Venture
Update Vol III, #11, November, 1999
Morrisville—AuctionRover.Com (www.auctionrover.com), an auction Web site, closed on $3 million in first round financing in September 1999. Investors included Draper Atlantic and Internet.com. Contact: Scot Wingo (919.760.7242).
Chapel Hill—Performance Inc. (www.performancebike.com), the nation's largest bicycle retailer, closed on $50 million in venture financing in October 1999. The round was led by Patricof & Co. Ventures and included Benefit Capital Management Corp., J.P. Morgan Investment Management and KeySpan Corp. Performance plans to use the financing to expand its Internet presence. Contact: Garry Snook (919.933.9113).
Cary—Technauts Inc. (www.technauts.com), a developer of inexpensive versions of computer servers called thin servers that help small firms conduct business online, received $7.5 million in venture funding in October 1999. The round was led by Technology Associates Management Co. and included The Aurora Funds, Cordova Capital, Gray Ventures, River Cities Capital Funds and Timark L.P. Contact: Ravi C. Periasamy (919.462.1713).
Morrisville—ArgoMed Inc. (www.argomed.com), a developer of a system to treat enlarged prostates, closed on $6 million in third round venture financing in September 1999. The round was led by A.M. Pappas & Associates and included Global Life Sciences Oxford Bioscience Partners and Venrock Associates. ArgoMed won approval to market its Thermoflex System in the United States from the Food and Drug Administration. Contact: Richard Klein (919.469.2340).
Research Triangle Park—neoButler Inc. (www.neobutler.com), a developer of Internet butler service, received $1.15 million in first round venture financing in October 1999. The round was led by Draper Atlantic Venture Fund. Contact: Roger Lingle (919.226.4901).
Raleigh—LastAvailable.com (www.lastavailable.com), a Web site that features auctions of unsold travel and entertainment inventory, closed on $1 million in first round financing in October 1999 from private investors. Contact: Gerald Whicker (919.743.5278).
Raleigh—Nexus Software (www.nexussoft.com), a developer of software for the banking industry, was acquired by Diebold, a global producer of automated teller machines for and undisclosed amount of cash and stock in October 1999. Contact: Philip Lippard (919.788.8665).
Research Triangle Park—Saffron Technology (www.saffrontech.com), a developer of created agent-based software for Internet personalization, received $190,000 in first round financing in October 1999 from individual investors. Contact: James Fleming (919.929.6474).
Chapel Hill—TriVirix International, a manufacturer of precision medical devices, received $3.5 million of venture capital in Sepember 1999. Investors include The Aurora Funds, Coastal Growth Partners, Enterprise Equity, Hambro NI Ltd. and Oxford Venture Finance. Contact: Rich West (919.968.6858).
Durham—Smart Online (www.smartonline.com), an on-line small-business services firm, received an equity investment for an undisclosed number of shares from Compaq Computer Corp. in September 1999. Compaq will feature Smart Online's content of services and software applications geared towards small business owners on its Web site. Contact: Steve Mitchum (919.765.5000).
New Developments
Durham—The Aurora Funds (www.aurorafunds.com),
a venture capital firm, has raised $40 million for
its Harbinger/Aurora Ventures fund, which it has
created in partnership with Harbert Management Corp.,
and investment management fund, of Birmingham, Ala.
The firm plans to raise more capital in a second
round of financing. Harbinger/Aurora has opened
offices in Alabama and Washington, D.C. Contact:
Scott Albert (919.848.0400).
Atlanta—The Southeastern BIO Investor Forum '99 (www.sebio.com), a conference for high-growth life-sciences companies and investors, will be held on November 11-12, 1999. Eight of North Carolina's top companies, as selected by CED, will present at the conference. Investors may attend the conference at no charge by registering online. The companies selected are: Biolex, Inc.; Cogent Neuroscience; Delta Pharmaceuticals; Encelle, Inc.; MERIX Bioscience, Inc.; Paradigm Genetics, Inc.; Protein Delivery, Inc; and Volumetrics Medical Imaging, Inc. N.C. companies Amplistar and Pilot Therapeutics will exhibit at the conference.
