High Peaks Venture Partners

SmartPill Secures $20 Million Series 2 Financing

Devon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:09:39 +0000

Buffalo, N.Y., July 22, 2008 - SmartPill Corporation, a leading developer of capsule-based medical devices that aid in the diagnosis, definition and therapeutic intervention of gastrointestinal motility disorders, announced the completion of a Series 2 financing that will provide $20 million to support plans for continued growth and new market penetration. The current round of funding was led by Oxford Bioscience Partners and Psilos Group with participation by Kimberly-Clark Ventures and High Peaks Venture Partners.

“This financing will fuel the growth of SmartPill as we conduct further clinical trials to expand our indications for use and increase our sales and reimbursement efforts,” said David Barthel, President & CEO of SmartPill Corporation. “We are extremely pleased to have attracted investors of this caliber and we look forward to working with them as we expand our presence in the rapidly growing diagnostic GI healthcare arena.”

The potential for significant impact for gastroenterologists utilizing SmartPill was noted by Jeff Barnes, General Partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners. “In addition to providing significant clinical benefits, the SmartPill technology allows diagnostic procedures to remain under the control of gastroenterologists, who are ultimately responsible for their patients’ therapy,” said Barnes.

Jeffrey Krauss, Managing Partner of Psilos Group, explained why SmartPill was identified as a solid candidate for investment. “By improving quality of diagnosis and therefore quality and efficacy of treatment, SmartPill adds a valuable tool to the physician’s arsenal, while eliminating needless testing and expense from the healthcare system,” Krauss said. “This opportunity fits squarely in line with our investment philosophy of backing healthcare technologies that simultaneously advance the best interests of patients, payers and providers.”

Bela Musits, Managing Director of High Peaks Venture Partners, expressed his firm’s ongoing support. “We have been working with the SmartPill team for several years and we are consistently impressed by their ability to develop technology-based products to improve patient health,” he stated. “High Peaks is excited to be part of SmartPill and we are confident that the company will continue to grow in the months and years ahead.”

About SmartPill Corp.

SmartPill Corporation is a leading developer of capsule-based medical devices that aid in the diagnosis, definition and therapeutic intervention of gastrointestinal (GI) motility disorders and diseases. The company’s flagship product – the SmartPill GI Monitoring System – features the SmartPill Capsule, an ingestible medical device that provides data, heretofore unavailable, that can assist physicians and researchers in the evaluation of GI motility disorders. SmartPill Corporation’s SmartPill GI Monitoring System was granted 510(k) release from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2006. Visit www.SmartPillCorp.com for more information.

About SmartPill’s Investors

Oxford Bioscience Partners (OBP), established in 1992, is a venture capital firm that provides equity financing and management assistance to emerging, entrepreneurial-driven companies within the life sciences and healthcare sectors. Experienced partners, who bring together deep domain knowledge in life sciences, have established a proven track record of identifying, validating, and backing emerging trends and technologies. While willing to consider an investment in a company at almost any stage, OBP brings unique value and expertise to early-stage situations. With approximately $1B of committed capital under management, OBP has invested in over 140 life science companies worldwide, and has successfully leveraged the extensive research, operating, and financial expertise and experience of its team of investment professionals.

Psilos Group has been a successful healthcare venture capital and private equity firm since its founding in 1998. With more than $550 million under management, Psilos focuses its investments across the healthcare services, healthcare information technology, and medical technology sectors. Psilos invests nationwide in businesses that are poised to create enduring market value by fundamentally improving the U.S. healthcare system. Its portfolio companies have a demonstrated ability to reduce the costs of healthcare delivery, improve clinical quality, and advance the alignment of payer, patient, and provider incentives. Psilos has offices in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

High Peaks Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focused on investments in market leading, early stage technology companies. High Peaks closed its inaugural fund in 2004 and is actively investing in New York City and throughout Upstate New York, focusing primarily on companies in the digital media, internet-enabled business services, telecomm, advanced materials, and medical technology markets. High Peaks is one of 15 affiliates of Village Ventures, a nationwide network of regionally focused, early-stage venture capital funds.

TxCore, Inc. Changes Name to TxVia, Inc.; Raises $8.5m in Series B Financing

Devon — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:23:48 +0000

TxCore, Inc. Changes Name to TxVia, Inc.; Raises $8.5m in Series B Financing; Becomes First to Deploy ‘Platform-as-a-Service’ for Prepaid Card Processing; and Appoints Industry Veterans to Management Team and Boards

Company Also Releases White Paper on Revolutionary Platform-as-a-Service Approach to Prepaid Card Processing

New York, NY – June 18, 2008 – TxVia, Inc., a pioneer in prepaid card processing technology, today announced that the company has changed its name from TxCore, Inc. and secured $8.5 million in venture capital as part of its Series B financing. The funding was led by an existing investor, Espírito Santo Ventures, with participation from the company’s lead Series A investors, Village Ventures and High Peaks Venture Partners.

“We’re delighted that Espírito Santo Ventures, with a proven track record of investing in innovative payments businesses worldwide, has taken the lead in this financing,” said Anil D. Aggarwal, CEO of TxVia. “And, we’re equally pleased that other existing investors, Village Ventures and High Peaks Venture Partners, strongly endorsed the company by choosing to participate.”

“TxVia has experienced tremendous market traction since launching to the prepaid card industry,” said Joaquim Sérvulo Rodrigues, Espírito Santo Ventures CEO. “We’re excited about TxVia’s innovative technology and confident that the company has the potential to revolutionize the global prepaid card processing marketplace over the coming years.”

TxVia is the first company to have a live client using a prepaid card processing platform delivered on a “platform-as-a-service” (PaaS) basis. Using its PaaS approach, TxVia quickly and efficiently creates highly customized and fully segregated prepaid card processing platforms. “We utilize PaaS to offer options for our clients that range from outsourcing processing completely to TxVia to bringing processing entirely in-house,” said Aggarwal. “We also offer hybrid options that can evolve over time according to our clients’ needs.” Regardless of the configuration, PaaS users no longer need to share a platform with other organizations and products, and realize significant scalability, competitive, time-to-market, cost and other benefits.

The benefits for issuers and program managers of the PaaS approach to prepaid card processing include:
• Development and operational transparency
• Client control of platforms, including platform creation and enhancement, hosting and operations, and domestic and international third-party implementation and integration
• Reduced platform management costs
• Better separation of client and processor intellectual property
• Improved platform reliability and scalability
• Increased platform longevity
• Enhanced manageability of PCI compliance
“The prepaid market today is limited by the legacy technology and systems that dominate the processing environment. PaaS addresses those limitations and provides a pathway for issuers and program managers to achieve greater control, flexibility and efficiencies in their prepaid programs,” continues Aggarwal. “And, to better reflect the comprehensiveness of our offerings, we changed the name of the company to TxVia.”

TxVia also announced today that the following executives have joined the company:

• Anne Kortlander, executive vice president, Product. Prior to joining TxVia, Kortlander was senior vice president at Fidelity National Information Systems and its predecessors eFunds Prepaid Solutions and WildCard Systems. Before WildCard Systems, Kortlander was senior vice president at Visa, USA.

• Jonathan A. Weiner, executive vice president, Program and Managed Services. Prior to joining TxVia, Weiner was president of Prepaid Media and previously served as president and chief operating officer of TSYS Prepaid and its predecessor Clarity Payment Solutions.

• Christopher Petersen, vice president, Managed Services. Prior to joining TxVia, Petersen was vice president at Fidelity National Information Systems and its predecessors eFunds Prepaid Solutions and WildCard Systems.

• Iris Quitta, director, Business Development. Prior to joining TxVia, Quitta was director at CBSI.

• Shashi Kapur, advisory board member. Kapur was chief information officer of WildCard Systems until its acquisition by eFunds.

In addition, Aggarwal was appointed chairman of the board of directors, and Raymond Iglesias III, TxVia chief financial officer, was appointed to the board of directors. Carl M. Ansley, founder and a director of TxCore, was appointed president of the company.

“The TxVia management team brings more than 75 years of combined experience pioneering new technologies, products and services in the prepaid card industry,” said Rodrigues. “The team has consistently proven its ability to create and manage innovative ventures to tremendous success.”

