Author: Mark Boslet

ProcessUnity said it secured a $5 million Series C round in a deal led by Rose Park Advisors’ Disruptive Innovation Fund. The funding will support growth and expand marketing and sales.

PRESS RELEASE

ProcessUnity Raises $5 Million, Led by Rose Park Advisors

Funding to Boost Marketing and Distribution of Company’s Risk Management Solutions

Concord, MA — April 2, 2013 — ProcessUnity, a privately-held risk management software company, today announced that it secured $5 million in a Series C round led by Rose Park Advisors’ Disruptive Innovation Fund. The funding will support the company’s rapid growth and expand marketing and sales of its SaaS solutions.

The company offers two distinct solutions: Risk Suite and Service Delivery Risk Management (SDRM). To address increased information security threats and regulatory mandates, ProcessUnity offers Risk Suite,focused on strong governance and control, vendor risk management, and compliance management.

To address increased complexity, cost pressures, and delivery risk for financial service providers, ProcessUnity offers SDRM, focused on managing complex service offerings and the end-to-end client management process of what is offered and how it’s delivered.

“After three years of strong growth and validation from our customers, we are ready to expand our reach and deploy our solutions to broader markets,” said Todd Stone, president and CEO of ProcessUnity. “We are excited to work with Rose Park Advisors’ CEO Matt Christensen and Chairman Dr. Clayton Christensen, and extremely pleased that our existing stockholders also participated in this round.”

ProcessUnity’s customers range from large commercial enterprises to independent consultants all facing the same challenge of managing risk effectively. These organizations rely on the ease of use, instant global deployment, low cost of ownership, and highly responsive service associated with the company’s solutions.

“ProcessUnity’s platform and solutions represent a disruptive innovation for today’s service-based economy,” said Matt Christensen, CEO of Rose Park Advisors. “The company’s solutions automate critical jobs to be done around risk management and product and service management in a way that offers breakthrough cost savings and operating efficiencies. The resulting business improvements, reporting, and analytics allow ProcessUnity’s customers to capitalize on risk management for competitive advantage.”

About ProcessUnity, Inc.
ProcessUnity is a risk management software company headquartered in historic Concord, Massachusetts. ProcessUnity’s Software as a Service solutions provide financial services firms and other organizations with the visibility and control they need to assess, measure, and mitigate risk and to ensure the optimal performance of key business processes. Customers and partners benefit from the ease of use, fast deployment, and low total cost of ownership associated with ProcessUnity’s risk, compliance, and operational control solutions.

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Shell said it will invest several hundred million dollars in emerging technology companies over six to eight years with the goal of finding innovations useful to the company’s operations. Target technologies include smarter exploration processes and enhanced extraction techniques. Shell’s corporate venturing arm, Shell Technology Ventures, will make investments.

PRESS RELEASE

Shell ready to invest several hundred million dollars in promising technology companies

02 Apr 2013 — Shell is ready to invest several hundred million dollars in emerging technology companies, with the aim to accelerate the deployment of innovations that add value to the company’s operations. From smarter exploration processes to enhanced extraction techniques, Shell’s corporate venturing arm Shell Technology Ventures will make investments over the next six to eight years.

Gerald Schotman, Executive Vice President Innovation, R&D and Shell Chief Technology Officer, said:

“Ideas from outside the organisation are critical to our open innovation approach to R&D. We want to enable the brightest and the best to develop their ideas, and benefit from Shell’s expertise and global reach, so that we can get these technologies up and running in our projects as fast as we can.”

As well as promising technology companies, Shell is looking to invest in technology spin-outs and externally-managed venture capital funds. The company will look at areas including gas production and conversion; geophysical imaging; chemical manufacturing and conversion; novel materials; enhanced oil recovery; and water treatment. Various aspects of information technology (“Big Data”); oil and gas wells drilling and completion; sub-surface sensing; production in challenging environments; operational efficiency; and future energy technologies will also be sought.

Partners may be granted access to Shell’s technical experts, its global research capability and its customer, supplier and contractor base. Shell may look to enable field trials where appropriate and serve as a launching customer for these new technologies. Companies are encouraged to submit their proposals via the process as set out at www.shell.com/techventures.

Geert van de Wouw, Shell Technology Ventures Director, said:

“We are looking to develop long-term mutually, beneficial partnerships with emerging technology companies, venture capital firms and corporate venturing organisations. A good example of where this is already working is our investment in GlassPoint Solar Inc. Their pilot plant in the Middle East taps heat from the sun to generate steam for enhanced oil recovery. Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) contracted GlassPoint to build the plant, which is currently being tested.”

Shell Technology Ventures is the corporate venturing arm of Shell and follows the existing Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1, which is managed by independent Kenda Capital. Kenda will continue to commercialise its existing portfolio of oil and gas technology investments.

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Attune Consulting said it raised $20 million from South Asian apparel maker MAS Holdings. As part of the investment, attune will merge with software developer Sabre Technologies. Attune helps implement SAP’s Apparel and Footwear Solution to the fashion industry.

PRESS RELEASE

attune Consulting Announces $20 Million Investment From MAS Holdings to Build World-Class Business and Technology Solutions Company Focused Exclusively on the Fashion and Lifestyle Industries

Investment Includes Merger with IT Services Provider Sabre Technologies to Deliver Innovations in Cloud, Mobile and Other Web-based Technologies

BURLINGTON, Mass. – April 2, 2013 – attune Consulting, a premier global solutions provider to the fashion and lifestyle industries, today announced that MAS Holdings, the leading South Asian manufacturer of fine apparel, and supplier of the world’s leading brands of intimates, activewear and leisure wear, has chosen to invest $20 million to fuel attune’s development as the world’s leading IT business and technology solutions company focused exclusively on the fashion and lifestyle industries.  As part of this investment, attune will merge with Sabre Technologies, a software services provider specializing in cloud, mobile and other Web-based technologies, giving the combined company an unparalleled set of skills and services with which to serve its clients.

“The time is right to create a world-class IT solutions company dedicated to serving the needs of fashion and lifestyle,” said Mahesh Amalean, chairman of MAS. “Today’s leading brands face a highly competitive global market along with a growing reliance on emerging digital technologies to drive operational efficiencies and engage with consumers, partners and other stakeholders across the value chain. attune is in an ideal position to capitalize on this opportunity by delivering a full array of solutions and services to meet the needs of customers – from product design straight through to retail store shelves.”

attune was founded in 2006 and has historically focused on implementing SAP’s Apparel and Footwear Solution (AFS) for many of the world’s most recognized brands. Spanning five continents and 16 countries, the company has developed a unique expertise in SAP AFS and Retail best practices that allows it to reduce project costs, resource requirements and timelines.

Sabre was founded in 2001 as a solutions company specializing in cloud and mobile technologies, with particular expertise in .NET and Java development frameworks. The company has a long track record of helping companies in the fashion and lifestyle industries capitalize on business opportunities through the application of technology, including custom application development.

