Venture Capital News
Crescendo Ventures Leads Investment in Verimatrix
On Thursday, Verimatrix announced the closing of an US$8 million investment round led by Crescendo Ventures and included Mission Ventures and strategic investor Siemens Venture Capital GmbH. Verimatrix develops Pay TV content protection and access control systems, which include the industry's first user-specific forensic watermarking technology, VideoMark(TM). Today, Verimatrix's solution is the most widely deployed IPTV content protection system within tier one operators around the globe.
Verimatrix designed the Verimatrix Content Authority System (VCAS) as a software-based content security solution that enables digital video content on devices and systems within media delivery networks to be encrypted and authenticated in order to identify security breaches and unauthorized network users. The company's patent-pending VideoMark, an available feature of VCAS, is the industry's first robust and invisible content tracking solution that enables forensic, user-specific marking of individual video copies to track piracy to the individual set-top box and other CE devices.
Because Verimatrix products allow piracy to be traced back to the source, and not just to the network operator, content owners are ensured a far higher protection level than with other distribution methods, such as DVDs and VHS tapes. Forensic watermarking can also be deployed as an effective way to prevent illegal content sharing. Prosecuting piracy and copyright infringement provides a strong deterrent and alters the general perception on the legalities of copyright abuse.
The Series B funding round includes follow-on investments from Siemens Venture Capital GmbH (SVC), a subsidiary of Siemens AG, and Mission Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to building leading technology companies in Southern California.
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Western Milling and Khosla Ventures Join Forces to Form Cilion
Western Milling, California's largest grain milling company, and Khosla Ventures, a venture assistance and venture capital firm, today announced the formation of Cilion. Cilion will operate modular, standardized 55 million gallons per year ethanol plants. Using a variety of innovations these plants will be cheaper and greener than standard corn-to-ethanol plants, substantially reducing the need for fossil fuels in ethanol production. Cilion plans to have 8 plant units in production by 2008 for a total of 440 million gallons per year capacity. The first three plants are expected to be in California. The ethanol production, grain handling, logistics and feed expertise of Western Milling combined with the company building and financial expertise of Khosla Ventures will provide Cilion with a unique advantage. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently issued Executive Order S-06-06 establishing targets for the use and production of biomass products. The executive order called for California to produce a minimum of twenty percent of its own biofuels by 2010 and forty percent by 2020. Of the 900 million gallons of ethanol currently consumed in California, only five percent is produced in California.
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Advantage Partners and Bain Capital Complete Acquisition of MEI Conlux
Advantage Partners, one of the foremost private equity firms in Japan, and Bain Capital, a leading global private investment firm, today completed the acquisition of MEI Conlux from Mars, Incorporated. Terms were not disclosed.
MEI Conlux is the global leader in payment acceptance systems used widely in vending, gaming, transport and retail applications. The Company announced on April 6, 2006 that it had reached a definitive agreement to be acquired.
Headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania and Sakado, Japan, MEI Conlux is the industry leader globally with strong market positions in all of its business segments
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Siebel Executive and Software Industry Veteran, Bruce Cleveland, Joins InterWest Partners
On Thursday, InterWest Partners, a leading diversified venture capital firm, announced the addition of Bruce Cleveland, recognized software industry veteran, as a partner with the firm. Cleveland will leverage his nearly three decades of operating expertise to seek new investment opportunities in the software and services sector with a focus on analytic applications and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Cleveland was one of the original members of the Siebel executive team. At Siebel, he held numerous executive positions including SVP and GM of Products, SVP and GM of the OnDemand and SMB divisions and Senior VP of Marketing and Alliances. In the latter capacity, he is widely credited with creating the most effective alliance organization in the enterprise software industry. Cleveland also held executive positions in engineering and product management at Apple Computer and Oracle Corporation, and prior to Oracle, he held technical support and management positions at AT&T.
