Luisa Beltran
S.E.A. Medical Systems said Wednesday that it has closed $3 million in series B round with JK&B Capital. David Kronfeld, JK&B Capital's chairman, and Barry Dickman, of Quantum Technology Partners, have joined S.E.A.'s board.
The Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund has invested $585,000 in three companies: Clean Emission Fluids, which provides patent pending clean energy technologies; Estrakon, which designs, develops and makes LED Edge-Lit signs and displays; and, Ix Innovations, a provider of electrical test and measurement instrumentation.
ModeWalk has received $1.8 million in funding led by Merus Capital. Palo Alto, Calif.-based ModeWalk is an online luxury retailer.
John Bara was named chief marketing office at thismoment. Bara was previoiusly VP of Marketing at Citrix. Thismoment, a provider of social content management software for brands, raised $7.3 million led by Sierra Ventures in late 2011.
Bain Capital has led a $238 million growth equity investment in SquareTrade. Other financial terms weren't disclosed. San Francisco-based SquareTrade is a consumer warranty provider. Prior investors include Weston Presidio Capital and JP Morgan Partners. Financial Technology Partners provided financial advice to SquareTrade.
Joyent has completed an $85 million funding round. Weather Investment II provided the majority while Telefónica Digital also participated, according to a statement. Joyent provides cloud computing software and services.
LanzaTech has closed a Series C round with $55.8 million in investments. Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund led the round which includes new investors PETRONAS Technology Ventures Sdn Bhd, the venture arm of PETRONAS, the national oil company of Malaysia, and Dialog Group. Existing investors Khosla Ventures, Qiming Venture Partners and K1W1 also participated. LanzaTech has raised more than $85 million to date.
Last year's broad market volatility and plunge in deal flow is apparently not dampening the spirits of PE fund managers, according to a study from BDO.
A majority, or 70%, of PE fund managers expect to close about two to three deals during the next 12 months, the global accounting firm said. The 70% includes managers of all fund sizes, BDO said.
The optimism comes despite a drop in dealflow for nearly half. Forty-seven percent of fund managers reported closing no new deals in 2011, BDO said. Another 19% said they completed only one deal. Small funds, those with less than $250 million AUM, had it worse. Two-thirds, or 66%, of small pools said they closed no new deals in 2011.
Venture Capital funds last year raised the most since 2008, but it's unclear whether the industry has actually rebounded.
In 2011, 169 funds collected about $18.17 billion. The total is up nearly 32% from 2010 when the same number of funds, 169, raised roughly $13.8 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. Thomson Reuters is the publisher of peHUB.
Dr. Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, has joined the board of Tobbi Technology. Arne Almerfors, who was most recently CEO of Flir Systems Sweden, was name Tobbi's chairman of the board. Tobbi, of Sweden, provides eye tracking and eye control technology.