Safeguard Scientifics Announces Second Quarter 2016 Financial Results

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Safeguard Scientifics provides capital and operational expertise to emerging and growth-stage healthcare and technology enterprises that are developing innovative products and services.
Safeguard Scientifics Announces Second Quarter 2016 Financial Results
Realized cash proceeds of $58.2 million, or 3.9x cash-on-cash return and 42% IRR, on sale of Putney

Conference call and webcast today at 9:00 a.m. ET
RADNOR, Pa., July 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) today announced financial results for the three- and six-months ended June 30, 2016, as well as continued achievement of developmental milestones by Safeguard's 27 current partner companies.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2016, Safeguard's net income was $39.0 million, or $1.92 per share, compared with a net loss of $19.0 million, or $0.91 per share, for the same quarter of 2015. For the six months ended June 30, 2016, Safeguard's net income was $23.5 million, or $1.15 per share, compared with a net loss of $33.6 million, or $1.61 per share, for the same period of 2015.

"As we enter the second half of 2016, we remain sharply focused on our core, value-creating strategies to deploy capital and provide operational support services to early- and growth-stage companies in targeted vertical markets, and to realize aggregate cash-on-cash returns of at least 2x on the $301.2 million deployed in our 27 current partner companies," said Stephen T. Zarrilli, President and CEO at Safeguard. "We are not deterred by the ongoing political and economic uncertainties that have roiled global capital markets year-to-date. Instead, we believe that the year's turbulence may generate opportunities for Safeguard as we work to expand our roster of partner companies, improve the pace of exit transactions, and evaluate potential new segments of the technology markets to deploy growth capital."

SECOND QUARTER 2016 Financial Highlights

Generated cash proceeds of $58.2 million from the $200 million sale of Putney to Dechra Holdings US Inc., a subsidiary of Dechra Pharmaceuticals Plc. This represents a 3.9x cash-on-cash return and 42% IRR for Safeguard. Safeguard had deployed $14.9 million in Putney since September 2011 and prior to the acquisition had a 28% primary ownership position. Safeguard recognized a $55 million book gain on the sale.
Realized $5.0 million in cash proceeds from the sale of Safeguard's ownership stake in partner company Bridgevine. Safeguard had deployed $10.0 million in Bridgevine since 2007.
Recognized an impairment charge of $1.7 million related to partner company AppFirst, in which Safeguard had deployed $12.8 million since December 2012 and had a 34% primary ownership position. During the second quarter, AppFirst ceased operations and sold its technology, returning $0.9 million of cash to Safeguard.
Deployed $5.5 million of new capital into San Francisco-based Aktana, a pioneer in data-driven decision support for global life science sales teams, as part of a $17.5 million financing. Safeguard has a 23% primary ownership position.
Deployed $8.8 million in follow-on funding to support the growth of six existing partner companies.
AGGREGATE PARTNER COMPANY REVENUE

Aggregate partner company revenue for 2016 has been revised to reflect the sale of partner companies Putney and Bridgevine and AppFirst's cessation of operations, and is now expected to be between $380 million and $400 million, which includes revenue for all partner companies in which Safeguard had an interest at January 1, 2016, except Putney, Bridgevine and AppFirst. Aggregate revenue reflects revenue on a net basis. Revenue data for certain partner companies pertains to periods prior to Safeguard's involvement with those companies and is based solely on information provided to Safeguard by those companies.

SELECT PARTNER COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS

Significant accomplishments by Safeguard's partner companies during the second quarter 2016 include:

~ Product Launches / Regulatory Approvals ~

CloudMine released an iOS software development kit to provide HIPAA compliant, encrypted and secure storage for data generated by Apple's CareKit framework.

Good Start Genetics announced the national rollout of an advanced version of EmbryVu, the next-generation embryo screening test, based on its proprietary sequencing platform and technology licensed from Johns Hopkins University, and will be presenting three poster presentations and three abstracts at the upcoming ASRM and ASHG conferences, respectively, in October.

Hoopla Software announced several new major features including integrations with Slack, Google Sheets and Zapier, and support for the Amazon Fire TV stick. With these new releases, Hoopla has extended the Hoopla TV platform in order to motivate, engage, and align employees for customers around the world.

MediaMath and TruSignal have partnered to enhance ShopStyle, a digital shopping platform that converts potential customers into buyers at lower costs per order. MediaMath used TruSignal's predictive data scores to drive a 200% increase in conversions at 60% lower cost per order over a 30-day period. In addition, PushSpring and MediaMath teamed up to integrate PushSpring's proprietary mobile app data in the user interface for MediaMath's clients. Lastly, MediaMath is participating in an anti-fraud certification program, "Certified Against Fraud" with the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG).

Pneuron introduced its Pneuron 2.0 platform for decentralizing and accelerating enterprise data management and analysis. Version 2.0 features a redesigned user interface, larger library of design components, and enhanced enterprise security configurations.

Propeller Health and AMC Health, a provider of remote patient monitoring and engagement services, formally launched a previously announced nationwide initiative to help patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and asthma improve disease management and reduce symptoms and hospital visits. The multiyear partnership brings Propeller Health's commercial programs in U.S. healthcare systems and other organizations to more than 40. Physicians at Dignity Health published results of a randomized controlled trial using Propeller Health in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, demonstrating that the use of the Propeller digital health technology could improve asthma control.

~ Major Customer Wins / Strategic Partnerships ~

Beyond added Johns Hopkins Health System, Time Warner Cable, Charles Schwab, ConAgra Foods and Sysco Corporation to its customer roster.

Clutch Holdings and Rocky Brands are now teaming up on four separate loyalty programs for Rocky's diverse brand lineup of work and western boots, and luxury sneakers. Additionally, Clutch has finalized a new strategic partnership with NetSuite, resulting in agreements with retailers Toad & Co. and MZ Wallace.

MediaMath launched its training arm, the New Marketing Institute, in Asia Pacific to help aspiring marketers and professionals to understand programmatic techniques and technologies. MediaMath integrated with a new partner, C1X, to enable access to highly privileged supply on both Open RTB and through private marketplace deals. MediaMath also announced that Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. will provide colocation and wavelength connectivity that MediaMath clients require for processing large volumes of data and real-time bidding with low latency.

meQuilibrium established partnerships with two of the large national healthcare plans. In addition, meQuilibrium added two Fortune 50 companies as clients, as well as expanded relationships with existing clients.

Propeller Health has new partnerships with 246,000-member Molina Healthcare of New Mexico for asthma control, and with Vectura Group plc in the United Kingdom to develop digitally connected inhalers using Vectura's dry powder technology.

Sonobi announced that its JetStream platform has been incorporated in the new Publisher Addressable Marketplaces premium programmatic advertising solution launched by Merkle, a global data-driven, technology enabled performance marketing agency and the largest independent agency in the U.S. for CRM, digital and search. The PAM solution enables people-based targeting and measurement across premium publisher audiences and inventory.

Syapse has launched the Oncology Precision Network (OPeN) in collaboration with its customers Intermountain Healthcare, Providence Health & Services, and Stanford Cancer Institute. OPeN will share cancer genomics data from these health systems through the Syapse software platform, rapidly bringing the most promising treatment insights to cancer patients and physicians. Syapse and OPeN continue to garner attention for their work to advance cancer care through data sharing and increased access to clinical trials. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden highlighted Syapse and OPeN in his remarks at the Cancer Moonshot Summit in Washington, D.C. His remarks were broadcast by C-SPAN and widely reported in national media. OPeN comprises physicians and patients across 11 states, 70 hospitals and 800 clinics, and is projected to help 50,000 new patients per year when fully implemented. In addition to the launch of OPeN, Syapse launched precision oncology programs with two new customers, Henry Ford Health System, a leader in addressing the needs of underserved patients in the great lakes region, and Catholic Health Initiatives, the nation's second-largest nonprofit health system.

