Skystream, another round of financing........
biz.yahoo.com
SkyStream Secures $16M in Series C
Funding from Norwest Venture
Partners, IVP, and Mayfield Fund
Broadcast Networking Leader Receives Additional
Financing from Industry's Preeminent Venture
Capital Firms
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 1999-- SkyStream Corporation, a
leading supplier of broadcast video and data networking equipment, today announced the
completion of a $16 million round of financing, led by Norwest Venture Partners. SkyStream's
current investors, Mayfield Fund and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), join Norwest with
additional funding to fuel the company's next stage of growth. Combined with previous investments,
the company has raised a total of $25M.
''The addition of Norwest as an investor in SkyStream highlights the investment community's interest
in the need to leverage both the television broadcast and Internet-based networks to create an
architecture for improved video and data service delivery to consumers and enterprise,'' said Jim
Olson, president and CEO of SkyStream. ''With our existing partners of Mayfield and IVP,
SkyStream now has three of the preeminent venture companies in the industry backing its vision to
create this architecture.''
SkyStream builds a family of networking products, called Integrators, which seamlessly blend digital
video and audio, and high-speed IP or Internet data, together with conditional access security and
policy information, for transmission over a digital broadband network. Integrators are installed to
provide a high bandwidth link for the delivery of mixed media in public and private broadband
network facilities, such as satellite uplinks, cable head-ends, terrestrial call-letter TV stations and
studios, and other network facilities throughout the media delivery chain.
''SkyStream is an aggressive company whose aim is to build products that enable the blending of
video and data content for transmission across broadcast networks,'' said Promod Haque, managing
general partner of Norwest Venture Partners. ''With the public's growing demand for faster speed
access to richer content on the Internet, we believe SkyStream is ideally positioned to create the
multi-protocol 'broadband router' for the next generation broadcast networks.''
''Our recent investment in SkyStream reinforces IVP's support for SkyStream and its quest to build
the next great broadcast networking company,'' said Geoff Yang, partner at IVP. ''SkyStream's
track record in winning new customers and industry partners has been very impressive, and we are
big believers in their vision.''
SkyStream has announced customer design wins with Loral-Orion, Telefonica, GTE, Miralite,
SatCast and Kingston-TLI, and industry partnerships with Scientific-Atlanta, Philips, International
Datacasting Corporation, and Tektronix. In December 1998, SkyStream was recognized as one of
the ''Top 10 Most Likely Companies to Succeed'' by Technologic Partners. The company's data
injection product was awarded ''1998's Best Data Product of the Year'' by Satellite
Communications Magazine.
''Mayfield Fund has built a track record of working with companies that possess key factors in
ensuring their success,'' said Wendell ''Van'' Van Auken, general partner of Mayfield Fund.
''SkyStream has all three facets: a market vision with unlimited upside, a solid business and financial
plan, and a top-notch executive management team.''
SkyStream's family of Integrator products include the DBN-24 DVB data encapsulator, the
DBN-25 DVB data injector, and the recently announced DBN-26 Conditional Access and Data
Injector. These products allow digital video and Internet service providers to create complete media
broadcasting systems that carry both digital video and IP data content. The DBN-25 and DBN-26
utilize SkyStream's award-winning Null Packet Optimizer(TM) (NPO) software, which allows
broadcasters to opportunistically inject Internet and IP data into the otherwise unusable space of an
incoming digital video bitstream. The bandwidth saved using this technology can range from 2-10
percent of a service provider's bandwidth.
About Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners, founded in 1961, is the premier venture capital business partner for
emerging growth IT companies. The firm actively manages $850 million in investments, and has
raised more than $1 billion since inception. Norwest Venture Partners has a broad information
technology investment focus, including software and the Internet, data communications,
telecommunications, semiconductors and subscriber-based services. The firm prides itself on
supporting companies beyond the call of duty with the reputation, financial resources, seasoned
business experience and network of relationships required for success. The firm has invested in such
market leaders as Documentum, PeopleSoft, Raptor Systems, Tivoli, Vantive and Verio.
Information on Norwest Venture Partners is available on the Internet at norwestvc.com
or by calling 650/321-8000 (Palo Alto) or 781/237-5870 (Boston).
About Institutional Venture Partners
IVP (Institutional Venture Partners), based in Menlo Park, Calif., is a privately held, professionally
managed family of venture capital partnerships that has raised more than $1 billion since its founding
in 1980. The firm's underlying philosophy is to fund technology companies, which are at the front end
of technology waves of innovation. IVP has actively invested in approximately 250 companies since
its founding, including Seagate, Aspect, Atmel, Clarify, Wellfleet, Synoptics, Centillion (acquired by
Bay Networks), Crescendo (acquired by Cisco), Exabyte, Excite, MMC Networks, Vivus,
Pharmacopeia, Arthrocare, and Microcide. For more information, visit IVP's Web site at
ivp.com.
About Mayfield Fund
Mayfield Fund is a private venture capital partnership based in Menlo Park, Calif. Since Mayfield's
founding in 1969, the firm has invested in more than 300 companies and has taken approximately 80
companies public. Today, these Mayfield-backed companies represent an aggregate market value of
more than $100 billion. Mayfield's portfolio companies include: Advent Software, Aspect
Telecommunications, BroadVision, Inc., Calico Technologies, Citrix Systems, Concur Technologies,
LSI Logic, Genentech, Inc., Legato Systems, Inc., Netcentives, Inc., Linear Technologies Corp.,
Millennium Pharmaceuticals, NuvoMedia, Quantum Corp., 3COM Corp, The Vantive Corp.,
Teralogic, Tibco, and Whistle Communications. For more information, visit Mayfield's Web site at
mayfield.com.
About SkyStream Corporation
SkyStream Corporation is a data and video broadcast networking company based in Mountain
View, Calif. The Company's line of SkyStream Integrator products seamlessly enables the
integration of disparate digital data sources into an industry-compliant digital broadcast stream.
Through a combination of patented application technologies with open, industry-standard platforms,
SkyStream delivers open broadcast networking solutions unmatched in scalability, flexibility,
reliability and price/performance in the market today. SkyStream partners include Tektronix,
Scientific-Atlanta, International Datacasting and Philips. The Company's website address is
skystream.com. SkyStream has offices in Mountain View, Calif., Atlanta, and London.
SkyStream can be reached at 650/390-8800. |
