Subject: Venture News, Tuesday, November 14, 2000
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Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 05:13:00 -0800 (PST)

Kiodex Appoints Two New Members to Senior Management
  11/14/2000 

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--November 14, 2000-- Kiodex Inc., a provider of 
technology-based trading and risk-management solutions for the commodities 
markets, recently added two new members to its senior management team: Raj 
Vaswani, Vice President and General Counsel and Thomas Farley, Chief 
Financial Officer. Mr. Vaswani will develop and manage the company's legal 
and regulatory strategies. Mr. Farley will manage the company's finance and 
accounting functions. 

"Having worked with countless high-flying technology companies, Kiodex 
impresses me as being the cream of the crop," said Vaswani. " Kiodex is 
without peer in its vision to deliver risk management and trading services to 
the marketplace."

Raj Vaswani comes to Kiodex from Morrison & Foerster LLP in New York, one of 
the leading new-media law firms, where he was an attorney in the Technology 
Transactions Group and specialized in corporate and intellectual property 
transactions for high-technology companies, including public equity 
offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and software-development transactions. 
Recently profiled in the New York Law Journal, Mr. Vaswani is a well-regarded 
attorney in the field of new media and has authored numerous articles 
regarding the legal aspects of emerging high-technology businesses. 

Thomas Farley joins Kiodex from Gryphon Investors, an investment firm 
specializing in leveraged acquisitions of and growth equity investments in 
high-growth, middle-market companies. Mr. Farley found and evaluated 
acquisition candidates, executed transactions, monitored investment 
portfolios, and directly supplemented the management of several portfolio 
companies. Previously, Mr. Farley worked for Montgomery Securities (now Banc 
of America Securities) where he was a corporate finance investment banker 
advising high-growth middle- and large-market companies. 

" Kiodex compares favorably to the many early-stage technology companies that 
I worked with previously," noted Farley. "The company's position as a 
nuts-and-bolts technology provider with a proprietary solution and a superb 
management team made my decision to join the company an easy one." 
"We are thrilled at these two new additions to our management team at Kiodex 
. Their decision to join us marks our transition to a new stage of growth," 
stated R. Martin Chavez, CEO. "The high-tech expertise Mr. Vaswani gained 
while at Morrison & Foerster makes him the ideal leader of our legal and 
regulatory strategies; moreover, Raj has been with us as outside counsel 
since the inception of Kiodex . Tom, with his hands-on experience at 
Gryphon's portfolio companies, will plan our path to profitability and embed 
planning, budgeting, and forecasting into our DNA at Kiodex ." 
_____________________________________________________________________
  
Web-based CHEMCONNECT corrals top U.S. petrochemical broker

11/13/2000 
Oxy-Fuel News 
(c) 2000 Phillips Business Information, Inc. 

The world's largest Internet-based exchange for petrochemicals and industrial 
gases, ChemConnect Inc., snapped up leading traditional U.S. brokerage firm, 
Universal Chemical Brokerage Ltd. (UCB) last week. At the same time, 
ChemConnect announced the launch of its World Chemical Exchange commodities 
trading floor.

Plans are to integrate New York-based UCB?a dominant player in U.S. spot 
market petrochemical brokering that places traditional broker trades by 
phone?with ChemConnect's Internet trading service. The move will enable UCB 
to help clients online or offline on the new Commodities Floor of the World 
Chemical Exchange, allowing them to post their own buy or sell offers either 
electronically or offline through brokers.

The new Commodities Floor will allow pre-qualified members to buy, sell and 
exchange standard high volume commodity products over the Internet in real 
time through trading hubs in Antwerp-Rotterdam, Singapore and Houston. 
Established trading pits include methanol and MTBE as well as several other 
petrochemicals.

The Commodities Floor offers more than $1 billion/yr in notional sales value, 
while the addition of UCB immediately gives the floor added trading liquidity 
for petrochemicals, said the company. "ChemConnect intends to further expand 
its capacity, reach and services to include the development of financial 
derivatives market."

