Thursday, February 26, 2009

Bessemer boosts seventh fund with $350M annex

By Mass High Tech Staff

Video Gallery

MHT's Galen Moore: Military snipers aid accuracy with iPhone

MHT Sales Roundtable: Web 2.0, Meet Sales 101

Related News

Google confirms bi-coastal Google Ventures, led by Maris and Miner [March 31, 2009]

Report: Google tapping Miner for new venture arm [March 23, 2009]

Bessemer, Spark flirt with $5M funding in OMGPOP [March 12, 2009]

Bessemer joins in iPhone app maker’s $3.9M round [February 13, 2009]

Streambase event software secures $6M [January 12, 2009]

Bessemer Venture Partners reports the firm has raised a $350 million annex fund for its seventh fund, a $1 billion fund that closed in June 2007.

According to officials at Bessemer, which has an office in Wellesley, the firm will target the new fund at “innovative, high-growth companies around the world.”

Bessemer counts among its exits over the last several years the sale of Postini to Google Inc., Gracenote to Sony Corp., Pure Networks to Cisco Systems Inc., and IPOs of Bladelogic Inc. and Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc., among others.

Earlier this month Bessemer joined a $3.9 million Series B round led by Granite Ventures in SonicMule Inc., a California-based developer of interactive sonic applications for Apple Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone device. Bessemer was joined by fellow return investors Maples Investments and SonicMule CEO and co-founder Jeffrey Smith.

SonicMule’s core offering is a mobile audio platform supporting iPhone application developers. SonicMule’s Sonic Lighter application creates an interactive video of a lighter flame on the iPhone’s screen. The virtual flame can be spread to other iPhones and appears designed to simulate rock-concert lighter waving.