Links 7/11/14: Vishay Intertechnology to acquire fabless IC design co Capella Microsystems

Salesforce Buys Big Data Startup RelateIQ For Up To $390M (TechCrunch)

‘Big Data for Little Computers’ Firm Sisense Raises $30 Million
(Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Vishay Intertechnology to Acquire Capella Microsystems, a Fabless IC Design Company (Business Wire)
Deal will cost a little over US$200 million.


Disney, CBS Queried by U.S. in Comcast Merger (Bloomberg)

At Sun Valley, Deal Speculation if No Deal Talks
(New York Times: DealBook)


AWS' Vogels on hybrid cloud, mobile, big data, technical debt (ZDNet)

Amazon Zocalo rocks Box, socks DropBox, clocks Google Docs (The Register)

Don’t cry for Box and Dropbox: Amazon’s real targets are Google and Microsoft (Gigaom)


FCC takes E-Rate wireless, earmarking $2B for Wi-Fi in schools, libraries (Gigaom)

Links 7/10/2014: Arris (& its former Motorola Home unit) have big role to play in changing TV tech

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email



Arris Group Plays Big Role In TV's Next Revolution (Investor's Business Daily)

Complaints About Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal Now Being Accepted
(Re/code)

As Moguls Descend on Sun Valley, Let the Deal-Making Commence (Wall Street Journal: Blogs)

Verizon Wireless adds more than 1.4 million contract customers (CNET)

It's a barnyard brawl between Comcast and RFD-TV (Philadelphia Inquirer)


Multiplatform TV: Comcast/TWC ‘Tipping Point’ For Advanced Ads (Broadcasting & Cable)


Kent Goldman’s New Seed-Stage Fund Is A Partnership Where Founders Share In The Upside
(TechCrunch)
Kent Goldman left First Round Capital as a Partner earlier this year.

Syapse Raises $10 Million Series B Financing Led by Safeguard Scientifics (Globe Newswire)

Gas attack: U of Delaware kills $1 billion data center/power plant (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Giant Creative/Strategy Opens Philadelphia Office
(Business Wire)


Amazon Goes After Box, Dropbox And Huddle, Launches Zocalo For Secure Enterprise Storage (TechCrunch)

Cloud vendor RackWare, with area presence, gets more funding from investors including Osage Venture Partners

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


RackWare (not to be confused with the much larger RackSpace), which helps companies manage their data operations and scale them as needed using both public and private clouds, has raised $2.3 million including a return investment from Bala Cynwyd-based Osage Venture Partners, bringing its total funding to date to more than $7 million.

New and expanded partnerships over the past six months with major industry players SoftLayer, CenturyLink, and Peer1 contributed to RackWare’s growth, RackWare said in a statement. The company said its achieved three consecutive quarters of record growth and a 75 percent gain in new customers.

Although last year RackWare, headquartered in Santa Clara, had indicated Wayne (Pa) was a key location for it, chief executive officer and co-founder Sash Sunkara told me by email "we still have an office in the area - Collegeville."

Links 7/9/2014: Bell Labs pushes 10Gbps over copper telephone lines

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email



Bell Labs pushes 10Gbps over copper telephone lines (Ars Technica)

Level 3 Launches Channel Origination Platform (Multichannel News)

Comcast, TiVo Complete VOD Connection (Multichannel News)

Aereo Lays Out New Survival Strategy in Letter to Judge (Hollywood Reporter)


Dish tells FCC to block Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal (LA Times)

White House pulls plug on controversial Patent Office nominee after tech sector backlash (Gigaom)


PayPal Makes Good On Its Braintree Acquisition With Launch Of New Developer Tools, The Braintree “v.zero SDK”
(TechCrunch)
Braintree says Venmo now doing over $1 billion in annual volume, growing 60% year over year.

Microsoft debuts cloud storage service for enterprises (PC World)

Microsoft to strike back at Salesforce.com with CRM cloud for government (Computerworld)

Penn-founded Yodle files for IPO to raise about $75 million

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email

Local business advertising website Yodle filed today for an IPO to raise about $75 million in an initial public offering (IPO). It plans to list its shares under the ticker symbol "YO" (yes, true).

Founded in 2005 and originally named "NatPal", its founders included Penn grads Nathaniel Stevens and Ben Rubinstein. A 2007 Knowledge@Wharton article describes how the venture got off the ground, with the help of the Wharton Venture Initiation Program and a Wharton professor.

