Daily Links 4/16/2012: Dreams Inc. to be acquired by Kynetic LLC's Fanatics Inc.

Dreams Inc. to be acquired by Fanatics Inc. (MarketWatch)
Fanatics Inc. is a part of GSI Commerce founder Michael Rubin's Kynetic LLC, which is based in Conshohocken. Deal values Dreams Inc. at $183 million including debt.

First Round Capital Is Raising A $135M Fourth Fund (PE Hub)
Slightly larger than reported early this year.

Path Confirms Series B Funding From Redpoint, Richard Branson and Others (All Things D)
First Round Capital was an early investor in Path, though its not clear whether it participated in this round.

Reed Hastings Goes After Comcast, Again, on Facebook. Again. (Peter Kafka/All Things D)


Is IPTV Fundamentally Anticompetitive? (Todd Spangler/Multichannel News)

In Ad Campaign, SAP Looks Beyond Business Customer (New York Times: Media Decoder)

Why SAP needs a chiropractor
(Vinnie Mirchandani/Enterprise Irregulars)

SUP mobile ecosystem slow to take off, SAP admits (SearchSAP)

Google-Oracle trial begins, with implications for all of Silicon Valley (San Jose Mercury News)

Microsoft: Hey, we're an in-memory database player, too (Mary Jo Foley/ZDNet Blogs)

Lockheed Loses $70M Over GPS Sat Overruns (Bloomberg)



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Comcast Tests Network DVR in Boston (Light Reading Cable)

Stop Looking For A Technical Co-founder (TechCrunch)
Written by Alexey Komissarouk, a CS senior at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the PennApps Hackathon.

Philly Tech People News 4/15/2012

Robert L. Barchi, outgoing president of Thomas Jefferson University, to take Rutgers helm (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Charles Curie, Ned Moore Join Core Solutions’ Board of Directors (PR Web)

TMG Health Announces Executive Promotion (PR Newswire)

Application Developers Alliance announces directors (Software Development Times)
One of them is David Kennedy, CEO of Lancaster-based appMobi.


Daniel Rubenstein Has Joined Scala as Senior Director, Financial Sales (PR Web)

Vertex’s Lois Reynolds Shares Insights on Women’s Leadership Development
Joins panel discussion at the Conference Board’s Women’s Leadership Conference on April 19 that discusses opportunities for women to foster leadership development (Business Wire)

Penn Foster Names Frank F. Britt as New CEO
Company to Become Independent Enterprise and Establish Presence in Boston's Emerging Education Technology Sector
(PR Newswire)

Former QlikTech CEO Måns Hultman and Enterprise Software Veteran Charles Kane Advise Panopticon Software (PR Web)

Phila. tourism official moves on to Atlantic City (Philadelphia Business Journal)




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SAP revenue rises 11 percent in first quarter, but margin shrinks
SAP remains optimistic about growth for the rest of the year (PC Advisor)

"'Rest assured, these issues have been swiftly resolved', McDermott said on the conference call. SAP made 'some leadership adjustments that were the right ones at the right time', he added, in an apparent reference to the recent departure of North America president Robert Courteau."

Comcast and satellite companies at impasse over SportsNet programming (Philly.com: Philadelphia Sportsweek)

First Round Capital Roundup 4/13/2012

Tom Paine

First Round Capital has been a very lean firm in terms of overhead as it has grown its portfolio to some 120+ companies (according to its website). But recently it has taken some steps towards adding more support infrastucture. Early this month First Round announced the addition of Jack Leidlein, previously Head of Business Operations & Recruiting at Scribd, as Head of Talent. Late last year FRC added Cece Cheng, a Princeton grad whose background is mostly in PR and corporate communication, as an Associate. Other staff (excluding Partners or Principals) are Brett Berson, who was recently promoted to VP of Platform, and CFO Jeff Donnon, who goes back with Josh Kopelman to Half.com. I'm sure there must be some other support staff, but don' know how many or where they are located. I believe Berson and Donnon are based out of Conshohocken, but Cheng is based in San Francisco and Leidlein will split time between New York and San Francisco.

To what extent FRC may add additional centralized support resources is unknown. As a seed stage investor, First Round's assets under management are still relatively small (a few hundred million as opposed to $1 billion plus), and it is difficult to support the type of overhead some larger venture firms are developing.