Research Triangle Park—The Council for Entrepreneurial Development has published the Entrepreneur's Satisfaction Survey, Phase I of the Entrepreneurial Index, a study to measure the impact of start-ups on the region's economy. The study will also serve as a pilot project for the National Commission on Entrepreneurship. For more information, visit http://www.cednc.org/e-source/pubs/ess/.
On The
Up
AUCTIONROVER.COM
Everybody's talking about auctions, and that's music
to the ears of founder Scot Wingo and the folks at
AuctionRover.Com, the first site to provide a
comprehensive search engine that works across
auctions to help online buyers and sellers. "Our
goal," notes Wingo, "is to make AuctionRover.Com the
starting point for everyone's auction
experience."
It could happen. Already, AuctionRover.Com was named USA Today's Hot Site of the Day on October 19. Says Wingo, "In four short months we have leapfrogged our competition that had a six-month lead."
The cofounders provided $700,000 in seed funding to get from idea to launch. Next they did a $3 million in venture round, fetching investments from Draper Atlantic and Internet.com for initial expansion and marketing as well as forthcoming features.
Wingo and his cofounders have created a successful model before - they sold their first company, Stingray Software, for $21 million last year. They were looking for their next business opportunity when "Star Wars: Phantom Menace" came out. "We started buying lots of things on auction sites," Wingo recalls. "We saw the need for a search engine that works across auction sites and we formed the rest after that initial spark." AuctionRover.com also features services for buyers (image hosting and counters), complete content (news/features) and community features.
Banking on the continued growth of the auction sector, Wingo expects a busy and bright future for AuctionRover.Com. "In the next six to 12 months, we expect to grow like crazy, build the AuctionRover.com brand, manage site traffic 24/7 and add new features every other week at a very rapid pace to maintain our market leadership position."
Featured Fund
DRAPER ATLANTIC
"Draper Atlantic provides rocket fuel to passionate
entrepreneurs changing the wired world," asserts Dan
Rua of Draper Atlantic, the East Coast fund of
Silicon Valley's highly successful Draper Fisher
Jurvetson. The fund is managed by Rua, Jim Lynch and
John Backus.
The firm's investment focus spans consumer Internet, all variations of ecommerce and Internet infrastructure technologies. Draper West has a proven history of backing successful Internet companies including HotMail, GoTo.com, and NetZero. "Draper Atlantic brings that model to the East Coast with particular focus on the Internet Pipeline region—RTP to DC," Rua says, typically partnering with companies raising their first institutional money. "As RTP's latest local fund, we add a ton of value to companies who are thinking nationally and globally and are choosing to be number one in their space."
Draper's initial RTP investment was AuctionRover.com and they followed with two more investments in less than a month. Draper invested in AuctionRover.com's $3 million round, neoButler's $1.15 million round and Foveon's $16 million round. "We're excited by the companies we are meeting in the Triangle," Rua says. "The teams have been high quality and are looking to change the world."
That's one reason Rua is bullish on the region. "RTP has been 'turning the corner' for a few years now and we finally have the combination of serial entrepreneurs and impatient, new breed entrepreneurs who learn from their predecessors," he notes. "The teams are focused on building value for customers through innovation and creative partnering. We're looking forward to the coming year given our first month's excitement in RTP."
Venture Capital for Entrepreneurs: The Art of the
Deal
November 2, 1999
12:30-5:00 p.m.
North Carolina Biotechnology Center
Triangle Venture Breakfast Series
November 17
7:30 - 9:00 a.m.
First Flight Venture Center, RTP
STREAK Luncheon
November 30
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Holiday Inn, RTP
Executive Series: Session 1: The Art and Science
of Valuing Your Company
December 9
7:30 - 10:45 a.m.
CED Entrepreneurship Center, RTP
Venture
2000
May 10 - 11
UNC Friday Center, Chapel Hill
For more information about these events or to register, visit the CED Web site at www.cednc.org or call 919.549.7500.
CED is a private non-profit organization supported, in part, by corporate contributions, including funding from Atcom Business Telephone Systems, Carolina Power & Light and Capitol Broadcasting Company, Inc.
Research Triangle Venture Update is published by
the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), a
non-profit organization located in Research Triangle
Park, N.C.
Editor Carolyn Foy, CED
P.O. Box 13353
RTP, NC 27709
Phone: 919.549.7500
Fax: 919.549.7405
Email: mcfoy@cednc.org