With this new round of investment, attune will aggressively expand its technology and service offerings across all areas of the fashion and lifestyle value chain, developing solutions that offer clients a strong competitive advantage, and that integrate and transform their activities across people, processes and technology

“Our exclusive focus on the fashion and lifestyle industries, coupled with our global organization of full-time, highly experienced consultants, has enabled attune to build a reputation that is second to none,” said Vajira De Silva, CEO of attune. “With this investment from MAS, we can now accelerate the development of additional services to help our clients address all of their technology challenges, across the entire value chain.”

About attune
A premier global solution provider to the fashion industry, attune empowers companies at all stages of the fashion value chain to maximize revenue, ROI and supply chain visibility. Established in 2006 as an SAP solution provider – for manufacturers, brand owners and retailers – its mission is to partner with the world’s great fashion and lifestyle companies to develop customized, innovative solutions that will transform their business success. attune’s comprehensive offering of end-to-end ERP solutions, combined with full lifecycle services, include preconfigured solutions for accelerated SAP Apparel & Footwear (SAP AFS) and Retail implementations. For more information about attune, please visithttp://www.attuneconsulting.com.

About Sabre Technologies
Founded in 2001 and backed by MAS Holdings, one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most successful companies, Sabre Technologies specializes in developing Web, cloud and mobility solutions for companies looking to use technology to increase their competitive position and differentiation in the marketplace.

About MAS Holdings
Founded in 1986, MAS Holdings provides innovative design-to-delivery solutions in intimate apparel and sportswear through its MAS Intimates and MAS Active divisions. The Sri Lankan company currently comprises a portfolio of 38 world-class apparel facilities spread over ten countries, providing employment to more than 58,000 people.

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Menlo Ventures says it added Karl Mehta as a venture partner. Mehta will focus on sourcing investments and will advise portfolio companies in financial services, mobile payments, e-commerce and gaming. He was the founder and CEO of Menlo-backed PlaySpan, which sold to Visa. The Obama Administration named him as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2012.

Here is a link to the Menlo blog announcing the hire.

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A new study from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business finds that tweeting can enhance the liquidity of little-known small-cap companies. The study is described as empirical, but if its results are proven true, the observation is powerful. Venture capitalists complain small venture-backed companies often have trouble attracting Wall Street analyst coverage and the improved visibility that comes along with it. Twitter, as an alternative channel, could change the equation.

Find a link to the study here. A press release is reprinted below:

PRESS RELEASE

New Stanford Research Suggests Corporate Tweeting Helps Market Liquidity of Little-known Companies

STANFORD, Calif. — It almost goes without saying that Twitter has changed the way corporations communicate. Despite much early sneering about the 140-character limit of a tweet, thousands of very serious companies fire off tweets daily about their latest news.

But does tweeting have any impact on investors? A new empirical study suggests that it does. In particular, Twitter seems to help little-known companies overcome the natural bias of traditional news media toward bigger companies that already get buzz.

The researchers, who include Elizabeth Blankespoor, an assistant professor of accounting at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that tweeting measurably increased the market liquidity of stocks that normally get little attention.

That’s important for both practical and theoretical reasons. As a practical matter, corporate investor-relations departments are pouring money into Twitter and other “push” technologies without completely knowing how well they work.

On a more theoretical level, the findings further undermine a key assumption about how markets work. The traditional assumption has been that markets instantly assimilate every new scrap of information as soon as it becomes public. If a company announces its latest earnings over the PR Newswire, for example, the traditional view is that the information reaches everybody in the market immediately.

Many analysts had already found that the real world was messier than that. In the real world, investors get much of their information from the news media — the Wall Street Journal, news services such as Bloomberg, and television networks such as CNBC. And news organizations pay much more attention to high-visibility companies because those are the ones that attract bigger audiences.

Blankespoor teamed up to study Twitter’s market impact with Gregory S. Miller, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Michigan, and Hal D. White, an assistant professor of accounting at Michigan. They suspected that Twitter and other technologies were changing the old rules. For the first time, companies could communicate with investors directly and instantly.

Twitter is hardly the only direct-access technology in use. Many companies also reach investors through mass email alerts, RSS feeds, and Facebook. But for many investor-relations departments, Twitter has become the social networking tool of choice.

To measure Twitter’s impact, the researchers studied one particular form of corporate tweet: those that contain links to a company’s full original announcement.
The researchers compiled tweet data from 2007 through September 2009 for 102 information technology companies (on the theory that IT firms were likely to be early Twitter adopters). They then correlated the tweet activity with trading data about the liquidity of each company’s stock.

Specifically, they looked at the spread between bid and ask prices, or the difference between prices offered by buyers and sellers. Narrow spreads mean that a stock is more liquid and easier to trade, often because investors are more confident about what they know. High-visibility companies with lots of shareholders usually have narrower spreads than lesser-known companies, an indicator of the “information asymmetry” that plagues the lesser-known companies.

Navigating through the Twitter data took some detective work. The researchers had to identify the twitter “handles” for each of the companies, round up all their tweets, and then weed out those that didn’t link back to press releases and other blog posts. They also tabulated how many times people actually clicked on the tweet’s hyperlink. Once they had all that, they correlated the tweets with trading data immediately before and after each news announcement.

For the record, the average company in the study had 28,318 followers over the period (Twitter was still in its infancy). Companies sent an average of 46.9 tweets with links per month, and each link was clicked an average of 141 times.
What the researchers found was that bid-ask spreads narrowed significantly for lesser-known companies when they tweeted about their news. Bigger companies that already enjoyed visibility didn’t see any impact. In other words, tweeting helped level the information playing field at least a bit.

Blankespoor, Miller, and White also looked at whether Twitter had a particular effect on smaller investors, who don’t have as much money for information collection as institutional traders. In theory, Twitter might boost their activity. But the data doesn’t show that. Tweeting didn’t seem to have any meaningful impact on the share of trading in small lots.

The big takeaway, Blankespoor says, is that Twitter and other “direct access information technologies” can help reduce the information disadvantage of small companies. It isn’t just the message that’s important. It’s how widely you can disseminate it.

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Cendana Capital announced the final close of a pair of seed-based fund of funds on Friday. The institutional seed investor now has raised $88.2 million and taken a position with nine investment partnerships. The final close announced Friday in a document filed with Securities and Exchange Commission was on $28.2 million raised by Cendana Capital L.P.

Cendana also on Friday filed an updated Form D for its $60 million Cendana Co-Investment Fund, of which the University of Texas Investment Management Company is the sole limited partner.

Managing Partner Michael Kim said he so far has invested in nine seed investment firms: IA Ventures, PivotNorth Capital, Freestyle Capital, SoftTech VC, K9 Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures and Accelerator Ventures. He said his goal is to be among the largest LPs in funds he selects.

Here is a link to the Cendana Capital L.P. filing, and here is a link to the Cendana Co-Investment Fund filing.

 

 

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Quasar Ventures said it has begun operations with $5.4 million in investment capital from a group of  investors led by Emergence Capital Partners. The firm will follow a strategy that varies dramatically from an incubator. It plans to use its capital to develop 10 new technology companies globally in the coming four years. The firm is led by former Officenet executives Andy Freire, Santiago Bilinkis and Pablo Simón Casarino.

