Fear not! VC funds still available for brave telcos Both Fort Lee, N.J.-based Everest Broadband Networks and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Urban-Media have completed rounds of funding worth at least $50 million.
With Menlo Park, Calif.-based Tyco Ventures leading the round of funding, UrbanMedia raised $57 million, which brought the company's 2000 financing to more than $115 million. Other venture capital firms participating included previous investors Rosemont, Ill.-based Comdisco; San Jose, Calif.-based Western Technology Investment; Mountain View, Calif.-based SOFTBANK Venture Capital; and Palo Alto-based Accel Partners.
In conjunction with the financing, Richard A. Kashnow, president of Tyco Ventures, will join UrbanMedia's board of directors.
On the East Coast, Everest Broadband landed $50 million in third-round financing, with Wayne, Pa.-based Exelon Capital Partners leading the funding. Other investors included Westport, Conn.-based Pequot Capital Management and SOFTBANK Venture Capital, both initial investors in Everest Broadband. In 2000, Everest achieved its first-year goal of 300 million sq. ft. under contract and exceeded its objective of 200 commercial buildings wired and lit for broadband services.
Everest opened the year with a building-access deal with Dallas-based Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. Everest will provide broadband services to Crescent's 45-building, 23 million sq. ft. portfolio that includes properties in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Denver and San Francisco.
PropertyFirst lands RREEF, AMB online listings San Francisco-based AMB Property Corp. and Chicago-based RREEF Funds have selected PropertyFirst.com to provide online property marketing technology. Under the separate agreements, RREEF and AMB will use PropertyFirst's Private Label System (PLS) in conjunction with their own Web sites.
AMB will use the PLS to run its online property portfolio and lease availability functions for AMB's national industrial portfolio as well as participate in PropertyFirst's Web marketplace. AMB is not an investor in PropertyFirst.
The RREEF/PropertyFirst deal provides RREEF the ability to market online RREEF's 127 million sq. ft. of space for lease. In addition, PropertyFirst is building more than 200 single-property Web sites for RREEF, representing a majority of RREEF's client properties. Prior to the new agreement, investment brokers posted more than $1 billion in exclusive for-sale listings in the PropertyFirst.com marketplace for RREEF.
PropertyFirst's PLS allows clients to list property availability information, store it in the PropetyFirst system and extract the information for use on the client's own Web site. Information can be updated through a single-point data entry system that gives the client and its brokers the ability to add virtual tours, photos, maps and other attachments.
SiteStuff.com finds portal partner in RexOffice.com Austin, Texas-based SiteStuff has acquired New York-based RexOffice.com from Edifice-Rex.com. RexOffice is a building-based Internet portal that was founded by Insignia Financial Group CEO Andrew Farkas and is half-owned by Insignia. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The deal combines SiteStuff's e-procurement platform for building owners and managers with RexOffice's technology that connects owners and managers with tenants via the Internet. RexOffice also provides a secure extranet for building owners and managers to store and share files and reports, and enables owners to create building-specific Web sites.
With the deal, RexOffice will become the preferred building portal for properties managed by members of Project Octane, a consortium of service firms consisting of Insignia, Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis, Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle and Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. Last year, Project Octane invested $30 million in SiteStuff.
Also, Insignia has purchased $735,000 in SiteStuff stock, according to the Wall Street Journal. Farkas will join SiteStuff's board of directors.
hsupply.com gets the Frankenstein treatment A group of Atlanta investors have revived hospitality e-procurement firm hsupply, but will change the firm's name to V-Prologic. S.P. Reddy, a co-founder of hsupply; Satyan Melwani, a former product manager at hsupply; and Atlanta hotel owner Kal Patel have acquired the failed startup's assets and software and hired its technical staff. V-Prologic will be based in Atlanta.
Instead of focusing on the actual supply distribution business, the new firm will provide consulting and licensed software that hotels can use for e-procurement, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. V-Prologic also hopes to sell the software to other sectors, such as healthcare.
Storetrax.com finds a place on the Ranch Bethesda, Md.-based Storetrax.com has added the listings for Irvine Retail Properties Co., a division of The Irvine Co., Newport Beach, Calif. Irvine Retail's 30 properties total more than 6.3 million sq. ft. and are located throughout the Irvine Ranch in Orange County, Calif.
With the Irvine Retail properties, Storetrax.com now lists more than 660 million sq. ft. of retail properties.
KeyBank and EquityCity find common ground Cleveland-based KeyBank National Association's commercial real estate unit and Denver-based EquityCity have reached an agreement that allows KeyBank to market its real estate investment opportunities through EquityCity's Web site, www.equitycity.com.
EquityCity will feature real estate investment opportunities that have been underwritten by Key Global Capital, the transaction originator for equity and mezzanine investment needs of KeyBank's proprietary client base of 5,000 domestic developers. The arrangement allows EquityCity's investor members to review institutional-quality real estate equity opportunities with minimum investment units starting at $25,000.
SafeRent gets in on the VC action as well Denver-based SafeRent Inc. has secured $4.25 million in convertible debt financing that will be used to enhance the company's sales and marketing efforts and develop new software for online credit and risk management services for the multifamily industry. Funding was led by previous SafeRent investors including Boulder, Colo.-based Boulder Ventures Ltd.; New York-based Mellon Ventures Inc.; Boulder-based Roser Ventures; and Denver-based Hexagon Investments.
SafeRent closed the second round of financing in December, and secured $12 million in 2000. The company also recently achieved ICSA Internet security certification that qualifies SafeRent to resell credit reports via the Internet.
A new Vision(Planner) for the Internet San Jose, Calif.-based VisionPlanner has released an online pre-development system for architecture, engineering and construction and commercial real estate.
The goal of the VisionPlanner system is to streamline the pre-development process that affects each subsequent phase of the process. Users can test and define a project's parameters based on comparisons with current and past developments. Through its indexing system, VisionPlanner stores a historical database of project data and archives it for future use. The system also works with current construction management e-commerce applications, allowing a comparison between pre-development assumptions and the project's progress.
Raghi Iyengar founded the company and serves as chairman and chief technology officer. Jyoti Prakash serves as CEO and president. The firm has 35 employees in the United States and India.
Corrigo, TenantDirect link up for property management solutions Redwood City, Calif.-based Corrigo Inc. and Los Angeles-based TenantDirect.com have formed a strategic alliance to deliver Web and wireless portfolio and property management systems for the apartment industry and other commercial property management markets.
As part of the alliance, TenantDirect will integrate Corrigo's wireless systems into the dot.com's present lease, maintenance administration and accounting functions to provide an online link to residents and tenants and automate reporting processes for owners and managers. TenantDirect currently offers ResidentDirect for the multifamily industry and TenantDirect for other commercial real estate applications. The systems are designed to help property owners and managers create and customize property and portfolio reports, track preventive maintenance schedules and monitor existing warranties and expirations.