RockYou acquires Philly social game developer Ryzing (and its staying put)

Tom Paine

California-based social game maker RockYou, in which First Round Capital was an early stage investor, announced yesterday it was acquiring Ryzing, a Philly-based social game developer backed by area VC firm Artists & Instigators (formerly SeventySix Capital). Terms were not disclosed.

Ryzing's primary product is "Bingo by Ryzing" on Facebook, with more than 75,000 daily users. Ryzing's gaming platform gives players a chance at winning prizes through sweepstakes drawings. RockYou had already taken over distribution responsibilities for the game, which was released in 2011, earlier this year. Although RockYou's sweepstakes format enables it to avoid restrictions on cash payouts, if online gambling were to be legalized it has the potential to skyrocket.

Wayne D. Kimmel, founder and managing partner of Artists & Instigators, told me via Twitter DM that Ryzing's 6 person team was staying in Philadelphia and, in fact, they are looking to hire more people. Kimmel will also be joining RockYou's board.

Ryzing's team is led by Manu Gambhir, who has Wharton and Computer Science degrees from UPenn,and ran Cantor Fitzgerald's online gaming business in the United Kingdom (I had no idea Cantor Fitzgerald ever had an online gaming business). Dr. Dmitry Cherkassky, a UPenn Computer and Information Science PHD, led the design of the gaming system's architecture.

RockYou also announced yesterday it was relocating its headquarters from Redwood City, CA to San Francisco. It has raised $129 million, according to Crunchbase. First Round Capital participated only in the seed round; later, larger investors have included Softbank, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Doll Capital Management.



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Daily Links 6/14/2012: Microsoft said to be in talks to buy Yammer

HP and SAP: What we need is a MASHED UP cloud
'We've moved away from doing it cheaper' (Thank god) (The Register)

Microsoft Said To Be In Talks To Acquire Yammer Social Network (Bloomberg)
Raises question again as to whether SAP will make a major move.

Yammer Acquisition Rumors Push Jive Shares Up (All Things D)
As I was saying....

Comcast Bids For .Xfinity, While Dish Wants .Direct And .DTV Web Names (Multichannel News)

U.S. is probing how pay-TV industry affects online competitors (LA Times)

Eagles, Rovio announce an Angry Birds deal (Philadelphia Inquirer)

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Philly Tech News Facilities Roundup: Who's moving or expanding? (6/13/2012)

Tom Paine

Real estate decisions (leases, expansions, new buildings or offices) are often a good indicator of what's happening within a company, industry or region. This periodic Philly Tech News feature is a roundup of recent facilities news involving Philly area tech firms.

Zivtech, the Philadelphia development shop focused on content management systems such as Drupal and Alfresco and headed by partners Alex Urevick-Acelsberg and Jody Hamilton, moved this week from its old office on Strawberry Street to new digs in the Philadelphia Building on Walnut Street, where they have taken about half of the 15th floor-RJMetrics has the other half. They tell me they've just about doubled their square footage.
The old office, now available, was Indy Hall's original location. Zivtech also has people located in Madison, WI, and New York City.
Zivtech got Drupaldelphia off the ground a few years ago, and its fifth edition will be held on Saturday (correction: that's Friday), June 22 at Temple. There will be other events during the weekend, including the Drupaldelphia After / Zivtech Office Opening Party Jawn on Friday night.

Comcast has extended and expanded its lease at a former data center in Mount Laurel, going from 44,000 to 72,500 square feet. Comcast currently employs about 200 in the space at the former SunGard Data Systems facility, at Executive Park at East Gate on West Park Drive, which it first moved into in 2007. Comcast says it is expanding its research and development operations in Mount Laurel, which are apparently related to its rapidly growing Business Services segment.

Bethlehem-based online video service Viddler announced in April the opening of its second data center in New York City. Its existing data center in Phoenix now serves as a redundant backup. In what it described as a "six figure investment", Viddler said its "new, redundant, premium hardware assures the performance boost along with the ability to serve even more traffic at high speeds". "Lastly, we’ve enhanced our security and monitoring capabilities to provide a faster response to any potential problems."

Radnor-based Business Intelligence software vendor QlikTech has taken a seven-year lease on a pre-built 6,000 square foot space in the newly rennovated building at 292 Madison Avenue in New York, the Commercial Observer reported last week.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews cutting ribbon at opening of VideoLink's new Philadelphia
facility (Source: VideoLink)

Newtown, MA-based VideoLink opened a new video studio and production facility on Delancey St in Philly last week. MSNBC's (and Philly native) Chris Matthews was on hand for the ribbon cutting. The new facility has 4800 square feet, up from 3000 square feet in its old facility on N. 17th St. VideoLink is a provider of broadcast and corporate media services, solutions, and proprietary video production technology.

At Media, the social media-oriented branding agency, moved its offices in early March from Cherry Street to 222B Race Street. The new office provides ground level storefront space and two levels.

King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce, a unit of EBay, has opened a new office in New York. It houses staff from GSI Commerce's marketing services businesses including mobile advertising, ad retargeting, ad analytics, affiliate, and email. The office will have about 150 employees.



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Daily Links 6/13/2012: DOJ reported to be investigating Cable moves in online video

Constant Contact Acquires Business Listings Startup SinglePlatform, Deal Worth Up To $100M (TechCrunch)
SinglePlatform is a First Round Capital portfolio company.

Congratulations: Single Platform Acquired by Constant Contact (Howard Morgan/Way Too Early)

FCC to let cable firms stop carrying local TV in analog (LA Times)

U.S. Probing If Cable Operators Hamper Netflix, Online Video (Report) (Hollywood Reporter)

First GPS III Launch Delayed by Up to a Year, OCX by Two Years (Inside GNSS)
Doesn't appear to be Lockheed's fault.