WebLinc created a commerce platform for women's online clothing retailer Rachel Roy. In addition, WebLinc relaunched an ecommerce website for existing client Sanrio and launched new ecommerce sites for new clients Costume SuperCenter and Skye's the Limit for Alfred Dunner.

Zipnosis added two health systems to its roster of clients. First is Lakewood Health System, located in Minnesota, which is an independent rural healthcare system that operates a hospital and primary clinics in five Minnesota communities. Zipnosis developed Lakewood's Click Care platform. Second is St. Vincent's Medical Center, located in Connecticut, which is a member of Ascension, the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. and the world's largest Catholic health system. Zipnosis developed St. Vincent's MYvirtualcare.com for online diagnosis and treatment.

~ Industry Awards ~

Aktana was recognized as a Cool Vendor in Gartner's 2016 report "Cool Vendors in Life Science."

Cask Data was named a 2016 Cool Vendor in a Gartner report on Pervasive Integration for its open source Cask Data Application Platform (CDAP) and Cask Hydrator. Vendors selected for the "Cool Vendor" report are innovative, impactful and intriguing. Cask has also been certified as a great workplace by the independent analysts at Great Place to Work®; the esteemed certification recognizes Cask for excellence in employee ratings.

CloudMine earned three prestigious awards during the quarter. Its Connected Health Cloud won a 2016 SIIA CODiE Award as Best Information Service Delivered as a Mobile App. The CloudMine Connected Health Cloud enables healthcare organizations and pharmaceutical companies to connect vast amounts of patient data to promote patient engagement and improve treatment adherence and patient outcomes. The company was recognized as an IDC Innovator because its technology balances lower-cost mobile app development platform subscription fees with development of specialized APIs relevant to regulated industries. Gartner named CloudMine a Cool Vendor in mobile app development for its Connected Health Cloud.

MediaMath was ranked No. 2 on Business Insider's list of the "37 hottest pre-IPO ad tech startups of 2016." Business Insider says the market for privately held ad tech companies is "bustling," and that "a number of public companies have eyed up MediaMath for a potential acquisition, but it sounds as though the company wants to remain independent for now." In other news, CEO Joe Zawadzki was named 2016 Data Innovator of the Year for leadership in data-driven marketing by the Data Innovators Group and the Direct Marketing Club of New York. Fortune magazine listed MediaMath among the 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials, and one of the 50 Best Places to Work for new college graduates.

Propeller Health received the American Telemedicine Association 2016 President's Award for Innovation in Remote Healthcare.

Spongecell's dynamic video campaign for the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development was awarded both a Silver Lion in Creative Data Enhancement and a Bronze Lion in Data Storytelling at Cannes Lions 2016, the preeminent international festival of creativity. The Tennessee Department of Tourism Development saw a 46% increase in Web traffic and 12,000 trip itineraries.

Trice Medical won MedCity News' 'Best of INVEST' award in the medical device category.

WebLinc co-founder and CEO, Darren Hill, was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2016 Award in the Greater Philadelphia Region. WebLinc was named a finalist for the 2016 SIIA CODiE Award for Best eCommerce Solution. Client Zobha's redesigned interactive commerce platform was recognized as a Top Innovator by Apparel Magazine.

Zipnosis was one of four companies recognized as an IDC Innovator in U.S. virtual care for 2016 among companies with less than $50 million in revenue. CEO Jonathan Pearce was listed among the 100 leaders transforming healthcare through technology by Hot Topics, a prominent tech news publisher. Zipnosis was also listed among Minnesota's 2016 'Best Places to Work' by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

~ Financings and Other Milestones ~

Aktana was added to the roster of Safeguard partner companies through a Safeguard-led $17.5 million financing. Safeguard deployed an initial $5.5 million for a 23% primary ownership position. Proceeds will be used to continue product development and international expansion. Aktana has offices in San Francisco, New York City and Tokyo, and plans to expand in China and Europe.

Apprenda acquired Kismatic to accelerate the company's delivery of cloud-native enterprise applications using Kubernetes technology. The Kismatic CEO will serve as Apprenda's corporate CTO.

Aventura was issued a patent (No. 9,367,512) by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office relating to dynamic updating of virtual resources and applications based on location change, which can solve the problem of roaming sessions on virtualized desktops and applications. In addition, technology innovator Patrick Flynn, former CTO of Phytel, which was acquired by IBM in 2015, was appointed COO.

Cask Data reported that Ericsson has made a strategic minority investment that is expected to accelerate delivery of Cask's Apache Hadoop-based services for managing complex data analytics to a range of industries. Cask has spent years working with customers to give them the ability to drive efficiencies at every step in the big data lifecycle, to expand access to data through self-service, and to provide portability of services across different production environments.

Full Measure Education raised $6 million in equity capital in a Series B financing led by Safeguard. Year to date, Full Measure reported that its client base has more than doubled and that proceeds from the financing will be used to support continued growth. The company expanded its leadership team with the appointment of former Blackboard Inc. executive Tess Kelly-Frazier as executive vice president of strategy and operations.

meQuilibrium appointed veteran sales executive Scott Fillenworth to the position of senior vice president for sales and business development.

Transactis raised a $30 million Series E financing with equal participation from Safeguard and five of the largest U.S. commercial banks—Capital One, Fifth Third, PNC, TD and Wells Fargo. To date, Transactis has raised $70 million.

Trice Medical appointed William Hawkins to the company's board of directors. The former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, one of the world's largest and most innovative medical technology companies, Mr. Hawkins brings more than 30 years of experience in healthcare delivery, product development, distribution and leadership to Trice Medical. Mr. Hawkins has a consistent track record of driving value-creating innovation that has revolutionized medical care and strengthened healthcare systems globally. He has played a leadership role in Washington, D.C. on both healthcare policy and with matters involving the FDA.

PARTNER COMPANY HOLDINGS AS OF JUNE 30, 2016



Partner Company Revenue Stages
Development Stage
Pre-revenue
Proving out technology
Developing prototype
Beta stage customers
Initial Revenue Stage
Up to $5M in revenue
Initial customers
Early market penetration
Management team forming
Infrastructure being built
Expansion Stage
$5M to $20M in revenue
Commercial grade solution
Growing market penetration
Management team built out
Infrastructure in place
High Traction Stage
$20M+ in revenue
Significant commercial traction





Stage
Sector
Acquisition Year

Primary Ownership%

Carrying Value

Cost

Healthcare Partner Companies:






(in millions)

(in millions)


AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions
High Traction
HealthTech
2006

40%

$5.3

$16.3



Aktana
Initial Revenue
HealthTech
2016

23%

5.5

5.5



Aventura
Initial Revenue
HealthTech
2015

20%

4.0

6.0



Good Start Genetics
High Traction
MedTech
2010

30%

-

13.8



InfoBionic
Development
MedTech
2014

41%

2.5

11.5



Medivo
Expansion
HealthTech
2011

35%

6.0

11.6



meQuilibrium
Initial Revenue
HealthTech
2015

32%

4.7

6.5



NovaSom
Expansion
MedTech
2011

32%

4.0

22.1



Propeller Health
Initial Revenue
HealthTech
2014

25%

5.3

9.0



Syapse
Initial Revenue
HealthTech
2014

29%

8.6

13.3



Trice Medical
Initial Revenue
MedTech
2014

28%

3.1

6.2



Zipnosis
Initial Revenue
HealthTech
2015

26%

6.5

7.0










$55.5

$128.8

Technology Partner Companies:












Apprenda
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2013

30%

14.3

22.1



Beyond
High Traction
Digital Media
2007

38%

15.0

13.5



Cask Data
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2015

34%

9.1

11.0



CloudMine
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2015

30%

3.1

4.9



Clutch Holdings
Expansion
Digital Media
2013

39%

9.3

14.3



Full Measure Education
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2015

36%

6.4

8.0



Hoopla Software
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2011

26%

0.5

4.8



Lumesis
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2012

44%

2.0

5.9



MediaMath
High Traction
Digital Media
2009

21%

9.2

25.5



Pneuron
Initial Revenue
Enterprise
2013

35%

6.2

8.5



QuanticMind
Initial Revenue
Digital Media
2015

24%

6.0

7.0



Sonobi
Expansion
Digital Media
2015

23%

4.2

5.4



Spongecell
Expansion
Digital Media
2012

23%

11.0

16.0



Transactis
Expansion
Enterprise
2014

24%

12.0

14.5



WebLinc
Expansion
Digital Media
2014

38%

8.1

11.0










$116.4

$172.4

Total: Healthcare + Technology




TOTAL:

$171.9

$301.2























HEALTHCARE

AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (Warren, NJ)
AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions ("AdvantEdge") is a technology-enabled provider of healthcare revenue cycle and business management solutions that improve decision-making, maximize financial performance, streamline operations and mitigate compliance risks for healthcare providers.