Now based in New York, Yodle reported a 30 percent jump in revenue to $45.7 million for the three months ended March 31, and a loss of $5.9 million. Competitors include Yelp, Angie's List and others. Investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners and Jafco Technology Partners. Penn-related MentorTech Ventures is also an investor.

Sun Valley: 5 Possible Deals Likely to Be Discussed (Hollywood Reporter)

Moguls Set To Converge on Sun Valley (Multichannel News)

Comcast race discrimination suit certified as class action
(Chicago Tribune)

Adidas taps MicroStrategy, SAP HANA for big data insights on customers (Business Cloud News)

Oracle Transition To Cloud Could Take Three Years (Investor's
Business Daily)

Report: Edison Ventures to begin raising 8th fund for $250 million

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email

Lawrenceville, NJ-based Edison Ventures, which has been busy lately, is planning to begin raising its eighth fund for about $250 million later this year, according to Dow Jones VentureWire (as reported by the Washington Business Journal).

Edison closed on its seventh fund for $250 million in 2012. At the time, the firm emphasized its intention to make considerable investments in the Philadelphia area, although it has not really done so. In fact, Edison's investment activity in the Philly area has been spotty going back several years before that, though it has no particular obligation to invest here as far as I know.

Instead, more of its investments have gone to New York and North Jersey, New England, the Washington DC area, and the midwest. My sense is that they have scaled into larger investment positions than perhaps they can find easily in the Philadelphia area in the sectors they are most interested in (SaaS, Big Data, FinTech).

Links 7/7/2014:Thoma Bravo to acquire Hamilton NJ-based Sparta Systems

Thoma Bravo to Acquire Sparta Systems (Business Wire)
Sparta Systems is based in Hamilton, NJ.

U.S. FCC names heads of Comcast/TWC, AT&T/DirecTV deal reviews
(Reuters)

Box reportedly brings in $150M in new funding; pushes off IPO (Gigaom)

Box’s Q1 Revenue Nearly Doubles As Its Losses Expand A More Modest 13% (TechCrunch)


A tiny research team at Tableau is building tomorrow’s UX for data (Gigaom)

SAP Now
European Company (PR Newswire)

Murdoch's ambitions may take center stage in Sun Valley (Reuters)

Rapidly growing Veeva Systems buying new CA HQ, updates current PA presence

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email



Pleasanton, CA-based Veeva Systems, which provides cloud-based solutions for the life sciences industry, is buying a 141,250 square-foot office building on 7.9 acres in Pleasanton for $24.1 million. It will house its new headquarters. Veeva's present
headquarters are nearby in Pleasanton, but the company has rapidly outgrown them.

The property was owned by a foundation, Maddie's Fund, endowed by Workday and PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield and his wife Cheryl. The foundation, which aims to end euthanasia of dogs and cats, originally intended to use the facility for its work, but decided there were more cost efficient ways to do that.

The late & beloved Maddie, namesake of Maddie's Fund /Maddie's Fund

The company currently has about 250 employees working in about 40,000 square feet in Pleasanton, a tight fit from my experience. Veeva says its new facility could be partitioned and partially leased out if it chooses.

As for its US eastern headquarters, Veeva says 40 employees are tied to its Ft. Washington office and 39 employees are tied to its Radnor office. In total, it has about 93 employees
in Pennsylvania.

Veeva, which did its IPO last fall (NYSE: VEEV) reported revenue of $210.2 million for the year ended Jan. 31, up 62 percent from the prior year, and net income of $23.6 million, up 26 percent. It has a market capitalization of about $3.2 billion, and has several of the major life sciences companies in the NJ/PA area among its customers.

Philly Tech People News 7/6/2014

Follow @phillytechnews



Subscribe to Philly Tech People News by Email



InterDigital Names Doug Hutcheson to Board of Directors (Globe Newswire)

Gallop Solutions Expands Operations in US; Announces New VP-Sales
Opens new office in Philadelphia (Business Wire)

SCTE taps Dean Stoneback as senior director of engineering (FierceCable)

Inquirer executive editor promoted to VP of news operations of parent company (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Philadelphia gets new chief data officer (Philadelphia Business Journal)


iCIMS' Ronald Kasner Named CFO of the Year by New Jersey Technology Council (PR Newswire)

The Archer Group appoints Adam Siers, Steve Cleff and Scott Boggs
(Philly Ad Club News)