New York State hearings on Comcast/TWC deal kick off Monday

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) is holding hearings on the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal this week. Hearings are scheduled for Amherst (Buffalo) on Monday evening, Albany on Wednesday and New York City on Thursday. In each session, there will be a public information session at six, and a formal public hearing for receiving testimony and comments at 7:30pm.

As I wrote previously, former Philly tech executive Audrey Zibelman (Viridity Energy, PJM Interconnection) now serves as chair of the NY PSC and will oversee the hearings.

I haven't been able to find out yet whether any hearings are planned by Pennsylvania regulators, but I would doubt that Comcast is too worried by that prospect.

Last week, US House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said the subcommittee wasn't planning to hold hearings on either the Comcast or AT&T deals, although Democrats have asked for hearings.

In New York State, Time Warner Cable has 2.6 million subscribers, while Comcast has only
23,000.

Plex Systems = The Manufacturing Cloud (The Accel Blog)

IBM-Epic Team to Vie for $11 Billion Pentagon IT System
(Bloomberg)

Online Used Furniture Mart Raises $2.8 Million (WoodworkingNetwork.com)
Co-led by First Round Capital and Index Ventures.

Philly Tech People News 6/15/2014: Solve Media's Jacoby named EY Entrepreneur of Year for Greater Philly; Five Below gets Walmart.com CEO

Follow @phillytechnews



Subscribe to Philly Tech People News by Email



SAP Marketing VP Bolts to Content Marketing Startup NewsCred (Ad Age)

Solve Media CEO Ari Jacoby Named 2014 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the YearTM Award Winner in Greater Philadelphia (Business Wire)

Five Below Nabs Walmart.com CEO Anderson as President (Fox Business)

Technology Veterans Launch Enterprise Cloudworks to Support Efficient Software Development (Business Wire)
Founders Chris Doggett and Chris Gali were co-founders of AdminServer (acquired by Oracle).


Edison Ventures Appoints Kelly Ford Chief Marketing Officer & Partner
(Globe Newswire via PR Web)

Gwen Aston Appointed to Oversee Implementations and Client Success at Instem Clinical (Business Wire)

Workday kicks off TV ad campaign: "We are Workday"

How will Comcast vote it's ValueVision shares? (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Comcast Seeking to Replace G.E.’s Initials Atop 30 Rock (New York Times)


SAP Faces the Inconvenient Truth
(Albert Pang/Apps Run ERP)

How has First Round Capital made out on its early bet on Uber?

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email

Josh Kopelman as "Rider Zero" for Uber Philadelphia in 2012/Uber Blog

Earlier this year, Business Insider told a (perhaps somewhat dramatized) version of the story of how First Round Capital came to co-lead Uber's first post-seed round with $500,000 in late 2010. Of course, the connection goes back to Josh Kopelman and his colleagues knowing Uber co-founder and Chairman Garret Camp from FRC's backing of his prior startup, StumbleUpon, which was sold to Ebay for $75 million before two years later being repurchased by Camp and an investment group (including FRC) for a reported $29 million. Of course, why Ebay needed StumbleUpon in the first place is a different question, for which I'm sure there was a good rationale at the time. Camp is said to have come up with the idea for Uber after complaining about how hard it was to find a cab in San Francisco.

So after Uber's recently announced new round at a pre-money $17 billion valuation, where do the early investors stand?

That $1.5 million 2010 angel round led by FRC valued Uber at $4 million, according to Fortune Magazine. "Investors in that round," Fortune adds, "assuming reasonable dilution, saw their investments grow to between 400x and 600x in the round that valued Uber at $3.5 billion. At $17 billion, they’re worth around 2,000x, according to people familiar with the deal." FRC is listed among participants in the $11 million Series A in 2011, according to CrunchBase, but not in the megarounds that followed.

So First Round Capital's stake in Uber could easily be valued in the $1 billion range, according to this logic. Which seems a bit on the high side to me; if FRC contributed
$500,000 to the angel round with the $4 million valuation, that would theoretically have given it an eighth of its total value at the time. Its hard to believe that it still holds more than 5% of the company if it did not participate in the larger of the later rounds.

