Daily Links 3/31/2011: New Hope's myYearbook buys a bunch of Android Apps

MyYearbook Buys Five Android Apps in Mobile Gaming Push (All Things Digital: NetworkEffect)

Will Google Pick Additional Fiber Cities?
New Hints That Kansas City is Just the Start (Broadband Reports)

Comcast In TidalTV's $30 Million Round
NEA Leads Funding Into Baltimore-based Video Ad Startup (Multichannel News)

Theater Owners Fuming Over Studios' VOD Plan (Hollywood Reporter)

Time Warner Cable blinks first in fight with programmers over iPad app (LA Times: Company Town)

Quintiq Posts Record-Breaking Revenues in 2010, Projects 40% Growth in 2011 (PR Newswire)
Quintiq has dual headquarters in the Netherlands and Radnor.

SAP: We will become largest supplier to banks by 2015 (Computerworld UK)

Enterprise M&A In Pictures, Courtesy Of 451 Group (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)


Organic LED firm raises $250M in offering
Universal Display Corporation boosts its balance sheet as it completes a public offering of 5.75 million shares. (Optics.org)
Universal Display is based in Ewing, NJ.


Ben Franklin and the art of business development
(Fortune)

Virtual Aliens, Squid and Rainbow Coming to Philadelphia as Augmented Reality Exhibit Opens in April (Business Wire)



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Looking back at Josh Kopelman's Midas Capital

It is interesting to take a look back at Midas Capital, which was the personal investment fund of First Round Capital's Josh Kopelman. Although no longer actively investing, it had quite a portfolio, which you can see here.

Through Midas, Kopelman was a fairly early investor in LinkedIn, which filed in January for an IPO that could value the company in the $2 billion range, according to some observers. Kopelman also was an early investor in Boomi, the Berwyn-based Cloud services company that Dell acquired late last year. Kopelman had apparently become familiar with Boomi as a customer while he was running Half.com.

Also, there was TurnTide, the anti-spamming software company that was spun off from ePrivacy Group in 2004 and sold to Symantec six months after its creation for $28 million. Other Midas investments included InstaMed Communications, the successful Philadelphia-based health payments network; Delicious, the social bookmarking service sold to Yahoo in 2005 for somewhere in the $15 to 30 million range; Five Below, the off-price retail chain for kids currently backed by Philly-based LLR Partners; and another anti-spam business, IronPort, which was acquired by Cisco Systems for $830 million in 2007.

Not too bad.

Daily Links 3/30/2011: EBay, GSI Commerce Sued by Septa over deal

Salesforce Buys Social Media Monitoring Company Radian6 For $326 Million (TechCrunch)

Ultra high-speed broadband is coming to Kansas City, Kansas (Official Google Blog)

Thoughts on being hermitically sealed inside the SAP Mothership (ZDNet Blogs)

HP's Apotheker makes pitch to partner with other companies (San Jose Mercury News)
Rules out buying SAP, saying he "would much rather have a strong partnership with them".

Valeant seeks to buy Cephalon for $5.7 billion (Reuters)

TWC's Witmer: We Didn't Anticipate iPad App Backlash
Operator Has Received at Least One Cease-and-Desist Letter from a Programmer (Multichannel News)
Apparently, it was Fox that sent the Cease-and Desist.

EBay’s Lowest-Value Takeover Target Generates Losses: Real M&A (Bloomberg Business Week)

EBay, GSI Commerce Sued by Septa Over $2.4 Billion Buyout (Bloomberg)

Who will buy ING Direct USA? (Delaware Online: Delaware Inc)

Clearwire Finally Unveils Best Buy Service Plan (Light Reading Mobile)



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Josh Kopelman, GSI Commerce and eBay

Just wondering what role Josh Kopelman played in the eBay/GSI Commerce deal.

The timing is interesting, since Kopelman, Managing Partner of Conshohocken-based VC firm First Round Capital, joined GSI Commerce's board in early February, less than two months before the deal was announced yesterday.

Kopelman, of course, goes back a long way with eBay. He sold his Half.com internet retailing startup to eBay in a deal valued at slightly over $300 million in 2000, staying on with eBay for awhile before leaving to return to entrepreneurial pursuits.

After he started First Round Capital, it was an early backer of StumbleUpon, which was acquired for some reason (nobody ever understood the fit) by eBay in 2007 for $75 million. It did not fare well under eBay, and was sold back to the founders and other investors in 2009 at a much lower price. StumbleUpon has since experience a resurgence, and First Round has recently invested again in it.

No way of knowing at this time what role Kopelman may have played either as an advisor or facilitator in eBay's acquisition of GSI Commerce, but he certainly knows the territory and the art of the deal.