PRESS RELEASE

Latin American Tech Company Builder QUASAR VENTURES™ Launches With $5.4 Million Influx Led By Emergence Capital

Novel Firm Seeks to Change Startup Model by Matching Strong Business Concepts with Qualified Entrepreneurs; Goal is Ten New Tech Companies Within Next Four Years

BUENOS AIRES – MARCH 28, 2013 – Quasar Ventures™, a new technology company builder led by former Officenet executives Andy Freire, Santiago Bilinkis and Pablo Simón Casarino, announced today that it has begun operations with $5.4 million (USD) in outside investment from a group of strategic investors led by Silicon Valley venture capital fund Emergence Capital Partners. Using a growth model that varies dramatically from incubator approaches, Quasar Ventures plans to use its outside investment to develop ten new technology companies globally in the coming four years.

Quasar, the first company-builder in Latin America, is introducing a novel concept into the region called “parallel entrepreneurship.” The format turns the typical startup formula on its head by identifying robust business models, selecting them as projects, and then getting the best entrepreneurs to partner in order to implement them. Quasar offers the seed capital as well as its global network to ensure proper financing of each startup.

“It is because of these distinctive traits that Quasar is neither an investment fund nor an incubator. We are an experienced group of entrepreneurs with the mission of building groundbreaking and successful technology companies by bringing together robust business models and talented entrepreneur teams,” says Quasar Ventures founder and CEO Pablo Simón Casarino.

Quasar’s innovative approach, based on its partners’ entrepreneurial experience around implementing ideas and building high-impact companies, extends to its method of selecting entrepreneurial partners. Because human capital is a fundamental pillar, the ideal Quasar entrepreneur must have a cluster of unique personal and professional skills: he/she must be intellectually brilliant, ambitious, creative and an extraordinary leader. Quasar plans to find entrepreneurs with an edge who are able to produce a dramatic global impact as leaders of the ten companies that will be built in partnership with the firm in the coming years.

Besides Emergence Capital Partners, other successful and renowned strategic partners have joined Quasar in this effort. Some of them are Peter Kellner, Martin Migoya and Guibert Englebienne, Alejandro Tamer and Roby Souviron, CAP Ventures, Wenceslao Casares and Micky Malka, Alex Mendez, Silvia Torres Carbonell, Verónica Serra from Pacific Investimentos and Gustavo D´Alessandro.

“Having worked with members of the Quasar team for over 15 years, we are convinced that Quasar’s entrepreneurship model is the most robust option for building groundbreaking and successful technology companies in Latin America. We deeply trust this group of renowned entrepreneurs, and we hope to continue to build exciting things together in the future,” says Emergence Capital Partners Principal Santiago Subotovsky.

About Quasar Ventures:
Quasar Ventures is focused on creating disruptive technology companies in Latin America and abroad. The company was formed by Andy Freire, Santiago Bilinkis and Pablo Simon Casarino. As the first “company builder” of Latin America, this new concept of entrepreneurship is emerging globally and is supported by the entrepreneurial experience of its partners to implement ideas and create high-impact companies. For additional information, visit: http://www.quasar-ventures.com/.

About Emergence Capital Partners (@emergencecap):
Emergence Capital Partners, based in San Mateo, Calif., is the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage SaaS and technology-enabled services companies. Its mission is to empower business users and organizations around the globe by unleashing the power of technology-enabled Services. The firm’s investments include Salesforce.com (CRM), SuccessFactors (acquired by SAP), Yammer (acquired by Microsoft), Lithium, YouSendIt, Box, and Veeva Systems. Founded in 2003, Emergence Capital has $575 million under management. More information on Emergence Capital can be found at http://www.emcap.com/.

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FundersClub said it received a no-action letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The letter suggests that the SEC will not take action against venture capital advisers who are not registered as broker dealers, the company said.

FundersClub operates a site that aggregates money from accredited investors for investments in startups. The firm recently announced a $1.1 million fund to invest in Y Combinator startups.

Here is a link to the no-action letter.

 

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500 Startups is expanding its investing team and geographic footprint with an office in New York and plans for a San Francisco location. The seed fund and accelerator program run by Dave McClure has hired Parker Thomson as a venture partner and promoted George Kellerman to partner, according to a blog post.

Paul Singh, meanwhile, will become CEO of dashboard.io, where he is the founder, and remain a venture partner at 500 Startups.

The New York “co-working” space is located in the Flatiron district and will have room for local startups. 500 Startups expects to open its San Francisco office in a few months.

Thomson comes to the firm from Pivotal Labs and will guide the San Francisco operations along with helping to run the accelerator. Kellerman heads up fundraising and investor relations and will lead investments in Japan.

Singh’s dashboard.io recently raised $750,000 from 500 Startups, NextGen Angels, LX Ventures, Voodoo Ventures and others.

The firm announced the new offices and staff changes in a blog post.

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Bina Technologies said it closed a $6.25 million Series B round in a deal led by Sierra Ventures. The big data genomics company plans to expand development, marketing, sales and support. It will raise additional investment from a strategic life sciences investor to close out the round in the coming months.

PRESS RELEASE

Bina Nets $6.25 Million Series B Financing Led by Sierra Ventures to More Than Double Headcount

Plans to Raise Additional Funds From Strategic Life Sciences Investor in Coming Months

Redwood City, CA (PRWEB) March 26, 2013 — Bina Technologies, the genomic big data science platform accelerating personalized medicine, today announced that it has closed a $6.25 million round of Series B financing led by Sierra Ventures. Founded in 2011 by experts in complex, large-scale genomics, big data and high-performance computing, Bina’s mission is to process and mine vast volumes of genomic information as the leading big data platform for the world’s healthcare industry.

With this investment, Bina plans to aggressively expand their development, marketing, sales and support teams to manage the growing market demand for scalable genomic analysis solutions and the company’s product development initiatives this year. The company will be raising additional investment from a strategic life sciences investor to close out the round in the coming months.

“We’re fortunate to have Sierra Ventures as our venture capital partner as well as the financial support of some of the most respected and successful private investors in big data technology,” said Narges Bani Asadi, founder and CEO of Bina. “We believe the intersection of genomic analysis and big data is creating disruptive new technologies for mining valuable medical information in the enormous streams of genomic data being generated today. Analyzing this kind of large-scale data has been too expensive or too technically difficult for researchers and clinicians until now. Our mission is to make large-scale genomic analysis more accurate, accessible and affordable for the entire medical community.”

“Bina has critical elements that we look for in category-defining companies — a world-class founding team, great technology, and a disruptive and large market opportunity,” said Tim Guleri, managing director at Sierra Ventures. “In the immediate future, the $15 billion genomic research industry is ripe for solutions like Bina, which allow for powerful and scalable genomic analysis. Vertical-specific applications of big data, such as what Bina is doing in healthcare, is how the real value of big data will ultimately be realized and revolutionize the $100B healthcare market.”

In addition to the funding, Bina is announcing a key partnership with Dr. Elizabeth Worthey at the Medical College of Wisconsin focusing on accelerating newborn whole genome sequencing and screening in the neonatal intensive care unit. Dr. Worthey works at the frontiers of whole genome sequencing, revolutionizing pediatric care by diagnosing genetic diseases in infants within the first 28 days of life.