Aktana, Inc. (San Francisco, CA)
Aktana is a pioneer in decision support for global life science sales teams, currently improving the commercial effectiveness of seven of the world's top 15 pharmaceutical companies. The company's data-fueled suggestions and insights are delivered within a sales professional's existing CRM workflow, serving as a critical ally in data leverage and better decision-making.

Aventura, Inc. (Denver, CO)
Aventura is a leading provider of awareness computing for the healthcare industry. Through its patented technology, Aventura delivers awareness of a user's identity and role, the location within a facility, the device being used, and the patient being treated.

Good Start Genetics, Inc. (Cambridge, MA)
Good Start Genetics is an information solutions company delivering best-in-class genetics offerings to growing families. Using advanced clinical sequencing, proprietary methods and information tailored to the individual, Good Start Genetics' suite of offerings arms clinicians and patients with insightful and actionable information to promote successful pregnancies and help build healthy families.

InfoBionic, Inc. (Lowell, MA)
InfoBionic is an emerging digital health company focused on creating superior patient monitoring solutions for chronic disease management with an initial market focus on cardiac arrhythmias.

Medivo, Inc. (New York, NY)
Medivo unlocks the power of clinical diagnostics to improve health. Medivo uses advanced analytics and proprietary disease algorithms to provide unique targeting intelligence for life science companies; commercial effectiveness solutions for diagnostic companies; and quality improvement and risk management insights for payers. Medivo is the largest source of lab data in the U.S. with access to over 150 million patients through its nationwide network of partner labs.

meQuilibrium, Inc. (Boston, MA)
meQuilibrium is a digital coaching platform that delivers clinically validated and highly personalized resilience solutions to employers, health plans, wellness providers, and consumers increasing engagement, productivity and performance, as well as improving outcomes in managing stress, health and well-being. The clinically validated, HIPAA-compliant, software-as-a-service ("SaaS") platform delivers an individualized digital coaching experience.

NovaSom, Inc. (Glen Burnie, MD)
NovaSom is a leader in obstructive sleep apnea home testing with the AccuSom® home sleep test, a comprehensively supported home sleep test that provides continuous patient support and next-day test results and interpretation for health care professionals.

Propeller Health, Inc. (Madison, WI)
Propeller Health provides digital solutions to measurably improve respiratory health. One of the first mobile platforms with FDA clearance, Propeller Health combines sensors, mobile apps and predictive analytics to monitor and engage patients, increase adherence and encourage effective self-management.

Syapse, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA)
Syapse drives healthcare transformation through precision medicine, enabling provider systems to improve clinical outcomes, streamline operations, and shift to new payment models. Syapse Precision Medicine Platform is a comprehensive software suite used by leading health systems to support the clinical implementation of precision medicine in oncology and other service lines, enabling clinical and genomic data integration, decision support, care coordination, and quality improvement at point of care.

Trice Medical™ (King of Prussia, PA)
Trice Medical is a sports medicine company focused on micro invasive technologies. Trice Medical has pioneered fully integrated camera-enabled needle technologies that provide a clinical solution, optimized for use in the physician's office.

Zipnosis, Inc. (Minneapolis, MN)
Zipnosis partners with health systems nationwide to provide a white-labeled virtual care platform, offering patients convenient access to care while improving clinician efficiency. Zipnosis guides health systems through the virtual care journey and guarantees launch of their virtual care platform in just 60 days. Patients are treated through video, telephone, and adaptive online interviews—with available pharmacy and lab integration.

TECHNOLOGY

Apprenda, Inc. (Troy, NY)
Apprenda is a leading enterprise cloud platform company powering the next generation of enterprise software development in public, private and hybrid clouds. As a foundational software layer and application run-time environment, Apprenda abstracts away the complexities of building and delivering modern software applications, enabling enterprises to turn ideas into innovations more quickly.

Beyond.com, Inc. (King of Prussia, PA)
Beyond, The Career Network™, helps millions of professionals find jobs and advance their careers while also serving as the premier destination for companies in need of top talent. This is achieved through more than 500 talent communities that use integrated social features to help members discover relevant jobs, career news, career advice and resources.

Cask Data, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA)
Cask provides the de-factor, open source big data application and integration platform that lets developers and data scientists accelerate the time to build, deploy and operate data-centric applications and data lakes. Cask also enables IT organizations to implement well-governed data-as-a-service environments designed to quickly unlock the value of data.

CloudMine, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA)
CloudMine's Connected Health Cloud integrates the vast world of health data—empowering payers, providers, and pharmaceutical organizations to mobilize patient information by building robust applications and driving actionable insights. Through support for machine learning, data science, and predictive analytics, CloudMine customers are improving the quality of care by leveraging cognitive data analysis to determine patient interactions.

Clutch Holdings, Inc. (Ambler, PA)
Clutch helps brands identify, understand and engage their customers to earn their genuine loyalty. Clutch's advanced customer marketing platform and expert customer strategy is specifically designed to address the sophisticated customer challenges of premier brands.

Full Measure Education, Inc. (Washington, DC)
Full Measure Education designs next-generation, mobile-first technologies for community colleges nationwide. Full Measure Education's Guided Pathways Management system offers post-secondary institutions an easy, holistic approach for personalizing every student's path to success.

Hoopla Software, Inc. (San Jose, CA)
Hoopla helps businesses of all sizes through its performance-broadcasting platform. Hoopla's live broadcasts of key accomplishments, metrics, leaderboards and announcements empower companies to foster a culture of connectedness, transparency and recognition. Customers including GM Financial, Marketo and Zillow use Hoopla to celebrate achievements and keep employees energized, engaged and motivated.

Lumesis, Inc. (Stamford, CT)
Lumesis is focused on providing regulatory, business efficiency and analytical solutions to the municipal bond marketplace. Lumesis is dedicated to serving the municipal market with industry-leading solutions that meet the needs of an evolving regulatory environment. Today, the company's DIVER platform helps hundreds of firms with over 43,000 users efficiently meet credit, regulatory and risk needs.

MediaMath, Inc. (New York, NY)
MediaMath is a global technology company that is leading the movement to revolutionize traditional marketing and drive transformative results for marketers through its TerminalOne Marketing Operating System®. A pioneer in the industry, introducing the first Demand-Side Platform with the company's founding in 2007, MediaMath is the only company of its kind to empower marketers with an extensible, open platform to unleash the power of goal-based marketing at scale, transparently across the enterprise.

Pneuron Corporation (Woburn, MA)
Pneuron's leading business orchestration software enables organizations to flexibly leverage their existing applications, infrastructure, services and data to create and deliver actionable intelligence—in half the time and cost. Through Pneuron's innovative, distributed approach, companies are no longer faced with the complex centralization and integration requirements of traditional approaches.