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Daily Links 3/29/2011: Comcast, NBCU Preparing Consolidated Media Review

EBay’s $2.4B GSI Buy May Be Another Win For Rue La La Investors (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)

GSI: Needham Says Higher Bid Still Possible (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Comcast, NBCU Preparing Consolidated Media Review
Winner Could Emerge With Accounts Worth $1.2 Billion in Spending (Ad Age)

Journal Register Taps Jim Brady For ‘Digital Transformation’ (paidContent)

Philadelphia Media Network Joins Three Media Companies in Introducing Savings Spree! Extended Reach Program (PR Newswire)

Qlik Technologies: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (Motley Fool)

Microsoft forges ahead in healthcare, while Google said to pull back (ZDNet Blogs)

Will Oracle Make A Bid For Lawson? (Forbes: The Tech Trade)

NBCU International Loses Top Exec in Comcast Reshuffling (The Wrap)

I Want My iPad TV: The Slogan For A New Generation (Gigaom)

iMANY Expands West Coast Presence to Meet Growing Customer Demand
New Facility Reflects Commitment to Research & Development and Customer Satisfaction (Marketwire)

Razorfish Health moves to new headquarters in Wanamaker Building (Philly Ad Club News)



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eBay to acquire King of Prussia's GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion

eBay just announced it was acquiring King of Prussia ecommerce vendor GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion. The per share price, at $29.25, reflects a 51% premium over Friday's closing price.

Founded by a young Michael Rubin in 1995 as Global Sports Incorporated, GSI Commerce provides ecommerce and fulfillment services for many leading brands, particularly in sporting goods and
apparel. Although it had achieved strong growth, some have questioned the profitability of its business model.

In the press release, eBay says that as part of the transaction, it will divest 100 percent of GSI’s licensed sports merchandise business and 70 percent of ShopRunner and Rue La La, and that "these assets will be sold to a newly formed holding company, which will be led by GSI founder and CEO Michael Rubin".

This company history timeline is from GSI Commerce's website.

Why eBay Wants to Buy GSI Commerce (Gigaom)

eBay’s New Deal: What Is GSI Commerce? (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)

Ebay-GSIC Deal: How the Analysts Fared (Wall Street Journal: MarketBeat)

New Company Will Emerge in Wake of eBay’s Acquisition of GSI Commerce (All Things Digital: eMoney)

TV Everywhere Starts Getting Somewhere (Light Reading Cable)

A Geographic Gap Analysis Uncovers New Markets for Nonprofits (Directions Magazine)
Analysis done for the Wilma Theater with the help of Philly's Azavea.

SunGard Acquires ValueLink Information Services (SunGard Press Release)

SunGard Higher Education Releases Talent Management Suite (SunGard Press Release)

SAP Sales OnDemand – Addressing the Lingering Questions (Feeding the SAP Ecosystem)

Make Tracks for Liberty Interactive (Barron's)
Liberty Interactive's principle entity is QVC.

API Technologies to Acquire Spectrum Control (PR Newswire)
Spectrum Control has a significant portion of its operations in the Philadelphia area.

InterDigital Announces Proposed Private Offering of $150 Million of Senior Convertible Notes (Business Wire)

Three particularly interesting events this week

Three particularly interesting events this week:

Tomorrow (Monday) night, Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic's Mobile Health Forum will be held at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia from 5 to 8:30 pm. The event will have speakers and panels focusing on the hot field of mobile healthcare applications.

On Thursday night (the 31st), Philly Startup Leader's third annual Entrpreneur Expo, featuring some of the area's most interesting young startups, will be held at the University of the Arts' Hamilton Hall from 6 until 9 pm.

And lastly, next weekend the 36th annual Trenton Computer Festival will take place on April 2 and 3 at the The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ.

For a more complete schedule of tech events in the Philly area, see the Philly Tech Events Calendar.

MSNBC aims for the gap
Matthews and gang forge on under Comcast. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

GetGlue to boost live TV with Facebook check-ins (Reuters)

Industrifonden banks 40 times return on Qliktech exit (AltAssets)

@jxpaton's Twitter lecture to newspapers (BuzzMachine)
@jxpaton is Journal Register (Yardley PA) CEO John Paxton.

Philly Tech People News 3/27/2011

QlikTech Promotes Les Bonney to Chief Operating Officer (Business Wire)

NCO Group Appoints Ron Rittenmeyer as President and CEO (PR Newswire)

Harris Named Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia)

Pulse Electronics Names John Dickson as Chief Information Officer
(Business Wire)

Rosetta Promotes Hartley to Managing Partner (PR Newswire)

Philadelphia advertising veteran Teitelman joins D4 (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Backe Digital Brand Marketing hires Christina Mullen as VP/Creative Director (Philly Ad Club News)

Ardmore Banking Advisors Appoints New Senior Client Support Consultant (PR Newswire)

Daily Links 3/25/2011: Zurich Inks Contract with Radnor-based SaaS Vendor Unirisx

Starz to delay new series on Netflix streaming, movies may follow (LA Times: Company Town)

Time Warner Cable Moves Ahead With Its Controversial iPad App (Hollywood Reporter)

Comcast's Xfinity TV app for iOS updated with more streaming and customization (Engadget)

Zurich Inks Contract with Unirisx
(Insurance & Technology)
Unirisx, based in Radnor, provides a SaaS-based policy administration platform for the Insurance industry, and the deal with Zurich is considered a major win for them. I had missed the news that former Harleysville Group CIO Akhil Tripathi, considered a top industry expert, became CEO of Unirisx late last year.

SunGard Opens Cloud Services To Channel (CRN)


Oracle Delivers on Earnings and on Its Promise to Profitably Acquire Sun (All Things Digital: NewEnterprise)

SAP: Time To Buy? (Forbes: The Tech Trade)


Was Google’s Fiber Plan Just Saber Rattling? (Gigaom)

Motorola Mobility Revival Means Weighing Google Alternatives (Bloomberg Business Week)


Astea zooms to four-year high on Q4 results (Reuters)



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