Investing in Information Technology and Life Sciences

News Highlights


NEW DEALS

Cyber-Rain – Fund III
 
Baxano – Fund III

pehub wire Baxano, Inc., a Mountain View, California-based developer of minimally-invasive spinal devices, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. CMEA Capital led the round, and was joined by Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Affinity Capital Management and return backers Prospect Venture Partners, Three Arch Partners and Kearny Venture Partners.* The company previously raised over $28 million. Read more…

*Athenian Venture Partners joined the round in the final closing on July 23, 2010.

 
PacketMotion – Fund III

Packet Motion, Inc., a Sunnyvale, California-based provider of User Activity Management (UAV) solutions, has raised a total of $8.4 million in Series C funding. On June 9, 2010, Athenian Venture Partners participated in an additional closing of $2.7 million of this total. The round was initially led by Reservoir Venture Partners, with additional contributions from all of PacketMotion’s existing investors including Intel Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Onset Ventures.

Comet Solutions – Fund III

pehub wire Comet Solutions, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based provider of early simulation software for product development, has raised $2 million in Series B funding co-led by Athenian Venture Partners, Tri-State Growth Capital Fund and Kentucky Co-Investment Partners. The round was closed on December 22, 2009. Series A backers include Flywheel Ventures, Fort Washington Capital Partners Group, ITU Ventures and New Mexico Angels. Read more…


PORTFOLIO UPDATE

Manta Media - International Recognition

manta logo In August 2010, Silicon Alley Insider, known as "SAI" and produced by Adam Fusfeld and Henry Blodget, contacted Manta regarding its annual list of most valuable private Internet companies in the world. SAI sought additional information from the company prior to releasing its top list of contenders in its August 16 publication, of which Manta was a part.

To create its list, SAI identifies as many promising companies as it can, and then these companies are valued using the best financial and market information available and collected.

Two years ago, this list was called the SAI 25.  Last year, it was called the SAI 50+. This year, thanks to the ongoing proliferation of promising Internet startups, SAI says it will likely be called the SAI 100. Read more…

In addition, Manta reported staggering growth in July 2010, reaching a series of milestones, beating out major business sites and hitting 21 million monthly visitors. As the largest source of information on and for small businesses, the Ohio-based startup ranks above Bloomberg and FoxBusiness.com, and has nearly tripled in size since launch. Since it was founded in 2005, Manta has continued to grow organically, becoming the go-to site for small businesses on the Web. In addition to passing the 21 million visitors mark, Manta recently hit three other major milestones, including:

  • Manta has grown from 22 million profiles in 2005 to nearly 64 million today.
  • comScore, the marketing research company that provides marketing data and services to many of the Internet's largest businesses, ranked Manta 6th in the business and finance category in June. Manta beat out well known sites such as CNN Money, CNBC and Motley Fool.
  • Quantcast, used by the top media and advertising agencies in the U.S. to measure and organize Web audiences in real-time, tracking more than one million sites, ranked Manta the number 56 site on the Web after only a month of being officially tracked. Read more…
Akebia Therapeutics – Development Programs Progress; New Financing

Akebia Therapeutics Akebia announced the completion of the first-in-man Phase 1a study for AKB-6548 in healthy volunteers in January 2010. An important milestone for the company, Akebia looks forward to moving AKB-6548 into Phase 1b and 2a clinical trials later this year.

Akebia completed a $16M financing in July 2009. This was an expansion to the prior series A round of $9 million, bringing the total raised by the company to $25 million. Athenian participated in the round, which was co-led by Novartis Bioventures Ltd. and Venture Investors, LLC and was joined by participation from existing investors including Triathlon Medical Ventures, Kearny Venture Partners, and Sigvion Capital.

LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals – Development Programs Progress

LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals LigoCyte initiated its third human clinical trial of its norovirus vaccine. The Phase I/II study will assess safety and immunogenicity associated with LigoCyte’s investigational, nasally-delivered, dry powder vaccine in healthy adults. The study will also assess potential protection against clinical symptoms of norovirus infection by including a live virus challenge of subjects that have received either the vaccine or placebo.

Micromet (NASDAQ:MITI) - Significant Traction; Excellent Prospects

Micromet, Inc. (MITI) Micromet saw a significant advancement of its drug candidates in 2009, and continued to emerge as a recognized biotech leader.