Chances that FRC might move from Conshohocken to Philadelphia (in a job ad earlier this year caught by Technically Philly the firm said it was considering such a move) could get a boost if Mayor Nutter signs a bill recently passed by City Council 16 to 1 exempting investment funds and their general partners from the city's 6.5 percent business tax on profits. The Inquirer reported early this month that Mayor Nutter was "leaning toward" signing the bill.

Josh Kopelman took an active role in publicly supporting the JOBS Act, which in an amazing event for this day and age was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President on April 5.

Portfolio company Monetate lists 18 open positions on FRC's job board, about 7 of which appear engineering-oriented. The Conshohocken-based eCommerce software firm recieved seed funding and a follow on round led by FRC and later a much larger round lead by Boston's OpenView Venture Partners.

FRC is moving to larger quarters in the same building on Union Square in New York, so it is offering a sublease on its old 3,000 square foot office on 200 Park Avenue South.

FRC is one of many (big name seed and angel) investors in mobile development startup Cabana, which has just launched a product called Fan Page Mobilizer aimed at bringing small businesses' Facebook fan pages to smartphones. The goal is to provide an easy to use tool that non-technical small business users can set up by themselves. Cabana is based in San Francisco.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that New York-based Fab continues to do very well since its pivot and relaunch last June. The FRC-backed fashion-oriented site now has a $100 milion annual run rate and 225 employees.

Forbes has a piece on New York-based SinglePlatform, which as its name implies provides one platform from which a small business can manage its content across all of its social media sites. Sales are expected to grow from $2 million last year to $15 million in 2012.

LA-based DogVacay raised $1 million led by FRC to address a need any dog owner can relate to: it matches people seeking a nice environment for their dog to stay while they're away with qualified people willing to take in and care for the dogs in their own homes. And Yummly, a recipe site with an emphasis on eating healthy, came back for a second helping of funding ($6 miilion) from a prestigious investor group, including Unilever. FRC was a return investor. Co-founders David Feller and Vadim Geshel are both veterans of Half.com who moved to California (where Yummly is based) after its acquisition by eBay.

I wrote about myYearbook (in which FRC was an early investor) and its now parent company Quepasa's decision to rebrand as MeetMe. They reportedly paid a good deal of money for the rights to the Meet.me domain name. I also covered Solve Media's intoduction of its CAPTCHA-like offering for opting out of pre-roll video ads, and got some info on the size of Solve's current presence in Philly.



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Daily Links 4/13/2012: SAP stumbles on North American execution issues; Comcast to face antitrust trial

SAP Profit Rises on Sales of Mobile Applications, Analytics (Bloomberg)
But somewhat below analyst's estimates. See SAP Press Release.

SAP sees Q1 stumble on North America execution issues (ZDNet Blogs)
Connection between "North America execution issues" and last week's departure of SAP North America President Robert Courteau? Good guess.

Judge orders Comcast trial in antitrust complaint (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Comcast Is First U.S. ISP to Offer IPv6 to Home Gateway Users (Network World)

Bentley Systems Releases 2011 Annual Report Online
Record Revenues, Key Milestones, and Strategic Initiatives Are Highlighted in Bentley’s Annual Reporting to Its User Organizations (Business Wire)

Video Innovation Continues as Motorola Mobility Offers New Higher Density and Flexible Transcoder IRD Products (PR Newswire)

City is too app-happy (Philadelphia Daily News)



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Daily Links 4/12/2012: Two local PE firms team up to buy Minnesota Ed Tech firm

Poptent Launches World’s Largest Video Production House for Major Brands and Agencies (Business Wire)
A company spokesperson tells me by email that Poptent Productions will be primarily run out of Poptent's San Clemente, CA office (where David Mann and Jon Seidman are based), with support from a number of employees in the Philly-area office as well.

Open Table's rival to launch here (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Wilmington News Journal cans newly hired reporter after he posts self-written press release on blog sites (JimRomenesko.com)

Microsoft Inks Its Biggest Cloud Deal Yet: 7.5M Students And Teachers In India (TechCrunch)

Amazon Job Descriptions Hint at More Perks Coming to Prime (All Things D)
Comments by Mike Golden, president of Conshohocken-based ShopRunner.

