Tech Dealmaker Awards

Rizika

“If you watch a video on the Internet, somewhere, some equipment stores it. It normally takes 10 racks (of servers) to serve 100,000 videos. We do that with one rack,” says Blackwave Inc. CEO Bob Rizika. Only 30 months ago, that technology was just a concept, but media companies, movie studios and content delivery networks (CDNs) wanted it ASAP.

In December 2007, Acton-based Blackwave announced $16 million in Series B financing, earmarked for expanding Blackwave’s engineering, marketing and sales teams. The funding was led by Sigma Partners, and included Series A investors Globespan Capital Partners and IDG Ventures Boston (now Flybridge Capital Partners).

Blackwave used the financing to build what it believes to be a first-rate management team, including MIT professor Muriel Medard as chief scientist; and Dave Feldman, a veteran of Isilon Systems, VERITAS and Sun Microsystems Inc., as vice president of sales.

Rizika believed an aggressive development cycle required aggressive funding. Advisers said he needed only $10 or $12 million, but he sought an additional $5 million line of credit from Lighthouse Capital Partners. “So we had a war chest of $21 million, and look what happened with the economy. We had the ability to weather that and come out OK.”

Blackwave developed its system in two-and-a-half years, which Rizika believes would take any competitor four years at least. The system “dramatically lowers the cost to store and stream,” says Rizika.

— Dann Anthony Maurno

Category

Financial Investment

The Deal

Blackwave Inc. received $16 million in Series B financing led by Sigma Partners and joined by Series A financing investors Globespan Capital Partners and IDG Ventures Boston (now FlyBridge Capital Partners) on Dec. 3, 2007

Key Executives

CEO Bob Rizika; product manager Brett Cooper; head of marketing Drew Hayden

Deal advisers

CEO Steve Weinstein of Motion Picture Laboratories Inc. (MovieLabs)

Investors

Globespan Capital Partners, Sigma Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners

• Platinum Sponsor:
• Gold Sponsors: Capital Source
  Silicon Valley Bank
  TM Capital
  Vitale, Caturano & Co.
• Silver Sponsors: Capital IQ
  Citizens Bank
• Supporting Sponsors: Mass High Tech
  Preston Productions
  Trinity Communications

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