Using Bina to optimize her analysis pipeline, Dr. Worthey was able to significantly decrease the analysis time of identifying genetic disorders in newborns from 334 hours down to 39 hours, increasing the probability of identifying genetic disorders before symptoms arise and saving infant lives in the process.

As part of this announcement, the Genetics Department of Stanford University led by Dr. Michael Snyder will be coming onboard as an official customer after a successful pilot program. Dr. Snyder is deploying Bina’s Genomic Analysis Platform to analyze several hundred whole human genomes, each in 4 hours or less, a task that previously took days to weeks to complete.

“Bina is extremely well-positioned as the fast, accurate and scalable choice for genomic analysis that is keeping up with the rapid pace of innovation occurring in DNA sequencing today,” said Dr. Michael Snyder, Chair of the Genetics Department at Stanford. “Before we started using the Bina Genomic Analysis Platform whole human genome analysis typically took days if not weeks to complete. Bina allows us to blow away the data analysis bottleneck that had been holding us back, accelerating our research forward drastically.”

About Bina Technologies

Bina is the big data science platform accelerating personalized medicine for researchers and clinicians requiring fast, accurate and scalable genomic analysis. We develop cutting-edge big data technologies to dramatically reduce the amount of time and money required to process raw genetic data in order to generate insights for personalized medicine.

Bina was started by a team of Stanford and Berkeley researchers and entrepreneurs, with the vision that whole genome sequencing (WGS) is just the beginning of a brighter future. Bina is accelerating personalized medicine, one genome at a time.

We are a team of data scientists, bioinformaticians, software developers and high performance computing experts working in harmony in Redwood City, California. To learn more, visit: http://binatechnologies.com.

About Sierra Ventures

Since 1982, Sierra Ventures, a privately held venture capital firm, has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs around the world begin and grow successful technology companies. Sierra is investing out of its tenth fund and currently has more than $1.2 billion of capital under management, focusing on investments across all areas of the information technology sector from semiconductors to enterprise software. For more information please visit: http://www.sierraventures.com.

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PeopleLinx said it raised $3.2 million in Series A funding in a deal led by Osage Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners and MissionOG. Angel investors also participated in the oversubscribed round.

PRESS RELEASE

PeopleLinx Announces $3.2 Million In Series A Funding Led by Osage Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners and MissionOG, Funding Propels Social Business Application for LinkedIn

PHILADELPHIA, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — PeopleLinx, the provider of the world’s first LinkedIn engagement and analytics software, announced today that it raised $3.2 million in Series A funding led by Osage Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners and MissionOG. A number of strategic angel investors also participated in the oversubscribed round. The investment will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and customer success with Fortune 1000 clients.

“There is a very large and unaddressed market for third-party LinkedIn Social Business solutions like PeopleLinx, especially among organizations that already have hundreds or thousands of employees active on LinkedIn,” said Nate Lentz, managing partner at Osage Venture Partners. “PeopleLinx is unique in its ability to enable enterprises to harness the potential of the combined social reach of their employees.”

According to Ian Sigalow, partner and co-founder of Greycroft Partners, “LinkedIn has become the leading search tool for information about people and the companies they work for. PeopleLinx is raising the bar, helping our customers represent themselves online and manage their online reputations. The opportunity for PeopleLinx to create value for the enterprise within LinkedIn is similar to what we saw Buddy Media do in the early days of Facebook.”

Founded in 2009 as a Social Business consulting company by former LinkedIn employees Nathan Egan and Patrick Baynes, PeopleLinx re-launched in early 2012 as a scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform designed to help corporations and their employees use LinkedIn. By providing dashboards to deliver best practice information, gaming functionality, detailed reporting and other tools needed to optimize their social presence, PeopleLinx helps enterprise employees in sales, marketing and human resources succeed in their roles.

Since their initial product launch in early 2012, PeopleLinx has seen rapid adoption by forward-thinking, vertical-market leaders, including Experian, FMC Corporation and Prudential. Fully customizable for each client, PeopleLinx fills a gap for the enterprise, helping them understand, among other things, their connectivity to key clients and target verticals. For LinkedIn itself, PeopleLinx is a significant driver of network health and performance metrics. With PeopleLinx, consumers spend more time-on-site, view more pages, add more profile data and grow their networks. PeopleLinx also promotes new account sign-ups and reactivations.

“In creating PeopleLinx, our goal was to build a solution that would be good for LinkedIn, good for companies and most importantly, good for employees,” said Nathan Egan, chairman, CEO and founder of PeopleLinx. “With this strategic investment we can continue to scale our platform to meet the needs of our rapidly expanding customer base.”

“We have worked closely with PeopleLinx over the past 18 months,” commented George Krautzel, co-founder and general partner at MissionOG. “They have successfully transformed a compelling vision into a product that is delighting customers. Leadership has done a great job of building a talented team to embrace the opportunity with Social Business Optimization. PeopleLinx has the potential to be integrated into the workflow of every employee in the enterprise.”

In conjunction with this financing, Dave Hanna from Hanna Ventures and Nate Lentz of Osage Venture Partners will join PeopleLinx’s Board of Directors. Mr. Hanna recently served as chairman of Blue Coat Systems (acquired by Thoma Bravo) and chairman of Tropos Networks (acquired by ABB). Ian Sigalow of Greycroft Partners will join as an observer.

About PeopleLinx PeopleLinx provides a scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that empowers enterprise professionals to optimize their social presence and exceed their business goals using tools like LinkedIn. This customizable and flexible Social Business Optimization (SBO) software can quickly be deployed across the enterprise to provide employees with information about best practices, ongoing assessments, interactive tutorials, content libraries and other tools to help them be as effective as possible when navigating social networks for business. When integrated into the daily workflow, these features and capabilities produce tangible and measurable results across sales, marketing and human resources. For more information, please visit www.peoplelinx.com and follow them on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Osage Venture Partners Osage Venture Partners (OVP) is a venture capital firm located just outside of Philadelphia, Pa. that invests in early-stage enterprise technology companies in the Mid-Atlantic region. OVP raised its first fund in 2005, and has invested almost exclusively in enterprise software companies since that time. With over $100M under management, OVP seeks to invest in determined and creative entrepreneurs and provide them with the assistance required to build high growth businesses. For more information, visit www.osagepartners.com

About Greycroft Partners Greycroft Partners is a leading early stage venture capital firm focused on investments in digital media. With offices in the two media capitals of the world – New York and Los Angeles – Greycroft is uniquely positioned to serve entrepreneurs who have chosen us as their partners. We leverage our extensive network of media and technology industry connections to help our entrepreneurs gain visibility, build strategic relationships, successfully bring their products to market, and build successful businesses. Greycroft manages $400MM and has made over seventy investments in leading companies including Huffington Post, Paid Content, Buddy Media, Glam Media, Trunk Club, M5 Networks, Maker Studios, Viddy, Babble, Collective Media, Pulse, and Klout. For more information please visit the Greycroft Partners website at www.greycroft.com.

