Long Island's newest venture capital fund, Top Spin, has committed $2 million to its first investment, to Melville-based CosmoCom.

The Internet services firm, on its way to an initial public offering, won its first round of funding from the Long Island Venture Fund in 1997 and has raised a total of $66 million in five separate rounds including this latest. CosmoCom received a total of $40.l million from Technology Cross Over Ventures, Marconi and the Intel Communications Fund, a record for Long Island.

CosmoCom plans to use the new capital to continue expanding overseas operations, where it seeks a greater market share in customer interaction management systems.

The company designs and sells software that links call centers, such as toll-free numbers, to the Internet.

While the global market for call center software is a rich one - CosmoCom officials estimate it at $12 billion annually and growing - the current unpopularity of Internet stocks has prompted the company to delay its planned IPO.

Paul Lowell, co-founder of Top Spin, said CosmoCom has strong sales growth.

"CosmoCom is an important part of the economy and has tremendous growth potential," Lowell said. "Obtaining this amount of venture funds is clearly a reflection on its business plans and its ability to prove revenue results."

Top Spin is targeting most of the $250 million for Long Island investments.

NPD Intellect tracks Cell phone sales

Port Washington-based marketing information provider NPD Intellect Market Tracking has created a new service to track cellular phone handset sales.

The new service integrates sales data collected from retailers and consumers to provide an overview of product movement through all channels.

Retail point-of-sale information is collected through NPD's established panel of retailers, represented by lectronic specialty stores, office superstores, computer superstores, mass merchants and general merchandise department stores.

Consumer information is gathered from the NPD online panel of more than 600,000 people. Accessing this panel on a weekly basis allows NPD to reach those purchasing a cell phone in any given month.

The data gives an accurate, monthly sales story about total cellular phone brands, models and attributes, based on purchasing behavior, the company said.

Atec Group awarded $1.4M education contract

Commack-based Atec Group, a systems integrator provider, has been awarded a $1.4 million contract to provide a new communications network systems to the Shenendehowa Central School District.

Upon completion, the system will link 11 schools with more than 9,200 students and 1,500 teachers and staff, to a unified messaging system, high speed Internet access and an integrated phone and data network.

Roche Diagnostics 'goes live' with Robocom WMS solution

Massapequa-based Robocom Systems has installed its RIMS Warehouse Management System at Roche Diagnostics Australia, a unit of the Roche Group of Basel, Switzerland, a drug company.

Roche Diagnostics' warehouse at Castle Hill supplies laboratory systems, reagents for testing, diabetes monitoring instruments to laboratories, hospitals, chemists, wholesalers and research institutes throughout Australia.

Due to the critical nature of the products and their temperature sensitivity, orders need to be picked and shipped the same day in order to reach the customer the next morning

"The accuracy of stock levels and placement of product in the correct bins has increased our ability to fulfill an order with only one visit to the bin and enables timely order replenishment," said Dilhan De Silva, operations manager of Roche Diagnostics Australia.

Web Developers Guild creates LI awards

The Hauppauge-based Long Island Web Developers Guild, the region's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to the education and networking of Internet professionals, will hold its first annual Web Awards of Long Island, created to recognize achievements in Web design and development.

The awards, to be presented in March 2001, specifically address the accomplishments of the Web development community on Long Island, including Web firms, Web freelancers, advertising agencies, software companies and Internet service providers.

The guild will call for entries on Dec. 15 and will close submissions on Jan. 12.