VC watch: StarVox raises $10 million
StarVox raises $10 million...BeamExpress scores a $4.5 million first round...NanoOpto grabs $16 million.
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Monday's deals
• StarVox raised a $10 million fourth round of funding. Investors include Information Technology Partners, INVESCO Funds Group, Storm Venture Fund and previous investors Aspen Ventures, Compass Technology Partners and Novus Ventures. San Jose, Calif.-based StarVox has raised a total of more than $40 million. The company develops software designed to allow corporations to integrate such existing communications networks as PBX telephone and wireless with telephony networks.
• BeamExpress has raised a $4.5 million first round of funding, led by Index Ventures. Geneva-based BeamExpress develops components for optical networks focused on metropolitan areas.
• NanoOpto raised $16 million in its first round of funding. Bessemer Venture Partners and VC firm Morgenthaler Ventures led the round, with New Enterprise Associates and U.S. Trust's Excelsior Venture Partners III also pitching in. NanoOpto makes chips for optical telecommunications equipment. The company has already shipped a prototype of its chip to prospective customers for testing. It is also aiming to start producing chips in volume by mid-2002 through the manufacturing plant it is building at its Somerset, N.J., headquarters. Princeton University engineering professor Stephen Chou co-founded NanoOpto last year and serves as the company's chairman.
• Intraspect Software closed a $33 million round of funding. New investors such as GE Equity, Reed Elsevier Ventures, Diamondhead Ventures and JEGI contributed $20 million; and AVI Capital, Bay Partners, RWI, Sand Hill Financial, Sippl MacDonald Ventures and Telos Venture Partners anted up the remaining $13 million. The company has raised a total of $85 million during six rounds of funding. Intraspect makes business-to-business software that helps companies link marketing, sales, research, product development and customer support functions so their employees, customers and suppliers can collaborate more easily with each other. Customers include Verizon, Boeing and J.P. Morgan Chase.