Poptent's Super Bowl ad for Dannon's OIKOS Greek Yogurt

Poptent, the Philadelphia-born agency that crowdsources video advertising production, has had its Super Bowl ad for Dannon's OIKOS Greek Yogurt prereleased prior to the game. Poptent received 34 fully-produced entries from its top producers, and a spot titled "The Tease", directed by Lewis & Clark College student Remy Neymarc, 21, was selected. The final spot was then shot at Poptent Productions, a division of Poptent.

Poptent's website also shows some outtakes and behind the scenes activity from the shoot. Poptent was founded in 2007 and received $6.8 million led by MK Capital in late 2010. Although it has a considerable presence in Conshohocken, its headquarters is now in San Clemente, CA according to its website.

Poptent joins Red Tettemer & Partners, with its ad for Century 21, as Philadelphia agencies producing ads for the 2012 Super Bowl.






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NBC sees pay dirt with Super Bowls ads, spin-offs (Philadelphia Inquirer)

NBC Channels Marilyn Monroe in Super Bowl Ads to Aid Network (Bloomberg)

A Sign Law Spurs Investment in Philadelphia (New York Times)

Philly Tech People News 2/5/2012

Comcast Hires Singh From Cisco To Head Long-Range Planning
Exec Named Senior Vice President of Finance and Strategic Planning (Multichannel News)

Comcast-Spectacor leader Luukko makes Billboard power rankings (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Kenexa Expands Leadership Team With the Appointment of Goldschmidt to Chief Customer Officer (Marketwire)

Leydon to retire as VP and CIO after more than 30 years in IT field (News at Princeton)

SeaChange Announces Departure of Company President Yvette Kanouff
No Replacement Planned (Business Wire)

BizEquity Adds Leading Business Valuation Expert Scott Gabehart to Senior Team (Business Wire)

Investors see huge potential in Glassboro native's successful business, RJMetrics (Gloucester County Times)

Perelman family members squaring off over Philadelphia newspapers (New York Post)

Zach Nelson: A Decade in the Clouds (Vinnie Mirchandani/Deal Architect)

Red Tettemer's Super Bowl ad for Century 21

Century 21 Super Bowl ad produced by Philly's Red Tettemer and Partners

New York Post: Philadelphia Media Network owners hire investment bankers, sales effort already underway

Tom Paine


The New York Post, following up on its breaking story about the possible sale of Philadelphia Media Network (owner of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com) this past weekend, reported today that the ownership group has hired an investment banking firm, Evercore Partners, to seek out potential buyers.

The article cites sources as saying that the company has met with at least three interested parties already, and some offers are expected in the next two to four weeks. It also says that the family of Raymond Perelman, the 94-year-old Philadelphia businessman who tried to acquire the papers two years ago, is again interested in bidding.

The Post says that investment firm Angelo Gordon initiated the sales process and hoped Alden Capital would buy its 30% stake, but that Alden, which holds a similar stake, decided it wanted to sell as well.

No word from the investors or PMN on these latest reports, the Post says.

The reported price tag of $100 million, compared to the $139 million the buyout group paid to purchase the properties in late 2010, suggests that the turnaround has not been going too well, although they have profited by the sale of the old Inquirer building. See the column by former Inquirer exec Rick Edmonds in yesterday's Poynter for one perspective.

Update: The Inquirer reports that former Philly Mayor and PA Governor Ed Rendell is among those putting together a group to make a bid.

Daily Links 2/3/2012: Comcast may invest in Mets, more Thursday Night Football to NFL Network

Financial Relief for Mets May Come From TV Partners (New York Times)
Comcast may invest in Mets so they can better compete against Phillies.


NFL Network Ups Thursday Night Football Games to 13 for 2012 Season (Hollywood Reporter)
NBC Sports had been reported to have had a keen interest in adding those games for its cable network.

Verizon’s cable spectrum mashup: evil genius or simply genius? (Gigaom)

Dish Asks Regulators to Reject AT&T Call for Rapid Network Build (Bloomberg)

DirecTV Stops Selling WildBlue
May be Working With Dish/Hughes On New Option (Broadband Reports)

Take This Mitt, and Pass Me the Broadsword (New York Times)
Curt Schilling's expensive new video game close to debut.


Online retailers hoping Congress acts as PA delays enforcement of sales tax law (Delco Times)

Systems Management, Cloud Services Likely in Dell's Software Acquisition Plans (PC World)

SuccessFactors Announces Preliminary Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2011 Results (PR Newswire)

NetSuite looks to a bright 2012 (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

Newtown's EPAM Systems considered best of next week's IPO candidates (Dow Jones via NASDAQ.com)

Daily Links 2/2/2012: Are investors favoring Journal Register over Philadelphia’s Inquirer, Daily News?

