Legal battle with RCN is not over for Comcast (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Disruptions: The Logic (or Lack of It) in Appraising Start-Ups (New York Times: Bits)
Legal battle with RCN is not over for Comcast (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Disruptions: The Logic (or Lack of It) in Appraising Start-Ups (New York Times: Bits)
Tableau’s IPO ‘book’ is tech’s next bestseller (Inorganic Growth)
Radnor-based QlikTech's total revenue for the full year 2012 was $388.5 million, an increase of 21% from the full year 2011 and 26% on a constant currency basis. GAAP Net Income was $3.8 million.
Upstart competitor Tableau doubled its revenue in 2012 to $127.7 million, and the company has been profitable on a GAAP basis since 2010.
Where Social, BPM and Event Technologies Must Go (Brian Sommer/Enterprise Irregulars)
Digital First Media CEO John Paton discusses future of media after JRC bankruptcy (Lansdale Reporter)
Microsoft to open Specialty Store at King of Prussia Mall on April 13
Tom Paine
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Microsoft said in a post today on the Official Microsoft Blog that it is opening five new Microsoft Specialty Stores, including one at King of Prussia Mall on April 13. Microsoft said its Specialty Stores, the first of which opened last Fall, "sell an array of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Surface Pro with Windows 8 Pro, Microsoft Surface RT, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox/Kinect." Microsoft lists about 75 stores (rough count), some of which are considered Specialty Stores and some not, in North America, including the five new locations.
Microsoft has three stores in New Jersey (Bridgewater Commons is the closest to Philly) and one at Christiana Mall in Delaware, which is not a Specialty Store.
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| Microsoft Specialty Store in Aventura, Fla./ Microsoft Blog |
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Daily Links 4/5/2013: Unisys' split personality; mass layoffs at Fisker
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Unisys must mend its split personality and develop a consistent global focus (Ovum)
EMC, VMware Love Child Pivotal Poses Challenge to AWS (Eweek)
SAP Grants Channel Partners Sales Exclusivity For 'General Business' Customers (CRN)
SAP's effort to get startups on HANA bandwagon chugging along (PC World)
Chernin, Comcast Investing in YouTube Tools Startup Fullscreen (All Things D)
Peter Chernin Wants Hulu, Too (All Things D)
Markell's office notified of Fisker's plans for layoffs (Wilmington News Journal)
Google Plans to Announce Something in Austin Next Week (All Things D)
Hard to believe it would be Google Fiber.
Milestone Announces Final Closing of Milestone IV and Senior Level Promotions (Milestone Website)
Radnor-based PE firm closes new fund at $300 million.
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Daily Links 4/4/2013: Variety on Intel's OTT TV service plans; Morgan Stanley challenges HANA sales inflation claims
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The Big Bet at Intel Corp. That Could Change TV (Variety)
Intel inside & out: trademark filings point towards Intel Media plans (Gigaom)
‘Tonight’ Switch Exposes Broadcasters’ Losses to New Media (Bloomberg)
New firm works to reduce hospital readmissions of elderly patients (Philadelphia Inquirer)
New incubator DreamIt Health launches first class (mobihealthnews)
This Guy's Startup Is So Hot, He Convinced Archrivals SAP AND Salesforce.com To Invest (SAI: Enterprise)
Morgan Stanley Defends SAP Against Sales Inflation Accusations (All Things D)
How Oracle Must Reclaim Its Cool (Fritz Nelson/Information Week)
Major League Baseball Turns to Qualcomm to Improve In-Stadium Coverage (All Things D)
After the Newspaper Building
Struggling dailies are abandoning their grand old buildings. Why that's not a bad thing. (Ingra Saffron/The New Republic)
T-Mobile USA gains subscribers (AP via News12 Connecticut)
Monetate's new CFO David Stetson
Tom Paine
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| David Stetson |
Conshohocken-based Monetate's newly appointed Chief Financial Officer, David Stetson, received an MBA from Wharton, but he is not, as he told me in a phone interview, a native of the Philadelphia area. Rather, he says he is an "eighth generation Vermonter." In fact, his most recent position, for three years, was as CFO of Vermont-based Dealer.com, which is similar to Monetate in that it is not a brand name that most consumers see, but provides auto dealers with the tools needed to run their websites and manage inventory and customer relationship management (CRM). Privately-held Dealer.com, which the Burlington Free Press calls "everybody’s favorite poster child for Vermont’s new digital economy," is a sizable operation, with some 700 employees and anticipated 2013 revenue in excess of $200 milion, according to its CEO. It has receive venture backing from prestigious VCs including a reported $30 million from Accel Partners in 2011. Dealer.com says it has 7,000 dealers as customers in the US out of some 18,000 dealers nationwide.
