From westchestercbj.com

Venture capitalists invested $4.6 billion in 674 companies in the first quarter of 2005, according to the MoneyTree Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. First-time fundings inched up near a two-year high of $1.2 billion in 197 companies on the strength of relatively more mature companies receiving their first round of venture capital. And, life sciences investing abated for the first time in two years. Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, said: "Venture investment was indeed down this quarter, but it still fell within the $4 billion to $6 billion range that we consider to be at a rational, investable, performance-driven equilibrium."

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May 20 2005 , from HedgeCo.net News | Read Full Story

Barclays Global Investors, {BGI} has announced it is launching a new $1.84 billion hedge fund firm.According to BGI, hedge funds can also exploit the general drop in confidence by betting on a drop in debt prices through a shorting strategy.

Veteran credit-card processing executive and chairman and CEO of payment processing company iPayment Inc. Gregory S. Daily is offering to buy iPayment for close to $640 million in cash, or $38 per share, iPayment said today.

IPayment, based in Nashville, TN, provides credit and debit card processing services, including Internet transactions, to more than 130,000 small merchants, up from about 92,000 a year ago. For the first quarter ended March 31, it reported revenues of $163.4 million, up 49% from about $80 million in the year-earlier period.

Daily, who joined iPayment as chairman and CEO in February 2001, has juggled investment management and payment processing executive positions for several years. In 1984, he co-founded and served as president of credit card processing company PMT Services Inc. Following PMT’s sale to payment processing company Nova Corp. in September 1998, Daily served as Nova’s vice chairman until May 2001.

Since 1997, he has also served in senior executive positions of investment firms Hardsworth LLC and Caymas LLC.

Source:http://www.internetretailer.com/

The results for the first quarter of the European Venture Capital Report 2005 produced by Ernst & Young and Venture One, indicate that Ireland experienced a 35% increase in venture capital investment, from the €31.23 million in Q1 2004, to €42.11 million in Q1 2005. The €42.11 million invested in the first quarter of 2005 is also an increase of 97% from the last quarter of 2004, when the amount invested was €21.37 million. Information technology deals continue to dominate the Irish venture capital landscape, with seven of the eight deals completed and 85% of the total funds invested in this sector. The largest investment in Ireland was in Corvil Networks, a provider of a technology for measuring and controlling the bandwidth requirements of IP traffic flows. The company raised €15 million in a later stage round.Ireland had a total of eight deals this quarter, down from ten deals in Q4 2004 and Q1 2004. As throughout 2004, Ireland retains its 7th place in the first quarter of 2005 for number of deals. In terms of amounts raised, Ireland has slipped down to 8th place, mainly due to increased venture capital activity in Denmark . In Europe , venture capital investment increased by 19% to €880.3 million. Whilst the European investment figures are up on this period last year the deal flow in  Europe has dropped to less than 200 deals, a 27%, decline Garry O’Rourke, Senior Manager, Ernst & Young Corporate Services Department. By industry, the amount invested into European information technology (IT) companies climbed upward, reaching a total of €407.3 million, an increase of 16% over this quarter a year ago. Gil Forer, global venture capital advisory group leader for Ernst & Young said: “While not reflected in the Irish figures for this quarter, the capital invested in the information-services segment nearly doubled from the first quarter of 2004 to reach €40 million. The majority of information-services companies are Internet-related, so the investment trend in this segment could indicate we are entering Internet 2.0 – with a resurgence of interest in online businesses.”The 2004 trend of increased investment activity in seed and first-round deals declined this quarter. These deals represented one-third of the investments made in Q1 2004 and continued to grow throughout last year, but only represented 29% of the deal flow this quarter. They also accounted for only 20% of the capital invested, compared to 25% this quarter a year ago. In Ireland , this translates to a decline from €11.88 million to €6.55 million.

For more: http://www.accountingnet.ie/content/publish/article_1011.shtml

LOS ANGELES-Crestridge Investments, LLC, as part of its program to provide venture capital to real estate operators and strategic enterprises, is actively pursuing investment opportunities with developers and businesses in Latino communities."Latino communities are ripe for venture investment and development as many have been overlooked by larger companies and real estate developers," observes Christopher Grey, managing director of Crestridge. "We are interested in providing capital to emerging real estate developers active in Latino markets as well as strategic businesses for this community such as grocery stores, restaurants and retailers." Earlier this year Crestridge launched its strategic venture capital program for real estate operators and related businesses. Its first investment was in American MoldGuard, a national leader in antimicrobial technology and mold prevention."Our investment decisions are based on an analysis of the company’s management, its track record, business model and market potential," added Grey. "We believe that there is tremendous market potential in Latino communities." Crestridge Investments is an affiliate of international real estate investment and development firm Highridge Partners. Crestridge Investments, LLC is a privately held investment company that provides strategic capital for real estate projects and operating companies. Crestridge and its affiliates have invested in more than $1 billion of real estate and operating companies during the past decade. Highridge Partners acquired, developed or financed a real estate portfolio valued at more than $6 billion over two decades.

NewsGator on Tuesday acquired RSS reader FeedDemon from Bradbury Software, finally freeing its multi-device synch system from Outlook, writes Internet News. NewsGator’s software platform - which lets users read content in RSS format in Outlook, on the web and on mobile phones - will be combined with FeedDemon, a desktop RSS reader for Windows machines. "Up to now, NewsGator has been all about reading the content you want on whatever device you happen to be using," said NewsGator CEO Greg Reinacker. "People wanted to have a desktop reader, but for whatever reason didn’t want to use Outlook. FeedDemon had good technology, a great GUI, and a great customer base."