Are investors choosing Journal Register over Philadelphia’s Inquirer, Daily News? (Poynter)

SAP will add 500 jobs in Newtown (Delco Times)

SAP-SuccessFactors deal delayed as US regulators conduct investigation (IT World)

SAP’s Greg Tomb: We Will Be De Facto Cloud Computing Leader (Talkin' Cloud)

Sizing the SaaS M&A market (Inorganic Growth)

NetSuite Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2011 Financial Results (PR Newswire via Yahoo Finance)

Dell Forms Software Group, Names Former CA CEO as Head (PC World)
Boomi a key component.

Franken wants probe of Verizon cable deal (The Hill)

Verizon-Comcast Alliance Seeing Pushback (Video: MarketWatch)

New Tech Partner Promises To Cut Netflix Streaming Bandwidth In Half (paidContent)

Unisys wallet emptied in rebadged server, storage cash crash
Mainframe biz profit wobbles in Q4 (The Register)

Boeing-Textron V-22 Is Said to Lose $1.75 Billion in Pentagon Budget Cut (Bloomberg)

Expanded Ben Franklin TechVentures helps Pennsylvania start-ups create jobs (Ben Franklin Technology Partners: Keynotes)

Viddler Redesign Launched!!! (The Viddler Blog)

The trials of Uber (Fortune Tech)



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Daily Links 2/1/2012: Senate to hold hearing on Verizon Wireless/Cable deal

Facebook Files for an I.P.O. (New York Times: DealBook)

Verizon’s wireless, marketing deal with cable firms to be considered at Senate hearing (Washington Post: Post Tech)

Comcast offers discount on Verizon Wireless service (San Jose Mercury News)

Comcast Takes Home Security To Mile-High City
'Xfinity Home' Service Provides 24-Hour Monitoring, Home Automation Features (Multichannel News)
Already available in Philly market. Anybody out there using it?

Comcast Signs Multiyear Extension With Amdocs
Vendor Also Cites Strong Performance in Europe, Emerging Markets (Multichannel News)

Unisys stock drops on decrease in quarterly profit, revenue (Philadelphia Business Journal)

SaaS valuations come back to earth — sorta (Gigaom)


D.C.’S IT ECONOMY: READYING FOR THE SEISMIC SHIFT (Edison Ventures Blog)

Quantum Leap’s tweet counter picks up more buzz (DelawareOnline: Delaware Inc.)

Infographic: Mobile ads show staggering growth, clicks up 711 percent (Gigaom)



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iPipeline's latest round a staggering $71.4 million

Tom Paine


Credit goes to Citybizlist for catching the Form D filing on Exton-based IPipeline's most recent round, which was announced last month. The actual amount of the round was $71.4 million.

While I can't determine now whether there were any other participants in this round, Technology Crossover Ventures was the only investor named in the press release, and there was no mention of anyone else being involved.

What exactly does an Insurance SaaS vendor do with $71.4 million? In addition to the usual needs to expand product development capabilities and sales & marketing resources, the press release also refers to international expansion. Also, the word is iPipeline will be moving to a larger headquarters building in Exton. Acquisitions, though not specifically mentioned in the press release, are another possibility, Providing some liquidity for shareholders and employees is sometimes a goal in these large later stage rounds, though there also is no mention of that.

As I had noted previously, Technology Crossover Ventures often makes some very large bets.

Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (1/23/2012 to 1/29/2012)

I interviewed Joseph Budner Elad, founder of Quantum Leap Innovations of Newark, Delaware, on the launch of its new software, twitter analytics tool Quantum Leap Buzz.

An Italian firm, Datalogic S.p.A., completed the acquisition of Telford, PA-based Accu-Sort from Danaher Corp. for $135 million. Datalogic says the acquisition will enable it to double its leading market share in the industrial stationary scanners segment.

New Jersey Tech Weekly's Esther Surden contributed an article on Susquehanna Growth Equity's $35 million minority investment in Hazlet, NJ-based human resources software as a service (SaaS) provider iCIMS.

The merger of Datatel and Malvern-based SunGard Higher Education closed. The combined company, temporarily named Datatel+SGHE, will be based in Northern Virginia. Datatel+SGHE subsequently said that "less than 40" existing employees would be eliminated at the present time.

Newtown-based EPAM Systems launched an IPO seeking to raise as much as $133 million. EPAM provides system development services using personnel mostly located in Eastern and Central Europe.

King of Prussia-based InterDigital announced it was ending its effort to auction off its entire patent portfolio, though it still may sell off pieces of it in the coming months. Bids that came in were not for the entire portfolio and didn't meet InterDigital's expectations.

Hot off the momentum SAP AG reported in its quarterly results for its HANA platform, the company continued to make bold predictions for it, restating a goal of challenging or even upending Oracle in the database software market, and also revealing that it intends to have ERP running on Hana by Q4 of this year.

A story in the New York Post suggested that Phildelphia Media Network, owner of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, is on the block again for $100 million, and that Randy Smith’s Alden Global, which has a reported 30% stake and has made large investments in other distressed newspaper properties, is on the sellers' side.

And the Phillie Phanatic made a cameo on 30 Rock, which included a speaking role (well, sort of) that presumably will result in higher compensation. Which is good, because I think the Phillies give him only peanuts and beer.



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