TxVia also announced today the release of a white paper, “Approaches to Processing Technology for Prepaid Cards,” which discusses the available approaches to prepaid card processing, including software as a service (SaaS), in-house software solutions and platform as a service (PaaS). The white paper identifies critical limitations of SaaS and in-house software that prevent issuers and program managers from attaining their full potential in prepaid, and identifies how PaaS overcomes these limitations, providing significant benefits to both users and the prepaid card industry. The white paper is available for download at www.txvia.com.
TxVia has also secured a new 12,000 sq. ft. corporate headquarters in New York City. The company has additional offices in Barcelona and Dublin.

About TxVia, Inc.

TxVia, Inc. (pronounced “T.X.-Veea”) is a pioneer in prepaid (network branded and closed loop) card processing technology. Using a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) approach, TxVia quickly and efficiently enables the creation of highly customized and fully segregated prepaid card processing platforms. The TxVia approach far better manages the complexities of prepaid across the various products, verticals, industries, organizations and channels.

With PaaS, issuers and program managers can completely outsource processing to TxVia or bring all or a part of their processing requirements in-house, allowing them to take greater control over various aspects of their processing, ranging from functionality and release timing to infrastructure and service levels. Regardless of the configuration, PaaS users no longer need to share a platform with other organizations and products, and realize significant scalability, competitive, time-to-market, cost and other benefits.
TxVia also offers a complete set of services to support prepaid card programs including hosting and platform services, managed services, switch services and professional services.

Worktopia Secures Series B Financing Led by European Founders Fund

Devon — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:02:20 +0000

Worktopia (www.worktopia.com), the first and only online booking engine for meeting space in hotels, conference centers, airport clubs and other venues, has secured $5 million of additional capital for further domestic and international expansion. This Series B investment was led by serial entrepreneurs Oliver, Marc and Alexander Samwer through their European Founders Fund (EFF). The Samwer Brothers are investors in Linked-In and founded Jamba, Alando and other notable companies. All existing institutional investors, including DFJ Gotham Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners and High Peaks Venture Partners participated in the round.

Worktopia also announced a partnership with GetThere(R), the world’s leading online corporate travel procurement solution, to offer business travelers the ability to search, compare and book meeting space online from GetThere’s home page. Through Worktopia’s advanced technology, GetThere users can book meeting space, audio visual equipment and catering for simple meetings of up to 100 participants in a single online session.

For more information visit:

Samwer Brothers Series B Announcement
GetThere Press Release

High Peaks Closes Investment in SaaS Platform Company Apprenda

Devon — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:50:20 +0000

High Peaks is pleased to announce a $500,000 investment in Clifton Park based Apprenda. The capital will enable Apprenda to complete their beta testing phase and move to full commercial launch of its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, SaaSGrid.
“As a solution, SaaSGrid will help catalyze the next wave of software as a service offerings. Having High Peaks on-board as an investor and a valuable partner creates a foundation for Apprenda to establish our position as a leader in this new and expanding market.” said Sinclair Schuller, CEO of Apprenda, Inc.

“We are excited to invest in Apprenda,” Jonathan Stillman of High Peaks Venture Partners said. “The company has developed important and widely applicable software technology for the rapidly growing market for on-demand software services, and has a talented team in place. We look forward to working with them to help realize the company’s potential.”

Apprenda is an emerging leader in providing infrastructure software that enables the rapidly growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketplace. SaaS is a delivery model for software applications that is very attractive to users. It allows users to avoid the costs and headaches of licensing and managing software. Instead they “rent” their software on a subscription basis and access the applications over the web via a web browser.
Software providers need to rapidly respond to the growing popularity of the SaaS approach by delivering both new and pre-existing software applications as on-demand services over the web. The details of how one accomplishes this from both implementation and operational aspects, however, are complicated.

Apprenda has created SaaSGrid, a platform that reduces significantly the complexity and expense that software companies would otherwise incur in moving to SaaS deployment of applications. SaaSGrid provides software companies with a starting point for development that includes all the necessary mission critical components as well as operational management over the application. SaaSGrid removes the need for them to worry about SaaS architecture specifics: it provides a highly flexible, scalable, and reliable online environment for deployment, and enables developers to focus on their core application. As a result, software providers are able to get their SaaS offerings to market faster, with lower capital requirements, and with significantly greater initial quality, which in turn reduces ongoing maintenance needs.