QuanticMind, Inc. (Redwood City, CA)
QuanticMind, the "platform for smarter advertising", is a rapidly growing SaaS company providing enterprise-level, predictive advertising management software for paid search, social, and mobile, which represent the largest digital advertising categories in the world. QuanticMind brings together machine learning, distributed cloud, and in-memory processing technologies to provide the most intelligent, most scalable, and fastest platform available.

Sonobi, Inc. (New York, NY)
Sonobi is an advertising technology developer that creates forward-thinking, data-driven tools and solutions to meet the evolving needs of demand- and sell-side organizations within the digital media marketplace. Sonobi helps its clients and strategic partners to forecast new market opportunities, enhance value delivery to clients, and create more profitable businesses through integration of progressive data procurement and user-centric sales management technologies.

Spongecell, Inc. (New York, NY)
Spongecell's Creative Management Platform helps advertisers enhance the power of digital brand creative by leveraging customer data and brand content to personalize ads for maximum relevance. Spongecell's Creative Optimization and Relevance Engine (CORE) combines robust data integrations with powerful optimization and decisioning tools. Spongecell's streamlined workflow, including its Smart Canvas, empowers advertisers to make smarter creative decisions and build powerful campaigns that drive performance and ROI.

Transactis, Inc. (New York, NY)
Transactis is a leading provider of electronic billing and payment solutions. Transactis' cloud-based electronic bill presentment and payment platform, BillerIQ, is a white-labeled solution that is offered "as-a-service," enabling businesses to rapidly and securely deliver electronic bills, invoices and documents as well as accept payments online, by phone and via mobile device.

WebLinc, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA)
WebLinc is the commerce and operations management platform for fast growing online retailers. WebLinc tailors its commerce platform to the needs and scale of mid to large retailers by leveraging extensive experience and success supporting clients' need for fast growth and system flexibility.

CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST DETAILS

Please call 10-15 minutes prior to the call to register.


Date:
Thursday, July 28, 2016




Time:
9:00am EDT




Webcast:
www.safeguard.com/results




Live Number:
877-201-0168 // (International) 647-788-4901




Replay Number:
855-859-2056 // (International) 404-537-3406




Access Code:
38167317




Speakers:
President and Chief Executive Officer, Stephen T. Zarrilli; and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jeffrey B. McGroarty.




Format:
Discussion of second quarter 2016 financial results followed by Q&A.


Replay will be available through August 28, 2016 at 11:59pm EDT. For more information please contact IR@safeguard.com.

About Safeguard Scientifics
Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) has a distinguished track record of fostering innovation and building market leaders. For more than 60 years, Safeguard has been providing growth capital and operational support to entrepreneurs across an evolving spectrum of industries. Today, Safeguard targets early- and growth-stage companies in advertising technology, digital media, financial technology, enterprise software, digital health and healthcare IT. For more information, please visit www.safeguard.com or follow us on Twitter @safeguard.

Forward-looking Statements
Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. The risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, our ability to make good decisions about the deployment of capital, the fact that our partner companies may vary from period to period, our substantial capital requirements and absence of liquidity from our partner company holdings, fluctuations in the market prices of our publicly traded partner company holdings, competition, our inability to obtain maximum value for our partner company holdings, our ability to attract and retain qualified employees, market valuations in sectors in which our partner companies operate, our inability to control our partner companies, our need to manage our assets to avoid registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940, and risks associated with our partner companies, including the fact that most of our partner companies have a limited history and a history of operating losses, face intense competition and may never be profitable, the effect of economic conditions in the business sectors in which Safeguard's partner companies operate, and other uncertainties described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of these factors are beyond the Company's ability to predict or control. As a result of these and other factors, the Company's past financial performance should not be relied on as an indication of future performance. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements or other information contained in this press release.

SAFEGUARD CONTACTS:
For Investor Relations
John E. Shave III
Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications
610.975.4952
jshave(at)safeguard(dot)com

For Media Relations
Heather R. Hunter
Vice President, Corporate Communications
610.975.4923
hhunter(at)safeguard(dot)com



Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets
(in thousands)









June 30, 2016

December 31, 2015









Assets




Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities

$
80,693


$
63,858

Other current assets

2,345


5,810


Total current assets

83,038


69,668

Ownership interests in and advances to partner companies

176,059


171,601

Loan participations receivable

2,845


2,649

Long-term marketable securities

10,680


9,743

Other assets

3,047


3,182

Total Assets

$
275,669


$
256,843






Liabilities and Equity




Other current liabilities

$
5,261


$
6,417


Total current liabilities

5,261


6,417

Other long-term liabilities

4,010


3,965

Convertible senior debentures

51,740


50,956

Total equity

214,658


195,505

Total Liabilities and Equity

$
275,669


$
256,843











Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations
(in thousands, except per share amounts)











Three Months Ended
June 30,

Six Months Ended
June 30,


2016

2015

2016

2015





Operating expenses

$
4,849


$
4,754


$
10,077


$
9,634

Operating loss

(4,849)


(4,754)


(10,077)


(9,634)










Other income (loss), net

659


(15)


659


(403)

Interest, net

(628)


(488)


(1,357)


(1,161)

Equity income (loss)

43,794


(13,765)


34,299


(22,427)










Net income (loss) before income taxes

38,976


(19,022)


23,524


(33,625)

Income tax benefit (expense)












Net income (loss)

$
38,976


$
(19,022)


$
23,524


$
(33,625)










Net income (loss) per share:








Basic

$
1.92


$
(0.91)


$
1.15


$
(1.61)

Diluted

$
1.70


$
(0.91)


$
1.09


$
(1.61)










Weighted average shares used in computing income (loss) per share:








Basic

20,333


20,895


20,391


20,878

Diluted

23,539


20,895


23,602


20,878












Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.
Segment Results
(in thousands)









Three Months Ended
June 30,

Six Months Ended
June 30,


2016

2015

2016

2015





Operating Loss








Healthcare

$



$



$



$


Technology












Total segment results












Other items (a)

(4,849)


(4,754)


(10,077)


(9,634)



$
(4,849)


$
(4,754)


$
(10,077)


$
(9,634)










Net income (loss)








Healthcare

$
48,184


$
(13,135)


$
43,188


$
(17,416)

Technology

(3,677)


(606)


(8,177)


(5,378)

Total segment results

44,507


(13,741)


35,011


(22,794)

Other items (a)

(5,531)


(5,281)


(11,487)


(10,831)

Net income (loss)

$
38,976


$
(19,022)


$
23,524


$
(33,625)










(a) Other items include corporate expenses, Penn Mezzanine and private equity fund activity.




Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.


Partner Company Financial Data


(in thousands)
















Additional Financial Information


To assist investors in understanding Safeguard and our 27 partner companies as of June 30, 2016, we are providing additional financial information on our partner companies, including the aggregate cost and carrying value for all of our partner companies and other holdings. Carrying value of an equity method partner company represents the original acquisition cost and any follow-on funding, plus or minus our share of the earnings or losses of each company, reduced by any impairment charges. The carrying value and cost data reflect our percentage holdings in the partner companies and reflect both equity ownership interests in and advances to those partner companies.





































June 30, 2016

























Carrying
Value

Cost
(including
transaction costs)



Safeguard Carrying Value and Cost







Equity method partner companies







$
171,908


$
301,387



Other holdings







4,151


37,135











$
176,059


$
338,522




















L


MLB: Speed up the game



Tom Paine



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I heard the announcers on today's Fox baseball game discuss steps that can be taken to shorten the length of games, a subject under active consideration By MLB.

