Madison Dearborn buys majority stake in NextG Networks
Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity firm in Chicago, has taken a majority stake in NextG Networks, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of antenna systems used to carry wireless signals, according to a filing with the SEC. The deal will give the company, which had to withdraw its $150 million IPO filing in May, an influx of $360 million.
NextG has been on shaky ground since 2001, when it first plunged into the red. Without the… Continue Reading
Boston Power puts Massachusetts on the battery map with $9M
Boston Power, maker of advanced batteries for electric vehicles, has struck a deal with the Massachusetts state government for $9 million in matching funds to make its new manufacturing facility in Auburn, Mass. a reality. The funds will help get the ball rolling as the company waits for upwards of $100 million in stimulus grants it has applied for through the Department of Energy.
While Boston Power got its start making batteries for smaller applications, like… Continue Reading
Wireless networking co. NextG gives up on IPO
NextG Networks, a San Jose, Calif., provider of antenna systems used to carry mobile phone signals, has withdrawn its filing to go public due to unfavorable market conditions — even in the wake of successful SolarWinds and OpenTable IPOs earlier this week, reports VentureWire. It had planned to sell $150 million in common stock.
Not only has the company been in the red since 2001, it is starting to see wireless carriers implementing their own antenna… Continue Reading
IForem nabs $1M for permanent digital storage
IForem, provider of permanent storage for digital information, announced that it brought in $1 million in a first round of funding, reports VentureWire. The Redwood Shores, Calif. company says the service is ideal for irreplaceable files like wills, family photos, corporate agreements and software code.
Charging a variable one-time fee dependent on the size of the file in question, iForem puts the money into a trust account to perpetually pay fees to a third-party vendor that… Continue Reading
Boston Power juices up with $55M for lithium-ion batteries
Boston Power, maker of eco-friendly, long-lasting lithium-ion batteries, just landed $55 million in fourth-round funding to grow its manufacturing, sales and marketing operations. Its flagship product, the Sonata Lithium-ion battery, is slated to launch in the next several months as the primary power source for Hewlett-Packard notebook computers. The model is also currently being adapted for use in other electronic devices and electric vehicles, the company says.
According to CNET, Sonata batteries can be charged 1,000… Continue Reading
Textbook site Chegg.com raises $25M from Kleiner Perkins
Textbook rental site Chegg.com announced today that it has raised $25 million in a third round of funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Foundation Capital.
That’s an impressive amount of cash, especially with the current economy and what some see as Kleiner’s move away from web investments. But Chegg’s co-founder and chief executive Osman Rashid says the Santa Clara, Calif. startup has already proven that its business model is sound. When the company… Continue Reading
Tween mobile provider Kajeet bags $1M
Kajeet, the cell phone service provider for kids and tweens, closed a $1.05 million second-round of venture backing to continue product and market development. The Bethesda, Md.-based company is coming off a big win last week, striking a deal with Amazon to sell its phones through the site’s wireless store (it also landed a coveted spot on Amazon’s holiday toy list).
It’s currently selling four different youthful models on the site — built by Samsung, LG… Continue Reading
Algal fuel maker Aurora Biofuels takes on $20M
Aurora Biofuels, an Alameda, Calif. startup with plans to produce algal biofuels, has raised a substantial second round of funding to speed development.
Like most of the other algae companies that have publicly announced their plans, Aurora intends to use its oily charges to produce biodiesel, a near-copy of petroleum-based diesel fuel.
However, there are few other details on Aurora. Algae is typically grown in water, but the specifics of what kind of water and whether anything… Continue Reading
Distributed wireless-network co. NextG Networks beams in $50M
NextG Networks, a San Jose, Calif., developer of fiber-optic distributed-antenna systems for wireless communications, raised $49.8 million in a third funding round. Investors included Oak Investment Partners and Gabriel Venture Partners.
The company essentially provides small, geographically distributed antennae linked by fiber networks that are designed to fill the gaps left by huge cellphone towers in an “aesthetic” fashion that won’t generate community opposition. NextG says it acts as a “carrier’s carrier,” routing traffic from larger… Continue Reading
STEP Labs to reduce headset noise, raises cash
updated
Last week we covered Jawbone’s noise-cancelling bluetooth headset, but this week STEP Labs debuted a headset technology that STEP chief executive Robert Mitro says will blow the competition out of the water.
