Venture fund for handheld technology debuts
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Two Chicago financiers are betting on a boom in wireless handheld-devices with a venture capital fund focused on companies developing technology for devices like those manufactured by Palm Inc (NASDAQ:PALM).
Through their Nomad Venture Fund, announced this week, Robert J. Jordan and Michael E. Tobin expect to raise $75 million to invest in start-ups whose applications will expand the market for handheld devices such as the Palm Pilot and Handspring Visor.
According to Jordan, founder of PalmComputing magazine, the use of handheld "personal digital assistants" is growing at 55 percent each year and the market will grow from 25 million users currently to 450 million by 2003.
"In the future when you go into a retail store, you'll see literally hundreds of modules you can add on to a handheld device like a Handspring Visor," Jordan said.
Some of the possible features of those modules, such as a global-positioning-satellite application, will be developed with money from the Nomad Venture Fund, which already has identified six potential investments, Jordan said.
The fund's first investment will be announced within the next few weeks and future stakes will be in the $1 million to $3 million range, he said.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palm is also scouting for investment opportunities among the same pool of start-ups.
The handheld device manufacturer last year established its Palm Ventures fund with $50 million to take stakes in companies developing applications based on the company's handheld platform.
The Palm Ventures fund already has made one investment, joining with nationwide drugstore operator CVS Corp (NYSE:CVS). last month in a $18 million financing round for ePhysician, a privately-held Mountain View, Calif.-based company seeking to link wireless handheld devices in medical offices to Web-based information systems.
Palm last Wednesday said it joined a $100 million financing round to help digital-camera and portable-printer manufacturer SiPix bring branded products to market this month.
According to a Palm spokeswoman, the company's undisclosed commitment to the funding deal for Milpitas, Calif.-based SiPix predated the Palm Venture unit, established in September. |