Quality Systems, Inc. Reports Fiscal 2012 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results (Business Wire)
Quality Systems' principal business is NextGen Healthcare of Horsham.

What do Qliktech customers gain from Expressor? (Research with Results/Aberdeen Group Blog)

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Daily Links 6/12/2012: Radnor's QlikTech makes acquisition; Comcast to work with PayPal, TiVo on T-Commerce

QlikTech Acquires Expressor Software to Deliver the Data Users Need with the Governance IT Requires (Business Wire)
QlikTech's first acquisition, at least in recent times. QlikTech's CFO had hinted that some small acquisitions might be in the pipeline during the company's last earnings call.

PayPal To Offer E-Commerce On TV Sets With Comcast, TiVo (Bloomberg)

TiVo Treads Into T-Commerce With PayPal Pact
Solution to Be Available to DVR Maker's Cable Operator Customers (Multichannel News)

Comcast Kicks Tires On ActiveVideo's Web-Based VOD Interface
MSO Licenses Vendor's CloudTV H5 Platform For Trial in Chattanooga, Tenn. (Multichannel News)

Comcast Must Back Off Internet Speed Claims
Ad assertions examined after Verizon complaint (Adweek)

Verizon's sharing plans: Confusing but inevitable (Comp

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phillytechnews twitterfeed 6/8 to 6/10 2012

phillytechnews: Philly Tech People News 6/10/2012 http://t.co/8H498NRS

Posted: 10 Jun 2012 04:35 PM PDT

phillytechnews: Philly Tech People News 6/10/2012 http://t.co/8H498NRS

phillytechnews: Intel's plans for virtual TV come into focus | Reuters http://t.co/1HGDokZJ

Posted: 10 Jun 2012 11:48 AM PDT

phillytechnews: Intel's plans for virtual TV come into focus | Reuters http://t.co/1HGDokZJ

phillytechnews: PTN Post: "Entrepreneur Summer Camp" to kick off events with look back at Infonautics (June 12) http://t.co/RhA1Ylv3

Posted: 10 Jun 2012 10:05 AM PDT

phillytechnews: PTN Post: "Entrepreneur Summer Camp" to kick off events with look back at Infonautics (June 12) http://t.co/RhA1Ylv3

phillytechnews: Football players may have been among victims of Auburn shooting

Posted: 10 Jun 2012 06:19 AM PDT

phillytechnews: Football players may have been among victims of Auburn shooting

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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (6/4/2012 to 6/10/2012)

I highlighted some of the recent venture-related goings on in the Philly area, including First Round Capital adding another VC for the summer (at least), Philly Startup Leaders' recent board additions and new mission statement, and New York-based General Assembly's presence in town.

I wrote about Entrepreneur Summer Camp's initial event tomorrow morning (the 12th) on Infonautics, and took a look back at the pioneering company's history.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Comcast was contemplating making a bid for European satellite broadcaster BSkyB, to which Comcast vice chairman & CFO Michael Angelakis responded by saying, ”this is complete rubbish".

The myYearbook brand name is history now, as New Hope-based Quepasa Corp. completed its corporate name change to MeetMe. and moved myYearbook to the MeetMe platform. The Quepasa social network will move to the MeetMe platform later this year.

With much fanfare, Oracle introduced its Cloud offerings last week, as Larry Ellison made his first tweet (taking his usual shot at SAP), and received some negative blowback.

NJTechWeekly's Esther Surden contributed her coverage of Google's (and Princeton alum) Eric Schmidt and his address at Princeton's centennnial commemoration and celebration of Alan Turing's birth.

Earlier reports were confirmed as Salesforce announced its intent to acquire social media marketing management platform Buddy Media for a price in the $750 million range. And Nat Turner, who co-founded Internet advertising platform Invite Media that was acquired by Google for $81 million, departed Google at the end of last week along with fellow co-founder Zach Weinberg, and the two have plans for a new venture focused on Healthcare IT.


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Daily Links 6/11/2012: Comcast hunts for new studio COO, plans sports radio network

NBC gears up for massive Olympics coverage online and on TV (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Comcast studio hunts for new COO: sources (Reuters)

NBC Sports To Create Radio Network To Challenge Disney’s ESPN (Bloomberg)

Looking for the Apple TV? Look in Front of You. (Peter Kafka/All Things D)

Larry Ellison: His public versus private cloud (Vinnie Mirchandani/Enterprise Irregulars)

Oracle's hardware worries surface again as analysts eye Q4 (ZDNet Blogs)

Oracle-SAP Retrial Delayed (PC World)

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Intel's plans for virtual TV come into focus (Reuters)

Apple devs may get an SDK to create apps for iTV at WWDC
(Venturebeat)

Philly Tech People News 6/10/2012

Princeton names Dominick VP and CIO (News at Princeton)

Pazzani, Tech Transfer and Research Funding Expert, Resigns from Rutgers (NJ Tech Weekly)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Announces Business Segment Leadership Changes (Business Wire)


Halfpenny Technologies Appoints Brian Muck as EVP of Sales and Marketing (Business Wire)

Channel Intelligence Announces Executive Management Changes (Globe Newswire)
Doug Alexander, President of ICG, will serve as CEO of ICG partner company.


Leslie Nichols named executive video producer at Bradford Media Group (Philly Ad Club News)

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Comcast Says It Isn’t Mulling BSkyB Bid, Disputing Report (Bloomberg)