Other investors are DPFJ's affiliate Access Venture, Austin Ventures, AV Labs and Mike Maples Sr., former executive vice president of Microsoft and chairman of Texas' Digital Divide committee. The fiscal backing is just another sign of Austin's rapidly growing strength in the IT field, lobbing a challenge to Silicon Valley's standing as a premier IT location.

To date, the fund has invested more than a third of its net assets in a variety of private companies in the IT sector. Once fully invested, the portfolio is expected to include 30 to 40 companies. The fund is a collaboration of meVC, a DE corporation, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading venture capital firm. The first fund, launched in March, provided a $330-million coffer for investments in IT companies.

Mediaprise's platform is "a business model and strategy that transforms brand and product marketing content into flexible assets," says Anurag Kumar, company president and CEO. The funding, he says, will be applied to a business expansion "to meet the demands of this exciting, high-growth space."