Links 3/5/2015: SunEdison buys Philadelphia-based Solar Grid Storage; Campbell's uses vending machines to quiz employees (in a good way)

Netflix: We Support Title II (Multichannel News)
Walks back CFO's comments.

Comcast Says Wi-Fi Not Ready For Prime Time (Investor's Business Daily)

Angelakis: Comcast Not Worried About OTT (Multichannel News)

Campbell’s quizzes its own employees with the ‘Snackbot’ (Digiday)


Safeguard Scientifics Announces Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2014 Financial Results (Safeguard Scientifics)

Safeguard CEO Zarrilli: “As we embark on 2015, we remain focused and disciplined. We have set out the following goals and objectives: to increase the total number of our partner companies to approximately 30; to realize continued growth in partner company aggregate revenue; to deploy $35 million to $50 million in new partner companies; to deploy $30 million to $50 million in follow-on funding for current partner companies; and to realize a minimum of two profitable exits.”

SunEdison Buys Philadelphia-based Solar Grid Storage for Battery-Backed PV and Wind Power (Greentech Media)

This Venture Capitalist Says We Have Entered a Tech Bubble (Bloomberg)

Heroku Enterprise launches, bringing Salesforce's app platform to the business (Computerworld)

Drexel to phase out Sacramento operations (Philadelphia Business Journal)

ExpenseWatch Debuts as a High Performer in G2 Crowd’s Expense Management Tools Grid Report (PR Web)

Veeva shares dive 21% today after strong earnings report

Tom Paine

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Despite beating earnings estimates for its Q4 FY 2015, Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV), based in California, but having considerable operations in Radnor, plunged 21% in trading today.

For the Fiscal Year 2015 ending January 31, the SaaS life sciences firm reported yesterday afternoon that its earnings rose 68% to 37 cents a share, with revenue up 49% to $313 million.

Guidance for FY 2016, however, just meet expectations, which may have spooked some investors, who might have been expecting more. Revenue was guided at $390 million-$395 million, with EPS of 43 to 45 cents.

Veeva also announced it had acquired Qforma CrowdLink, a key opinion leader (KOL) information source for the pharma industry. Terms weren't disclosed. Although Qforma had an ownership structure I haven't quite figured out yet, with connections in Europe, its headquarters appear to be located in Morris Plains, New Jersey.

CEO Peter Gassner said that Veeva's more recently introduced offerings, content management system Vault and database service Network, are growing rapidly and are now contributing about 20% of revenue, up from 10% a year ago. Analysts have been watching to see how successful Veeva would be in growing beyond its core CRM business.

High-growth companies such as Veeva are often subject to rapid price swings due to slight variations in perceived outlook.

Links 3/4: Alibaba enters US cloud market; NBC Universal Plots Subscription Video Site for Comedy

Alibaba enters US cloud market, signaling global ambitions (PCWorld)

CIA’s secret Amazon cloud ready to roll (Gigaom)

Funds Think Warby Parker Is Worth $1 Billion (Bloomberg)


NBC News Is Said to Woo Former Chief to Return (NY Times)

Despite Weak Moment for NBC Sitcoms, NBC Universal Plots Subscription Video Site for Comedy (Ad Age)

Charter 'likely' to pursue Time Warner if Comcast deal falls through (St Louis Business Journal)

Comcast might pursue Netflix if Time Warner Cable deal fails (Investor's Business Daily)


Report Sees Cable Capex Heading South (Light Reading)


Nielsen to Acquire Data Specialist eXelate (Wall Street Journal: CMO Today)
NewSpring Capital one of major backers of New York-based firm; Acquisition price said by WSJ sources to be around $200 million.

Nextdoor Social Network Digs Deep Into Neighborhoods (NY Times)
Expected to announce investment round that would value it at over $1 billion today; Comcast Ventures is an existing investor.

Neighborhood social network Nextdoor just raised $110M at $1.1B valuation (Venture Beat)

Safeguard Scientifics leads $5 million Series A in CloudMine

Tom Paine

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CloudMine, the Philadelphia-based mobile cloud platform company, received a $5 million Series A investment led by Safeguard Scientifics and including several other local investors, it was announced this morning.

Although it still has a geographically diverse portfolio, Safeguard appears to be doubling down in Philadelphia. In addition to CloudMine, its local investments include Clutch, WebLinc, ThingWorx (acquired by PTC), longtime portfolio company Beyond.com, and Hoopla (which has since moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley but still has development offices in Malvern). In addition, it recently brought parts of healthcare technology companies Dabo Health and Syapse to the area, and also led an investment in Trice Medical of King of Prussia.