Update 3/1/17: Uber's valuation is now said to be $67 billion.

Links 6/13/2014: FCC looking at Comcast's treatment of Netflix

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email



Flatiron Health's bold proposition to fight cancer with big data
(Fortune)

AT&T accuses Netflix of ‘double-talk’ when it comes to Comcast and Verizon deals (Washington Post)

The FCC is investigating Comcast's treatment of Netflix (Vox)

Univision Owners Said to Weigh a Sale (New York Times: DealBook)


SAP’s Sikka is the New CEO of Infosys, but It’s Not the Job He Wanted (Re/code)

Netsuite CEO Zach Nelson on why his cloud company is eating SAP's lunch (Silicon Valley Business Journal)


​Lock­heed Martin selling Newtown, Pa., facility for $30 million
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

AT&T accuses Netflix of ‘double-talk’ when it comes to Comcast and Verizon deals (Washington Post)

Links 6/12/2014: Ex-SAP exec Sikka to become Infosys CEO; Comcast readying test of YouTube-like entry

Infosys names former SAP executive Sikka as chief executive
(Reuters)
Although the Indian press has been full of reports this would happen, most analysts here
tended to dismiss those reports.

Infosys Hires Ex-SAP Executive as CEO to Revive Margins
(Bloomberg)
Provides more details.

Large SAP customers are eager to enter the cloud, survey finds (PC World)


Dell executive says HP's new Machine architecture is 'laughable' (PC World)



Why is Netflix Strong Arming the Net Neutrality Debate? (Michael Powell/NCTA/The Platform)

Comcast CEO: TWC's Glenn Britt Was a "Real Legend" (NY1)
Roberts credits Britt with originally bringing up idea of Comcast/TWC merger.

Comcast to test its YouTube competitor by the end of the year (Gigaom)

Comcast Whips Up More WiFi (Multichannel News)

Feedly suffers second round of DDoS attacks after perpetrator tried to extort money (The Next Web)

Pa. pension probe: Nothing we had to tell U.S. about; report due Sept. 17 (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

DrugDev’s Dr. Hugo Stephenson Establishes the DrugDev Innovation Lab with Partnerships with Two Cutting-Edge Technology Firms (Business Wire)

MeetMe Achieves New Mobile Traffic Record of 900,000 Daily Active Users (Business Wire)

Links 6/11/2014: LiquidHub's Brassington named Chairman of PACT

PACT Appoints New Chairman of the Board (PACT Press Release)
Jonathan Brassington of LiquidHub.

SAP Partner Organization Overhaul Nearly Complete
(CRN)


With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer (Bloomberg)

Oracle In-Memory Option: 6 Key Points (Information Week)

Cable Haters Gonna Hate: Full Code Conference Video of Comcast’s Brian Roberts (Re/code)

Walden: No hearings for Comcast, AT&T mergers (The Hill)


eBay: We're not killing our same-day delivery service (Fortune)

Alibaba’s New U.S. Shopping Site Seems Like a Giant R&D Experiment
(Re/code)

Links 6/10/2014: Netflix says Verizon, Comcast service has slipped in its rankings

Netflix says Verizon, Comcast service has slipped in its rankings (MarketWatch)

Update: Hay to add 65, grow software development at new Philly HQ (Philly.com: Philly Deals)



eBay’s local delivery plans unravel: eBay Now may shut down (VentureBeat)

Plex Systems Secures $50 Million Round of Funding Led by T. Rowe Price, Joining Existing Investors Francisco Partners and Accel Partners
(PR Newswire)

Plex Systems closes on $50M in financing, plans to bring Google Glass to shop floor (Crain's Detroit Business)


Oracle rewrites 'the brain' of its database to take on SAP (The Register)

Oracle's in-memory option aims to beat the rest within 12 months
(ZDNet)

SevOne integrates log analytics into scalable performance monitoring platform (eChannelLine)