Daily Links 1/11/2012: Susquehanna Growth Equity invests $35 million in NJ SaaS HCM provider iCIMS



iCIMS, Leading SaaS Provider, Secures $35 Million Minority Investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (PR Web)
iCIMS is based in Hazlet, NJ.


Comcast Completes DNSSEC Deployment
(Comcast Voices|Official Comcast Blog)

Comcast’s new set-top streams live TV to DLNA devices (Gigaom)

Universal Sports Transitions From Multicast Distribution, Inking Deals with Six Providers (Multichannel News)
Comcast's NBC Sports Group owns a minority stake in Universal Sports.

Comcast coughs up refunds, revelations of service fee
(WTOP)

Motorola Home Gateway puts your entire home in the cloud, almost (CNET Blogs)


Exclusive: Microsoft Web TV subscription plan on hold (Reuters)

Dell’s Acquisition Strategy: Right On Target? (The VAR Guy)

Oracle Makes Big Data Appliance Move With Cloudera (Information Week)

UniTek Global Services, Inc. Announces Changes to Senior Management and Board of Directors (Globe Newswire)
UniTek Global Services CEO and chairman resign; shares plunge; former CEO staying on the board (AP via Columbus, Indiana Republic)
Changes seem somewhat sudden; wonder what's going on there? Company wasn't doing too badly, it seems.UniTek is based in Blue Bell.

Coursekit Taps The Hate With #EraseBlackBoard Campaign (BetaBeat)

Smart Grid Monitoring Gets Smarter with Sensei Solutions and ThingWorx Partnership (Business Wire)

Rajant Corporation Enhances Advanced Diagnostic, Monitoring and Administrative Capabilities for Kinetic Mesh Networks (Business Wire)

Integromics announces the release of SeqSolve 2.1 (Press Release via PharmaLive)



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Daily Links 1/10/2012: First Round Capital's 4th fund reported to be in $125 million range



First Round’s Fourth Act: More of the Same, Which Must Be a Good Thing (PE Hub)
Fourth fund reported to be targeted for the $125 million range.

Software AG’s 26% Slump Makes Company Cheaper Target for HP (Bloomberg)
Software AG acquired IDS Scheer, which has its US base in Berwyn, a couple of years ago. The article also names SAP as a potential acquirer. That's always a possibility, as the two companies have deep ties, but it is doubtful SAP would do that right now so soon after the SucessFactors deal was announced.

Infor CEO Charles Phillips Discusses Software Vendor's Remaking (PC World)


Urban Outfitters Tumbles After Saying Senk Resigned as CEO (Bloomberg)

The Neat Company Adds New Cloud and Mobile Services to its Market-Leading Digital Filing System (PR Newswire via MarketWatch)

Neat Scanners Gain Mobile, Cloud Power (Information Week)

Stream TV Networks, Inc. Announces Corporate Strategy to Launch Ultra-D(TM) 3D Without Glasses Technology at CES 2012 (PR Newswire via MarketWatch)

Social Media Today Announces Siemens Sponsorship of HealthWorks Collective (Social Media Today)

TaskRabbit Acquires SkillSlate For an Undisclosed Sum [Updated] (Betabeat)
First Round Capital was an early stage investor in both ventures. This deal doesn't surprise me at all; from the start their business models seemed somewhat duplicative.

Why Startups Fear Amazon:The Price Cut Behind The Acquisition of Quidsi (Betabeat)

Isabella Products’ Mobile Devices to Enhance Scala Digital Signage Services
Isabella Products announces strategic partnership with Scala.
(PR Web)
A move into mobile, as was suggested in my recent post on Scala, but perhaps not the only one it will make because this relationship doesn't really address Scala's core business.

Comcast lights up AnyPlay for in-home live TV iPad streaming, Xoom support 'coming soon' (Engadget)

CES: Comcast To Speed Up Tru2way Set-Tops With Myriad's Java Software
Swiss Software Developer to Integrate JVM Into MSO's Device Reference Design Kit
(Multichannel News)
I guess that means Tru2way can go nowhere faster.

Motorola throws its support behind G.hn (Communications, Engineering & Design Magazine)



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (1/2/2012 to 1/8/2012) : StarCite, DailyWorth, Novotorium & more



Philly-based SaaS corporate meeting management service StarCite, which had struggled during the recession but was showing signs of recovery, was acquired by San Diego-based Active Network for about $57 million in cash and stock. Active Network says it bought StarCite for both its customer base and its technology, and is not planning any cuts, reports the Business Journal's Peter Key, although some senior management will depart. StarCite has over 300 employees including over 50 in Center City. Active Network expects revenue before some accounting adjustments of $47 million attributable to StarCite in 2012. The combined company will hopefully be better positioned to compete with Cvent, which raised $136 million last year. Wayne-based ICG was StarCite's largest equity holder, with a reported 36% stake.