About MissionOG Mission Operators Group provides human and financial capital to build B2B companies that have proven feasibility. MissionOG applies the capabilities of proven operators, instills a market driven approach to development, and leverages a highly engaged group of investors to help portfolio companies scale well beyond commercialization. Headquartered in the Philadelphia region, the MissionOG Fund is managed by entrepreneurial operators who have effectively built early-stage businesses and guided them through successful acquisition. www.missionog.com

For additional information, please contact: Sarah Otterstetter Davies Murphy Group, Inc. +1-781-418-2416 [email protected]

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The University of Southern California said it launched the Viterbi Startup Garage, an early-stage technology accelerator that will provide financial and other resources to USC student and alumni entrepreneurs. The school’s Viterbi School of Engineering said the accelerator was put together in partnership with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and the talent agency United Talent Agency. The goal is to provide grants and mentorship to approximately 10 companies for a 12 week session beginning in May 2013.

PRESS RELEASE

USC, KLEINER PERKINS CAUFIELD & BYERS and UNITED TALENT AGENCY LAUNCH THE VITERBI STARTUP GARAGE

The technology accelerator is designed to provide resources to USC engineering students while also stimulating the Los Angeles early-stage technology marketplace.

March 26, 2013 – LOS ANGELES — Today the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering, in partnership with the prominent venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and leading talent and literary agency United Talent Agency (UTA), announced the Viterbi Startup Garage, an early-stage technology accelerator designed to provide financial and other strategic resources to a select group of USC student and alumni entrepreneurs.

“We are very excited to provide our students world-class opportunities and resources by launching the first Los Angeles accelerator backed by a prominent University,” said Ashish Soni, Executive Director of Digital Innovation and Founding Director of the Viterbi Student Innovation Institute at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. “We believe that KPCB and UTA are ideal partners, given KPCB’s unparalleled track record in identifying and advising phenomenal entrepreneurs, and UTA’s track record in providing early-stage companies strategic assistance across a number of categories.”

Southern California produces a large number of talented engineers each year. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering, with approximately 1800 undergraduate and 3800 graduate students, attracts many of the top students from around the world. However, entry-level and accelerator opportunities in Southern California have always been sparse. As a result, graduates that ultimately spin-out and launch their own startups do so for the most part in regions other than Southern California.

USC, KPCB and UTA want to change the situation and create an environment customized for USC engineering students and graduates. This will help facilitate the growth of the Los Angeles technology marketplace, as well as encourage the best and brightest engineers to not only remain in Southern California, but to also flourish and further enrich the region. USC is also working with Los Angeles-based Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. to sponsor and support other initiatives within the Viterbi Student Innovation Institute (VSI2) in and out of the classroom.

“Talent is global, and we are very impressed by the quality of engineers emerging from USC’s Viterbi School,” said Mike Abbott, General Partner at KPCB.  “The partnership with USC and UTA is an example of our intensifying efforts to identify and nurture the next-generation of technology leaders wherever they are in the world, adding to our strong track record of organizing and supporting pioneering development programs to build scalable successful businesses.”

As envisioned, the accelerator will provide financial grants, strategic guidance and mentorship to approximately ten companies, who will work out of the Viterbi Startup Garage facility, housed in USC’s Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey for twelve weeks beginning May 28, 2013.

“We have been proudly advising technology startups for many years, and the Startup Garage will give us an opportunity to be even more hands-on with inspiring entrepreneurs who are working on groundbreaking ideas,” said Brent Weinstein, Head of Digital Media, UTA. “So many early-stage companies are media focused or media adjacent, that we feel Los Angeles is the ideal place to launch an accelerator in partnership with world class partners like USC and KPCB.”

The program will be formally introduced at USC on April 2, 2013 by Yannis C. Yortsos (USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Dean), Ashish Soni (USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Executive Director of Digital Innovation and Founding Director of the Viterbi Student Innovation Institute (VSI2)), Mike Abbott (KPCB, General Partner), and Brent Weinstein (UTA, Head of Digital Media).

“Innovation and entrepreneurship are the key ingredients of our knowledge-based society and a strategic pillar of the goals of the Viterbi School,” said Yortsos, Dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. “We are very pleased that we are in a position to launch this accelerator at our Information Sciences Institute, the birthplace of the Internet era.”

The Viterbi Startup Garage is one of several programs offered by the VSI2 which is a hub for innovation and engineering entrepreneurship that helps engineering students transform their ideas into successful business ventures. VSI2 board of advisors include Jeff Stibel and Peter Delgrosso from Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp., Jake Winebaum from Brighter, Bradley Horowitz from Google and Mike Abbott from KPCB.

Any USC undergraduate or graduate students or USC alumni who graduated in the past 5 years are eligible to apply to the Viterbi Startup Garage, with the requirement that at least one member of the founding team is an enrolled student in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering or a USC Viterbi alumnus. Applications will be accepted through Monday, April 22.

About the USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Engineering Studies began at the University of Southern California in 1905. Nearly a century later, the Viterbi School of Engineering received a naming gift in 2004 from alumnus Andrew J. Viterbi, inventor of the Viterbi algorithm now key to cell phone technology and numerous data applications. Consistently ranked among the top graduate programs in the world, the school enrolls more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students, taught by 177 tenured and tenure-track faculty, with 60 endowed chairs and professorships.

http://viterbi.usc.edu

Contact: Megan Hazle, 213-821-5555, [email protected]

About Kleiner Perkins
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in more than 500 ventures leading to 150 IPOs, 350,000 jobs and a deep strategic network. The firm invests in all stages from seed and incubation to growth companies, and has helped build pioneering companies like Amazon, Google, Intuit, Symantec, and WebMD. KPCB operates from offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Shanghai and Beijing.

http://www.kpcb.com

Contact: Christina Stenson, 415- 671-7676, [email protected]

About United Talent Agency
United Talent Agency is a premier global talent and literary agency representing many of the world’s most widely-known figures in every current and emerging area of entertainment, including motion pictures, television, digital media, video games, books, music, and live entertainment.  The agency is also globally recognized in the areas of film finance, film packaging, corporate consulting, branding, licensing, endorsements and the representation of production talent. UTA operates the brand strategy agency The Brand Studio at UTA as well as New York and Los Angeles-based United Entertainment Group, a joint venture firm focusing on branded entertainment for Fortune 500 companies.

http://www.unitedtalent.com

Contact: Chris Day, 310-860-3723, [email protected]

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ANF Technology raised about $13 million in a round arranged by FPI Innovation Fund LP. The company makes an aluminum oxide nano fiber. FPI led a $1.3 million seed investment in ANF in 2010 and in 2012 the company received a second round investment of $600,000 with two new co-investors participating.

PRESS RELEASE

Venture Capital FPI Innovation Fund LP attracts €10 million co-investment into ANF Technology, the producer of NAFEN™

Global profile of NAFEN™ expected to increase significantly
Major industrial companies currently testing NAFEN™ samples

LONDON & TALLINN – 26 March 2013. FPI Innovation Fund LP, (“FPI”), the seed and venture capital fund targeting high return investments in the scientific, engineering and entrepreneurial sectors, today announces it has attracted and arranged a co-investment of €10m into ANF Technology, the producer of NAFEN™. NAFEN™ is the first ever superior-grade aluminum oxide nano fiber to be produced at commercially viable industrial volumes.