Steps like requiring a reliever to pitch to at least two batters, or other measures to cut back on the number of relief pitchers used. (Each pitching change adds x extra minutes to a game; my guess is 8 minutes). Cutting back on chat time. I would say sharper enforcement of the 12 second rule,for the time a pitcher is supposed to have to throw the ball after receiving it with the bases empty. And most instant replay reviews add time.

I love baseball, but the game is too long. Sitting through a nine inning game lasting much more than 3 hours is asking too much. Most people just don't have the time.

I know that to enjoy a game, you've got to be able to sit down and relax for a while. But many people, particularly in the age of iPhones, can't adjust to that. Go into a restaurant or other public place with a common TV and see how rarely it ends up on a baseball game. Some people would rather watch anything but.

MlB is making a good deal of money from MLB.com, but that's a niche audience. Its having trouble engaging broader audiences, except at certain times in certain cities.


Publicis has Kevin Roberts take leave of absence as it mulls his fate (Digiday)

Workday Plans for Platfora Revealed
(Constellation Research)

Curt Schilling's defunct game studio won't face criminal charges (Engadget)/


Winola Lake Health IT’s SmartSupply Health Solution Will Make Its Official Debut at AHRMM16 in San Diego


Winola Lake Health IT’s SmartSupply Health Solution Will Make Its Official Debut at AHRMM16 in San Diego
July 29, 2016 11:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time
PIPERSVILLE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Winola Lake Health IT, leading provider of healthcare IT and point of care technology solutions, will officially debut its SmartSupply Health Solution at AHRMM16 in San Diego. SmartSupply Health is an advanced supply chain offering that has been designed for the sole purpose of serving the unique requirements of healthcare and life sciences applications.

“Supply chain is essential to many of healthcare’s most important strategic objectives."
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The offering, first announced in December 2015, is the result of a collaborative effort between Winola Lake Health IT and JASCI, a tenured leader in the enterprise supply chain space. SmartSupply Health brings together Winola Lake’s experience in the healthcare industry with JASCI’s proven cloud-based supply chain platform to transform the management of medical supplies – particularly in the last mile of the supply chain, from dock to patient bedside.

Since its initial announcement, SmartSupply Health has made a positive impact for several of Winola Lake’s hospital and health system clients. The product is now ready to make its entrée into the broader market.

SmartSupply Health comes at a time when the healthcare system is under greater pressure to contain costs and improve efficiency than ever before. With supply chain expected to exceed 44 percent of all healthcare costs by 2022, the function represents a ready opportunity for significant time and cost savings.

“In healthcare, the role of supply chain is more than a functional one,” said Rick Hodge, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Winola Lake Health IT. “Because of its significant cost impact and pervasiveness, supply chain is essential to many of healthcare’s most important strategic objectives, including the improvement of care quality, outcomes, efficiency and cost effectiveness.”

Similarly, SmartSupply Health is designed to play both a strategic and functional role. In addition to providing real-time, end-to-end visibility and control over supplies and inventory from the supplier to the point of care, SmartSupply Health offers analytics integrated with IBM Watson, helping providers to make actionable the wealth of data contained in their supply chains.

Among SmartSupply Health’s additional features are its SmartTask Workflow Engine, which empowers providers to configure workflows on the go, and its labor tracking and management capabilities, which enable providers to measure and improve efficiency.

Winola Lake Health IT views AHRMM16 as the perfect forum to bring the supply offering to market. “We chose to officially launch the product at AHRMM16 because this year’s theme of ‘Collaborating to Achieve the Triple Aim’ is well-aligned with SmartSupply Health’s benefits, which impact both providers and their patient populations,” said Rick of the launch.

Winola Lake Health IT will showcase the offering in Booth #530 in the New Exhibitor Pavilion, where they will be conducting live product demos for attendees.

About Winola Lake Health IT

Winola Lake Health IT provides healthcare technology and services that address the diverse needs of a number of healthcare roles. Committed to bringing innovative solutions that fulfill healthcare information technology needs, Winola Lake Health IT’s solutions make hospitals, long-term care facilities and physicians’ offices more efficient, improving the quality of care and the patient experience. With a seasoned team of healthcare technology veterans, Winola Lake Health IT takes a consultative approach to solving clinical application problems, working with clients to exceed the goals of their institution.

For more information, visit www.winolalake.com.


Links 7/29: Layer3 TV to take on Comcast in Chicago area: Rovi preaches patience on Comcast row






Amazon Web Services continues to swallow the computer industry, and other Amazon notes



Tom Paine



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A simple earnings report can be a difficult thing to write up. The major news services - Dow Jones, Reuters, Bloomberg - certainly get it right most of the time. But at some of the top tech websites, it may not be a top priority job and as a result is farmed out to some junior staffer who can't do elementary long division.

An example of this was Amazon's earnings report today. I was trying to get a quick fix on Amazon Web Services' year-over-year growth for its 2nd quarter. At one site I went to it was 59%, at another 61%. Another mistakenly said the growth was 2nd quarter over 1st quarter.

The correct numbers were $2,886 for Q2 2016 over $1,824 (000) for Q2 2015, for a percentage increase of 58.2 %.



Although this represents a slight decline in its growth rate from recent quarters,  it is still phenomenal for a business of that size, on a pace with companies like Microsoft and Google. Its even more remarkable when considering that AWS is selling mostly infrastructure, not end user services or software that should have more value-added, and revenue.

AWS also has 25% operating margins, impressive for a business that essentially is a modern version of what used to be referred to as a service bureau.


Other interesting Amazon facts:


  • Amazon Business now serves more than 400,000 businesses and generated more than $1 billion in sales in its first year


  • "AWS announced the availability of X1 instances, a new Memory Optimized instance for Amazon EC2. X1 instances have 2 TB of memory — the most memory available in any cloud instance offered today by any cloud provider. Powered by the latest Intel processors and certified by SAP, X1 instances are ideal for running in-memory databases like SAP HANA, big data processing engines like Apache Spark or Presto, and high performance computing (HPC) workloads."

  • "AWS also announced that SAP business-critical applications are gaining momentum on AWS as customers including GE Oil & Gas, Kellogg’s, Brooks Brothers, Ferrara Candy Company, GPT Group, Hoya Corporation, Lionsgate, Macmillan Publishers India, RWE Czech Republic, and Bart & Associates Inc., are running SAP on AWS."

  • AWS  announced that Salesforce selected it as its  preferred public cloud infrastructure provider

  • NBC has a skill on Alexa, and Campbell's Soup has a Dash button. Amazon has already established itself as a leader in home IoT and has roots on the business side as well.

  • With Amazon now reselling Comcast cable (no word on how that's progressing), and Comcast Business Services linking to AWS (no big deal, actually), one has to wonder if there will be more joint initiatives between the two giants in the future.





  • AmazonFresh launched in Boston, joining northern and southern California, northern New Jersey, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle.


Links 7/28: How does the SAP IoT marketing hype compare to the reality?; Comcast Renews NBCU Chief Steve Burke’s Contract To Mid-2020






Oracle to acquire Netsuite for $9.3 billion






Comcast 2Q earnings meet expectations; A look at some key issues



Tom Paine



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Comcast earnings calls are so well correographed that I usually focus on exception reporting, noting the few items or remarks that stand out like outliers. But there was a little more substance and discussion of strategic issues today as Comcast reported 2nd quarter earnings, though the financial results were largely as expected (hint: it made a ton of money)

Comcast couldn't comment on the ongoing spectrum auction because FCC rules prohibit it. It stands to gain money by selling spectrum as well as spend money buying spectrum. But Neil Smit did comment on the wireless opportunity in general, saying "with 28 million customer relationships, our MVNO rights, which we've invoked, and our 15 million Wi-Fi hotspots, we think there's a real business opportunity there. We've been in test and learn mode." Smit also mentioned the appointment of Greg Butz to head Comcast's wireless effort.