Stetson's responsibilities as Monetate's new CFO include finance, human resources and operations. Operations, he tells me, includes building the administrative and enterprise systems needed to manage Montetate's rapid growth. Stetson says just as the company is committed to using cloud technologies in developing its products and serving its customers (for example, Monetate delivers its product as a SaasS offering and uses Salesforce.com as its CRM), he is comitted to using the Cloud for Monetate's enterprise systems. It is currently implementing a cloud-based Human Resources Management System (he won't name the vendor right now) as it seeks to manage headcount growth from its current 155 to a projected 230 or so by year end, and will be looking next at Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, which help manage and integrate several functions across the business. While SAP is probably a bit of overkill for a company of that size (though SAP might argue otherwise), Stetson did say Monetate will consider Tier II vendors such as NetSuite, Infor, and Microsoft Dynamics which may be better suited to Monetate's current scale.
Monetate's specialty is in "personalizing" an end user's experience when visiting a website. Once a snippet of code is added to the website of a Monetate customer, the company says, non-technical marketing people can then make the enhancements to websites to achieve the desired functionality without further coder intervention. Monetate's software also enables rapid prototyping and A/B testing. Although until recently Monetate has been focused almost completely on retailers, it is now seeking to expand into markets such as consumer products, travel and financial services.
Most of Stetson's career prior to Dealer.com was spent as a tech investment banker, including a stint as Head of Equity Capital Markets for Lehman Brothers' Global Technology Group. So he certainly has the needed experience in terms of understanding financial markets and raising equity. A company with Monetate's growth potential must be considered a possible future IPO candidate, although I doubt that it would be ready for that step for some time. And of course, its always possible that a major ecommerce player or Amazon competitor (think eBay, Google, perhaps Facebook) could look at it as an acquisition candidate. But Stetson emphasized he joined Monetate not for any anticipated exit, but rather for the journey, and the chance to work with co-founder and CEO David Brussin and a very talented team. "Nobody at Monetate is working here for a paycheck," he said, but rather for the opportunity to build something special.
Stetson says he hopes to have slightly better digs than what he had while attending Wharton, and will probably relocate his family somewhere out in the western suburbs. His favorite participatory sports are Freeskiing (a bit more difficult to do in southeastern Pennsylvania than in Vermont) and golf.
Moentate also announced last month the addition of John Healy as chief operating officer, along with Stetson. Healy came from GSI Commerce. Neither position existed previously, but were added to help manage Monetate's growth. The company said in an SEC filing in late February that it had raised another $15.2 million in venture capital. Its last big raise was $15 million in 2011, led by OpenView Venture Partners. First Round Capital was a seed investor, and Josh Kopelman is on Monetate's board. The company said it more than doubled revenue, customers and employees in 2012.
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Daily Links 4/3/2013: Leno out, Fallon in next year
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Leno Blesses ‘Tonight Show’ Succession Plan (New York Times)
Changeover to take place next year.
Readying For An IPO, Enterprise SaaS Integration Platform Mulesoft Raises $37M From NEA, Salesforce And Others (TechCrunch)
Although different in some aspects, a principal competitor to Dell Boomi.
Tableau Software Files to Raise as Much as $150 Million (Bloomberg)
A Tableau IPO could validate the big data visualization push — or not (Gigaom)
SAP Accused of Inflating HANA Hardware Numbers (All Things D)
Oracle: ‘CloudWorld’ Positive, but Pricing a Mystery, Says CLSA (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
Verizon, New York City to Test Way to Spread Fiber Network (Bloomberg)
Comcast unit wants to run Pa. Convention Center (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
Credit Karma raises $30M in funding (Silicon Valley Business Journal)
Round co-led by Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity.
Using Visual Story Telling To Build Stronger Relationships With Consumers (Adotas)
Contributed by Curalate CEO Apu Gupta.
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Daily Links 4/2/2013: Tableau Software, Marketo file for IPOs
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A Start-Up Fund That Lets College Students Make the Decisions (New York Times)
Wolff: Someone at NBC should be fired (USA Today)
Vodafone Jumps on Report AT&T and Verizon Mulling Joint Bid (Bloomberg)
Tableau files for $150M IPO (TechFlash)
One of QlikTech's strongest competitors; strength in data visualization.