Last month, Safeguard announced it was moving its headquarters from the Route 202 corridor to a location near the Blue Route in Radnor, in part to have easier access to the entire Philadelphia area.

CloudMine, a mobile backend as a service (BaaS) provider, garnered considerable attention after it was founded in 2011 though it seemed to take a while in finding revenue traction. But it found its niche by focusing on verticals such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals and retail, where there are needs for rigorous data security. CloudMine has partnered with important cloud infrastructure players such as Rackspace and CenturyLink.

CloudMine's CEO is co-founder Brendan McCorkle. It had previously received $3.2 million in funding, according to CrunchBase. MissionOG, one of its early major backers, did not participate in this round. CloudMine currently has 16 employees.

Links 3/3: Fab.com fire sale completed; Newtown pharma company to buy Lockheed site

Fab.com’s Fire Sale Is Official (Re/code)

Newtown-based pharmaceutical company to acquire Lockheed Martin site (Bucks Local News)

Salesforce, SAP to get a shot of IoT data (PCWorld)

NetSuite CEO Nelson Talks the ‘End of the Beginning’ of Cloud Software Era (Re/code)


Andrew Lack said to be close to retaking top role at NBC News (LA Times)

Why Comcast, AT&T and other Internet providers might not sue the FCC after all (Washington Post: Switchboard)

Veeva Drops 10% Despite FYQ4 Beat; Says Will Buy Assets for Undisclosed Terms (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)

Veeva Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2015 Results (Business Wire)

Veeva Systems Announces Intent to Acquire Key Opinion Leader (KOL) Solutions Business (Business Wire)

Philly Tech News Quotes & Tweets 3/2/2015

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For SAP, ORCL, it would take the former 30% and the latter 43% in CAGR growth through 2020 to reach $10B in Cloud product revenues.

— Albert Pang (@APPSRUNTHEWORLD) February 25, 2015

Awesome to see @Michael_Nutter and @rosettalue onstage together. Two people making stuff happen #PhillyInnovates pic.twitter.com/dYl63ji08S

— Charlie Isaacs (@charlieisaacs) February 18, 2015

Keith Olbermann suspended over Penn State tweets http://t.co/UYL64Iq34u

— WGAL (@WGAL) February 24, 2015

.@kdoctor observation: Buzzfeed is at 60% of traffic from social. Most newspapers at 8-10%. Big difference. #2015MegaConf

— Josh Awtry (@jawtry) February 23, 2015

Particularly important for #Qlik in the new Gartner MQ - increasing emphasis on governance, even for self service. We are unmatched there.

— Donald Farmer (@donalddotfarmer) February 23, 2015

MyPOV: here comes another @QlikView vs @tableau #dataviz deal.guess what? @QlikView is winning. We see them win more now #data2decisions

— R Ray Wang (王瑞光) (@rwang0) February 14, 2015

Snapchat is valued at $19 billion and Pinterest is valued at $11 billion. Cheers to them. My conclusion? Twitter and Uber are cheap.

— Chris Sacca (@sacca) February 19, 2015

Comcast Reports Small Profit in the Face of Regulatory Uncertainty (must have left out word "gain") http://t.co/9YJJHVtGqY

— tom paine (@phillytechnews) February 24, 2015

"After today, the only 'certainty'... is that we all face inevitable litigation and years of regulatory uncertainty."-Comcast EVP David Cohen


“If anyone doubts the hostility of the regulatory climate in Washington now, imagine how clear it would be on the morning after a rejection. These risks must at least be acknowledged" -Craig Moffet of MoffettNathanson, on outlook for Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger, after lowering his odds of it being completed from 70/30 to 60/40.

“We are very disappointed with the results of the auction. This has been a very difficult sales process and the results reflect that.” -William Baldiga, counsel for Aereo and partner at Brown Rudnick, in a statement.