Philly Tech News reported on Bucks County incubator Novotorium accepting its first venture partner: online restaurant portal Zuppler.

DailyWorth, the email newsletter started by Philadelphian Amanda Steinberg (though based in New York now) raised $2 million from a prestigious list of investors, although some media reports failed to mention the round was actually led by Philadelphia's Robin Hood Ventures.

Coursekit, which was founded at Penn but also migrated to New York, raised $5 million as it seeks to revolutionize learning management systems in higher education.

SAP Ventures participated in a $53.4 million round for enterprise social media vendor Lithium Technologies, perhaps indicating another possible option for SAP's long-term social media strategy.

New Jersey Tech Weekly contributed a post on its top stories of its inaugural year of 2011.

And Center City's RJMetrics, provider of ecommerce business intelligence software, having done an amazing job of bootstrapping for about 3 years finally broke down and took in $1.2 million to fund accelerating growth.



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Philly Tech People News 1/8/2012



Ruben Mendiola Joins Comcast as Vice President and General Manager of Multicultural Video Services
Hispanic Executive leads Multicultural Video at Comcast
(Business Wire)

CED Person of the Year: Comcast's Jorge Salinger (Communications, Engineering & Design Magazine)

SCTE hires Comcast's Davidson as new VP of engineering, network operations (Communications, Engineering & Design Magazine)


Zachary Katz Named FCC Chief of Staff
(The Wrap via Reuters)

Vision Research Selected To Receive ACADEMY AWARD® For Contributions To High-Speed Camera Technology (PR Web)
New Jersey-based Vision Research is a unit of Ametek. Its not something you would think of Berwyn-based Ametek for, but its amazing to look at all the niches it is involved in.

William Harrington Joins Osage University Partners as Managing Partner (Marketwire)

Rowan University names four to South Jersey Technology Park Board of Directors (NJ.com)

PHH replaces CEO as mortgage business struggles (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Dudnyk names Drew Desjardins as new SVP, Strategic Planning and Account Management (Philly Ad Club News)

The Judge Group Announces Managing Director of Strategic Accounts (Business Wire)

John Galloway Joins Campaign Grid in Philadelphia Office (Press Release)

Distinguished Litigation and Intellectual Property Attorney Frederick A. Tecce Joins Philadelphia IP Boutique Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP (Business Wire)

Learning Technology Researcher and Innovator Dr. Tony O’Driscoll Joins ProtonMedia’s Executive Advisory Board (Business Wire)


If you have a significant tech or digital media promotion or hire to announce, send it to phillytechnews@gmail.com. It will be more likely to be included if there is a link provided to an announcement.



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What might SAP learn from Apple? (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

News Analysis: Lithium Technologies Adds $53M in Financing (Ray Wang/Enterprise Irregulars)

Moto Mobility Had a Blue Christmas (Light Reading Mobile)

Comcast Xfinity Skype webcam for cable boxes revealed by FCC (Update: Pics, pricing and details!) (Engadget)

Deloitte: 9% have cut cable, another 11% are considering it (Gigaom)


Latest Comcast Xfinity ad; Woman cries over leaving Xfinity for FiOS





New Jersey Tech Weekly’s Top Five Stories of 2011



(Philly Tech News was pleased to form a working alliance with New Jersey Tech Weekly, a website that started up in 2011. Here, its Publisher & Editor Esther Surden shares some inaugural year highlights and its top stories for 2011.)



Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, New Jersey Tech Weekly

This year has been an exciting one for New Jersey Tech Weekly. After months of preparation, our website finally launched in July. We have been reporting stories from all over N.J. ever since, thanks to the hard work of South Jersey web designer Robert Ortiz, copyeditor Phyliss Greenberg and freelance contributor Alan Skontra and an alliance with Philly Tech News. We’d like to thank the early industry supporters who helped out with our first stories, giving us access to their CEOs and their conferences and events with no strings attached.

We started with nothing but an abiding interest in N.J. tech in all its forms and are pleased to report we are now receiving more than 2,500 unique hits per month. We know that sounds like nothing compared to most websites, but we are still building momentum. We hope to report even greater numbers as word of our web publication spreads further throughout the N.J. tech crowd. In the meantime, we are delighted to present a roundup of the five 2011 stories that attracted the most attention.

