Mission Bay Capital, a newly-formed venture capital firm focused on bioscience companies emerging from the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences and the University of California, has formed its first venture fund. The USD7.5m Mission Bay Capital Fund will be invested in breakthrough companies whose founders or technologies are associated with the University of California system. "Mission Bay Capital represents a novel marriage of our ability to find the most promising technologies within the University of California combined with the remarkable investment skills of some of the world’s leading venture capitalists. Together we will fund promising, early-stage companies that might otherwise

A syndicate led by Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based venture capital firm, has completed a USD12m series A investment in DNP Green Technology, a developer of technologies for molecules to the chemical industry. In addition to Sofinnova, which participated with USD8m in this round, investors include Mitsui Venture Partners, Samsung Ventures Investment, the Cliffton Group and AquaRimco. All participants in the round are new investors except for AquaRimco. Both Sofinnova and Mitsui will now be represented on the board of DNP Green Technology. Part of the proceeds from the investment will be used by DNP Green Technology to commercialise the production

Rock Hill Capital Group’s portfolio company Integrated A/V Systems has completed the acquisition of a majority interest in Creative Presentations, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. Integrated A/V is a full service integration and reseller of audio and video equipment including interactive whiteboards, projectors, LCD and plasma displays, audio systems, and document cameras. The company serves customers in the corporate, government and educational institutions. With the acquisition of Creative Presentations, Integrated A/V will have offices in Texas: Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Tyler and Louisiana: Lafayette and New Orleans. Creative Presentations was founded by Barry and Susan Edwards and is

Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group has agreed to acquire 100 per cent of the outstanding shares of Broadleaf, one of the largest auto after-market software providers to the repair and inspection industry in Japan. Broadleaf is currently owned by Olympus and ITX. The transaction is scheduled to close on 13 November 2009. Further financial details were not disclosed.   Since its establishment in 2005, Broadleaf has expanded its business as a subsidiary of the publicly listed ITX. After reaching agreement with current shareholders, Broadleaf has decided to become independent through a management buyout. By leveraging Carlyle’s global network,

Syngenta Ventures has made an equity investment in Metabolon, a privately-held US biotechnology company focused on the use of metabolomics in research and diagnostics. This is the first direct investment by Syngenta Ventures, Syngenta’s newly-established corporate venture capital subsidiary. "The creation of Syngenta Ventures will complement our in-house R&D work and enables us to be even more involved in promising technologies and innovative products with external partners," says Robert Berendes, head of business development at Syngenta. "We need access to the best available new technologies in order to achieve the increase in agricultural output which will be vital over the

Varicent Software, a provider of sales performance management and incentive compensation management solutions, has raised USD35mn in additional funding led by San Francisco and New York-based FTV Capital.   RBC Venture Partners and EdgeStone Capital Partners, current investors in Varicent, also participated in the new round of funding. The deal was the second largest privately-funded information technology funding announced in Q3 2009, behind only Facebook. According to Ventana Research, the SPM market is growing at 45 per cent annually and in the US alone is predicted to exceed more than USD8bn in 2010. "Varicent has developed a strong solution, assembled

Washington State’s venture capital community shows a slightly more optimistic outlook for the coming quarter, according to the results of the Q4 2009 Venture Capital Outlook Survey from the Washington Technology Industry Association. In what may be a reflection of the beginnings of a broader economic recovery, for the third consecutive quarter predictions are more positive than the previous quarter. Overall, the main concerns for VCs in the coming quarter include overall market growth, national business conditions, and attracting and retaining senior leadership for their portfolio companies. "It’s encouraging to see the venture community predict a slowdown in company layoffs,

Octopus Investments has made a GBP2m investment from the GBP30m Octopus Capital for Enterprise Fund into Monkey Bizness, a UK operator of family entertainment centres. The Octopus investment will be used to strengthen the business’ balance sheet and to finance additional new sites across the UK.  Monkey Bizness currently operates family entertainment centres in six locations – Lewes, Gosport, Poole, Sheffield, Stevenage and Hull – and the company aims to double the current portfolio size over the next three years. Alistair Brew, director, Octopus Ventures, says: “We have been impressed with what management has achieved to date and believe that