VoIP Telecom Plans Market Hub; Interplay Games Get Raves
Tech investments might be a chancier bet than ever, but from the looks of things, plenty of people still are gambling.
Buyproduce.com, an online exchange for buyers and sellers of fresh produce, has snagged $20 million in venture capital from a group of investors that include Charter Growth Capital, Lehman Bros., Nassau Capital LLC and Sequoia Capital.
Officials at the Irvine firm trumpeted the deal in an announcement they all but conceded was an attempt to reassure customers that the company has long-term staying power. The e-commerce arena has become a house of horrors in recent weeks as tech stocks plunge and online retailers edge closer to bankruptcy.
The latest round brings buyproduce’s total venture financing to more than $30 million.
At the same time, CommerceScout, a Long Beach company that is in the process of moving to Newport Beach, said it has secured $6 million.
The company is launching a Web site that allows shoppers to compare prices and features at other retailing Web sites. The funding is remarkable considering investors’ aversion to retail-oriented ventures, especially in a field as crowded as comparison shopping. MySimon and MyGeek.com are just two of a dozen or so competing sites that promise to make online shopping easier.
The latest investments come about a week after Internet music broadcaster WWW.COM, Irvine, announced investments totaling more than $40 million, and firstsource corp., a Santa Ana online procurement service firm that recently stripped the “.com” from its name, announced a $25 million deal.
Broadband Finds Its Voice
Orange County is already well on its way to becoming an epicenter for high-speed Internet and networking technology, and may soon become a hub for one of its most promising applications as well.
Newport Beach-based VoIP Telecom Inc. is creating VoIPIndustry.com, an online center for companies in involved in voice-over-IP (or “Internet protocol”) technology, which allows users to make low-cost phone calls using the Internet and other networks.
VoIP Telecom, a tiny company that provides voice-over-Internet services for other telephone service companies, hopes to make the site a nexus for everyone from equipment makers to resellers in a market expected to grow from about $443 million last year to more than $87 billion by 2004, according to market research firm Dataquest.
Although most voice communications over the Internet suffer from low-quality sound and iffy reliability, higher-speed connections and smarter networking equipment that gives priority to sound and video is expected to make voice-over-Internet a serious contender against standard long-distance telephone service.
Great Games, Not-So-Great Market
Interplay Entertainment Corp., which is struggling to keep from being de-listed from the Nasdaq Exchange amid wretched stock performance and mounting losses, hopes to find a savior in its newly released “Messiah” and a host of titles slated for release in coming months.
The company is touting the attention it received at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, which included “best-of” recognition from several gaming publications and Web sites.
Gamesweekly.com, one of the best-known gaming news sites on the Internet, named four Interplay titles to its top 10. The games included Interplay’s “Never Winter Nights,” “Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn,” “Sacrifice,” and “Giants: Citizen Kabuto.”
Gamefan.com named “Baldur’s Gate II” the best role-playing game and gave an honorable mention to “Giants: Citizen Kabuto.” SharkyExtreme.com, meanwhile, called Interplay’s lineup “unquestionably” one of the expo’s best, and IGN.com nominated “Never Winter Nights” as the best role-playing game.
Now, if only Interplay could get those reviews on stock-centered Web sites.
Don’t Call Them Low-Tech
When Juerg Krebser uses the term “fat pipe,” he’s not talking about high-speed Internet connections. He’s just talking about fat pipes. Literally.
The company he heads, George Fischer Piping Systems, has been recognized by chip giant Intel Corp. as a “preferred quality service” provider along with a dozen or so other suppliers that were heralded in a full-page Wall Street Journal ad. Intel said the award is designed to encourage excellence among suppliers deemed essential to its success.
George Fischer installs the ultra-high-purity piping Intel uses in its precise manufacturing processes, which can be affected by even the slightest imperfections. The privately held OC company provides piping, automated valves, instrumentation and pipe joining technology.
Bits:
FSbuy.com, an Anaheim company that automates the process of buying supplies for restaurants, is teaming up with Vitria Technology Inc. to expand FSbuy’s online auctions and “request for proposals” system globally … Datum Inc., Irvine, has introduced its X72 rubidium oscillator, which is being touted by company officials as a “low cost, high-accuracy, lower power, long-life and miniaturized, extended temperature range” precision oscillator. In short, the device is used for precise time measurements essential for a variety of telecommunications networks, especially wireless. For more: www.datum.com.