Peak Pitch 2008 Wraps Up at Windham Mountain

Devon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:23:00 +0000

High Peaks Venture Partners’ second annual Peak Pitch event came to a close on a sunny Tuesday afternoon at Windham Mountain ski area in the Catskills of New York. The event was a very productive and enjoyable day of skiing, pitching and networking for the 60 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and invited guests in attendance. Peak Pitch is an innovative twist on the traditional business plan competition hosted annually by High Peaks Venture Partners. Entrepreneurs at the event are paired with Venture Capitalists for a 5 minute lift ride during which they pitch their business idea and get feedback from potential investors. Similar events are hosted annually by Fresh Tracks Capital in Vermont and Borealis Ventures in New Hampshire. This year’s top three pitchers, as selected by the investors, were:

Joshua Cross, Veratag
Jason Curtis, Epostmarks
Maxime Elbaz, Geospatial Systems

High Peaks extends a special thanks to the law firms of Phillips Lytle, Nixon Peabody, and Duane Morris for sponsoring the event and providing each of the top three pitchers with an hour of free legal consultation.

You can find additional coverage of the event from the Albany Times Union and the Capital District Business Review below:

High Peaks Announces Investment in TxCore, Inc.

Devon — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:59:08 +0000

High Peaks Venture Partners is pleased to announce its recently closed investment in New York-based TxCore, Inc. TxCore is an early-stage software company that is developing a revolutionary platform and toolset for the branded prepaid debit card industry. High Peaks partnered with Village Ventures and existing TxCore investors in this $2.5 million financing.

The prepaid market is experiencing a period of explosive growth, with new types of card programs proliferating rapidly. Amongst the most common types of prepaid programs are retail gift and rebate, health savings account, corporate payroll, travel, incentive, and general purpose reloadable cards for the unbanked. TxCore will be a significant enabler of continued growth and innovation in the prepaid market, with solutions that directly address significant pain points that are driven by the shortcomings of existing prepaid processing platforms and are common to managers of prepaid programs.

TxCore was founded in late 2006 and is led by CEO Anil Aggarwal and President / CTO Carl Ansley. Anil and Carl had previously built Clarity Payment Solutions into one of the leading technology providers and transaction processing companies in the prepaid card market. In 2004, they successfully sold Clarity to TSYS, a $5.6B market cap NYSE company and one of the global leaders in the credit card processing market. Since then, Anil has been an active participant and leader in the rapid growth of the prepaid market. He founded Prepaid Media–the leading trade media property for the prepaid market, which included the largest industry trade show and conference. He also founded and serves as Chairman of the leading trade organization for the prepaid market. Anil and Carl are widely accepted as true leaders in this rapidly growing and evolving industry. With TxCore they are once again joined by the key players from the original Clarity team to build a company that will fundamentally change the way that technology is delivered for prepaid card programs.

The vast majority of issuers and program managers in prepaid today rely on third-party, shared platforms to process their card transactions. TxCore has an entirely new and revolutionary solution. TxCore is driven by the team’s knowledge that managers of prepaid programs are increasingly frustrated by the lack of control, customization, and protection of intellectual property offered by today’s third-party processing model. As the prepaid industry has evolved, the desires of program managers have begun to outstrip the capabilities of existing processing systems and solutions – technology has gone from an industry strength 5 years ago to an industry weakness today, and a limiting factor on the growth of the industry.

TxCore now allows prepaid card issuers and program managers to overcome these frustrations by deploying proprietary, scalable processing systems that provide full control over functionality and release timing as well as infrastructure and service levels. TxCore offers an approach that best manages the complexities of prepaid, providing tremendous benefits usually only achievable with vertical integration, but without the challenges in-house processing can entail. To achieve this balance, TxCore provides clients with platform creation tools and templates so they can deploy customized processing platforms. This new model will enable TxCore to redefine the way prepaid programs are designed and delivered, and fundamentally change the dynamics of the industry to the betterment of program managers and end users a like.