Marketo Files For $75M IPO To Grow SaaS Marketing Platform
(TechCrunch)
Dell CEO Says Business Unit Is Making Progress Amid LBO Talks (Bloomberg)
PHD Virtual Acquires VirtualSharp Software
Acquisition Provides the Industry’s Best Value in Virtual Backup and Disaster Recovery Assurance Solutions (Business Wire)
Financial Transaction Services Rebrands as CardConnect, Relocates Headquarters to Philadelphia
Payment processor changes name, brings its growing workforce to Philadelphia region
(Business Wire)
The genie is out of the bottle: Aereo’s court victory and what it means for the TV business (Gigaom)
Aereo Wins a Court Battle, Dismaying Broadcasters (New York Times)
Artisan Research Indicates that Native Mobile Apps are a Top Priority for Most Retailers (Business Wire)
ElectNext Raises $1.3M To Provide Contextual Political Data To News Sites (TechCrunch)
MeetMe® Launches Native Feed Advertising Powered by Flurry (Marketwire)
Newsbyte: SAP Plans Delivery of Accelerated Reporting and Real-Time Information for Supply Chain Customers (PR Newswire)
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At NJTC Venture Conference, Some Old and Some New NJ Companies Take Home Honors
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Laurie Peterson
NJTechWeekly.com
Technology companies dominated the March 2013 NJTC Venture Conference, held recently in New Brunswick, and life sciences pulled in a close second. This year’s crop included a number of already well-developed businesses.
New Jersey companies took home roughly half the awards presented at the conference, which drew participants from as far as California. Angels and VC investors who attended last year told NJTechWeekly.com this year’s event had better energy even with the smaller setting at its new location in the Hyatt Regency.
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| Participants listen to speakers at the NJTC Venture Conference. | Laurie Petersen |
AllWeb of Newark, last year’s best informational technology winner took the best healthcare information technology company award for its cloud-based identification and password-management system. This year’s award recognized how the fingerprint ID and two-step user authentication connects to HIPPA privacy regulation of medical records.
Most innovative product/service company winner was ProServices of Trenton, N.J., a company which has been in business for more than 15 years, is profitable and offers independent software security and quality assessment services to Fortune 1000 companies and the Federal government.
TransendIT of Mount Laurel won best e-commerce company honors. Founded in 2003, the company customizes point-of-sale terminal software and is now assisting its U.S. customers with their conversion to standardized EMV chip technology for credit and debit card processing.
Six-month-old and cash flow positive TelAPI of South Amboy took the best communications company award for its web-based API products that enable developers or companies to perform telephony applications with code.
HATCHEDit of Westfield, one of two winners with women at the helm, took best early stage company honors for its social network for the future that streamlines personal communication for creating shared calendars and making plans with your inner circle.
Best Green Company was mPhase Technologies of Little Falls, N.J. whose consumer division mPower Technologies unveiled an mPower Jump class of jumpstarters small enough to fit in most automobile glove compartments and with fast recharge times.
Best management team award went to HRAcuity of Chatham, N.J., a SaaS-based best practice software and service company, for mitigating the legal and financial risks associated with employee-related workplace issues. President and CEO Deborah Muller has 20 years of HR experience.
Company Most Likely to Have an IPO was Pervasive Group of Clifton, which has developed MMGuardian for parents to control their kids’ texting and smart device use remotely. The app has had 53,000 downloads since January. Echolocation, which came out of the TechLaunch (Montclair) accelerator along with Pervasive, was Judges Choice.
Wrapping up the awards presentations as a 2012 success story was Lyndhurst-based SpeechTrans, which offers a universal language translator. The company was last year’s people’s choice and also voted company most likely to succeed. Co-founder Yan Auerbach said the company has partnered with HP and as of April 20 its translator will be installed as an API in every HP product shipping with Windows 8.
Auerbach’s advice: Be patient and persistent at achieving your goals and while publicity is nice, your ultimate goal should be revenue.
This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly, and is reposted here with the permission of Laurie Peterson and NJTechWeekly.com.
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Daily Links 4/1/2013: TV service Aereo beats back major legal challenge
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E-Commerce Companies Bypass the Middlemen (New York Times)
Diller-Backed Aereo Beats Network Bid to Close TV Service
(Bloomberg)
Aereo beats broadcasters' legal challenge, trial likely (LA Times: Company Town)
Aereo Looks To TV Providers, ISPs To Accelerate Growth (TechCrunch)
First Round Capital was a seed round investor in Aereo.
Telemundo Buys Out Affil In Philly for $19M
Seller ZGS Communications, headed by Ronald Gordon, bought the full-power station five years ago for $10 million. (TVNewsCheck)
CxO Talk: Microsoft, salesforce.com, CRM, and the science of hugging ( Michael Krigsman/Enterprise Irregulars)
Real-Time Project Data: Collaborative Tools Reduced Risk, Built Confidence and Met Deadlines (Dewberry Blog)
Bentley Systems' ProjectWise being used to manage huge South Jersey highway project.
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