By far, our top story was:
Innovation Key to Cognizant Success Says D’Souza at FDU Rothman Event. (This story received more than 3,000 hits on its own.)
Francisco D’Souza, president and CEO of Teaneck-based Cognizant Technology Solutions, recently discussed major innovations that have caused his company to thrive. Chief among them: an innovative business model and investment in developing Cognizant 2.0, a real-time operating system D’Souza says is the “glue” holding his knowledge-based workforce together.
Followed by:

2. SHI’s Thai Lee says Company is in NJ to Stay
We continue our series on the state of the tech business climate in N.J., interviewing, via email, Thai Lee, CEO and president of SHI International Corp.
SHI is a fixture in N.J. The privately held, woman-run IT solutions provider has been located here for 23 years, growing from a $1 million regional value-added reseller (VAR) to a $3 billion global technology company. SHI has recently begun making investments that will allow it to shift to the lucrative cloud computing business.

3. Converge NJ, Home to Many Tech Groups, to Close
Converge NJ, the coworking space in Union, N.J., will close its doors as of October 15. The three-year-old venture is pulling the plug for a number of reasons, among them that people have simply lost interest, founder Steve Guberman said in a post on the Converge home page. The coworking space, open for 14 months, had not yet become sustainable, he added.

4. NJ’s First Tech Accelerator to Focus on Enterprise
Last week N.J.-based investor and software engineer Ken Kay, who is well-known in the angel community as a founder of Jumpstart NJ Angel Network, announced he is launching N.J.’s first tech startup accelerator, Ecelerator. It will be located somewhere in the Newark or Hoboken area. The twist: Ecelerator will focus on business-to-business (B2B) startup opportunities.

5. Asbury Agile Conference Brings New York Tech Scene to Jersey Shore
At the Asbury Agile conference last week about 100 web “makers and doers,” mostly from the Jersey Shore area, listened to a full agenda of useful talks aimed at honing best practices and showcasing local talent.



Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of   New Jersey Tech Weekly , and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in New Jersey Tech Weekly.


DailyWorth raises $2 million, led by Robin Hood Ventures



Tom Paine



Mount Airy resident Amanda Steinberg's personal finance site for women, DailyWorth, just raised $2 million. Amanda tells me by email that despite some press reports, Philly angel investor consortium Robin Hood Ventures actually led the round. Other investors include Joanne Wilson, Stocktwits founder Howard Lindzon, 500 Startups' Dave McClure, TechStar's Dave Cohen and Eric Schmidt of TomorrowVentures. The daily email newsletter, which was originally modeled on Comcast/NBCU's DailyCandy, says it has over 200,000 subscribers nationwide.

In early 2012, DailyWorth will launch two new editions: MoreWorth for the affluent woman and CreateWorth for female entrepreneurs. Former New York Times columnist and award-winning journalist MP Dunleavey heads up DailyWorth’s editorial team.

Last year, DailyWorth raised an $850,000 seed round led by Robin Hood Ventures, and its total funding to date is
just over $3 million. Though Steinberg continues to reside in Philly, DailyWorth has its headquarters in the Union Square neighborhood of New York.

Though no financial data on DailyWorth is available, last month Joanne Wilson said of Steinberg in an interview with O'Reilly Radar ,"She has created tremendous traction and sells advertising at lightning speed, to the point that we don't have any inventory. She's done an amazing job. If she pivoted in one direction, she could be a huge, huge business".



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SAP Ventures participates in $53.4 million round in social media vendor Lithium Technologies



Tom Paine


SAP Ventures has joined in a $53.4 million round led by New Enterprise Associates in Lithium Technologies, Inc., a vendor of enterprise-oriented social media software.


Lithium is a close competitor to Jive Software, which last month raised $161 million in an IPO. SAP has worked closely with Jive, and late last year before Jive filed for its IPO it was rumored that SAP might soon acquire it . SAP Ventures was not, however, an investor in Jive, according to available information. There was some discussion that Jive-related issues (instability due to a version change) might have contributed to the delay announced last month in rolling out the new SAP Community Network.

Last month SAP announced a relationship with NetBase to resell its social media analytics tool to its customers. SAP Ventures had also been an investor in LinkedIn prior to its IPO and SAP had integrated LinkedIn capabilities into the SAP Community Network.

Its seems clear that SAP is spreading its bets in terms of its social networking strategy. Whether and when it will make a major acquisition in this space, or if it will just continue to rely on partnerships, remains to be seen.

The Series D round also included all previous participating investors, including Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, Shasta Ventures and Tenaya Capital. Lithium is based in Emeryville, CA.



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