Links 3/2/2015: Google gives more detail on wireless plans; U Delaware President Harker leaving for Philly Fed

Google’s Sundar Pichai: Google’s U.S. Mobile Network To Come In The ‘Coming Months’ (TechCrunch)

Venmo Money, Venmo Problems (Slate)

Pegasystems Takes on Salesforce in New Ad Campaign (Ad Age)

U Delaware President Harker leaving for Philly Fed (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Comcast Business to sponsor Carl Edwards in 4 races this season (AP via USA Today)

Comcast Orders Pace XG2v2 Hybrid Video Gateway (Donahue Reports)

Verizon's Shammo: We'll dispose of non-strategic assets for the right price, right terms (FierceTelecom)

Philly Tech People News 3/1/2015

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SAP Security Chief Said to Join Infosys to Work for Old Boss (Bloomberg)

Christie confidant Bob Grady joins private equity firm (Fortune)

Office Practicum Appoints New Chief Sales Officer

Revitas Demonstrates Strong Growth with Key Customer Wins and New Chief Financial Officer
Was previously CFO of Quintiq, which was acquired by Dassault Systemes.


BlackLine Appoints New CFO to Take Company Through Next Phase of Growth
Was previously CFO of Fiberlink (acquired by IBM). Joins the rapidly growing LA-based financial SaaS firm.

Comcast Ventures Brings ‘Catalyst’ Fund to Bay Area (Multichannel News)
Laurence Toney Joins VC Unit for Minority-Led Start-ups.

Charlotte Field Joins Charter (Multichannel News)
Last with Comcast.

Accolade Prepares for Continued Growth with Key Executive Appointments

Ancero names Peter M. Cava Jr. as Director of Operations

Saturday Highlights: US asks if Comcast, Time Warner Cable Restricted Video Deals; Comcast In Talks To Acquire Ad Technology Firm Visible World

U.S. Asks If Comcast, Time Warner Cable Restricted Video Deals (Bloomberg)

The net neutrality rules might not be available for weeks. That's ridiculous. (Vox)

Comcast In Talks To Acquire Ad Technology Firm Visible World (Wall Street Journal)


Apple-IBM partnership is more than a simple hardware distribution deal (Silicon Angle)
IBM Fiberlink's MaaS360 MDM big part of initial offering.

Links 2/27: Mobile now represents 55% of MeetMe revenue; HIT Application Solutions Becomes Notifi Health

Philadelphia-based ERT to Acquire PHT Corporation (PR Newswire)

O'Rielly: I'm Not Holding Up Title II Order Release (Multichannel News)

Comcast Ventures Brings ‘Catalyst’ Fund to Bay Area (Multichannel News)

Wolff: It's not really net neutrality (USA Today)

Comcast Mulls Purchase of Ad-Tech Firm Visible World – Report (Variety)


MeetMe Reports Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2014 Financial Results (Business Wire)
Revenue was up 11% for year, with mobile now representing 55% of revenue.

HIT Application Solutions Becomes Notifi Health (Business Wire)

Verizon brings small cells indoors using these cute little dots (Gigaom)

In restructuring, Heartland Payment slashes most of Cambridge-based Leaf team (BetaBoston)

Links 2/26: F.C.C. classifies broadband internet service as a public utility under Title ll

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In Net Neutrality Victory, F.C.C. Classifies Broadband Internet Service as a Public Utility (New York Times)

Verizon and AT&T slam FCC Net Neutrality ruling (VentureBeat)

FCC VOTES ON NEW OPEN INTERNET RULES
(Comcast Voices / Comcast corporate blog)
"After today, the only 'certainty' in the Open Internet space is that we all face inevitable litigation and years of regulatory uncertainty challenging an Order that puts in place rules that most of us agree with. We believe that the best way to avoid this would be for Congress to act. We are confident this can be done in a bi-partisan manner with a consensus approach that accomplishes the common goals of stakeholders on all sides of the open Internet debate without the unnecessary focus on legal jurisdiction and the unnecessary regulatory overhang from 80 year-old language and provisions that were never intended to be applied to the Internet."
-David Cohen, EVP, Comcast.



FCC votes yes on net neutrality in partisan spectacle (Gigaom)

House Republicans Threaten To Curb The FCC’s “Ability To Regulate The Internet” (TechCrunch)



Net neutrality: Five things to watch for as the FCC votes (LA Times)


EPAM Systems, Inc. Reports Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 (via Yahoo Finance)

Big media should want a piece of baseball’s best business (Quartz)

Salesforce Service Cloud, Analytics Cloud Power Fast Growth (Information Week)

IBM targets $40 billion in cloud, other growth areas by 2018 (Reuters)


TiVo buys Aereo name, auction fetches under $2M


Penn Trustees Approve Design for Pennovation Center at Pennovation Works Site (Penn News)

New Version of Epicor Prophet 21 Wholesale Distribution ERP Delivers Productivity and Efficiency Gains
Epicor releases update of legacy product Prophet 21, which dates back to the Yardley company of the same name.