TeleNova garnered a total of $9 million in two earlier financingrounds that took only 45 days to 60 days to close. But this timethe deals took 90 days, reflecting the caution most investors areshowing with technology-oriented businesses, according to chieffinancial officer Marcelo Cabral.

Web sites in Spanish and Portuguese especially are having arough road attracting venture capital. Instead, they rely onadvertising or on sales to consumers to produce a cash stream, anunpredictable avenue, most analysts concede.

TeleNova plans to use the new funding to grow its staff to 110by 2002 and expand its services in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Spainand Portugal. The company promotes two cost-cutting services. Oneis the wholesale sale of voice-over-Internet services to phonecompanies who then offer the service to their clients. The other isits exclusive distributorship in Spanish and Portuguese for virtualdesktop software. This product allows companies to store andretrieve files through the Internet instead of using computer harddrives.