FPI typically invests directly at the earliest stage in a company’s development, when risks are higher but competition and required capital commitment are much lower. In the case of ANF Technology, FPI has subsequently attracted sophisticated co-investors at a later stage when risks have been reduced, business strategy developed and the core team has been built. This current third round of funding represents a commitment from the venture capital division of a major family office.

NAFEN™ is a breakthrough development in materials science. NAFEN™’s outstanding physical and mechanical properties, available at large scale production volume with commercially viable pricing, provide industrial players with the potential to unlock innovation across a wide variety of applications, ranging from aviation to biomedicine.

Alexander Timofeev, Managing Partner at FPI, commented: “To date, low nanomaterial production volumes and high prices have held back the wider application of nanotechnology at a mass scale. We are delighted to have identified and arranged this third round of investment, the largest to date, which is a strong commitment to support NAFEN’s widespread adoption across multiple industries”.

Tim Ferland, ANF Technology’s Business Development Manager for North America, said: “FPI has attracted a committed pool of sophisticated investors into ANF Technology. This latest round is the clearest indication that investors are confident in ANF Technology’s scientific pedigree and business acumen. We expect the global profile of NAFEN™ to increase significantly as the testing of NAFEN™ samples develops into long-term commercial partnerships.”

FPI had previously led a €1m first seed investment round into ANF Technology in June 2010. In early 2012, ANF Technology received a second round investment of €0.5m, with two new co-investors participating.

The previous financing rounds enabled ANF Technology to begin synthesizing (producing) NAFEN™ at commercially viable industrial volumes. The new funding provides ANF Technology with the necessary financing to scale-up production levels and drive the introduction of NAFEN™ to the most promising target business sectors globally. The  €10m investment is divided into two tranches of €2m and €8m.

Major industrial companies are currently testing NAFEN™ samples to determine its competitive advantage in materials and composites development, and how it can be used to boost application critical performance in extreme environments. Potential applications include composite ceramics, metal-matrix composites, paints and coatings, fuel cells, polymer composites, catalysts, electronics, filtration, biomedicine, advanced abrasives, aviation and aerospace.

FPI Innovation Fund LP is a seed and venture capital fund focused on transforming hi-tech scientific and intellectual property ideas into market-oriented and commercially effective business reality. The Fund identifies projects in Russia as well as globally with the focus on Russian speaking scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs from the former Soviet Union, many of whom have emigrated but still maintain strong professional ties to their native countries. The FPI team combines the experience of specialist scientists and investment professionals with an international level approach to investing in hard-to-access yet promising scientific, engineering and entrepreneurial sectors.

Aleksandr Timofeev, Managing Partner at FPI, commented: “Attractive seed capital projects are available in our sectors, but it takes specific skills and effort to find, reposition, restructure and develop them into commercial success. The FPI team is highly experienced in managing complex scientific projects from startup through to commercialization. We examine projects at their earliest stage, even before the business model is formed, to actively develop them using a hands-on approach, devising value-building strategies and working in partnership with the Russian and global investor community”.

FPI meets the gap between the major research breakthroughs by elite scientists from the former Soviet Union and the current low level of competence available in early stage venture investing into such opportunities. In this way, FPI brings together “smart money” with the demand for “smart ideas”, supporting the commercialization mechanisms in the area of industrial technologies.

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Cross Atlantic Capital Partners said it is winding down its vintage 1999 fund, Cross Atlantic Technology Fund, LP, and liquidating portfolio holdings, including 668,572 shares of Rubicon Technology stock. The firm said it will continue actively managing Cross Atlantic Technology Fund II and continue to hold about 4.99 million shares of Rubicon stock and warrants. Rubicon traded for $6.37 on Nasdaq today.

PRESS RELEASE

Cross Atlantic Capital Partners’ Initial Venture Capital Fund to Wind Down; Sell Remaining Portfolio Assets

RADNOR, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–After a number of successful exits, including three IPOs, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (“XACP) has announced that it is terminating its vintage 1999 fund, Cross Atlantic Technology Fund, LP (“XATF”). As part of the termination process, XATF is liquidating its remaining portfolio company holdings, including its 668,572 shares of common stock in Rubicon Technology (NASDAQ: RBCN).

XACP expects the shares of common stock in RBCN held by XATF to be fully divested by June 30, 2013, although a specific schedule for the sales has not yet been set.

XACP will continue to actively manage Cross Atlantic Technology Fund II and its Co-Investment family of funds, and the sales for XATF will not affect the continuing ownership of the aggregate 4,985,677 shares of common stock and warrants for common stock of RBCN held by these other funds.

About Cross Atlantic Capital Partners

Based in Radnor, Pa, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (“XACP”) is one of the leading venture capital firms based in the mid-Atlantic region, with over $500 million under management. XACP invests primarily in technology companies in the United States. Leveraging its deep, multi-disciplined network of global contacts, and the operational experience of its investment team, the firm actively assists its entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. The XACP portfolio currently includes a diverse array of companies focusing on Enterprise Software, SaaS, IT Services, Telecommunications, Financial Services, and other innovative technologies.http://www.xacp.com/

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The Westly Group said it raised a $160 million cleantech venture capital fund with LPs that include Citi, E.ON, the utility company, and Korea based SK Group. The fund is 25% larger than the firm’s previous fund.

PRESS RELEASE

The Westly Group Raises $160 million Clean Technology Fund

Menlo Park, CA – The Westly Group has successfully raised its next cleantech  venture capital fund which will have $160 million in committed capital, a 25%  increase over the size of the previous fund. Key investors include Citi, E.ON (the  world’s 7th largest utility), and SK Group (the third largest conglomerate in Korea).

The Westly Group has had four portfolio companies go public on the NASDAQ  including Tesla Motors. The firm will manage one of the larger venture funds  investing in the clean technology sector, and will target high growth companies with revenues as well as earlier stage opportunities with capital efficient business  models.

“We’re proud to complete this raise in this challenging fundraising environment,” said Steve Westly, a managing partner of the Fund. “We’re particularly proud of our investment partners such as Citi, E.ON and SK Group.”

“We are extremely pleased to partner with one of the leading venture firms in the country to bring innovative technologies and community benefits to regions across the country, as well as efficiencies to our public sector clients,” said Ward Marsh,
head of the Municipal Securities Division at Citi.

“We feel this is a great time to invest in clean technology and believe that there are better companies and business models than what we have seen since we started our firm six years ago,” said Mike Dorsey, a managing partner of the fund.

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Vidyard said it secured $6 million in Series A financing in a deal led by OMERS Ventures and joined by current investors iNovia Capital and SoftTech VC. The company is developing a video marketing platform.

PRESS RELEASE

Vidyard Secures $6 Million In Series A Financing

TORONTO, Canada – March 21, 2013—Vidyard, the world’s first video marketing platform for business, today announced it has secured $6 million in Series A financing.

OMERS Ventures led the round alongside current investors iNovia Capital and SoftTech VC – further reinforcing its commitment to the Vidyard story. In addition, Jill Rowley participated with a personal investment in the company. The Series A financing positions Vidyard for continued hyper growth as they fuel the demand from marketers for powerful, actionable data for their video content.