Comcast lost only 4,000 video customers, its best second quarter result in over ten years. The second quarter is usually a low tide spot because many college students and seasonal workers move and disconnect.

Comcast's X1 is now at 40% penetration,, up from 30% at the beginning of the year, but at the 2nd quarter rate may fall short of its 50% stated goal at year end. X1 is seen as more than a user interface, but as the key vehicle for delivering content and services via the cloud.

Brian Roberts on OTT (streaming over the web) and going out of footprint, as Hulu (1/3 owned by Comcast as silent partner) prepares a Netflix-like OTT service: 'OTT economics are unproven to us, and out of footprint it's not clear that that's the right strategy for us."

No mention of an item in the New York Post this weekend suggesting that Comcast might be planning a nationwide mobile content service.

Judging from a Q&A exchange, it sounds as if the XB6 wireless (WiFi) gateway is taking a little bit longer to get out of the lab than expected. Maybe late this year or early next.

Theme parks are now a billion dollar quarterly business for Comcast, with operating margins of about 45%. Quite an achievement for a company that was once laughed at for trying to acquire Disney.

NBC had the best upfront since Comcast has owned the company, with a 12.5% CPM increase at NBC primetime.

Steve Burke on retrans fees: "I think, on retrans is we still have some major contracts where retrans is going to take significant step-ups and we're still hundreds of millions of dollars less than some of the other comparable peers."

Strong gains were reported at MSNBC (Brian Williams?), and Meet the Press "moved up from 3rd to 1st in key demo"(graphics?), perhaps proving that the prior host was the problem. Political advertising is expected to provide a boost for the remainder of the year.

Business Services revenue grew 17%. About 75% of Business services revenue comes from small business, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a slight downward blip in growth this quarter due to the major voice outage earlier this month.

For those obsessed with the numbers, revenue for the quarter was up 2.8%, and operating cash flow was up 3.0%. Results compared to last year were hurt by some tough comparisons, particularly in its film business. Cable revenue grew 6%.



Comcast 2Q 2016 earnings roundup






Links 7/27: DNC tech exhibits aim to make election coverage more interactive; SAP teams up with AliCloud to drive enterprise cloud services in China






Links 7/26: Yahoo can't make up for Verizon's problems; Layer3 TV gains more investors






Links 7/25: Netflix’s cable box deal with Comcast not exempt from data caps; First Round Capital leads $4 million Series A in startup Nomad Health






Sunday highlights: @DNCPHILLY Tech; Comcast X1 Dev in Colorado






Amazon continues N.J. expansion with a warehouse in Teterboro

Amazon continues N.J. expansion with a warehouse in Teterboro

TETERBORO - Amazon.com has leased a large warehouse on Route 46 as part of the e-commerce giant's plan to expand across New Jersey. According to NorthJersey.com, the company signed a 10-year lease for a 617,000 square-foot warehouse at 698 Route 46 West. In 2015, Amazon leased a 75,000 square-foot warehouse on Empire Boulevard in Moonachie. Amazon…



Report: Comcast eyeing new mobile content package; may go 'outside of cable footprint'



Tom Paine



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Greg Butz / Comcast website

Claire Atkinson, in the New York Post's "On the Money" column, reports that "Comcast is also out negotiating for national video rights to a prospective “virtual MVPD (multichannel video program distributor)” offering — the first time a regional cable player is moving beyond its footprint."

She also reports that Comcast is talking to Disney about an offering outside the cable bundle.

“If they go out of footprint, they’ll do it with a 5G mobile phone service; they don’t want to offer it with someone else’s data plan,” Atkinson quote one source as saying.


This comes within the backdrop of Comcast veteran Greg Butz, currently EVP, Sales & Marketing Operations, Comcast Cable, just being named to head a new Mobile unit.


Saturday Highlights: NY Post on Comcast mobile plans; NPR on Roger Ailes






Links 7/22: SAP Q2 FY2016, an S/4 HANA take; Verizon said to be near a deal to acquire Yahoo





A little background: Trump, Roger Ailes and Fox News (Update: Ailes advising Trump on debates)



Tom Paine



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I'm a conservative of a certain kind. Not a Cruz conservative, though he has some traits I admire. And certainly not a Trump conservative. In fact, count me among those who doesn't consider Trump to be much of a conservative at all.

But beyond the sexual harassment allegations against Roger Ailes, which are obviously serious by themselves, one must understand the political climate Ailes fostered, and probably engineered, at Fox News.

Like many Murdoch properties, it does some things very well. Its 6pm evening news show and Chris Wallace's Sunday morning program are both excellent. And Megyn Kelly has established herself as an interesting personality, though Trump probably gave her career a boost with his off-color comments. Fox News has excelled in its reporting on defense and foreign affairs. Greg Gutfeld  can be genuinely funny in a satirical way.

It is also not the singular conservative monolith people on the left usually make it out to be.

But most of its hosts are hacks. The personalities on Fox & Friends, Neil Cavuto, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity have their following, but intellectual consistency and integrity are traits they are lacking in.

Because of Trump's attacks on Kelly, many people have misunderstood his relationship with FNC. It is incestuous, and he thinks he owns it. I don't know exactly what role Ailes had in plotting Trump's political rise, but he certainly allowed it happen.

Trump had befriended O'Reilly, Hannity and others over a period of several years. And for the past few years prior to his candidacy, he had a regular morning spot on Fox & Friends that was more important than most realize in building up a base of support far beyond New York.

When he began his candidacy, most of FNC become his personal cheerleading squad. Although people like commentators George Will and Charles Krauthammer were holdouts, most of the commentators and analysts jumped aboard to one degree or another. People I thought I respected buckled under, and I don't know whether those were conscious decisions or simply following suggestions to get in line.

Behind the rise of Trump were a political class that anybody familiar with Republican politics knew was out there. They were working class people either by occupation or heritage, distinctly anti-intellectual (and thus generally irrational), who had been bitterly complaining for years about the Bushes,  Mitt Romney and "country club repub ilicans" in general, and often not turning out to vote for those candidates. Its very much a class thing. So was the Reagan Revolution to some extent, but in that case there was enough common sense to keep things from running off the rails.

McCarthyism hurt many innocent people, but it also created a caricature that could be used to ridicule legitimate concerns about the Soviet Union and Communism. Trumpism may also paint a straw man that can used against conservatism in a damaging way.


Update 7/23: Underscoring the relationship between the two men, the talk is that Ailes will go to work for Trump, perhaps even taking over as campaign manager.

Update 7/24: Trump seems dismissive of sexual harassment allegations against Ailes in comments made in "Meet the Press" interview.

Update 8/3: Trump, again sticking by Ailes, told USA Today that a woman whose is sexually harassed (his daughter, as a specific example), should find another job or career.

Update 8/16: Roger Ailes Is Advising Donald Trump Ahead of Presidential Debates (NY Times)





Verizon, AT&T Make Progress on 5G, as New Jersey Plays a Role in Trials


Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com



Cloud Security Innovator Avanan Opens D.C. and Philadelphia Sales & Marketing Offices to Support Rapid Growth




Cloud Security Innovator Avanan Opens D.C. and Philadelphia Sales & Marketing Offices to Support Rapid Growth

Print
July 14, 2016 10:19 ET | Source: Avanan

NEW YORK, July 14, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avanan, the cloud security platform, today announced the opening of its new sales and marketing offices in Reston, Virginia, a D.C.-area hot spot for some of the world’s leading security companies, and emerging tech startup hub Philadelphia.

Following a May 2016 venture round of $14.9 million from Greenfield Cities Holdings, L.P., Avanan is expanding its sales and marketing team to accelerate the company's rapid growth in bringing innovative, next-generation cloud security solutions to the enterprise IT security market worldwide.

