Venture Capital News
OnVantage Secures $18M in Series B Financing to Accelerate Growth
Representatives of OnVantage, Inc., the leader in corporate spend management and supplier marketing technology for the $300 billion global professional meetings and events market, announced the company has secured US$18 million in its Series B round of venture financing to accelerate growth.
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Texas Pacific Group Ventures co-led this over-subscribed up round, validating the OnVantage vision and position as the dominant figure in the global meetings and events market. Existing OnVantage investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, iD Ventures (formerly Acer Technology Ventures), and MHM & Co., Ltd. also participated in the round.
Jim Lussier, venture partner at NVP, joined the OnVantage board of directors. Bill McGlashan, managing director at Texas Pacific Group Ventures, also gained a seat on the OnVantage board of directors.
The substantial investments by NVP and Texas Pacific Group Ventures reflect the power of the OnVantage vision and the execution to date on that vision.
OnVantage and its OnVantage Marketplace for Meetings provide the virtual exchange in the meetings and events industry. The Marketplace now unites 70,000 hotels and meeting suppliers with the largest corporate meeting and event buyers, including 400 members of the Fortune 500. In just the last twelve months, business worth over $552 million representing more than three million room nights was exchanged as a result of this Marketplace.
Backing up this vision is the stability of the management team that includes key players from the companies that formed OnVantage. CEO John Chang founded and led seeUthere until the merger, while Stanley Chin, chief operating officer of OnVantage, had been a senior executive at seeUthere since 2000. Edward Tromczynski founded and led PlanSoft until the merger and is now president of OnVantage. Industry veterans Howard Mendelsohn, chief financial officer, and Patrick Williams, senior vice president of sales, corporate division, recently joined the executive management team.
[ FYI Index ]
Sprint Nextel Leads New Investment in IPWireless
Sprint Nextel has made an additional US$10 million strategic investment in IPWireless the companies announced Wednesday. In July of 2005, Sprint made its initial investment of $4 million in IPWireless.
Sprint Nextel is currently trialing IPWireless' UMTS TD-CDMA technology in the Washington, D.C. area for broadband access for laptops, desktops or PDAs; backhaul for enterprise campus; and a wide array of Wireless Interactive Multimedia Services such as video-streaming, online gaming, document collaboration and video-conferencing.
IPWireless has raised more than $200 million since its founding in 1999, with lead backers including Bay Partners, DCM - Doll Capital Management, Gabriel Venture Partners, GIC Special Investments, J.F. Shea Venture Capital, and Oak Hill Capital Management.
[ FYI Index ]
IntelliVid Announces $8 Million Series B Funding
Representatives of IntelliVid Corporation, a leader in intelligent video analysis solutions for retail loss prevention, announced the company has received US$8 million in Series B funding, bringing the total investment in the company to over $18 million.
The round was led by Intel Capital, with participation from existing investors Flagship Ventures, Egan-Managed Capital and DFJ New England. IntelliVid is using this round of funding to intensify its sales and marketing efforts and accelerate the delivery of expanded features and functionality for its core product, Video Investigator.
IntelliVid enables retailers to leverage their existing video infrastructures to prevent shoplifting and enhance the shopping environment. By enabling retailers to make better use of their video assets, IntelliVid helps its customers reduce theft and increase profits.
[ FYI Index ]
Metabolon Closes $8 Million Series B Funding Round
Representatives of Metabolon, Inc., a leader in the discovery of biomarkers using metabolomics, announced Wednesday the close of an $8 million Series B funding round. Sevin Rosen Funds (led the round with participation from all existing investors including The Aurora Funds and The Trelys Funds. A new investor, Harris & Harris Group, also contributed to the financing. Harris & Harris Group is a publicly held venture capital company specializing in funding companies with novel technology
[ FYI Index ]
Seattle BioFuels Closes $7.5 Million Series A Venture Financing
Representatives of Seattle BioFuels, Inc. announced the company closed a UA$7.5 million Preferred Series A investment from leading venture investors including Nth Power, Technology Partners and Vulcan Capital. The financing will be used for national expansion, with plans to accelerate commercialization of innovative process technology, open a new biodiesel refinery and oil seed-crushing oil facility in the second half of 2006. Nancy Floyd, Managing Director of Nth Power and Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner of Technology Partners have joined the board of Seattle BioFuels.
Seattle BioFuels is deploying next generation biodiesel production technology delivering significant economic and quality improvements to the process. Seattle BioFuels has developed a proprietary Pulse Reactor, Active Methanol Recovery System, and an Adsorbent Enhanced Polishing Process along with other improvements to the Biodiesel production process. The company built its first commercial scale refinery operating as Seattle Biodiesel providing 5 million gallons per year capacity to the Northwest market. Founded in 2003, Seattle BioFuels opened the first commercial scale (5 million gallons a year) implementation of their technology in May of 2005 in Seattle, WA (Seattle Biodiesel).