Concurrent with this investment, High Peaks Managing Director Brad Svrluga and Village Ventures Managing General Partner Matt Harris have joined the TxCore board of directors.

About High Peaks Venture Partners

High Peaks Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focused on investments in market leading, early stage technology companies. High Peaks closed its inaugural fund in 2004 and is actively investing in New York City and throughout Upstate New York, focusing primarily on companies in the digital media, internet-enabled business services, telecomm, advanced materials, and medical technology markets. High Peaks is one of 15 affiliates of Village Ventures, a nationwide network of regionally focused, early-stage venture capital funds.

About Village Ventures

Village Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm investing in exceptional entrepreneurs building technology and life science companies in emerging US technology centers. Village Ventures identifies these investment opportunities in partnership with its proprietary nationwide network of early stage venture capital funds that are focused on these markets. Recognizing that venture capital is a local business, Village Ventures has built its enterprise around the deeply integrated local VC who knows regional entrepreneurs and opportunities. The Village Ventures structure allows local VCs to utilize a national framework of world-class services and investment support. Because capital alone does not ensure success, Village Ventures also offers back-office support for the fund network and growth resources for entrepreneurs.

ReQuest Wins Editors’ Choice Award

Devon — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:02:53 +0000

ReQuest’s innovative iQ System was launched to rave reviews. The iQ is a multi-room digital music server that combines a number of breakthrough features including plug ‘n’ play setup, touchscreen interfaces and ReQuest’s own NetSync software for iTunes. The iQ earned the 2007 Editor’s Choice Award from Sound and Vision Magazine.

Read the full story at Sound and Vision Magazine.

High Peaks Announces Participation in $5MM Financing for Worktopia, Inc.

Devon — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:57:33 +0000

High Peaks Venture Partners is pleased to announce its participation in a recently closed $5 million equity financing for Worktopia, Inc. Founded by seasoned experts in the hotel and conference facilities industry, Worktopia (www.worktopia.com) is the first direct online booking engine for meeting space in hotels, airport lounges and other venues, providing a fully automated solution to the $24B market for small corporate meetings. Joining High Peaks in the syndicate are New York-based DFJ Gotham Ventures and Milestone Venture Partners, also of NYC. Worktopia will deploy the additional capital to drive expansion of its network of hotel partners, to build on its foundation of corporate travel distribution relationships and to extend its leadership position. Worktopia is the first service to allow meeting planners to search, compare and book meeting space, equipment and simple catering online in real-time, a massive market that has until now been conducted via fax and telephone.

A service primarily designed for booking meetings of under 100 attendees, Worktopia is bringing the $24B small-meetings segment of the $165B US meetings and event industry online. Widely recognized as one of the last important “white spaces” in the internet-enabling of the travel marketing industry, the small meetings category remains one of the largest unmanaged spend categories for businesses. Worktopia has been called the “holy grail” of small meetings procurement for its ability to let companies book meeting space, AV, catering and group room-nights online for the first time. Worktopia offers meeting space in full service and limited service hotels, conference centers, business centers and even airline club lounges, allowing corporate meeting planners, agents and administrative assistants to instantly find meeting space to meet any budget or space requirement in over 1,800 US properties.

“Worktopia has established itself as the clear leader in addressing this large and un-served market,” said Jed Katz, Managing Director of DFJ Gotham Ventures. “80% of all corporate off-site meetings are for under 100 attendees, yet the process of researching rate and availability information and comparing alternatives has been a time consuming, archaic process until now. Companies of all sizes are now using Worktopia to achieve shorter planning lead times, cost savings and more visibility on spend. Meanwhile, Worktopia supply partners get to expose their meeting room inventory to the global distribution system for the first time. Worktopia has a seasoned management team with deep domain experience, and has developed a proven technology platform and the ideal corporate travel distribution partners such as Sabre and Travelport-Worldspan, to offer a fully automated process for booking meetings.”

“Worktopia is an ideal example of the sorts of business High Peaks is excited to support,” added Brad Svrluga, Managing Director at High Peaks Venture Partners. “This is an experienced team who has been successful in this market before, they are satisfying a real need in a large, underserved market, and they have a unique set of partnerships already developed which will drive their success. We have been working with John and his team for over a year and have been consistently impressed by their strategic thinking and execution skills. I am confident that Worktopia will grow into a truly important business in the months and years ahead.”

