Week in deals, Nov. 19, 2007

BIOTECH

Akermin

St. Louis

www.akermin.com

Amount/Round: $5M/A

Investors: Prolog Ventures, OnPoint Technologies, Chrysalix Energy, St. Louis Arch Angels.

Details: Develops biocatalysts that immobilizes enzymes, stabilizes their performance and extends their operating life. The company has now raised about $8.5M in total VC funding.

Ambit Biosciences

San Diego

www.ambitbio.com

Amount/Round: $50M/D

Investors: Apposite Capital (led), MedImmune Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Radius Ventures, NovaQuest, Horizon Technology Finance, Perseus-Soros Biopharmaceutical Fund, Forward Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Roche Venture Fund, GIMV, Jov-CMDF, Genechem.

Details: Develops small-molecule kinase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. The company has raised just over $100M in total VC funding since 2000. Allan Marchington, partner at Apposite, David Mott, CEO and president of MedImmune, and Antonio Grillo-Lopez, former chief medical officer of IDEC, have joined the board.

Anaptys Biosciences Inc.

La Jolla, Calif.

www.anaptysbio.com

Amount/Round: $34M/B

Investors: Novo AS (led), Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Numenor Ventures, WS Investment Co., Avalon Ventures.

Details: Develops therapeutic antibody products to treat disease. Heath Lukatch of Novo A/S, Dr. James Topper of Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and Dr. J. Leighton Read of Alloy Ventures have joined the board.

CellFor Inc.

Vancouver

www.cellfor.com

Amount/Round: $24.5M/D

Investors: ATP Capital, CSFB Private Equity, GrowthWorks Capital, BDC Venture Capital.

Details: Produces tree seedlings for reforestation. Initial markets are pine plantations in the southern United States and South America. The company has now raised more than $63M in total VC funding.

Ensemble Discovery Corp.

Cambridge, Mass.

www.ensemblediscovery.com

Amount/Round: $15M/B

Investors: CMEA Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, Oxford Bioscience Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Aeneas Venture Corp., Boston University Technology Development Fund.

Details: Develops a DNA-programmed chemistry platform for developing drugs and bioassays. The deal was tranched-out with the first $10 million coming in January, and the remainder being called down a few months later.

Fluxion Biosciences Inc.

San Francisco

www.fluxionbio.com

Amount/Round: $6.9M/B

Investors: Kodiak Venture Partners, Claremont Creek Ventures, Life Science Angel Investors.

Details: Develops microfluidic systems for single-cell analysis.

Piedmont Pharmaceuticals

Greensboro, N.C.

www.piedmontpharma.com

Amount/Round: $8.5M/B

Investors: CM Capital Investments.

Details: Develops drug delivery systems for human and domestic animal use, such as head lice treatment.

Zosano Pharma Inc.

Fremont, Calif.

www.zosanopharma.com

Amount/Round: $45M/A

Investors: New Enterprise Associates, Nomura Phase4 Ventures, HBM BioVentures, ProQuest Investments.

Details: Develops drugs to treat osteoporotic patients, along with other anabolic bone building agents. The funding brings the Series A round to $90M. The company was founded last year as a Johnson & Johnson Internal Ventures spinout from the ALZA Co. It was initially named The Macroflux Corp.

CHIPS

DisplayLink Corp.

Palo Alto, Calif.

www.displaylink.com

Amount/Round: $24M/C

Investors: DAG Ventures (led), Atlas Venture, Balderton Capital, DFJ Esprit.

Details: A fabless semiconductor manufacturer that focuses on network displays. The company has now raised about $51M in total VC funding.

CLEANTECH

Sixtron Advanced Materials

Quebec

www.sixtron.com

Amount/Round: $10M/A

Investors: Ventures West.

Details: Develops thin-film coatings for solar cells.

CONSUMER

KoolConnect Technologies Inc.

Needham, Mass.

www.koolconnect.com

Amount/Round: $6.5M/NA

Investors: Lewis Trust Group (led), Plough Penny Partners and individual investor Arthur Weiner.

Details: Provides digital in-room entertainment services for the hospitality industry.

Pacific Pathway Inc.

Solana Beach, Calif.

www.lifegearcompany.com

Amount/Round: $6M/NA

Investors: Highland Consumer Fund.

Details: Provides emergency preparedness and personal safety products. Tom Guilfoile and Ted Philip of Highland have joined the board.

HEALTH CARE

CaseNET Inc.

Waltham, Mass.

www.CaseNETinc.com

Amount/Round: $7.5M/B

Investors: HLM Venture Partners, Sigma Partners, Aurora Funds, and individual investor Howard Cox.

Details: Provides medical care management software for health care enterprises and government agencies. HLM Venture Partners led the round with a $4M investment. Peter Grua, a partner at HLM, has joined the board.

INTERNET

ChaCha Search Inc.

Carmel, Inc.

www.chacha.com

Amount/Round: $10M/B

Investors: Morton Meyerson (former chairman and and CEO of Perot Systems), Bezos Expeditions (the investment firm of Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos), Rod Canion (founding CEO of Compaq Computer) and Jack Gill, (founder of Vanguard Ventures and current partner at Maven Ventures).

