- Ventures West Entrepreneur in Residence Joins as CEO
Toronto, ON – November 19, 2004 – Ventures West, one of Canada’s largest private venture capital companies, and BDC Venture Capital, the venture capital arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada, announced today the financing of Avokia Inc., a developer of data center optimization solutions. Ventures West led the financing round.
Avokia’s products are designed for high volume enterprise applications where speed is critical and downtime is not an option. They allow IT executives to realize significant improvements in service levels while lowering costs, reducing risk through disaster avoidance at the database level and increasing the flexibility of applications and infrastructure.
The company was founded in 2000 by CTO Frankie Wong, an acknowledged expert in database architecture and performance. Former Ventures West Entrepreneur in Residence Alan McMillan has joined the company as CEO. Mr. McMillan brings a wealth of experience and industry savvy with a 20-year track record of driving impressive financial results for both startups and traditional corporate entities. He is the former CEO of Think Dynamics, an automated solutions software company that was acquired by IBM in 2003.
"Avokia provides solutions that ensure that business applications are always fast and always on,” said McMillan. “Given the strategic value of our products, the expertise of the management team and the quality of our venture backers, I am confident that Avokia will make a significant contribution towards the goal of enabling an automated data center."
Avokia has all the characteristics we look for in an investment opportunity", said Barry Gekiere, Senior Vice President of Ventures West. "A strong technical founder, a unique approach to an identifiable market need, large market potential, and leadership by a proven executive."
“Avokia has a very simple and elegant technology approach that solves real performance and back-end scalability issues present in today’s data centers”, said Roger Wilson, Director, BDC Venture Capital. “When you add Avokia’s experienced management leadership and unparalleled technical expertise to its compelling value proposition to the market, you end up with an exciting investment opportunity indeed.”
About Ventures West
Ventures West Management Inc., a private venture capital investment group, is one of Canada´s leading investors in early stage technology companies. Since its founding in 1968, Ventures West has formed eight venture capital funds which total over $700 million and has invested in more than 130 companies. Ventures West has the people, the expertise, and the capital to help entrepreneurs develop emerging technology companies into market leaders. Investments focus on four technology sectors: Biotechnology, Communications, Energy Technology and Information Technology. For more information, visit www.ventureswest.com
About BDC Venture Capital
BDC Venture Capital is a major venture capital investor in Canada, active at every stage of the company’s development cycle, from seed through expansion, with a focus on technology-based businesses that have high growth potential and that are positioned to become dominant players in their markets. BDC Venture Capital has been involved in venture capital since 1975 and has to date invested in more than 400 different companies. It currently manages approximately $500 million in venture capital assets invested in the areas of Life Sciences, Telecommunications, Information Technology, Advanced Technologies and Fund Investments. For more information, visit www.bdc.ca.
About Avokia
Avokia, a venture backed software company headquartered in Toronto Canada, provides solutions that ensure business applications are always fast and always on. Its products are designed for high volume enterprise applications where speed is critical and downtime is not an option. With Avokia’s real-time transaction replication technology companies can horizontally scale databases making high volume computing possible at a fraction of the cost. Avokia allows organizations to realize significant improvements in service levels while lowering costs, reducing risk through seamless disaster recovery at the database level, and increasing the flexibility of applications and infrastructure. www.avokia.com.
Contacts:
Barry Gekiere
Senior Vice President
Ventures West Management Inc.
(416) 861-2277
bgekiere@ventureswest.com
Roger Wilson
Director
BDC Venture Capital
(416) 973-0035
Roger.Wilson@bdc.ca
Alan Kriss
Director of Marketing
Avokia Inc.
(416) 204-9225 ext 345
alank@avokia.com