About Worktopia
Worktopia is the first and only global distribution system for meeting space in hotels, conference centers, airport lounges and other venues. Meeting planners can search Worktopia’s database using their specific meeting facility criteria, compare live pricing proposals, check availability and even book the meeting space, A/V and catering. Worktopia’s search and instant booking capability is available to agents and corporate meeting planners as a feature on most major corporate travel procurement services, as well as through its own website at www.Worktopia.com and through private label versions for United Air Lines Red Carpet Clubs, Affinia Hotels Group and others. The service also enables booking of group room-nights for a seamless, single on-line session for procuring meetings.

About DFJ Gotham Ventures
DFJ Gotham Ventures (www.dfjgotham.com) is a venture capital firm focused on technology companies primarily in the Greater New York Region and other parts of the Eastern Seaboard. The firm is part of the global Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) network. DFJ has a 20 year track record of investing in technology companies. Since its first investment in 2000, DFJ Gotham has backed over 25 companies spanning a wide array of technology sectors. DFJ Gotham partners with extraordinary teams of entrepreneurs to build strong and successful businesses that make a huge impact in their industries. The firm takes pride in being an active partner, leveraging its experience, knowledge and relationships to provide substantial value to its portfolio companies. DFJ Gotham is proud to have backed such category leaders as Massive (acquired by MSFT), XOsoft (acquired by CA), Q-Link (acquired by Adobe), Mimeo.com and ContextWeb.

About High Peaks Venture Partners
High Peaks Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focused on investments in market leading, early stage technology companies. High Peaks closed its inaugural fund in 2004 and is actively investing in New York City and throughout Upstate New York, focusing primarily on companies in the digital media, internet-enabled business services, telecomm, advanced materials, and medical technology markets. High Peaks is one of 15 affiliates of Village Ventures, a nationwide network of regionally focused, early-stage venture capital funds.

About Milestone Venture Partners
Located in New York City, Milestone Venture Partners (http:www.milestonevp.com) is venture capital fund with a focus on capital efficient, technology-enhanced service businesses in the Greater New York region. Areas of expertise include media, marketing services, healthcare IT, financial services IT.

Allworx Acquired by PAETEC Corp. (NASDAQ: PAET)

Devon — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:31:27 +0000

October 12, 2007

High Peaks Venture Partners is pleased to announce that Allworx, a VoIP phone system provider, has been acquired by fellow Rochester based telecommunications company PAETEC Holdings Corp.

For more information see the full press release.

Pump Audio Acquired by Getty Images (NYSE: GYI)

Devon — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:51:15 +0000

High Peaks Venture Partners is pleased to announce that Tivoli, NY based Pump Audio, a High Peaks portfolio company funded in early 2006, has been acquired by Getty Images (NYSE: GYI).

Since its founding in 2001, Pump Audio has quickly risen to become the foremost provider of independent music to television, film and advertising producers. The company’s unique business model provides emerging artists with a unique opportunity to earn money from their music by tapping into Pump’s broad array of distribution channels. Addressing a critical and growing need for easy to find, high quality, and affordable soundtrack music for all types of video production, the company is a leading supplier of soundtrack music to sought-after clients such as MTV Networks, HBO, New Line Cinema and Saatchi & Saatchi. Music from Pump Audio can be heard in episodes of dozens of top TV shows, countless commercials, as well as movies and other video content.

Since our investment in April of last year the company has effectively expanded its business to take advantage of the rapidly growing need for soundtrack music to serve the explosion of online video content. This expansion has been an exciting source of growth for the company, resulting in deals with leading user-generated content sites such as PhotoBucket, Slide, and RockYou, amongst others. Through these relationships, the number of pieces of user-generated content created incorporating Pump Audio music is now in the tens of thousands each day and continuing to rapidly grow. As the leading licensor of independent music across this variety of channels, Pump Audio has collected and paid out millions of dollars to the independent artists it represents.

For more information see the Wall Street Journal article, the Business Review article or the full press release.