_________________________________________________________

ORION POWER HOLDINGS, INC. (ORN) Prices 27.50 Million Shares at $20.00

http://www.ipo.com/ipoinfo/profile.asp?p=IPO&c=0001120236

Orion Power Holdings Inc. is an electric power generating
company operating in the United States.

Lead Managed By: Goldman, Sachs & Co.

________________________________________________________________

o Energy Site SmartEnergy Secures $15 Million in Series A

BOSTON -- SmartEnergy, which sells and markets electricity
and natural gas, and operates a Web-based customer
services for its energy customers, said it has secured
$15 million in its Series A round of funding. The
funding was provided by Alliant Energy, WPS Resource
Corporation, Avian Securities, Dexia Ventures, KBC
bank, Trust Capital, Proseed Capital Holdings, Technoledge
Ventures, and individual investors. An unnamed asset
bank based in Belgium also participated in the round.
The company said it will use the funds for working
capital.
http://www.smartenergy.com/
_____________________________________________

GERMANY: IDS wins Internet marketplace transport deal.

11/14/2000 
Reuters English News Service 
(C) Reuters Limited 2000. 

FRANKFURT, Nov 14 (Reuters) - German transport group IDS Logistik said it has 
been chosen as exclusive general cargo transport partner for the new plastics 
industry Internet marketplace "portax.com".

Portax.com began trading in raw materials, semi-finished products, machinery 
and services for the plastics industry in September this year, IDS said in a 
statement.

Since the start of November, online buyers can order transport services from 
IDS after completing their acquisition, it added. IDS, a co-operation 
grouping of medium-sized German freight forwarders, offers Germany-wide road 
transport of general cargo shipments within 24 hours as well as European 
distribution through a network of partners.

________________________________________________________

Online chemicals

10/23/2000 
Chemical Business NewsBase: European Chemical News 

An additional 14 chemical companies have formerly signed investment 
agreements with Elemica, the online chemicals marketplace launched by eight 
leading chemical companies in May 2000.

The signees are: Celanese, ChemCentral, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, 
DegussaHuls, DSM, Millennium Chemicals, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Rhodia, Solvay, 
Stinnes, Sumitomo, and Vopak.
______________________________________________________

NetworkOil's SurplusExchange sets fast pace 

HOUSTON, Nov. 13 (LocalBusiness.com) -- NetworkOil Inc. today announced its 
Surplus Exchange has sold $20 million worth of oilfield equipment since it 
was launched three months ago, which an analyst from the Yankee Group calls a 
"pretty good" volume for the energy exchange arena. 

"NetworkOil is a pretty big player in its niche market," Randall Nottingham, 
senior analyst of the Yankee Group's energy and Internet strategies practice, 
told LocalBusiness.com during a telephone interview from his Boston office 
today. The Yankee Group is a technology research and consulting service. 

He estimated a market "in the hundreds of millions of dollars" annually for 
the auctioning of used or surplus industrial equipment, adding that he had no 
figures available on the size of the market specifically for the oil and gas 
industry. 

The NetworkOil Surplus Exchange uses the Internet to enhance market liquidity 
for the sellers of surplus equipment in the oil and natural gas industry. It 
also exposes the equipment to potential buyers globally, giving them better 
knowledge of what is available on the market, Nottingham said. 

"Sellers are reaching more buyers through the SurplusExchange and maximizing 
the realized value of their assets," Stuart Page, NetworkOil CEO said in a 
news release. "NetworkOil is addressing business needs, and the oil and gas 
industry is responding." 

Nottingham said NetworkOil uses both the Internet auction and the traditional 
auction in its business model. "It's not the E-Bay model of showing a picture 
and expecting people to bid on it." He praised Network Oil's acquisition in 
August of the San Antonio-based Premier Auctioneers International. 

Since then, NetworkOil and Premier Auctioneers have conducted eight live 
call-out auctions and four Internet auctions. The SurplusExchange currently 
lists more than $50 million of oilfield equipment. 

Twenty sales professions work directly with sellers to take an inventory of 
the equipment and conduct appraisals, and they also conduct equipment 
searchers for buyers. 

