San Diego-based Skyera, maker of enterprise solid-state storage systems, has added Dado Banatao to its board of directors. Banatao is a managing partner of Tallwood Venture Capital who also sits on the boards of Alphion Corporation, Wave Semiconductor, and Wilocity and is chairman of the boards of Ikanos, Inphi Corporation, and Quintic Corporation.

PeHUB zeroed in on the years 2006 to 2009 to highlight the 10 funds with the worst IRRs. Six are vintage 2006, three come from vintage 2007.

Astute Networks Inc. said it raised $12 million in an over subscribed Series B round led by Samsung Venture Investment Corp. The rounded was joined by existing investors Tallwood Venture Capital and Narra Venture Capital and by new investors Ayala Capital, ICCP Venture Partners, and TIFF. PRESS RELEASE ASTUTE NETWORKS CLOSES $12 MILLION SERIES B [...]

The market for venture-backed IPOs has been pretty dead so far this year. But based on new filing activity, it looks like there’s some optimism things will improve. At least six venture-backed companies have filed to go public since the start of the year, in sectors ranging from enterprise software to semiconductors to car rentals. [...]

San Jose, Calif.-based Cavendish Kinetics has sealed $10 million in fresh capital, and added Qualcomm Inc. to its list of investors. Tallwood Venture Capital, Wellington Partners Venture Capital and other, unnamed investors joined Qualcomm in the latest round for the fables semiconductor company. The new money will help with production of its RF Tuning products, the company said Tuesday.

Astute Networks Inc. said it received a significant capital investment from Tallwood Venture Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed. The San Diego, Calif.-based provider of storage solutions for network applications plans to use the funding to expand its existing customer base and to secure additional design wins for its Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture storage products.

There was a vigorous debate at the Churchill Club this morning on how startups should grow. This is the type of activity that passes for entertainment in Silicon Valley, but it was fun and a lot of good points were made.

Pursue venture capital? Jon Fisher, who teaches entrepreneurship at the University of San Francisco and has sold a company to Oracle, claimed you can get by without it.

Go public? Nearly impossible now, although everybody hopes that will change, and Josh Stein from Draper Fisher argued that mergers and acquisitions “preserve the static order of things,” while IPOs reward disruptive innovation because big companies aren’t good at innovation. (“How successful would Tesla be as a division of GM?”). Also, public money is cheaper than venture capital.

Ikanos Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IKAN), a provider of broadband semicondcutor and software products for the digital home, has agreed to acquire the Broadband Access unit of Conexant Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CNXT). The deal is valued at $54 million in cash, plus the assumption of certain liabilities.

In conjunction with the transaction, Ikanos will sell 24 million shares of common stock to Tallwood Venture Capital for $42 million, or $1.75 per share. Tallwood also will receive warrants to purchase another 7.8 million shares at the same price. Were it to exercise those options, it would hold around a 45% equity stake in Ikanos.

Ron Yara has stepped down as a general partner with Tallwood Venture Capital, according to VentureWire. He had come out of retirement in 2002 to join Tallwood when it was raising its first institutional fund, and left at the end of April, when his portfolio company Axiom Microdevices was sold to Skyworks Solutions. His remaining [...]

Silicon Valley Technology Center has raised $34 million in new equity funding from existing backers Oak Hill Capital Partners and Tallwood Venture Capital, who bought the company in 2007 for approximately $53 million in cash from Cypress Semiconductor. SVTC gives startups and established companies the opportunity to develop and characterize novel silicon-based technologies cost effectively using a shared R&D environment.