Jeff) Bird, M.D., Ph.D. has joined the firm. Jeff will focus on investment opportunities in the healthcare industry, including biotechnology and medical devices, in addition to emerging technology companies.

Since its founding, Sutter Hill has focused on building leading technology companies in a variety of sectors including biotech, medical devices, healthcare services, information technology, networking, software and business and financial services. The addition of Jeff Bird underscores the firm’s longstanding commitment to emerging companies in the healthcare space. In 2001, two Sutter Hill healthcare companies (Omnicell and Amerigroup) had initial public offerings and two others (Interventional Technologies and Amira) were acquired.

BURLINGTON, MA — Bluesocket Inc., the fast-growing developer of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) solutions to secure and manage wireless access to corporate networks and the Internet, today announced it has raised $16 million in its second round of financing. Co-leading the Series B round is Ridgewood Capital (Ridgewood, NJ) and Boulder Ventures, Ltd. (Owings Mills, MD). Other investors participating in the round include Intel Capital and St. Paul Venture Partners as well as private investors. The funding will be used to further expand Bluesocket’s domestic and international reseller channel program, for sales and marketing, and for next generation product development.

BOSTON — Goodwin Procter LLP today announced that Michael O’Brien and L. Kevin Sheridan have joined the firm’s corporate department in its New York office. Both attorneys join the firm as partners. O’Brien specializes in representing private equity funds in venture capital transactions, leveraged buyouts and leveraged recapitalizations. He also represents portfolio companies in strategic combinations and equity and debt public offerings. Sheridan has a diverse practice that includes mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, corporate finance, and hedge fund representation.

O’Brien joins the firm from O’Sullivan LLP, where he was partner. He received his J.D. from Fordham University and his B.A. from Cornell University. Sheridan joins the firm from Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP, where he was partner. He received his J.D. from Fordham University and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.

BIRMINGHAM, MI — Rick Inatome, computer retailing pioneer and entrepreneur, and Sloan Ventures, LLC, seed and early-stage venture developers, announced today the launch of Mentor Capital Partners, LLC (MCP), an investment group, comprised mostly of angel investors originally from Michigan, that capitalizes on their business expertise, even from remote locations. According to Inatome, $10 million of affiliate capital will be co-invested by MCP, which will leverage Sloan Ventures’ existing $10 million fund.

FREMONT, CA — BigBand Networks Inc., a leading provider of broadband multimedia routing systems for broadcast television and advanced services, announced today that it has closed a $27 million financing round. To date, the company has raised a total of $57 million in three rounds. New investors include Charles River Ventures, which led the round, Lauder Partners and CommVest. All of the company’s prior venture capital investors, Redpoint Ventures, Pilot House Ventures, Cedar Fund and Evergreen Investments, are also participants. Click here for today?s Private Equity Week story on the deal.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — TuVox, a leading creator of Conversational Voice Response (CVR) solutions for customer relationship management, has secured its first institutional financing. The round was led by Granite Ventures in conjunction with Adobe Ventures. Granite Ventures LLC (formerly H&Q Venture Associates LLC) is a leading early-stage venture capital firm which is known for investments in companies such as Siebel Systems (NASDAQ:SEBL), Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN), InfoGear (acquired by NASDAQ:CSCO) and Nexabit (acquired by NYSE:LU).

POMPANO BEACH, FL — Paving Stone Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: PVNG) announced today the completion of its first stage of equity financing by a private investment group totaling $1 million.

NEW YORK — Warburg Pincus LLC, the global private equity firm, today announced the final closing of Warburg Pincus Private Equity VIII, L.P. (WP VIII), a $5.3 billion global fund that will invest in companies in the U.S. and abroad. WP VIII will invest alongside the firm’s $2.5 billion international fund, which together represent one of the largest pools of capital available for investing in the private equity industry.

ST. PAUL, MN — The St. Paul Companies (NYSE: SPC) today announced that William H. Heyman, 54, has been named executive vice president and chief investment officer. He will oversee all The St. Paul’s investments, including fixed income, equities, real estate and private investments. Heyman succeeds Michael Wright, who is leaving the company to pursue other interests.

Until March 15, 2002, Heyman was chairman of Citigroup Investments, a subsidiary of Citigroup that managed most of Citigroup’s proprietary investments. His responsibilities included all public and private equity-related investments, real estate, and alternative investments, as well as Citigroup’s pension fund. He founded and was until his departure chief executive officer of Tribeca Investments, a Citigroup subsidiary that conducts proprietary trading and investment activities including merger arbitrage and convertible hedging. He was a senior vice president of various Citigroup insurance subsidiaries, including Travelers, and served as a Citigroup representative on several boards.

BATON ROUGE, LA — Amedisys Inc. (Nasdaq:AMED), one of America’s leading home health nursing companies, today announcedthat it has placed 1,460,000 shares of Common Stock with private investors ata price of $6.94 per share. The placement, which was arranged by Belle HavenInvestments, L.P., provided net proceeds to the Company of approximately$9,500,000.

SAN FRANCISCO— OxoN Medica Inc., a privately held pharmaceutical company based in the San Francisco Bay Area today announced raising $3.9 million as part of its Series A financing round. OxoN Medica Inc. was founded to exploit proprietary know-how and discoveries made by three eminent scientists and successful entrepreneurs, Professor Leslie Benet, Professor Erik Anggard and Dr. Abdullah Haj-Yehia. Professor Benet is a world authority on pharmacokinetics and drug delivery. He is the founder and chairman of AvMax, Inc., a venture capital backed, South San Francisco based, drug delivery research company. Professor Anggard is a world authority on prostaglandins and oxidative stress biology. In 1991 he co-founded Vanguard Medica (now Vernalis Group plc), a UK-based drug development company that was floated on the London Stock Exchange five years later with a market capitalization of $175m. He recently founded Charterhouse Therapeutics, a UK-based, venture capital backed company developing novel anti-viral drugs. Dr. Haj-Yehia is a world-class researcher in nitrate biochemistry and pharmacology and the principal inventor behind a number of patents.

SUNNYVALE, CA — AirMagnet Inc., developer of wireless LAN (WLAN) administration solutions, today announced it has raised $2 million in its Series B funding round. The funds will be used to accelerate marketing, sales and extend the company’s product line. Venture capital firm VenGlobal Capital Fund led the round. Total funding to date is $2.6 million.

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