Week 12/13/2004 through 12/19/2004

Prepared by: Dante Fichera, CPA Our staff at Capital Hunter would like to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May the New Year bring you good fortune and great health. This newsletter will be the last newsletter until January 10th as we are scrubbing our database for the year end.

What’s Hot this reporting period are venture backed companies based in California operating in the Biotechnology industry and that have raised their Later round of financing. Company executives might want to take a look at FASB 123R (stock compensation) which was released Thursday.

This past week, CapitalHunter.com identified the following IPO’s which reached levels not seen in four years:

1. Abington Community Bancorp.
2. Warren Resources
3. Advance America, Cash Advance Centers
4. Arbinet theexchange
5. Feldman Mall Properties
6. Herbalife
7. Interline Brands
8. KMG America
9. Macquarie Infrastructure
10. Otelco Telecommunications
11. Spirit Finance
12. Great Wolf Resorts
13. Las Vegas Sands
14. CABG Medical
15. THE9
16. BlueLinx Holdings
17. Comstock Homebuilding Companies
18. Conor Medsystems
19. Knoll
20. Orange 21

CapitalHunter.com was able to verify that $277 million of venture capital was invested in 22 U.S.-based companies during this week’s reporting period. The average deal size was approximately $12.59 million. The amount of venture capital invested this period decreased by 14% from last week’s $323 million.

Geographically,9 California companies raised $114.5 million in venture financings. The largest private venture financing in California this period was into MaXXan Systems who raised $29 million. MaXXan Systems is a San Jose based company that is a developer of SAN storage area networking infrastructure switching solution technologies for the enterprise storage industry, specifically designed for companies with large-scale networks.

The biotechnology sector raised 24% of the venture capital this period. Four biotechnology companies raised $65.5 million in venture financing. The largest private venture financing in the biotechnology sector this period was into QuatRx Pharmaceuticals who raised $31 million. QuatRx Pharmaceuticals is a Ann Arbor, MI based company that is a developer of drugs that target nuclear receptors, receivers for key hormones that govern metabolic and developmental processes in the body.

Companies raising their later round of financing led this week’s venture capital activity. Later financings represented 29% of the total venture capital deployed this period. The largest later stage financing was into MaXXan Systems.

The three largest venture deals this period are as follows:

The following fifteen and other unnamed investors funded the above mentioned top three venture capital investments for $85 Million:

A total of 78 worldwide equity financings of private and public companies occurred during this reporting period. Each of the 78 equity financings are profiled in a weekly report which include venture financings, private placements, secondary offerings, PIPE’s, and IPO’s.

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