101 CORRIDOR STILL ATTRACTING VENTURE CAPITAL FOCUS SHIFTS FROM INTERNET.Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer Venture capitalists are rechanneling money from dot-coms to communications infrastructure companies - the backbone of the 101 Corridor - according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a survey released Monday. Investors pumped $688.6 million into fledgling companies in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , Ventura and Santa Barbara Santa Barbara (săn'tə bär`brə, –bərə), city (1990 pop. 85,571), seat of Santa Barbara co., S Calif., on the Pacific Ocean; inc. 1850. counties in the second quarter of 2000, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Money Tree survey of venture capital. Of that, San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. area companies were the recipients of $160 million. PriceWaterhouseCoopers officials said the latest numbers show that investors would prefer to cultivate companies to which they've already given seed money, and are singling out the communications hardware companies along the 101 Corridor as the kind they're interested in. ``Most of the money is going to infrastructure,'' said Richard Withey, managing partner of technology and entertainment practice for PWC's Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, operation. ``It continues to show very healthy growth in the market.'' On the national level, the accounting firm hailed record-breaking venture capital expenditures as striking evidence that speculation has not been quelled by stock market dips. Venture capitalists spent $19.6 billion in the second quarter on a variety of Next Big Things, ranging from new media companies to retailers. Jack Kyser, chief economist The Chief Economist is a single position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of responsibility encompassing the of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., said the end of last year also marked the end of a dot-com ``honeymoon'' after which investors lost interest in financing e-tailers' sometimes shaky pursuits. He pointed to the corridor as home to one of the county's leading sectors. ``They're coming up with some very solid businesses up there,'' Kyser said. ``Even though the dot-coms have gone on to their big reward in sky, there is still a lot of activity in L.A. County and it will continue to be a hotbed hotbed, low, glass-covered frame structure for starting tender plants. It differs from a cold frame only in that the soil is heated—either artificially as by underground electric wiring or steampipes, or naturally with partially fermented stable manure, which .'' The Los Angeles area, into which PriceWaterhouseCoopers lumps Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, did not break its own quarterly record set in the fourth quarter of 1999, when 53 deals generated $895 million. The results from the most recent quarter, however, showed a slight gain over the beginning of the year. Venture capitalists inked 43 deals with young and expanding companies. Locally, a $41 million investment in Westlake Village computer networking
Computer networking is the engineering discipline concerned with communication between computer systems or devices. services company Troika Networks and a $34.5 million investment in Camarillo-based grocery delivery service PDQuick were among the biggest. Among local venture capitalists, Pasadena-based Idealab Capital Partners led the spending with $29 million in investments made in seven companies. Dan McGregor, senior vice president of Silicon Valley Bank, considers wireless and optical communications Optical communications The transmission of speech, data, video, and other information by means of the visible and the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. companies the hot tickets. Not in that category are companies with mere ``cool'' ideas, he said. Venture capitalists ``are really going back to the basics,'' said McGregor. ``They're doing much more due diligence Research; analysis; your homework. This term has caught on in all industries, because it sounds so "wired." Who would want to do analysis or research when they can do due diligence. See wired. when it comes to the industry. They're also looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a clear path to revenue.'' PDQuick Chief Executive Officer Dan Frederickson agreed that venture capitalists are more level-headed than they were last year but added that the Internet-based business-to-consumer sector isn't dead yet. ``The Internet and the impact of the Internet on our biz community, I don't think we've seen anything yet,'' said Frederickson, whose company gets 15 percent of its grocery orders online. LOADED Area businesses that received venture capital in the second quarter: eIndia.com (Woodland Hills new media company) $25 million HealthAllies.com (Glendale health care services company) $32 million Line6 Inc. (Thousand Oaks retailer/distributor) $10 million Nomadix (Westlake Village software maker) $17 million PDQuick (Camarillo-based grocery delivery service) $34.5 million Performance Materials Corp. (Camarillo industrial manufacturer) $650,000 Troika Networks Inc. (Westlake Village software maker) $41 million CAPTION(S): box Box: LOADED (See text) |
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