Avanan’s Cloud Security Platform is an entirely new way to secure highly vulnerable SaaS mail applications such as Office 365 Mail and Google Mail. With a single click, enterprises of all sizes can protect from malware such as ransomware and phishing, using preconfigured cloud-based versions of security technology from more than 60 leading vendors such as Check Point, Symantec, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks, Sophos and Kaspersky.

The office expansion is just the latest move demonstrating Avanan’s market success and expanding customer base. Just last month, Avanan named Steven Toole chief marketing officer. Toole was previously the vice president of Marketing for Reston-based semantic indexing technology provider Content Analyst Company, acquired by kCura Corporation in March 2016, and brings 26 years of experience to the Avanan team.

Avanan plans to hire at least 10 more sales and marketing personnel to work out of the company’s Reston and Philadelphia locations, and others throughout the U.S., this year.

“The Herndon/Reston area serves as the D.C. office location for several of Avanan’s partners, including Microsoft, Symantec, Amazon and Palo Alto Networks, and Philadelphia is quickly becoming a startup haven as well,” said Gil Friedrich, Avanan founder and CEO. “Government agencies and enterprises want the benefits of SaaS mail, and we let them use the on-premise security solutions that they trust and apply them to the cloud mail applications. We’re the only company that can do this.”

Avanan has been named a 2016 Gartner Cool Vendor, a Red Herring Top 100 North American Tech Startup and one of CRN’s 20 Coolest Cloud Security Vendors of 2016. The company is headquartered in New York City with Research & Development in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

About Avanan, the Cloud Security Platform
Avanan secures SaaS mail programs such as Office 365 Mail and Google Mail or any cloud application with one click, using security technology from more than 60 industry-leading vendors.

In May 2016, Avanan raised $14.9 million in Series A financing. Greenfield Cities Holdings, L.P. (GFC), a TPG Growth portfolio company, led the round, with participation from Avanan’s existing investors, Magma VC and StageOne Ventures, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $16.4 million.

Avanan is based in New York City with R&D in Tel-Aviv, Israel and sales and marketing in Reston, Virginia and Philadelphia. (http://www.avanan.com)



Links 7/21: Comcast sets launch of Prepaid TV and Internet services ; Salesforce, Workday acquisitions





6 N.J., 4 Philly radio stations sold in $240M deal

Six New Jersey radio stations and another four in Philadelphia have been sold as part of a $240 million deal. Naples, Fla.-based Beasley Broadcasting agreed to buy the stations from Greater Media Inc. in a transaction that includes $100 million in cash and about $25 million in Beasley stock, the company announced Wednesday. The New Jersey…



Michael Dubin, Main Line native & Haverford School grad, sells his Dollar Shave Club to Unilever for $1 billion



Tom Paine



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Michael Dubin is a wealthy man.

Dubin's Dollar Shave Club has agreed to be acquired by Unilever for about $1 billion in cash.

Dubin grew up on the Main Line and graduated from the Haverford School. He graduated from Emory University before heading west to LA.

He founded DSC in 2011 with a boost from a viral video ad in which Dubin, who had taken an occasional shot at improv, was the star.



The valuation was a bit surprising, but not so much relative to competitor Harry's, which was co-founded by a Warby Parker co-founder. Harry's was valued at $700 million in its latest round.

Unilever said that Dollar Shave Club had sales of $152 million in sales last year, and expected more than $200 million in revenue this year. Its sale represents a big win for the subscription business model, which has been under pressure recently in some cases.

Here's a profile of DSC I wrote in 2014, in which I wondered why First Round Capital hadn't invested in the subscription razor model. Comcast Ventures was an investor in DSC, however.

Unilever Buys Dollar Shave Club for $1 Billion (Fortune)





Links 7/20: Dreamit accelerator ditches demo days; This former eBay Executive (Penn's Abraham) helps stores track return shoppers





Bill McDermott on SAP Quarterly Results (Bloomberg TV)





SAP profit tops estimates, as new software license revenue increases 10%





Ars Technica: Exton firm's buggy piece of code could put telecom nets at risk



Tom Paine



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Code developed by an Exton firm and widely distributed throughout the mobile telecom infrastructure is deemed at risk for major intrusion, security experts say.

A bug resides in a code library developed by Objective Systems of Exton, which is present in a "wide range of telecommunication products, including radios in cell towers, routers, and switches, as well as the baseband chips in individual phones," according to an Ars Technica article. Although it would take considerable skill, the bug could be exploited to take control of entire networks.

The code library is used to implement a telephony standard known as ASN.1, or Abstract Syntax Notation One. Objective Systems has released a patch, but it would be difficult to get the patch to all the nodes and devices in which it resides. That's a problem which will only multiply with the growth of the Internet of Things.

The Ars Technica article quotes HD Moore, principal at a firm called Special Circumstances, describing the flaw as a "big deal" because of the breadth of gear that are at risk of complete takeover.

Founded in 1997, Objective Systems appears to be a small, though influential, firm. LinkedIn only shows 10 employee for it, although that's not always a completely accurate indicator. Its a bit hard to find out who's behind the company, but its CEO is Ed Day, an engineering grad from Penn State who gained his early experience with MCI.



Links 7/19: Comcast leans Into Wireless a bit; Chesco tech firm Archer plans hiring push following acquisition





Philly Tech People News 7/19: Inquirer editor is chosen to lead WHYY's news division; Several in healthcare tech roles





Subscribe to Philly Tech People News by Email




Comcast Leans Into Wireless
Names Greg Butz to helm new mobile division in executive reorg (Multichannel News)

Inquirer editor is chosen to lead WHYY's news division (Philly.com)

The Wistar Institute Names Jeff Fahnoe Chief Information Officer (Newswise)


Tandigm Health Names Patrick Adams President and Chief Operating Officer


Local entrepreneur leads health care technology firm (Philadelphia Tribune)


Jill Smart Joins EPAM’s Board of Directors

CMO Talks: Consumer Healthcare Marketing Trends From Medecision’s Ellen Donahue-Dalton (Agency Spotter)


Hulu Hires Microsoft Xbox One Exec Richard Irving (Variety)


Business Wire Announces 2 New Regional Managers: Aaron Nye for the Philadelphia Area and Jon Olson for the Boston Area



Links 7/18: Comcast joins top mobile carriers in spectrum auction; Netflix missed its Q2 subscriber numbers





Philly Tech Venture Roundup: WeWork sues ex-employee over story; Zenefits, Evariant, roundCorner, CenTrak



Tom Paine



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WeWork Northern Liberties


WeWork sued a former employee who apparently was the primary source for a Bloomberg article suggesting that the coworking giant was well off the mark on some key performance metrics.

After raising more than $400 million at a $16 billion valuation in March, WeWork in late April generated an internal forecast that reduced a 2016 profit forecast by 78 percent, cut its revenue estimate by 14 percent and disclosed a 63 percent surge in projected negative cash flow, Bloomberg reported.

WeWork accused Joanna Strange, who was fired June 10, of unlawful access to its computers and of stealing confidential and proprietary information.

In Philadelphia, New York-based WeWork has opened one space in Northern Liberties and another opening is planned in Center City (Walnut Street) later this summer.







In an article on Theranos in the Wall Street Journal, another Unicorn meltdown at HR benefits software firm Zenefits (devalued from $4.5 billion to $2 billion) is also discussed. In a rather pointed barb at (SAP) SuccessFactors founder Lars Dalgaard, now with Andreessen Horowitz, the Journal wrote:

"Health-benefits broker Zenefits had a single outside board member, Lars Dalgaard of Andreessen Horowitz, until five months ago. He had no experience in the regulated-insurance business and encouraged the company to grow quickly and to secure the highest possible valuation in its last round of financing, say people familiar with the matter."

I wonder what people that came from.




