Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (1/16/2012 to 1/22/2012)



The PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA MoneyTree Venture Capital report for the 4th quarter of 2011 came out, and as I noted it wasn't a very strong quarter for VC investments in information technology ventures in the Philadelphia area.

IBM acquired Green Hat, a software testing automation vendor with dual headquarters in London and Wilmington.

Scrutiny of the proposed Verizon Wireless spectrum purchase, resale agreement and technology joint venture with Comcast and other cable operators picked up. Comcast EVP David Cohen wrote a blog posted explaining Comcast's decision not to build out its spectrum, in part to explain Vice Chairman & CFO Michael Angelakis' recent comment that "[w]e never really intended to build that spectrum." Meanwhile, the companies submitted their marketing plans (carefully worded, I'm sure) to the FCC for a confidential review, while competitors and other critics insisted they be released publicly.
On the lighter side, the similarity between Comcast's and the FCC's logos made me wonder if there was some type of secret connection between the two.

Exton-based SaaS insurance vendor iPipeline announced a "significant investment" from Technology Crossover Ventures. iPipline raised $18 million in 2008 and $15 million in 2009, mostly from NewSpring Capital of Radnor and Fidelity Ventures of Boston (or Volition Capital LLC as its successor is known). Technology Crossover Ventures usually invests in big chunks, so it would not be surprising if this investment was also in the eight digits (Crunchbase shows the size of several recent rounds it has been involved in) . That means iPipeline's valuation must be getting pretty steep.

SAP AG, still waiting for its SuccessFactors acquisition to close, announced two other much smaller acquisitions: datango AG, a provider of software training tools, and SAF Simulation, Analysis and Forecasting AG , which has software that helps retailers better see into and manage their supply chains.

New York-based Charlie O'Donnell left First Round Capital to launch a new Brooklyn-based venture firm, appropriately named Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. And Rick Nucci, co-founder and former CTO of Dell Boomi, is now General Manager , succeeding Bob Moul who left at the end of the year and now heads up Philly Startup Leaders while exploring other entrepreneurial opportunities.

Philadelphia-based PE firm LLR Partners acquired a majority interest in Paragon Technology Group , a Northern Virginia-based supplier of information technology services to the Federal government. Scott Friedlander, former CEO of GTSI, also invested and was named CEO of Paragon.



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Daily Links 1/23/2012: Datatel, SunGard Higher Education close transactions to combine businesses



Datatel and SunGard Higher Education Close Transactions to Combine their Businesses (Business Wire)
Company will temporarily be called Datatel+SGHE ; headquarters will be in Northern Virginia, according to FAQ on website
according to FAQ on website. (pdf)

InterDigital Calls Off Patent Sale (New York Times: DealBook)
May still sell off pieces. InterDigital down almost 16% in after hours to $37.50.
InterDigital press release on concluding strategic alternatives review (Business Wire)
InterDigital Announces Preliminary and Unaudited Fourth Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)

Newtown-based Epam Systems files to raise up to $133 million in IPO (Bloomberg)


TargetX: Helping colleges recruit (Philly.com: Philly Inc.)
A Conshohocken-based SaaS CRM vendor that built its offering on Salesforce's Force.com platform.

San Francisco-based Joyent gets $85 million for cloud expansion (Gigaom)

If Comcast can’t make it in the wireless biz, who can? (Gigaom)

Verizon spectrum deal faces scrutiny (New York Post)

VIDEO: Comcast Xfinity Commercials Interrupt Giants Vs. 49ers Game (SB Nation DC)
Report says its not clear yet whether it was Comcast or Fox who made the error.
(Update: It turned out to be an error on the part of DC Fox affiliate WTTG.)

Apply to Open Angel Forum Philly III (Gabriel Weinberg's Blog)

XBRL: A New Language for the Large Data Challenge (Safeguard Scientifics Blog)

Scala Introduces New Consumer Device Controlled Screen Communication Solution at ISE 2012 (PR Web)