Chipmakers still win big
In semiconductors, Austek Microsystems Inc of Fremont picked up $239,112 from Advanced Technology Ventures, Hambrecht & Quist, Pantheon International and Ivan Sutherland for its proprietary cache controllers. Dyna Logic Inc’s first visit to the trough yielded the Sunnyvale chip designer $1m from Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners. Information Storage Devices Inc’s business is high-density analogue storage semiconductor devices and the San Jose firm won $4.2m from ASCII Corp of Japan, AVI Management Partners, Sanyo Corp, TIP Partners, and Wardley James Capel. Neomagic Inc of Santa Clara is doing chips for mobile computers and has banked $1.5m from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital and US Venture Partners. Paradigm Technology Inc in San Jose does static memory chips and has raised $4.75m from Advent Techno-Venture, El Dorado Ventures, Gateway, Glenwood Management Mid-America Partners, NKK and TA Associates. And two companies in their first round of venture funding are Tessera Inc, San Jose, with $2.75m raised from Concord Partners and Patricof & Co Ventures for its interconnection system for semiconductor devices; and Xenon Inc, a Menlo Park developer of microprogrammable chip sets for multimedia applications, which raised $550,000 from Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre, Mohr, Davidow Ventures and Mike Farmwald.
Document software
In Milpitas, Datasoft Corp has raised $545,000 in what is its first round of venture funding from US Venture Partners for its personal data storage software products, which are based on optical character recognition scanning and intelligent retrieval technology. Documentum Inc in Pleasanton reckons that there is money to be made in what it describes as enterprise-critical document management software, and so do Brentwood Associates, Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre, Norwest Venture Capital Management, Sequoia Capital and Xerox Venture Capital – they have put up $6.95m. Viewstar Inc, another familiar Emeryville name, has raised $3.9m from Inman & Bowman, Institutional Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, J P Morgan & Co, Sequoia Capital and Technology Partners for its network-based document imaging and workflow systems software.
Software companies in all shapes and sizes win the lion’s share of the venture capital on offer
In the software field, Arbor Software Inc, doing financial analysis and budgeting software for the management of multidimensional spreadsheet data in Santa Clara raised $3m from Accel Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Sequoia Capital. Arcsys Inc, doing design automation software in Sunnyvale raised $3m from Sutter Hill Ventures, Technology Growth Fund and Technology Venture Investors. Books That Work Inc is a Palo Alto company that specialises in home improvement software for Windows, and raised $2.2m from Accel Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Mohr and Davidow Ventures. Business Objects Inc in Menlo Park has raised $2m for its client-server-based end user data access software from Atlas Venture, Inovacom and Partech International. Cross Access Inc, doing data delivery software for access to disparate databases and computers in Santa Clara has raised just over $1m from AVI Management Partners, Hanmore Venture Capital and MK Global Ventures. Multimedia games software is the bag of Palo Alto-based Crystal Dynamics Inc, which has raised a whopping $17m from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, HBO and King World Productions. By contrast, Custom Software Turnkey Manufacturing Inc, which does turnkey manufacturing software for the software industry in Fremont, has raised a modest $200,000 from ROI Partners and SC Management. Edge Diagnostics Inc of Sunnyvale does automotive diagnostic systems software and has raised $100,000 from Hambrecht & Quist Inc; no word on other contributions. Another tyro to venture capital is another multimedia software developer, Media Magic Inc, Palo Alto, which has won $822,287 from Greylock Limited Partnership and Oak Investment Partners
. Minx Software Inc, doing an integrated Unix-based package of financial, manufacturing and customer-service software in San Jose won $250,000 from Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co and DSC Ventures. Mobilesoft Inc in Campbell is one of those pioneers working on personal digital assistant application software and has attracted $650,000 from Draper Associates, Interwest Partners, Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre, Labrador Ventures and Pierre Lamond. Working in the rarefied field of software for use by molecular biologists and protein chemists in Palo Alto, Molecular Applications Group Inc has attracted $850,000 from Medicus Venture Partners. Montage Software Inc is an Emeryville company doing object-relational database management software: it has featured in these pages, and has raised $3m from Accel Partners, Oak Investment Partners, Sequoia Capital and Morgenthaler Venture Partners. Netlabs Inc is also a familiar name: the Los Altos network management systems software development company has won $582,803 from Paragon Venture Partners and Sofinnova Associates. Network Computing Inc in San Jose does software designed to enable network administrators to manage NetWare networks proactively: it has raised $1m from ABS Ventures, Austin Ventures, Oak Investment Partners and Sequoia Capital. Oceania Health Care Systems Inc does electronic medical records products and has raised $325,000 from Delphi Bioventures, IAI Venture Partners and Indosuez Ventures.
Interactive multimedia
Ray Dream Inc is up in Mountain View doing three-dimensional graphics software and has raised $3m from Matrix Partners, Sigma Partners, Sofinnova Associates and Venrock Associates. Another familiar name is Red Brick Systems Inc in Los Gatos, which has landed $6.4m from Advent International, Asset Management, Bay Partners, Hambrecht & Quist Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Shea Venture Group and Stanford University for its relational database management system for open client-server data warehousing. Rocket Science Games Inc has to be in the fun-and-games business: the Palo Alto company has raised $3.5m from Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre, Stanford University and trade investor Supermac Technologies Inc for its interactive CD-ROM video games. Starpress Multimedia Inc in Novato has raised $1m in its first round from New Enterprise Associates for its interactive multimedia CD-ROM and floppy disk software. Mountain View-based Vantive Inc’s customer support software won $2m from Grace Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Weiss and Peck & Greer Venture Partners. And Worldview Systems Inc, San Francisco has raised $2.7m from SRB Partners, Fodor and Ameritech Development for its database of travel destinations.