Farmington, Connecticut-based Evariant, which offers healthcare providers a platform to analyze data, execute marketing campaigns, and improve patient engagement, has received an undisclosed investment from McKesson Ventures (McKesson has since announced moves to largely exit healthcare tech) and Salesforce Ventures. The additional investment completes the $42.3 million Series C round the company announced in November.

Evariant also brought on a CFO who has led three companies through IPOs.

Evariant is another niche vertical startup within the Salesforce ecosystem. But unlike Veeva Systems, which helps companies market to physicians and healthcare organizations, Evariant turns that model on its head and builds upon Salesforce CRM to help healthhcare practices and large health systems market to and manage relationships with groups and end users.

By comparison, Veeva required only $7 million in capital to reach a $4 billion market value.

I assume, but can't confirm, that Evariant has the same type of market protection from Salesforce for its vertical that Veeva has for CRM within Life Sciences. But I can't but help wonder if the interests of the two companies might collide at some point, particularly in the area of clinical data that both are keen on collecting.




Villanova-based roundCorner, which provides fundraising software for non-profits, altered its relationship with Salesforce. It will no longer directly rely on being promoted and sold by Salesforce's sales organization. roundCorner will take on full responsibility for sales and suppport.

While this may sound like a negative, it will actually reduce channel confusion and put roundCorner more in control of customer experience. roundCorner competes with a much larger Blackbaud in enterprise-level fundraising systems for non-profits (NGO Connect) and educational institutions.



In a deal I missed in February, Newtown-based CenTrak was acquired by a UK health tech firm, Halma, for about $140 million.

CenTrak is a kind of IoT play - its base technology is RFID - for tracking assets and items in a hospital environment. CenTrak has a well-established install base, and KLAS recently rated CenTrak to be the most scalable RTLS (real-time locating systems) vendor based on the number of use-cases deployed per customer.

Co-founders Ari Naim (Drexel), Israel Amir (Drexel) and Gideon Naim needed less than a million dollars of VC funding, at least according to CrunchBase.


Links 7/17: Comcast Brings Internet to Public Housing; American Water Works to Relocate HQ to Camden Waterfront





WeWork sues ex-employee for disclosing information to reporters (Reuters)

Comcast Restores Service After Outages Across Northeast (NBC Connecticut)


SevOne READY Enables Collaborative Digital Infrastructure Management Ecosystem



SevOne READY Enables Collaborative Digital Infrastructure Management Ecosystem

Boston - SevOne, a leading provider of digital infrastructure management solutions, today announced the launch of the SevOne READY Program. SevOne READY is a new technology and go-to-market alliance program that allows technology providers to leverage their solutions and the open interfaces of the SevOne Digital Infrastructure Management Platform to help drive its customers’ journey to the cloud. Program participation will allow partners to create integrated offerings in key areas including software-defined networking environments, datacenter server and storage, hybrid cloud, business analytics, the Internet of Things and more.

As today’s global businesses transform into digital enterprises differentiated by software, applications and continuous innovation, new digital infrastructures are being created to support their business goals. These next-generation infrastructures are complex and rapidly evolving – too rapidly to be handled by any single solution that today’s standalone vendors can provide. With SevOne READY, the Company and its partners will facilitate collaboration across the entire digital infrastructure environment. Participating industry leading digital infrastructure vendors include Cisco, Ciena, Dell, Gigamon, HP Enterprise, Ixia, Juniper Networks, Pure Storage, and Viptela.

“SevOne’s unique approach to digital infrastructure management enables our customers to accelerate their journey to the cloud via better visualization, analysis and interaction with the entirety of their infrastructures,” said Jack Sweeney, CEO, SevOne. “With SevOne READY, we are bringing even more value by optimizing challenging end-to-end IT business processes and delivering new integrated services and solutions. We highly value our alliance partners and look forward to ensuring that our growing list of customers around the world have access to industry-leading solutions to address their most important IT operational challenges.”

The SevOne Digital Infrastructure Platform empowers Operations and IT teams to manage complex infrastructures by removing visibility gaps and providing true speed at scale to enable the power of integrated metrics, flows, logs, and to improve end user experience. SevOne recently unveiled a series of enhancements, including SevOne 5.6 and SevOne Performance Log Appliance 2.1, that offer customers unprecedented business agility to proactively manage more of their digital infrastructure, visualize and report in real time, and troubleshoot using logs at scale.

“In today’s market, it’s imperative for leading vendors to work collaboratively for joint customer success,” said Nolan Greene, senior research analyst, IDC. “We are pleased to see SevOne working together with some of the key players in enterprise technology to deliver exceptional end-to-end digital infrastructure management.”

“We are excited to see that SevOne has taken the lead on organizing an ecosystem that will provide us with a wide variety of choice in building solutions to meet our varied customer needs while simplifying end-to-end digital infrastructure management. This is extraordinarily important where speed to delivery can make the difference between winning or losing new business opportunities,” said Eric Sharpsten, CTO, Lockheed Martin IS&GS.

“A key to increasing network intelligence is data analysis. Collecting these analytics across multivendor environments, at any scale, can be challenging. SevOne’s solutions help us to more fully integrate at scale,” said Paul Obsitnik, Vice President of Service Provider Portfolio Marketing, Juniper Networks. “By supporting an open ecosystem approach, the SevOne READY program makes multi-vendor product implementations much simpler for our service provider customers to deploy, thus helping them maximize their IT investments and reduce service time-to-market.”

SevOne READY offers a range of benefits to alliance partners including:
Technology and Customer Value

Ease of integration with the SevOne Digital Infrastructure Platform
Dedicated alliance program management
Device/Solution integration certification
Access to SevOne Technical Support

Technology and Customer Value

Joint GTM planning, including content development and demo creation support
Joint lead generation through webinars, regional marketing events, and sponsorship opportunities

For more information on the SevOne READY program, please visit www.sevone.com/alliances.

About SevOne
SevOne provides the only infrastructure performance monitoring solution engineered for Speed at Scale for the world’s most demanding service-delivery environments. The patented SevOne ClusterTM architecture leverages distributed computing to scale infinitely and collect millions of objects to provide real-time reporting and help organizations prevent outages. SevOne customers include seven of the world’s 13 largest banks, enterprises, CSPs, MSPs and MSOs. SevOne is backed by Bain Capital Ventures. More information can be found at www.sevone.com. Follow SevOne on Twitter at @SevOneInc.
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Comcast suffers communications woes on one front, but sees new opportunities on another



Tom Paine



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Comcast blamed a data center outage for a business voice outage lasting at least five hours yesterday afternoon and evening, the Denver Post reported.

The location of the data center wasn't identified in the Post article, or any other source found so far.

The outage hit small businesses around the country hard, as many lost real business and couldn't communicate with customers.

Consumers are touchy about service interruptions, but small business customers are probably more so. It took Cable a long time to convince business customers that its phone service was reliable enough to switch from telco landlines. But some are probably doubting the wisdom of that switch today.

The Post quoted a Comcast spokesperson as saying:

“It’s significant, no doubt about it. When you’re a business and your phones go down, it’s problematic. We realize people rely on this critical communication and we are taking it seriously.”

The spokesperson added that about 950,000 business customers were effected, and that only voice was impacted.

Philly Tech News asked a Comcast representative about the location of the data center failure, but was told Comcast is not disclosing it. Comcast confirmed that the network carrying its business voice traffic is completely independent from its consumer network. Comcast said it is "performing a root cause analysis to make sure this doesn't happen again."

"Data center outage" often means a cloud software problem.

Update: This is the system that presumably crashed:



Comcast introduced Business VoiceEdge in 2012, based on the BroadSoft platform.

Separately, Comcast is making some significant personnel moves, including one suggesting an increased focus on wireless. Multichannel News cited sources as indicating that EVP Sales and Marketing Operations Greg Butz would be heading up a new mobile unit.


BTW, Comcast shares hit a new all time high a few days back: