Bellamax Closes $6.3 Million in Series B Financing; BA Venture Partners Leads Investment with Apex Venture Partners and Adobe Ventures.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 5, 2003 Bellamax, Inc., the leading digital photo enhancement service, today announced that it has closed $6.3 million in Series B financing from lead investors BA Venture Partners and Apex Venture Partners, along with Adobe Ventures. Bellamax will use the new funds to accelerate partnership development in order to further address the needs of the rapidly growing digital photo market that produces billions of photos annually. Bellamax's service dramatically enhances the quality of digital photos at a low cost without requiring consumers to learn and use special photo-editing software. Bellamax currently delivers its service through key partnerships with companies including Sony, through its online photofinishing pho·to·fin·ish·ing n. The act or business of developing camera films and printing photographs for customers. pho site ImageStation; Epson America; Adobe Systems Adobe Systems Incorporated (pronounced a-DOE-bee IPA: /əˈdoʊbiː/) (NASDAQ: ADBE) (LSE: ABS) is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. ; and PhotoAccess. Through these relationships, Bellamax is able to address the digital photo enhancement needs of consumers while providing its partners with an essential value-added service A value-added service (VAS) is a telecommunications industry term for non-core services or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. to grow their businesses and satisfy their customers. "We attracted a first-class group of investors because we offer a much-needed and convenient service to the massive photography market," said Steve MacDonald Steve Macdonald is a filk musician (singer/songwriter) from Michigan, who also appears at Renaissance Faires as "Gallamor the Bard". He served for several years as the Pegasus Award Evangelista, and was responsible for many changes in the award process that led to much greater , CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Bellamax. "Investor interest and participation, especially that of Adobe, the industry leader in photo-editing software, is strong validation of our technology and further recognition of the market demand for the Bellamax service." "As digital camera purchasers move from early adopters to mainstream users, the sophistication so·phis·ti·cate v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates v.tr. 1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2. level of users decreases, thereby increasing the opportunity for services like Bellamax's," said Sharon Wienbar, Director of BA Venture Partners. "Internet services like Bellamax's that conveniently enhance consumer digital photos for a low price will serve this growing market." "By 2005, more than 80 billion digital photos will be taken every year," said Fred Mitchell Fred Mitchell may refer to
"The transition of photography from film to digital has caused a change in consumer behavior. Consumers now place more emphasis on their special photos since they are able to preview them on the camera or computer prior to printing," said Ron Gentile, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Bellamax. "By enhancing their photos using our service prior to printing, consumers know they're getting the absolute most out of their favorite photos." Sharon Wienbar of BA Venture Partners and Lon Chow of Apex Venture Partners have joined the board of directors of Bellamax. About Bellamax, Inc. Bellamax, Inc. provides a digital photo enhancement service to the rapidly-growing digital photo market. Using patent-pending, proprietary enhancement processes and technologies, Bellamax provides high-quality, low-cost, convenient digital photo enhancement to the mainstream. The privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. is located in Mountain View, CA. For more information about Bellamax, visit http://www.bellamax.com. About BA Venture Partners BA Venture Partners, a venture capital partnership, leads start-up to expansion stage investments in networking, semiconductor, software, and biotechnology companies Top 100 Biotechnology Companies The following is a list of the top 100 biotechnology companies ranked by revenue. The first nine companies qualify for the list of the top 50 pharmaceutical companies. . BA Venture Partners closed BA Venture Partner VI, a $500 million fund, in 2000. BA Venture Partners' sole limited partner is Bank of America
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 ) is the largest commercial bank in the United States in terms of deposits, and the largest company of its kind in the world. . Information on BA Venture Partners is available at http://www.baventurepartners.com. About Apex Venture Partners Apex Venture Partners, established in 1987, has more than $450 million under management with five funds. The firm has invested in over 100 technology companies. Apex focuses on early stage technology investments in software, enterprise/network infrastructure, and telecommunications Communicating information, including data, text, pictures, voice and video over long distance. See communications. . Further information on Apex is available at http://www.apexvc.com. About Adobe Ventures Since 1994, Adobe Ventures has invested in innovative companies that bring products and services to the market that are strategic to Adobe's own business. With more than $275 million invested to date, Adobe Ventures is a limited partnership undertaken with Granite Ventures Granite Ventures is a private venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco California. It has backed such companies as Tumbleweed Communications, Plumtree Software, Sendmail, and Westbridge Technology. . For more information on Adobe Ventures, please visit http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/adobeventures/main.html. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion