Links 12/10/2014: Charter's Rutledge: OTT is ‘Playing With Fire’; First IBM-Apple niche apps released

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Virginia-based Canvas raises $9M for enterprise mobile app platform (VentureBeat)
Return investor Osage Venture Partners participated in the round.

Marketing tech: $6.2 billion in funding and acquisitions in last 3 months (VentureBeat)


News Analysis: Inside the First Industry-Specific Mobile Apps by the IBM MobileFirst for Apple iOS Partnership ( R "Ray" Wang / Enterprise Irregulars)

IBM Apps For Apple iOS: Not Siri Meets Watson (Information Week)

2014 Year in Review: Evaluating SAP
(ASUG News)


SAP Jam is Now iOS App Ready
(Mobile Enterprise)


Engineers on the rise (Philly.com)
Check out the way Philly.com's new website design is used in this story.

Comcast on home Wi-Fi lawsuit: Customers get “real benefits” (San Francisco Chronicle)

Rutledge: OTT is ‘Playing With Fire’ (Multichannel News)

Exclusive: WeWork finalizing massive new funding round (Fortune)
Can't find any plans for Philadelphia now.

Lending Club Prices I.P.O. at $15 a Share, Surpassing Expectations (New York Times: DealBook)

Meet Xtium’s new Chief Executive Office
(Xtium Blog)

The Effect Of HubSpot’s CRM Launch On Salesforce (TechCrunch)

Two VC firms, Bessemer & OpenView, offer up analyses of public cloud companies and their valuations

Tom Paine

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Two interesting items from about a month ago which I have meant to mention:

First, VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners released the BVP Cloud Computing Index, and a downloadable chart it says is updated weekly showing the key metrics of 30 leading public cloud computing companies as defined by Bessemer (there is certainly often room for debate about what is or isn't a cloud computing company). No Philly companies are included, although clinical trial software company Medidata Solutions has a fairly large presence dating mostly from its 2008 acquisition of Conshohocken-based Fast Track Systems. Kenexa presumably would have been on it had it not been acquired by IBM, and Radnor-based QlikTech really isn't a cloud computing company at this time; its products are offered primarily through on-premise software. Legacy companies such as SAP AG and Unisys are a long way from being considered pure cloud plays.

One data point in the metrics is the Enterprise Value/Revenue ratio for the 30 companies, which has a median of 6.7x and a mean of 7.9x. So when you hear about SaaS companies doing IPOs with EV/Revenue ratios of 10x or considerably more in some cases, it shouldn't be surprising.

The other item is an article in the Wall Street Journal about Adam Marcus, Managing Director of Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners, the VC firm that has made significant investments in Philly area startups Monetate, NextDocs and Xtium. Marcus compiled a list of 96 public SaaS companies and noted that two-thirds of them are located outside of Silicon Valley.

Marcus finds the Bay Area tech ecosystem expensive, unstable in terms of employee retention and having valuations too high in comparison to other regions, according to the Journal. He said OpenView doesn't invest in San Francisco companies. Perhaps more attractive valuations and less hypercompetition among investors explain in part why OpenView made its trio of investments in the Philadelphia area. Others disagree with Marcus' assessment, pointing out that the most of the more valuable SaaS companies remained clustered in the Bay Area, the article points out.

Daily Links 3/21/2013: LevelUp partners with Heartland Payment Systems; PlaySay acquired

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Steve Jobs' death clears way for Adobe CTO defection
WTF: Why The Flash did Macromedia bloke join Apple (The Register)

Oracle blames sales force for Q3 miss, stock drops (Reuters)

SAP Plans to Convert Legal Form to European Company (Dow Jones Newswires via Fox Business)


Microsoft going after enterprises with Dynamics AX ERP
Dynamics AX is starting to land global deployments with large enterprises, including Revlon (IT World)

Comcast's Brian Roberts Plays Down NBC Woes Says network will fare better under his management than GE (Adweek)

T-Mobile-MetroPCS merger: Now all that’s left is shareholder approval (Gigaom)

Philadelphia Area Manufacturing Unexpectedly Expanded in March (Bloomberg)
Philly Fed March 2013 Business Outlook Survey

LevelUp Partners With Processor Heartland Payment Systems to Expand Its Sales Force (Bostinno)

Cloud, BDR and DaaS Provider Xtium Launches Partner Program (MSPmentor)

German Language Learning Startup Babbel Buys Disrupt Finalist PlaySay To Target The U.S. Market (TechCrunch)
Started in Philly, moved to DC, then San Francisco. PlaySay apps to be shut down. PlaySay founder & CEO Ryan Meinzer will be working full-time for Heroku, and advising Babbel.

Calling All Developers: Enterprises Need Your Help
With $100,000 in prizes and the promise of incubation, the Philly Enterprise Hackathon is bringing together―for the first time in Philadelphia―the community of software developers and enterprise companies (Business Wire)


Intel: Our OTT Service Will Expand the Pay-TV Pie (Light Reading Cable)



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Daily Links 2/25/2013: Christie expected to sign Internet gambling bill tomorrow; Warby Parker raises $41.5 mm

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$30 million Bethlehem project targets tech companies (Lehigh Valley Business)

First Round Capital Funds Another $500K Student-Run Venture Fund in New York (All Things D)

Warby Parker Grabs New Investment From American Express & J. Crew CEO, Closing $41.5M Round (TechCrunch)
Founded at Wharton; First Round Capital was an early investor.

Workday competitor SilkRoad selects banks for IPO -sources (Reuters)

FCC Roughed Up in D.C. Circuit
Judges have lots of issues with statute of limitations on carriage complaint and First Amendment implications of remedy (Broadcasting & Cable)
On Comcast/Tennis Channel dispute.

Awaiting the Dimming of G.E. at 30 Rock (New York Times: City Room)

Motorola Brings ITV to Older Set-Tops With ActiveVideo Software (Multichannel News)

Gov. Chris Christie expected to sign bill allowing Internet gambling on Tuesday (Press of Atlantic City)

Wharton and Cisco Show Off the Telepresence Classroom of Tomorrow (Time Tech)


SideCar Says Three Philadelphia Drivers Caught In ‘Sting’, But It Plans to Continue Operations (TechCrunch)

Xtium Expands Partnership with YASH Technologies
Partnership brings increased deployment velocity, economic benefit to managed cloud hosting market (PR Web)

MeetMe® Launches in Chinese, Russian and Japanese
(Marketwire)




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Philly Tech News VentureWatch 12/3/2012: 5 startups report new funding

Tom Paine
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InsPro Technologies, the Eddystone-based Insurance SaaS provider I recently profiled, has raised $1.5 million out of a proposed $3 million offering, according to a recent SEC filing. CEO Robert Oakes had told me the company would be raising one more round that should get it over the hump, funding wise, and this apparently is it. Past investors have included Cross Atlantic Capital Partners and Independence Blue Cross.

Xtium, the King of Prussia-based Cloud Services provider, has raised another $2 million. Xtium raised a $11.5 million Series A round of funding from Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners last year.

Southampton-based Smart Structures, Inc., which provides wireless Embedded Data Collector (EDC) solutions to monitor the integrity of concrete foundations, has raised $210,000 of a proposed $2 million offering. Smart Structures had previously raised about $2.3 million, according to SEC filings. Previous investors have included Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware Crossing Investor Group, and Emergent Growth Fund.

Philadelphia-based PHmHealth LLC has raised $175,000 of a $750,000 offering. PHmHealth says its platform allows home health care providers to check in through its NFC-enabled app verifying the visit and uploading the collected data to a secure cloud-based server.

Glen Mills-based Versify Solutions, which markets an energy usage management and trading platform, has raised $406,000 out of a total offering of $500,000. Versify had previously raised at least $2.3 million.
Past investors have included Fairbridge Venture Partners and Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.




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Daily Links 11/12/2012: NBC Sports Network buys rights to "The Dan Patrick Show" from DirecTV

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ShopRunner Takes On Amazon With Local Delivery System For Online Retail Purchases (TechCrunch)

Students get startup smarts, schools get donors: USEED crowdfunds motivation (Gigaom)
Started at University of Delaware.

InterDigital Sees Q4 Revs Above Street Consensus; Shrs Rally (Forbes)

EPAM Systems Reports Third Quarter 2012 Results (Press Release via Reuters)
EPAM Systems is based in Newtown.