“Our journey to this point has been nothing short of remarkable and I’m happy to announce that we’ve secured Series A financing from an amazing group of investors. This deal comes on the tail of significant momentum as we continue to develop the “video marketing platform” category. We are now poised to grow our market leadership via world-class product integrations and a continued focus on enhancing the features that our marketers crave,” said Michael Litt, founder and CEO of Vidyard.
By breaking open the “black box” of video with their industry-crushing analytics and built in marketing tools, Vidyard is transforming how companies use video content to grow their businesses. Marketers can now measure, optimize and drive their video campaigns and content to generate more leads, convert more customers and deliver an even stronger ROI, all from one platform.

“Vidyard’s simple brilliance addresses a clear and significant need in a rapidly growing market. Michael Litt and Devon Galloway, Vidyard’s founders, took the initiative to develop a valuable and easy-to-use solution for a challenge they faced every day in their own businesses. Their deep domain expertise and applied innovation is what attracted OMERS Ventures to make this investment,” said Derek Smyth, Managing Director of OMERS Ventures.

Vidyard’s Series A financing comes on the heels of integrations with leading marketing automation platforms– Eloqua and HubSpot. Vidyard’s innovation continues to empower marketers with the most advanced

About Vidyard

Vidyard is a Waterloo-based company that has developed an online video platform for businesses.
Vidyard is a flexible quality of service focused video platform for business and content providers to manage and analyze the success of their video content. The Call to Action feature, “Pop Out” allows simple implementation of lead-capture, one click conversion and one-click payment for products or services.
Vidyard’s intelligent monitoring means that they only serve the content that is being viewed. They have also built “instant-start” technology directly into the player. Your viewers won’t lose patience waiting for your videos to fetch from the server.
About iNovia Capital

iNovia partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build successful companies in high-growth sectors. The team is comprised of entrepreneurs and sector experts focused on Mobile, Internet and Digital Media. iNovia has $275M under management across three seed and early-stage funds. For more information, visit www.iNovia.vc or follow iNovia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/iNovia.

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Concurrent, Inc. said it raised $4 million of Series A funding in a deal led by True Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners. The San Francisco company previously raised a $900,000 seed investment in August 2011. The new money will go to product development and for new hires. Concurrent also named Gary Nakamura as CEO.

PRESS RELEASE

Concurrent Closes $4 Million in Series A Funding, Appoints Gary Nakamura as CEO

New Funding and Leadership Will Accelerate Product Development and Grow Core Team

SAN FRANCISCO – March 20, 2013 – Concurrent, Inc., the enterprise Big Data application platform company, today announced it has raised $4 million in Series A funding. The investment, led by True Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners, will be used to fuel product development, grow the core team and further deliver on the company’s vision to simplify Big Data application development on Apache Hadoop™. Concurrent is also announcing the appointment of Gary Nakamura as CEO, a high-tech executive with a winning track record and more than 20 years of experience.

Corporate Milestones
•    Today’s $4 million in Series A financing follows a $900,000 seed investment in August 2011.
•    Launched Cascading 2.1, the most widely used and deployed application framework for building robust, enterprise Big Data applications on Hadoop.
•    User downloads of Cascading have surpassed more than 75,000 per month.
•    Companies including The Climate Corporation, eBay, Etsy, FlightCaster, iCrossing, Razorfish, Trulia, TeleNav and Twitter are using Cascading to streamline data processing, data filtering and workflow optimization for large volumes of unstructured and semi-structured data.
•    Launched Lingual, an open source project that delivers ANSI-standard SQL technology to easily build new and integrate existing applications onto Hadoop.
•    Entered into partnerships with technology leaders including, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, SpringSource, MapR, Greenplum, Karmasphere, Think Big Analytics and Scale Unlimited.
•    Industry recognition includes 2012 InfoWorld Best of Open Source Software award win in the “Best Open Source Databases” category.

In conjunction with the funding news, Concurrent is pleased to welcome Gary Nakamura as CEO, effective immediately. Prior to joining Concurrent, Nakamura served as senior vice president and general manager of Terracotta, Inc., which was recently acquired by Software AG. There he led strategy, oversaw operating profit and loss, and ran business operations including sales, marketing and product management.

Founder Chris Wensel will take on a new role as CTO, where he will lead product innovation and Cascading community engagement for the company. “We are extremely excited to welcome Gary to Concurrent,” Wensel said. “His deep experience in the enterprise Big Data market will help us take the company to the next level.”

Supporting Quotes
“Our investors’ confidence in Concurrent validates our strategy and the pioneering work we have done since the launch of Cascading in 2008. This new investment will enable us to build on this foundation and accelerate our growth as we work to deliver our commercial product and grow the core team. I am excited to be joining Concurrent at such a pivotal time and look forward to driving the company’s continued growth and development.”
-Gary Nakamura, CEO, Concurrent, Inc.

“After our initial investment, we have watched Concurrent grow substantially and lead the Big Data application development market. The promise of its core technology, combined with the management team’s pedigree and Cascading’s success, continue to make this an exciting investment opportunity.”
-Puneet Agarwal, Partner, True Ventures

“Since partnering with Concurrent in 2011, we have been impressed with the widespread adoption of its technology. We believe Cascading is an important innovation and is critical to the growth and sustainability of the Big Data technologies in the enterprise. We are excited about Concurrent’s success, and this additional financing from Rembrandt is a testament to the company’s talent, technology and ability to deliver next-generation Big Data application development and management solutions to the enterprise.”
-In Sik Rhee, General Partner, Rembrandt Venture Partners

Supporting Resources
●    Company: http://concurrentinc.com
●    Cascading website: http://cascading.org
●    Contact us: http://concurrentinc.com/contact
●    Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/concurrent

About Concurrent, Inc.
Concurrent, Inc. is the enterprise Big Data application platform company. Founded in 2008, Concurrent simplifies Big Data application development, deployment and management on Apache Hadoop. We are the company behind Cascading, the most widely used and deployed technology for building Big Data applications with more than 75,000 user downloads a month. Enterprises including Twitter, eBay, The Climate Corporation and Etsy all rely on Concurrent’s technology to drive their Big Data deployments.  Concurrent is headquartered in San Francisco. Visit Concurrent online athttp://concurrentinc.com.

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A Wisconsin pension fund and research organization have formed a $30 million venture capital fund to focus on early stage IT companies. Called 4490 Ventures, a reference to the 44O N latitude and 90O W longitude lines that approximate the center of the state, the fund is being backed by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation are creating an early-stage venture capital fund focused on information technology.

PRESS RELEASE

With $30 million to begin, 4490 Ventures will focus on IT startups in Wisconsin

MADISON, Wis. — The State of Wisconsin Investment Board and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation are creating an early-stage venture capital fund focused on information technology.

Called 4490 Ventures, a reference to the 44O N latitude and 90O W longitude lines that approximate the center of the state of Wisconsin, the $30 million fund will focus on early-stage companies primarily in Wisconsin. The private fund, capitalized jointly by SWIB and WARF, is intended to generate attractive returns and build value for state retirement fund participants and WARF’s primary beneficiary, the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Carl Gulbrandsen, WARF’s managing director, said work on the fund has been underway for more than a year and involved significant staff effort from both organizations as well as independent research to help define the fund’s focus and scope.

“WARF has recognized for some time that there is a significant opportunity in Madison and other regions of the state in information technology startup companies, but experienced venture management and funding for such companies has been lagging our peer states,” Gulbrandsen said. “We appreciate the opportunity to work with SWIB on this effort and we all agree there are some excellent investment opportunities here.”

Michael Williamson, SWIB executive director, said the fund will build upon the partners’ previous success with startups in a variety of industries.

“We are pleased to be able to launch this effort with WARF and believe that together, we have the ingredients necessary for success,” Williamson said. “Our previous experience has proven that early- stage investments can play a valuable role by diversifying our portfolio.”

Regarding the rationale behind the investment, Williamson said, “Make no mistake about it. We are creating this fund to make money for our participants in the Wisconsin Retirement System.”

Gulbrandsen said the market research helped confirm the value of information technology being developed here and highlighted the strength of Wisconsin’s IT workforce skills. However, capturing value from IT innovations may call for an approach different from the licensing activity used in other industries because young IT companies may not rely on patentable technology.As a result, an important way to capture returns and create value is to invest in the companies themselves. Williamson noted there is industry consensus regarding the need for seed-stage funding in the $500,000 to $2 million range for the kinds of companies the new fund will target.

The technologies involved might include, but not be limited to, data management, informatics, data storage, social grid computing, hardware, new materials, software, mobile technology security and health care information technology, such as the operating systems for medical devices or patient record keeping.

“We hope that the establishment of this fund will bring attention to the many investment opportunities that exist in this state,” Gulbrandsen said. “Past experience has shown that these types of funds often attract the talent, capital and resources necessary to create high-performing startup companies. Given the consistent top-10 ranking of UW–Madison’s computer sciences department and the high-quality work going on at other state campuses and companies, we know there are plenty of excellent ideas here.”

SWIB and WARF have retained a recruiting firm that specializes in private markets investment professionals to conduct a nationwide search for a qualified fund manager with operational experience.

About SWIB

Assets under management at SWIB are about $90 billion as of December 31, 2012. This includes approximately $85 billion in Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) trust funds, which provide benefits to more than 572,000 current or former employees of state agencies, the university system, school districts and most local governments. The WRS is the 9th largest U.S. public pension fund and the 30th largest public or private pension fund in the world. For more information, visit www.swib.state.wi.us.

About WARF

WARF has assets under management of more than $2 billion. In addition to investment management, WARF, a recipient of the National Medal of Technology, is the patent and licensing organization for the University of Wisconsin–Madison. WARF’s mission is to support scientific investigation and research at UW–Madison and to assist in moving technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace for benefit of humankind. Since its founding in 1925, WARF has contributed more than $1 billion in grants and gifts to UW–Madison. For more information, visit www.warf.org.

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Goodwin Procter said it has redesigned and enhanced its Founders Workbench site for entrepreneurs. The site includes free legal documents for company creation and other tasks, along with an online calculator for determining deal dilution. The site first launched in 2010. It also has a blog and information on best practices.

PRESS RELEASE

GOODWIN PROCTER LAUNCHES NEW FOUNDERS WORKBENCH

Website Expands Free Legal Document Offerings and Adds Mobile Apps for Founders and Entrepreneurs

BOSTON, MA., March 6, 2012 — Goodwin Procter, a national Am Law 50 firm, today announced its new Founders Workbench®, a free online resource that helps entrepreneurs navigate the legal and organizational challenges faced by start-ups and emerging companies. Originally launched in 2010 with free legal documents for C-Corporation formation, the site has been redesigned and enhanced with a comprehensive set of legal documents for establishingLimited Liability Companies (LLCs) and two new web apps: the Capital Calculator, which allows founders to instantly calculate dilution and liquidity under different financing and exit scenarios, and a Deal Dictionary, which introduces founders to the often obscure legal and financial terms used by venture capitalists and angel investors.

Other Founders Workbench resources include:
·         Document Driver — free self-service tools for generating key legal documents
·         A blog devoted to analysis of legal and industry topics relevant to start-ups
·         Tips and best practices for forming, financing, operating, hiring for, growing and protecting a company
·         Articles, interviews and videos featuring insights from industry experts including venture capitalists, successful founders and leading deal attorneys
·         The weekly Founders Flash, with curated links to the week’s best stories, advice and tips for start-up founders

“Access to LLC documents in addition to the C-Corp documents is a big win for entrepreneurs,” said Nithya Das, associate general counsel at AppNexus and a member of the Founders Workbench Advisory Board. “The LLC option gives founders a smart alternative for structuring their company and is backed by additional resources including the Deal Dictionary, Cap Calculator and the expertise of Goodwin’s attorneys.  Together, they can help make sure entrepreneurs are well-equipped to successfully innovate and build great businesses. And, did I mention it’s all free?”

“High-quality legals delivered at speed through technology is what founders want, need and deserve,” said Fred Destin, a Technology Group partner at Atlas Venture.  “Goodwin Procter deserves a huge pat in the back for their continued efforts in helping startups work faster and smarter, building on a strong legal foundation.”

Goodwin Procter’s Technology Companies Practice helped clients achieve significant success in 2012, assisting in closing 629 venture capital financing transactions, 127 M&A transactions and eight initial public offerings in 2012. With more than 180 lawyers in the practice, the team handles early-stage, venture capital and growth equity financings, mergers and acquisitions and IPOs and follow-on public offerings. They provide dedicated representation to more than 800 emerging companies and entrepreneurs, 200 venture capital and private equity firms, and many of the leading investment banks.

Visit Founders Workbench at www.goodwinfoundersworkbench.com. To follow Founders Workbench® on Twitter, go to twitter.com/FoundersWkBench.

About Goodwin Procter
Goodwin Procter LLP is a leading Global 100 law firm, with offices in Boston, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. The firm provides corporate law and litigation services, with a focus on matters involving real estate, REITs and real estate capital markets; private equity; technology companies; financial institutions; intellectual property; products liability and mass torts; and securities litigation and white collar defense. Information may be found at www.goodwinprocter.com. Follow us on Twitter@GoodwinProcter.

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Textura Corporation said it plans to conduct an IPO of its common stock once the Securities and Exchange Commission finishes a review of its S-1. The company filed confidentially with the commission. The number of shares and their price range have not yet been determined, the company said.

PRESS RELEASE

Textura Plans to Conduct Registered Initial Public  Offering of its Common Stock

Chicago, IL — March 18th, 2013 – Textura Corporation announced today that it plans
to conduct a registered initial public offering of its common stock.

The offering is expected to commence after the SEC completes the review process
initiated by Textura’s earlier confidential submission under the JOBS Act of its draft
registration statement. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the
offering have not yet been determined.

This announcement is being made pursuant to and in accordance with Rule 135 under the
Securities Act of 1933. As required by Rule 135, this press release does not constitute an
offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities, and shall not constitute an
offer, solicitation or sale in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would
be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of that jurisdiction.

 

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