Will Service Providers Steal ADT's Customers? (Light Reading Cable)
Comcast wants to be a big player.


Alarm Capital Alliance Partners with Norwest Venture Partners
Alarm Capital Alliance Eyes Major Growth Opportunities in the $43 Billion Security Alarm Industry (PR Newswire)
Alarm Capital Alliance is based in Media. The amount invested by Norwest Venture Partners, or the exact nature of its partnership with ACA, were not disclosed.

Boathouse, Renovus Capital Strike Secondary Deal for Atomic Learning (PE Hub)
Boathouse Capital and Renovus Capital Partners are both located outside of Philadelphia. Atomic Learning, based in Minnesota, provides tech tools and training to teachers. Boathouse and Renovus invested $19.0 million of subordinated debt and equity alongside Atomic Learning’s management.

SAP Says Hana Tests Well On Performance, Scalability (Josh Greenbaum/Information Week)

Making Sense of "Multi-tenancy" Claims (Brian Sommer/ZDNet Blogs)

EMC unveils preconfigured private cloud for partners (Computerworld)

RES Software Signs $3.5 Million Deal with Fortune 20 Company (Business Wire)
RES Software is based in Plymouth Meeting.

Leslie Moonves on Why Broadcast Trumps Cable, What He Said to Steve Burke (Q&A) (Hollywood Reporter)

Philadelphia Councilman Thinks Verizon May Be Foot-Dragging On FiOS Construction (CBS Philly)

TWC Bundles Up With Verizon Wireless In Five Markets
Regulators Have Yet to Approve MSOs' Spectrum and Co-Marketing Deals With Wireless Operator (Multichannel News)

InterDigital and LiveCast Successfully Integrate Video Optimization into Broadcast-Focused LTE Live Video Solution (Business Wire)



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Daily Links 4/11/2012: Safeguard Scientifics' Phillip Moyer on how East & West Coast startup ecosystems differ

How West and East Coast dynamics help startups succeed (VentureBeat)
Very good piece on how the East Coast is different, and also offers an attractive environment for startups, written by Philip D. Moyer, Vice President and Managing Director, Safeguard Scientifics.

VMware CFO Peek Leaves For Same Job At Workday; Shrs Off (Forbes)
As Workday prepares for IPO.

SAP Launches Attack On Database, Mobile App Markets (Information Week)

SAP database and mobility strategies: genius or madness? (ZDNet Blogs)

SAP Plans to Dominate Enterprise Mobile Apps with HTML5 and New Partnerships (ReadWriteMobile)

It’s on — US sues Apple, publishers over e-book prices (paidContent)

Bloomberg takes another FCC shot at Comcast (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast updates Xfinity TV for iOS with DVR management controls (The Verge)

Project of The Year Award Winners Announced at Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference in Philadelphia : Ajungo Holdings, LLC, WizHive, Peirce College Honored (PR Web)

Amazon Takes Genomics Research to the Clouds (Wired Enterprise)

U.S. Federal Reserve Beige Book: Philadelphia District (via Bloomberg)

LEVEL 3'S TAX WOES: CLEC TOPS LIST OF DELINQUENT PA TAXPAYERS (Billing World)

Want to Reduce SunGard BC/DR Costs? It’s All About Transparency (Spend Matters)



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Philly-based mobile platform developer appRenaissance announces $1.5 million seed round, led by FirstMark Capital

Tom Paine

appRenaissance, the Old City Philadelphia-based mobile app development platform startup, today announced in a press release it had received seed funding of $1.5 million, lead by FirstMark Capital with additional investments by CEO Bob Moul and other angel investors.

Founded in 2010 by Scott Wasserman, appRenaissance hired its first employees in May of last year and says it is on pace to reach $1 million in revenue in its first full year of operation. Moul, who as CEO of Boomi helped lead it to being acquired by Dell in 2010, where it is now at the center of its Cloud strategy, came on board at the beginning of the year. In addition to developing individual mobile applications, appRenaissance also provides development tools and infrastructure, including what it calls its Unifeed Mobile Middleware platform, which it says speeds development time and simplifies integration with enterprise applications.