WVT Communications Group Reports Third Quarter 2012 Financial Results
Unified Communications Revenues Increased 38% (Marketwire)
WVT Communications is the parent of Philly-based Alteva.

Angelakis: Comcast working with Verizon Wireless engineers to develop integrated products (FierceCable)

Ethernet Expo 2012: Ethernet Gets Comcastic (Video: Light Reading Cable)

NBC Sports Network buys rights to "The Dan Patrick Show" from DirecTV (FierceCable)

Xtium to Offer Free Cloud Hosting Services to Businesses Affected by Hurricane Sandy (Xtium Press Release)

Change Reigns: Software Industry Predictions for 2013 (Sandhill)

DocDep’s Cap Table Application Enhanced with Waterfalls and Other Management Tools (PR Web)




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Philly VC Deals flat vs. last year; longer term funding may be concern

Tom Paine

Venture Capital investment in Philly Metro area companies was just under $120 million in the third quarter of 2011, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report based on data from Thomson Reuters, released Wednesday. This was more than the $89 million reported in Q2, but less than the $124 million reported in the same quarter last year. Total investment for the first three quarters of 2011 was $337 million, compared to $334 million for the first three quarters of last year. Thirty-six deals were reported in the quarter.

In terms of individual investments, there were no surprises; all the large deals had previously been announced. ISGN, the Bensalem-based mortgage processing technology business, was the largest recipient, raising $30 million. Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners' trio of area investments, Monetate, NextDocs, and Xtium, which I wrote about here, accounted for about $31 million (though I believe these numbers don't reflect another $5 million invested in Xtium).

Other IT-oriented investments included Instamed ($5.5 million), GreenPhire ($1.5 million), Lightning Gaming of Boothwyn ($1 million), Cross Current Corporation of Doylestown ($800,000), Vita Products of Philadelphia ($700,000), and Sanovia of Philadelphia ($500,000). PlaySay, which the report says raised $250,000, has since moved to Washington DC and now has raised a total of $550,000 from Bethesda, MD-based Novak Biddle Venture Partners. AssetVUE and MobileReactor LLC both recently raised $200,000 from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, as was announced ealier this week. Connectify raised an unspecified amount from an investment firm related to the US Intelligence comunity, and recently launched spare space rental site Storably is also reported to have raised funds.

Some angel investments and other larger private equity investments may not be included in the MoneyTree report.

Nationally, VC investment was up 31% over the prior year"s third quarter. Software investments reached $2 billion, the highest level in nearly a decade.

The biggest concern going forward is whether the current level of funding can be maintained. Venture Capital fundraising hit an eight year low in the third quarter, dropping 53% from the prior year, according to the National Venture Capital Association, and VC investments are far outpacing fundraising as many firms are working downs funds they had previously raised.



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OpenView Venture Partners invests $11.5 million in Valley Forge Cloud Services company Xtium

Tom Paine

Valley Forge-based Xtium announced today that it had received a $11.5 million Series A round from OpenView Venture Partners of Boston. Xtium provides IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) virtual private cloud service solutions to mid-market companies. Xtium says it is one of only three companies certified to be a hosting service provider for VMware, SAP, and Riverbed

Peter Ritz, co-founder and President of Xtium, has been a serial entrepreneur in the Philadelphia area involved in the founding of NTERA of Radnor (nanotech electronic inks for digital displays) and mobile business app provider AirClic of Trevose, and also directed legal operations for Ikon Technology Services.

For OpenView Partners, this represents its third major investment in the Philadelphia area announced in the past two months for a total of nearly $40 million, Monetate and NextDocs being the others. When I asked OpenView partner Firas Raou after the NextDocs investment was announced whether the firm had placed a particular emphasis on the area, he said it was only a coincidence. But now OpenView has close to one sixth of the $240 million it currently has under management invested here (at startups within a few miles of each other), so one would have to consider there might be some kind of connection. Valuations, I would guess, can be reasonably attractive for investors here since the market is not as overheated as places like Boston, New York and Silicon Valley.




View OpenView Venture Partners' local investments in a larger map
OpenView partners can easily visit each of their Philly-area portfolio companies in short, leisurely (non-rush hour) drive

Xtium raises $11.5M to expand pay-as-you-grow virtual private cloud services (VentureBeat)



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