Trump says he might skip next debate (on Fox News), after Fox issues satirical 'press release'


Tom Paine



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The Fox release, in the form of a message sent to another media outlet, reads:

"We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings."

There's considerable  debate about who put the statement out. Many attribute it to Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News. My own theory, based on a passing familiarity with his twitter account (@rupertmurdoch), is that Rupert himself may have authored it because of the nature of the language. But some have suggested that Rupert is moving closer to Trump, and this tweet supports that view:



The one thing for certain is that no one I heard tonight really knows what's going on.

I doubt many in my audience, which I know fairly well, cares much for Fox News. But one thing worth understanding is that it does not have a unified voice, particularly when it cones to Trump. Fox News gave the Trump candidacy oxygen, and several of its personalities were active cheerleaders. Living in New York, Trump had the opportunity to cultivate relationships with some of them.

But many of the more senior commentators thought the idea of a Trump candidacy ridiculous.  My impression was someone (Ailes?) was orchestrating the pro-Trump concerto, but some more senior people weren't going to take marching orders.

The other big issue, of course, is Trump's continuing vicious attacks on anchor Megyn Kelly.


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Links 1/26: First Round-backed Jelli brings programmatic buying to radio; Comcast offering new business WiFi service




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Seeing OLED as the future for displays, LG bets big on new factory (PCWorld)

Comcast Gets Down to Business With WiFi (Multichannel News)

Fourth Annual University of Pennsylvania $10K Y-Prize Competition Grand Prize Winner is “Fermento” as Best of Penn-Owned Biomedical Engineering Concepts (PR Web)

Jelli, Software Provider For Programmatic Radio, Eyes Growth (MediaPost)
First Round Capital was an early backer.

Companies, start your (hybrid) clouds: Azure Stack's first beta is coming (PC World)


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Bioclinica continues expansion under PE ownership, acquires Clinverse


Tom Paine



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Considerable change has occurred since New York-based PE firm JLL Partners acquired Doylestown-based clinical trial management system (CTMS) vendor Bioclinica in early 2013.

In its latest move announced last week, Bioclinica acquired Edison Ventures-backed Clinverse, which is based in North Carolina.


Bioclinica, which had been a publicly traded company, reported revenue of nearly $100 million in 2012, and was acquired by JLL for $ 123 million.

It was also merged with CoreLab Partners of Princeton when the acqusition closed. In 2014, it merged with California-based SYNARC. At that time, the combined company said it would be a leader in four specialized areas of outsourced CTMS:


  • medical imaging services that track the effectiveness of new drugs across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurology and musculoskeletal.



  • an extensive worldwide network of research centers dedicated to recruiting patients for global trials.



  • state-of-the-art technology and consulting services to support the overall drug development process, as well as services to monitor the cardiac safety of compounds under development.



  • It also will offer central lab capabilities to analyze biological samples originating from clinical trials.


Bioclinica also made some smaller acquisitions in 2014-15, and one presumably reliable source reported 2014 revenue at over $200 million. At the end of 2014, long-time CEO Marc Weinsten departed, to be replaced by Dr. John Hubbard, who joined from Pfizer.

Last week, BioClinica announced it was acquiring Clinverse, a Durham, North Carolina-based provider of automated payment systems for clinical trial participants, as well as medical professionals making or receiving payments through involvement with trials. No terms were disclosed, and no financial data has been found for Clinverse.

New Jersey-based Edison Partners had led a $9.1 million Series C round in Clinverse in August 2014.

While some other payment tech firms dabble in the clinical trials market, the two main direct competitors to Clinverse are King of Prussia-based Greenphire and CFS Clinical of Audubon, which was acquired by DrugDev in 2013.

The 'Sunshine Act' reporting requirements, which went into effect in 2013, requires manufacturers of drugs, medical devices and biologicals that participate in U.S. federal health care programs to report certain payments and items of value given to physicians and teaching hospitals. This reporting need is the other side of the value proposition for the clinical trial payments vendors. Similar regulations are expected worldwide, although they may have been slower to materialize than expected.

Its not clear who is leading among the three clinical payment competitors, though Bioclinca must have liked what it saw in Clinverse's numbers. Greenphire ( see my 2013 profile )  in which PE firm The Riverside Company owns a controlling stake, reported revenue of $8.5 million in 2014, according to the Inc. 5000, up from $5.4 million in 2012. It moved into larger King of Prussia quarters in early 2015 and announced a goal to increase employment from 65 to 100 by year's end (LinkedIn currently shows 85). It just issued a release claimng "unprecedented year over year growth." CFS Clinical had 2012 revenue of $11 million, according to the Inc. 5000, though its a somewhat older business with a different revenue mix.

The Triangle Business Journal describes how the match between Bioclinica and Clinverse came to be. One issue that comes to mind is to what extent Clinverse will be able to serve the external market, rather than having all its energy sucked up by internal Bioclinica issues.


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SevOne names new CFO; May lead to heightened IPO speculation


Tom Paine



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SevOne, which the Boston media correctly identifies as Boston-based as Philly Tech News readers first found out, announced this morning that it had appointed a new CFO.
Rafe Brown


Rafe Brown, who had previously served as CFO of Pegasystems, a publicly traded Cloud software company, was named to the position. Brown had an earlier stint as a senior vice president of finance for Salesforce.com. Over the course of his nine years at Salesforce.com, Mr. Brown led the treasury and tax functions, real estate, and collections teams. Presumably, his appointment might be seen as another step towards an IPO, or whatever kind of exit or capitalization event SevOne may eventually seek.

CEO Jack Sweeney said in an interview with the Boston Business Journal late last year that the network monitoring company expected to exceed $100 million in revenue for 2015, up from about $65 million in 2014.

The bulk of SevOne's engineering workforce employment remains located in Delaware and Pennsylvania, though top managerial and administrative staff is ensconced in Boston's Prudential Center. SevOne is backed by Bain Capital and other mostly Boston-based investors.

A September round may have valued SevOne at or very close to the $1 billion mark, although the company didn't confirm that.


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Links 1/25: IDC: Public Cloud Spending To Double By 2019; SAP Melds Social And Learning In New Tool




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Exclusive: Former Pegasystems exec now CFO at growing Boston software firm [SevOne] (Boston Business Journal)

IDC: Public Cloud Spending To Double By 2019
(Information Week)

SAP Melds Social And Learning In New Tool (TechCrunch)


Talk of ESPN's demise full of 'hyperbolic drivel,' analyst says (FierceCable)

PUC plans a hearing on Charter's purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House (LA Times)

Malvern financial tech company acquires firm specializing in interactive payment (Philadelphia Buiness Journal)


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philytechnews bytes 1/24





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Tyco International and Johnson Controls Are Said to Be Merging (New York Times: DealBook)


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Saturday Highlights: The Unicorn trap; IBM wipes out five years of gains





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ESPN exec: Sling TV 'significant' but Apple is 'frustrated' (Engadget)

Michael Wolff on Time Warner: It's a Game of Chicken as Jeff Bewkes Mulls Options (Hollywood Reporter)

CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt, MACRA, and Meaningful Use 3: The Practice Fusion perspective (Practice Fusion Blog)

VCs have pumped up the value of the “unicorn” startups. Now tech IPOs are in trouble. Good luck getting out. (Fortune)


IBM Erases Five Years of Gains Buoyed by Share Buybacks: Chart (Bloomberg)


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Links 1/22: SAP touts Cloud revenue growth; Cable Acquisitions by Charter Face Rising Opposition




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SAP sees cloud, support revenue overtaking software in 2018 (Infoworld)

SAP Q4 FY2015 – a critique for the road ahead (Diginomica)

Cable Acquisitions by Charter Communications Face Rising Opposition (NY Times)

NBC and CBS in lead to pay NFL $600M for Thursday Night Football, double last season's price (FierceCable)
Just add that onto your cable bill.

Comcast opens Wifi network for storm (Philadephia Inquirer)


A New Year Chill on I.P.O.s
(NY Times: DealBook)


Facing a Price War, Uber Bets on Volume (Bloomberg)

T. Rowe Marks Down Dropbox Stake 51% (The Information)
And some other cuts.


VMware Insiders Brace for Big Cuts (Fortune)




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Links1/21: Sparta Systems makes acquistion; TierPoint continues acquistion drive, adding major investor




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Thoma Bravo-owned Sparta Systems buys 123Compliance (PE Hub)
Sparta Systems is based in Hamilton, NJ.

Kent’s TierPoint to acquire Cosentry, gain investor (St Louis Business Journal)
TierPoint, a major operator of data centers (6) in eastern Pennsylvania, is rapidly becoming a force nationally through acquisitions. It is led by former cable entrepreneur Jerry Kent (Charter, Suddenlink).


Cox bails on OTT service Flare MeTV, possibly due to licensed X1 platform conflicts: report (FierceCable)

It's not just you: Massive Comcast outage blows Bay Area offline (The Register)



Verizon's AOL Shines In Q4 As EPS, Revenue Beat (Investor's Business Daily )

FiOS TV Gains Lowest Ever
Telco Adds Just 20K Video Subs in Q4 (Multichannel News)

Verizon Confirms It May Sell Its Data Centers (Data Center Knowledge)

UNISYS LAUNCHES NEW CLOUD SECURITY OFFERING FOR AWS (CivSource)



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Josh Kopelman's email on current VC market conditions



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