Elemental Technologies, Inc. (ETI) Secures First Round Funding from General Catalyst Partners and Voyager Capital

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elemental Technologies Inc. (ETI), a leading provider of massively parallel video processing software, has closed its first round of venture capital financing. Industry leaders General Catalyst Partners of Boston, Massachusetts and Voyager Capital of Seattle, Washington co-led this $7.1M investment.

Named to ETI’s Board of Directors are Neil Sequeira, Partner at General Catalyst Partners; Voyager Capital’s Managing Director Erik Benson; and Frank Gill, former Executive Vice President at Intel Corporation. Bruce Chizen, former CEO of Adobe Systems, will join the board as an observer.

“We now have the capital to aggressively ramp our RapiHD™ and Badaboom™ product lines, as well as attack new Internet and IPTV video processing markets,” said Sam Blackman, CEO of ETI. “We are thrilled to have Erik, Neil, and Frank joining our Board, and look forward to the impact they will have on ETI’s future.”

ETI is the leading provider of massively parallel processing (MPP) solutions, initially targeting video applications. Utilizing general purpose, programmable “off-the-shelf” graphics processing units (GPUs), ETI software performs video encoding, transcoding, and filtering at unprecedented speeds while maintaining the highest video quality. The company’s Badaboom™ Media Converter allows consumers to format their media up to 10 times faster than existing solutions, and the RapiHD™ line of professional products enables non-linear editors, media companies, and content delivery networks to accelerate the delivery of high-quality video. Both products are designed for the tremendous processing power of NVIDIA GPUs, which are driving the next generation of PCs optimized for visual computing. ETI was co-founded by Sam Blackman, Jesse Rosenzweig, and Brian Lewis, veterans of venture-backed Pixelworks (NASDAQ: PXLW), a fabless semiconductor company that went public in 2000.

“Video distribution on the Internet today is constrained by expensive, time-consuming video processing solutions,” said Neil Sequeira of General Catalyst Partners. “General Catalyst is excited to support ETI’s revolutionary GPU-accelerated processing to solve this bottleneck.” General Catalyst is one of the foremost venture investors in the Internet video and New Media market spaces.

“During my tenure at Adobe, we brought critical Internet technologies like Acrobat and Flash to the market,” said Bruce Chizen, former CEO of Adobe Systems. “Elemental’s GPU-accelerated software is similarly disruptive in nature and will radically improve how video is processed for content providers and end users.”

“It has been estimated that there is $137B worth of infrastructure improvements required over the next few years to ready the Internet for the coming video onslaught,” said Frank Gill, former Executive Vice President at Intel. “ETI’s technology is perfectly targeted to reduce the cost of this infrastructure for Internet data centers, as well as minimizing total power consumption.”

About General Catalyst Partners

General Catalyst Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building the technology-based companies that will lead innovation and transform industries. Founded in 2000, General Catalyst Partners leverages its principals' extensive operational, business development and technological expertise to provide portfolio companies with a catalyst for success through business-building and partnership development assistance. General Catalyst is headquartered in Cambridge, MA.

www.generalcatalyst.com

About Voyager Capital

Voyager Capital is a leading Pacific Northwest information technology venture capital firm, providing entrepreneurs with the resources, experience, and connections to build successful companies. Voyager invests in early and growth stage software, wireless and digital media companies, where the firm's domain expertise and go-to-market resources help build market leaders. Voyager Capital has offices in Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; and Menlo Park, CA.

www.voyagercapital.com

About Elemental Technologies, Inc. (ETI)

Elemental Technologies, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is the leading provider of massively parallel processing (MPP) solutions, initially targeting video applications. Utilizing general purpose, programmable "off the shelf" graphics processing units (GPUs), the RapiHD™ Video Platform is ideally suited for a variety of video applications ranging from consumer media processing to professional video editing to Internet video processing. Elemental's first product, the Badaboom Media Converter, is a faster-than-real-time, high-definition video conversion application that will enable the playing of any video on any device, anywhere in the world.

www.elementaltechnologies.com