CAP Ventures has written NIS 2.7 million off its investment in Israeli start-up Aduva. It has thereby completed the write off of its entire NIS 6.3 million investment in the company. This emerges from the reports of Brack Capital, which owns 16.4% of CAP Ventures.
CAP Ventures made the write off after deciding not to participate in the $1.5 million financing round that Aduva is about to complete. The round is being led by venture CAPital fund Evergreen. It is an internal round that will be expanded to include new investors and is likely to close at up to $10 million.
Aduva develops systems for managing enterprise computing systems in Unix and linux environments. The system facilitates the integration of new applications with existing applications on Unix and Linux servers. Chairman and CEO Zev Laderman says the company has not yet reached breakeven, and that he financing round is aimed at expanding its marketing and sales activity, given the rapid growth of the Linux market.
So far, Aduva has raised some $27 million. The most recent and most substantial round was two years ago, when Aduva raised some $19 million at a value of $20 million before the money. According to research company IVC, the participants in that round included Intel, IBM, Evergreen III, and Alvarion Capital. Aduva currently employs 38 people. Its main activity is in the US>
Among the investors in CAP Ventures are Eurocom, Dankner Investments, and others, who have invested a total of some $12 million. CAP Ventures was founded towards the end of the high-tech bubble, and has made about 15 small investments ranging between $200,000 and $2 million. Since 2002, CAP Ventures has had no cash left to invest, and it has a deficit on shareholders' equity of some NIS 50 million.
CAP Ventures still has substantial investments in Vidius, PassOver, M-wise, and Lumus. In the first half of this year, it wrote NIS 4.48 million off its investments in portfolio companies. Its loss amounted to NS 4.5 million.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on August 31, 2004