Details: Provides human-powered search technology. Last week, PE Week reported that the Series B round was $6M. The funding includes a $2M grant from 21st Century Technology Fund, an Indiana technology initiative. The company had raised a $6M Series A round earlier this year. Meyerson has joined the board.

DGP Labs Inc.

New York

www.dgplabs.com

Amount/Round: $4.75M/A

Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners.

Details: Internet startup. Rob Stavis, managing partner of Bessemer, and Hemant Taneja, managing director of General Catalyst, have joined the board.

GrubHub.com

Lake View, Ill.

www.grubhub.com

Amount/Round: $1.1M/A

Investors: Origin Ventures.

Details: Provides an online delivery service and local search engine for restaurants in Chicago and San Francisco. The company, which was mostly self-funded, previously received a $25,000 award from the University of Chicago New Venture Challenge.

Takkle Inc.

New York

www.takkle.com

Amount/Round: $7M/A

Investors: Liberty Associated Partners, WMG Investments, Greycroft Partners.

Details: Operates an online social network for high school sports.

MARKETING

Fusion Media Group

Wenham, Mass.

www.fusionmediagroup.com

Amount/Round: $7.5M/A

Investors: Key Venture Partners.

Details: Operates as an out-of-home advertising company. Part of the proceeds were used to acquire the assets of Tyler, Texas-based Genesis Media Advertising.

NETWORKING

Iptivia Inc.

New York

www.iptivia.com

Amount/Round: $6.5M/A

Investors: Paladin Capital Management, OmniCapital Group.

Details: Provides enterprise networking equipment. Philip Eliot, of Paladin, and Gerald Butters, of Omni, have joined the board.

SECURITY

BreakingPoint Systems Inc.

Austin, Texas

www.bpointsys.com

Amount/Round: $15M/C

Investors: Austin Ventures, Genesis Inventions.

Details: Develops network test equipment. The company has now raised $28M.

CoreTrace Corp.

Austin, Texas

www.coretrace.com

Amount/Round: $8M/A

Investors: Venrock, Hunt Ventures.

Details: IT security startup.

Lockdown Networks Inc.

Seattle

www.lockdownnetworks.com

Amount/Round: $15M/B

Investors: Cargill Ventures (led), Ignition Partners, Intel Capital, Integral Capital Partners.

Details: Provides network security services. The company raised a $4M Series A round from Ignition Partners in May 2004.

SOFTWARE

Allurent Inc.

Cambridge, Mass.

www.allurent.com

Amount/Round: NA/NA

Investors: Polaris Venture Partners (led), GSI Commerce Inc.

Details: Provides ecommerce software for retailers.

Carnegie Speech Co.

Pittsburgh

www.osageventures.com

Amount/Round: $6M/A

Investors: Osage Ventures.

Details: Develops software for assessing and teaching spoken language skills. Darren Wallis, managing partner at Osage Ventures, has joined the board.

FirstBest Systems Inc.

Lexington, Mass.

www.firstbest.com

Amount/Round: $7M/A

Investors: IDG Ventures Boston (led), NextStage LLC, Brookstone Partners.

Details: Develops underwriting management software and systems for insurance carriers.

Fortisphere

Glenwood, Md.

www.fortisphere.com

Amount/Round: $10M/A

Investors: Fairhaven Capital Partners (co-led), Globespan Capital Partners (co-led).

Details: Provides enterprise virtual machine lifecycle management software. The company expects to announce the funding this week.

SmartDrive Systems Inc.

San Diego

www.smartdrive.net

Amount/Round: $43M/D

Investors: New Enterprise Associates (led), Oak Investment Partners, Revolution Ventures, The Founders Fund, Western Technology Investments.

Details: Provides driver risk management software and services.

Zilliant Inc.

Austin, Texas

www.zilliant.com

Amount/Round: $4M/F

Investors: Liberty Mutual, Austin Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, Trellis Partners, JPMorgan Partners.

Details: Develops price optimization and management software. The company has raised about $40M in total VC funding since 1999.

Zip Trade Technologies Inc.

New York

URL NA

Amount/Round: $20M/D

Investors: First Mutual Credit (led), G-Trade, Bank One.

Details: Provides software development tools. Shaun Morgan, CEO of First Mutual, has joined the board.

STORAGE

ExaGrid Systems Inc.

Westborough, Mass.

www.exagrid.com

Amount/Round: $20M/D

Investors: Lehman Brothers Venture Partners (led), Highland Capital Partners, Sigma Partners.

Details: Provides disk-based backup solutions. The company has now raised more than $65M in total VC funding since 2002.

VOIP

Vivox Inc.

Framingham, Mass.

www.vivox.com

Amount/Round: $7.8M/B

Investors: Benchmark Capital (led), Canaan Partners, GrandBanks Capital.

Details: Provides VoIP services for online games and virtual worlds. The company raised a $6M Series A deal in September 2005. Mitch Lasky, general partner of Benchmark Capital, has joined the board.

WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

ViVOtech Inc.

Santa Clara, Calif.

www.vivotech.com

Amount/Round: NA/NA

Investors: Motorola Ventures.

Details: Develops mobile phone payment technologies. Earlier this year, the company raised a $22.5M Series C round of funding from First Data Corp., NCR, Miven Venture Partners and return backers Alloy Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Nokia Growth Partners.