Connie Loizos
The current, accepted wisdom is that those who understand Big Data will rule the roost in the future. There’s just one problem: there aren't nearly enough "data scientists" to go around.
Have you noticed? Many venture capitalists -- a group not known for their creativity -- have quietly begun to revamp their uninspired Websites.
Six years ago, Jerusalem Venture Partners created a digital media incubator, and the experiment has gone so well that this May, the 20-year-old firm -- among Israel’s best known and most successful venture outfits -- is opening its second incubator. Its focus: cybersecurity.
Cloudant, a cloud-hosted database provider based in boston, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Samsung Venture Investment Corp. Cloudant was founded in 2008 by three MIT physicists; it has previously raised $4 million, including from Y Combinator and In-Q-Tel.
NanoViricides, a West Haven, Conn.-based nanobio-pharmaceutical company that is developing anti-viral drugs, says it has raised $6 million in the form of unsecured convertible debt from three unnamed family offices and one unnamed charitable foundation.
PhishLabs, a Charleston, S.C.-based cyber security startup, has closed on $1.2 million in Series A funding from a syndicate that includes Tony Prince, former CEO of managed security services comapny LURHQ, acquired by SecureWorks in 2006.
Delta Partners Capital, an advisory and investment firm based in Dubai, has held a first, $100 million, close of its Delta Partners Emerging Markets TMT Growth Fund II. Investors include the IFC (World Bank Group), NTT DOCOMO, and a number of family offices from Europe and the Middle East. The fund has a target of $350 million and a hard cap of $500 million.
But backers aren’t ready to throw in the towel just yet on the entrepreneur/investor who previously sold About.com for $690M
Champions Oncology of Hackensack, N.J., earlier this week announced it had raised $9.3 million at a price of $0.50 per share in a private placement to existing and new investors. That group includes Battery Ventures IX, L.P., PAR Investment Partners, L.P., members of the company's management team, and early-stage investor Harris & Harris Group, which invested $200,000 in the financing. No commissions were paid in connection with the private placement.
Early-stage investor Sunil Dhaliwal, formerly a general partner at Battery Ventures, ha launched venture capital fund that is focused exclusively on infrastructure technologies. His new Cambridge, Mass.-based firm, Amplify Partners, did not disclose how much money it has to invest but says it raised investment capital from a "blue-chip list of IT infrastructure executives, financial industry veterans and forward-thinking institutional investors" and that is initial investments will range in size from $50,000 to $1.5 million.