Start-up Aternity today announced that it had closed an expanded first financing round of $7.5 million. Vertex Venture Capital and Genesis Partners led the round. Portview Communications, IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) subsidiary Clal Industries and Investments Ltd. (TASE:CII) and existing investors also participated.
A group of experienced entrepreneurs, including CEO Amnon Yacoby, founded Aternity. Yacoby previously founded Floware, which was floated on Nasdaq and later merged with BreezeCOM to form Alvarion Ltd. (Nasdaq:ALVR; TASE:ALVR). He was also a co-founder of RAD Network Devices, which was later split into three companies: Radwise (sold to Terayon Communication Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: TERN)), Radlan Computer Communications Ltd., and Radware Ltd. (Nasdaq: RDWR; TASE:RDWR). He also currently serves as chairman of Israel Infinity Venture Capital.
Aternity's three other entrepreneurs are Amir Eldad, formerly the CEO of SerCoNet, and VP marketing of NiceCom, acquired by 3Com (Nasdaq:COMS); Eden Shohat and Orit Kapon.
Aternity raised $3 million from Vertex and Portview five months ago. With the entry of Genesis into the company, Aternity has now closed the round.
Aternity develops and markets an innovative solution for improving access to enterprise IT infrastructures, and to monitor the effectiveness of these systems with a view to improving service. Aternity focuses on developing automated solutions that identify complex infrastructure problems, carry out root cause analysis of problems, and quickly respond to them.
Gensis's investment in Aternity is the first investment by the $100 million Genesis III fund, which it completed raising two months ago.
Vertex managing partner Moshe Shahaf said he was convinced that Aternity was focusing on growing markets, and that the company's team would lead it to success.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 3, 2005