"Selling equipment through NetworkOil Surplus Exchange exceeded our 
expectations," said David Sims, materials manager of Kerr-McGee Corp. in 
Dallas. "NetworkOil gave us exposure to a whole new set of buyers who had an 
aggressive interest in our pumping units." 

NetworkOil is an independent e-commerce marketplace for new and used 
petroleum equipment. Thirty-two oil and gas companies and four major venture 
capital firms have invested in the company. 

____________________________________________________-

Two local firms in marketing pact
Nov 14, 2000 02:06 PM ET 

HOUSTON, Nov. 14 (LocalBusiness.com) -- Two local online sites focusing on 
the energy industry today said they have signed a joint marketing to enlarge 
their offerings and expand audiences. 

The Oil & Gas Journal Exchange's Global Equipment Exchange, a trading 
exchange for new and used equipment, said it will work with FlashFind Corp., 
which offers technical operational, repair and safety information at its 
site. 

"In many cases manuals and other product documentation are lost during the 
life of the equipment," said Dehorah Peppers, chairman of FlashFind. 

Peppers said Oil & Gas Journal Exchange customers will be able to buy 
equipment and "be sure that they will have access to all the documentation 
needed to operate and maintain it." 

Founded in 1997, FlashFind also provides links to a number of ecommerce and 
procurement systems and research services. 

For Oil & Gas Exchange, the agreement simply increases the amount of content 
available to customers shopping for equipment. 

Global Equipment Exchange, formerly Global Logistics Partners, was acquired 
by San Mateo, Calif.-based pennNET in March. The company has been trading new 
and surplus oilfield and electric power equipment since 1991. PennNET was 
created to electronically leverage the resources of Tulsa, Okla.-based 
PennWell Corp.
___________________________________________________

B2eMarkets, EqualFooting.com Enter Alliance 
11/13/2000 

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, U.S.A., 2000 NOV 13 (NB). E-sourcing software provider 
B2eMarkets Inc. today said a joint marketing and sales agreement with online 
business-to-business (B2B) marketplace EqualFooting.com will expand both 
companies' technologies.

Orville Bailey, CEO and co-founder of B2eMarkets, said in a statement that 
providing customers access to EqualFooting.com's marketplace will give them 
the means to reduce costs on materials necessary to their businesses.

Jim Fox, CEO of EqualFooting.com added that the two companies offer 
complimentary, proprietary technologies that can be easily integrated. He 
said the full suite of services will save users time and money, allowing them 
to quickly realize a valuable return on their investment.

Rockville, Md.-based B2eMarkets' Web-enabled software enables procurement 
professionals to electronically research, evaluate, plan and negotiate the 
lowest total cost of ownership for goods and services.

Sterling, Va.-based EqualFooting.com's online marketplace and request for 
quote (RFQ) mechanism aggregate the buying power of many companies to achieve 
the best possible cost savings for industrial supplies and equipment.

Reported by Washtech.com, http://www.washtech.com .

________________________________________________

o Apax Merges European and Israeli Units, Pledges $600 Million

TEL AVIV -- Global private equity firm Apax Partners,
which includes Particof & Co. in the U.S., said
Apax Israel and Apax Partners in Europe will merge
and will invest $600 million in Israeli companies
over the next three years. The company said it would
focus its investments in Israel on companies in
the telecom, IT, and healthcare sectors. Apax Partners
said it invested $100 million in ten Israeli companies
within the last 6 months. The firm's portfolio companies
include CommTouch, FundTech, Compugen, EZChip Technologies,
and TdSoft.
http://www.apax.com/
_____________________________________________

o Cisco Acquires Radiata, Wireless Chip Firm, For $295 Million

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cisco Systems said it acquired
Radiata, a California and Sydney, Australia-based
company which develops chipsets for high-speed wireless
networks, for $295 million in stock. Cisco holds
an 11% stake in the company through a Series A investment
made in April. Broadcom also invested in Radiata.
The 53 employees that comprise Radiata's staff will
join a newly formed Cisco business unit, the wireless
networking business unit of the Ethernet access
group. Radiata's baseband processor and radio chip
products will be integrated into Cisco's family
of Aironet wireless LAN products.
http://www.cisco.com/
http://www.radiata.com/