It is not surprising that FirstMark led the seed round, since I believe it was the sole institutional investor in Boomi. I have never found out exactly what Dell paid for Boomi (my guess is something north of $100 million), but FirstMark must have done well on that investment because Boomi didn't require that much capital prior to its exit (FirstMark led a $4 million round in 2008). FirstMark Managing Director Amish Jani, who was involved in the Boomi relationship, will be working again with Moul at appRenaissance, although board seats have not been announced.

Founder Wasserman, who received his computer science degree from the University of Delaware, has been the key technology guy at several area startups and development shops. He is also listed as being CTO of BizEquity Corp, an appRenaissance client based in Wayne which offers a cloud-based service geared towards simplifying the business valuation process. Geekadelphia featured Wasserman last month as their "Geek of the Week".

appRenaissance says the round will be used to add several key hires and accelerate development of its Unifeed middleware platform. The company's website currently shows it having nine employees.

Read press release.



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (4/2/2012 to 4/8/2012)

Dell had a busy week, announcing three acquisitions, one of which, thin client vendor Wyse Technology, may directly impact King of Prussia-based Devon IT's OEM relationship with Dell. I profiled Devon IT, speaking with its Pesident, Joe Makoid, and looked at both its upside and downside prospects.

I looked at New Hope-based, myYearbook parent company Quepasa's decision announced last week to rebrand under the name MeetMe.

First Round Capital appears to be adding more resources to support its portfolio companies, last week announcing that Jack Leidlein had joined the firm as its new Head of Talent.

WorldGate, a Bensalem-based pioneer in interactive TV that later tried to pivot to video phones, finally gave up the ghost by filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, an outcome anticipated as the company had virtually ceased operations some time ago. Founded in 1995, WorldGate listed debts of $50 million.

SAP AG celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding with commemorative activities and a neat 60 second video timeline. Meanwhile, SAP's North American President based in Newtown Square, Robert Courteau, left the company after 15 months in the position. No explanation was immediately offered.

Wayne-based SunGard Availability Services announced it was getting into the Hadoop game, with a new service that gives users on-demand access to the big data processing platform.

The University of Pennsylvania will lead a $10 million National Science Foundation project aimed at automating more of the computer programming process.

paidContent looked at Invite Media one year after its acquisition by Google.

Comcast and other cable and media companies are asking the FCC to allow them to take steps that would disable Boxee's current method of streaming video.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners (Southeastern Pennsylvania) said it is seeking applicants for the next batch of "Project Liberty" startup ventures. Applications are due April 27.


Quote of the week: Oracle's President and CFO Safra Catz: "We are the cloud. Very few of these cloud companies are running on anything but our platforms. We don’t need the credit. You can’t start your day except in a cave without hitting Oracle a thousand times."

One wonders if she is on the same drugs Larry Ellison said SAP was on.


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Daily Links 4/10/2012: SAP reveals database, mobile roadmaps through 2015, acquires mobile development firm

Philly-based Medical tech firm eResearch being sold for $400M (AP via Business Week)

Comcast Xfinity On Demand rolling out to TiVo Premiere subscribers in SF Bay Area (The Verge)

The cable industry isn’t stupid, right? (Gigaom)

Comcast to test IPTV network at MIT (FierceCable)

SAP reveals database, mobile roadmaps through 2015 (ZDNet Blogs)

SAP Lays out Plans to Become Big Player in Databases, Mobile (PC World)

SAP to Acquire Syclo, Extends Leadership in Mobilizing the Enterprise (PR Newswire)

SAP Buys Leading Enterprise Mobile Development Shop and Announces $155 Million Startup Fund (SiliconAngle)

HP to offer cloud-based computing service (San Jose Mercury News)

TE Connectivity to sell touch screen, pro service for $403M (Central Penn Business Journal)
TE Connectivity has its operational headquarters in Berwyn and substantial business units in Central Pennsylvania.

IAB's New Ad Formats Offer Tech Support for 'Skippable' Ads
Standards Will Allow More Publishers to Bring Ad-Skipping to Video (Ad Age)
Good for Solve Media's new offering.

Are you an indie, angel or venture company? (Gabriel Weinberg's Blog)
On current valuations.



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