Mitro says STEP’s technology creates a virtual acoustic bubble six inches from your mouth, so that all the other noises are blocked away. He says its minimal processing power, instantaneous voice transmission and lack of voice distortion give STEP an edge over its competitors…. Continue Reading
Boston Power charges up battery technology with $45M investment
Money has been pouring into battery and fuel cell startups of late, with companies like A123 Systems, Lilliputian Systems, and M2E Power (coverage here, here and here) raising funding ranging from single- to triple-digit millions.
Now another company has taken on a heavy round of funding: Boston Power, a firm that plans to concentrate its efforts on the laptop market with a battery that ages better than competing products.
One of the most annoying things about laptop… Continue Reading
Kajeet’s phone for kids, will it avoid pitfalls of predecessors?
updated
In a highly risky strategy of piggy-backing on other carriers’ networks, Kajeet has raised $36.8 million in a second round of financing to offer cellphone services to tweens and teens.
It offers a dashboard for parents to control when the phone can and can not be used, along with wallpaper, games, ringtones, applications and more.
The Bethesda, Maryland company is brushing aside the grim evidence provided by string of disasters at other companies trying something similar. Amp’d… Continue Reading
Tapatap yet another contest site, Wis.dm yet another Q&A site
Tapatap, a new online contest site, has launched, the latest in a slew of such sites. And Wis.dm has launched yet another Q&A site.
Tapatap, of San Mateo, is different, its team claims, in that it offers access to games from all places at once: Users can play via their mobile phone, from their PC over TapaTap’s web site, or via a widget embedded on someone’s blog. It also lets people create profiles and share with… Continue Reading
Tapatap raises $2.5M for secretive “mobile 2.0″ company
San Mateo’s Tapatap, a secretive company that says it wants to let people downloaded and share applications “for free and work seamlessly across web, wap, and rich mobile clients” has raised $2.5M in Series A funding from Gabriel Venture Partners, according to regulatory filings cited by PE Week.
The company says it is pioneering “mobile 2.0,” and is co-founded by three former Infospace execs, active in mobile gaming and social networkin: Isaac Babbs, Andy Riedel… Continue Reading
Latest SEC filings: Extreme DA, iForem, Casabi, Synfora and Newcross all raise new funding
The following Bay Area companies have raised new rounds of capital, according to filings at the SEC as reported by Thomson Financial’s PE Wire:
–Extreme DA, of a Palo Alto, Calif. developer of semiconductor design tools, has raised $7.57 million in Series B funding from investors including Foundation Capital and Lanza Tech Ventures.
–iForem (no Web site), a Redwood City, Calif. provider of a service for online storage and financial management of a trust, has raised… Continue Reading
Boston-Power raises $15.6M for lithium-ion technology
Westborough, Mass.’s Boston-Power, a lithium-ion battery technology developer, has raised $15.6 million in its latest round of funding.
PE Week first reported the news (sorry, can’t find link). New investor Granite Global Ventures led the round, which also included previous investors Venrock Associates and Gabriel Venture Partners.
Granite’s Thomas Ng joins company’s board.
Used textbook site, Chegg, hits nerve
Updated
Used textbook site, Chegg, has hit a nerve.
Chegg is undercutting the prices of textbooks at college bookstores, and a recent BusinessWeek article about the Santa Clara, Calif. company has climbed to second place on Digg’s “Top in 24 Hours” page (as of this writing). We’re not sure exactly why. One reason may be because the young audience at Digg is enjoying the story — seeing this as a way of indirectly sticking it to… Continue Reading
Eyespot gets $3.7M for video mashing service
Eyespot, a start-up that lets people make video mashups, said it has raised a first round of funding of $3.7 million.
The round, led by Silicon Valley firm Gabriel Venture Partners, is the latest sign of how hot video editing tools are — now that the user-generated video revolution, a la YouTube, is underway.
We’ve mentioned EyeSpot before, when writing about a competing company called Movie Masher, which itself has just launched and is looking for… Continue Reading