__________________________________________________

o Currency Services Firm E4X Completes $6 Million Round One

NEW YORK -- E4X, a provider of services that enable
Internet merchants to sell online in multiple currencies,
said it completed a $6 million first round of financing
led by Polaris Venture Capital, along with Chase
Capital Partners. Delta-Ventures also participated
in the round. The company will use the new funds
to expand sales and marketing and recruitment.
http://www.e4x.com/
_____________________________________________

o Network Storage Firm StorageApps Gets $50 Million Round Two

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. -- StorageApps, a provider of
network storage appliances and software applications,
said it has raised $50 million in its second round
of funding led by Bowman Capital. Funding was also
provided by Bessemer Trust, Dell Ventures, Enron
Broadband Services, LSI Logic Storage Systems, and
StorageNetworks. StorageApps, which previously received
funding from The Blackstone Group and Soros, said
the round brings the total amount invested in the
company to $75 million. The new funds will go to
support general operating costs.
http://www.storageapps.com/
_____________________________________________

o Optical Networking Firm Blaze Gets $40 Million in Round Two

DUBLIN, Calif. -- Blaze Network Products, an optical
networking firm that develops WDM technologies for
gigabit Ethernet applications, said it raised $40
million in its second round of funding. Investors
were: Sands Brothers & Co., Kalkhoven, Pettit and
Levin Ventures, Crown Advisors, GTG Ventures, Oppenheimer
Fund, Pyramid Technology Investors, SOG Group, the
Wit SoundView Photonics Fund, and Wit SoundView
Ventures. Previous investors Dynafund Ventures,
Intel Capital, Vanguard Venture Partners and Wasserstein
Adelson Ventures also participated. General partners
from Sands Brothers & Co., and Kalkhoven, Pettit
and Levin will join the board of directors. The
company will use the funds to expand its manufacturing
capability.
http://www.blazenp.com/
_____________________________________________

o Wireless Firm Telespree Closes $19 Million Second Round

SAN FRANCISCO -- Telespree, which develops prepaid
wireless platforms for wireless carriers, said it
has raised $19 million in its second round of financing.
The round was led by previous investor Lucent Venture
Partners. Newbury Ventures and Koor Venture Capital
along with previous investors Stanford University,
London Merchant Securities, and Thompson Clive International
Venture Capital also participated. Hassan Parsa,
a partner at Lucent Venture Partners, will join
Telespree's board as its fifth member. Telespree
said it will use the funds to expand technology
development and for marketing.
http://www.telespree.com/
_____________________________________________

o Supply Chain Info Firm SupplyEdge Has $11 Million Round Two

LOS ANGELES -- SupplyEdge, a supply chain information
services, said it has secured $11 million in its
second round of funding from AsiaTech Ventures and
Lucent Ventures Partners. Previous investors Investment
Group of Santa Barbara and Carlifornia Technology
Ventures also joined round. The company said it
will use the funds to continue corporate development.
Peter Chu of AsiaTech and Maureen Lawrence of Lucent
Venture Partners will take seats on the company's
board.
http://www.supplyedge.com/
_____________________________________________

o Broadband Firm Equator Lands $40 Million in Fourth Round

CAMPBELL, Calif. -- Equator Technologies, which
provides programmable broadband signal processors,
said it has raised over $40 million in its fourth
round of funding led by Ironside Venture Partners.
The round also included MMC Capital, Orix USA, and
Quest Management. Previous investors Jafco America
Ventures, InveStar Capital, and Nomura International
also participated in the round. Equator Technologies
said it expects a second closing within the next
few weeks to conclude a total of more than $50 million
for the round. The company said it will use the
funds to accelerate new product development and
increase its investments in global operations, infrastructure,
technology development, sales and marketing, and
customer support.
http://www.equator.com/
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