Radnor-based PeakEquity Partners closes on 1st fund at $137 million (Press Release)

Radnor, PA, February 15, 2017 – PeakEquity Partners, a private equity firm specializing in majority buyouts and minority recapitalizations of enterprise software and solutions businesses, today announced the successful completion of fundraising for PeakEquity Partners Fund I, L.P. (“PeakEquity I”), which closed on over $137 million of capital commitments, surpassing its $100 million target. PeakEquity I’s limited partners include a diverse base of asset managers, family offices and individuals.

Greg Case and Paul Winn formed PeakEquity Partners in 2014, and were joined by Ric Andersen in 2015. D.J. Andrzejewski joined PeakEquity Partners in 2014 and was promoted to Principal in 2016.

Mr. Case (Co-Founder and Partner), previously a Senior Partner and Shareholder at Apax Partners as well as a Partner at LLR Partners, leverages over 25 years of private equity investing experience and has dedicated the last 15 years to investing in, and providing strategic guidance to, enterprise software and solutions businesses.

Mr. Winn (Co-Founder and Partner), having served in executive leadership positions at large and middle market enterprise technology companies from product development, site management and general management at IBM to President/CEO roles at Genicom, PowerQuest and Princeton Softech, has been building sustainable growth enterprise software and solutions businesses for over 25 years.

Mr. Andersen (Partner), previously a Managing Director at Silver Lake Partners and a Partner at Milestone Partners, as well as a senior partner at Price Waterhouse, PwC Consulting, and IBM, leverages over 30 years of business leadership, value creation, and investing in industry, management consulting and private equity.

Mr. Andrzejewski (Principal), previously with Stripes Group, Milestone Partners and Venrock, brings over eight years of private equity experience sourcing and executing investments across a variety of software and technology sectors.

PeakEquity Partners invests in enterprise software and solutions companies that have large addressable markets, proven technology, products and offerings, and demonstrated traction with a meaningful base of referenceable customers. To date, PeakEquity I has led three enterprise software and solutions buyouts, deploying $50 million of fund equity, and over $200 million of fund and co-investor equity.

G5 is a software as a service (“SaaS”) digital marketing platform for multiple real estate verticals. G5 simplifies the complexity of digital marketing with a cloud-based platform that creates, measures, and optimizes the entire customer experience – from awareness to advocacy – for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing approaches.

EnterpriseDB provides enterprise class database solutions based on PostgreSQL, an open source data platform for digital businesses.

EnterpriseDB is the leading worldwide provider of Postgres software and services that enable enterprises to reduce their reliance on costly proprietary solutions and slash their database spend.

Valiant Solutions is a leading provider of human capital management solutions. Valiant’s solutions are delivered in a SaaS platform which powers a suite of integrated payroll, time and labor management and human resources products.

Stanwich Advisors LLC and CV Brokerage Inc. served as placement agents for PeakEquity I and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP served as legal counsel.

About PeakEquity
PeakEquity Partners (www.peakequity.com) is a private equity firm focused on investments in Enterprise Software and Solutions companies. The principals of PeakEquity Partners have extensive experience as investors and operating executives in multiple market sectors. The firm invests in businesses that have large addressable markets, proven technology, products and offerings, and demonstrated traction with a meaningful base of reference-able customers. PeakEquity invests in companies with revenues of $15 to $50 million that have the potential for annual revenue growth in excess of 30%. PeakEquity can invest $20 to $50 million or more per portfolio company and will take minority or majority positions. The firm leverages and provides access to extensive operating resources to provide companies an edge in capturing market segment leadership and achieving revenue growth and margin objectives.


at 8:03 AM 0 comments

Bridgewater-based Synchronoss Regroups for Enterprise Market Assault


Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com

Stephen Waldis is now executive chairman of the board of Synchronoss. | Courtesy Synchronoss



New CEO appointed; Waldis now executive chairman of the board



Usually, you think of startups as the companies that pivot, but Bridgewater-based Synchronoss, a public company, came to a crossroads a couple of years ago, and decided that in order to stay in business and grow, it needed to rethink its business model.

In the past, Synchronoss had been the telecom-activation software company. In fact, its software was behind the systems many carriers including AT&T utilized to activate your phone when you bought it. This was a great business for a while, but Synchronoss ran into a problem many companies face: the growth of its legacy business was slowing down.

Synchronoss shifted to a broader source of revenue with an emphasis on the personal cloud business, and that became a resounding success. Carriers were able to offer their customers their own cloud. Then the company allied with Goldman Sachs to create “mobile phone software that creates a whole new layer for mobile security,” addressing security concerns brought on by the bring your own device trend for enterprises. Synchronoss also made many acquisitions that enabled it to move it towards its goal of attacking the enterprise market.

On January 19, Sychronoss announced that it had completed its tender offer to acquire all the outstanding shares of Intralinks Holdings (New York) for $821 million. According to the press release announcing the acquisition, Intralinks has been used by more than 3 million professionals at 99 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies, which have depended on the company’s experience in enabling high-stakes transactions and business collaborations around the globe.

To date, $31.3 trillion worth of financial transactions have been executed on Intralinks’ secure, cloud-based platform, making Intralinks the preferred provider of collaborative enterprise technology, the press release said.

At the same time it acquired Intralinks, Synchronoss agreed to sell a portion of its activation business to Sequential Technology International (Warren) for $146 million.

“We view the Intralinks deal, which officially closed on January 19, as a defining move into the enterprise market. The acquisition of Intralinks is a major step forward in our enterprise strategy that gives us the immediate enterprise pedigree and experience upon which to leverage the Synchronoss product portfolio, go-to-market strategy and diversified customer footprint,” said Stephen G. Waldis, now executive chairman of the board, during the company’s Feb. 8 earnings call, according to a transcript provided by Seeking Alpha.

Waldis moved to executive chairman as part of the deal to acquire Intralinks. He was an example of that rare entity, a startup founder who brought it to IPO and remained as CEO as it grew.

Waldis told analysts, “I look forward to my new role at Synchronoss as executive chairman of the board, focused on expanding our unique cloud and enterprise market opportunities around the globe starting at Mobile World Congress next month in which I already have a number of strategic customer meetings set up and will be giving one of the keynote speeches, while at the same time helping Ron [Hovsepian] and ensuring his success in his new role.”

Waldis founded Synchronoss in 2000, and took the company public in 2007. He had served in startup and senior-executive-management positions in both high-technology and telecommunications companies. He started his career at AT&T in various technical, product-management and sales-and-marketing positions before moving to executive-level roles at technology startups.

Karen L. Rosenberger, the Synchronoss CFO, who has been moving up through the ranks of the company since 2000, will be leaving the company after shepherding it through the hiring of and transition to a new CFO. She has served as CFO, executive vice president and treasurer since April 1, 2014, overseeing all of the company’s financial and business operations.

Intralinks’ president and CEO, Ronald W. Hovsepian, is now the new CEO of Synchronoss. Hovsepian has a substantial background in leading and growing tech companies. From 2005 to 2011, he was the president and CEO of Novell (Provo, Utah), which was acquired by Attachmate (Houston, Texas); and he was president and CEO of Intralinks since 2011.

Waldis noted that the company’s focus on the cloud has paid off, including its expanded partnership with Verizon in 2016 on the heels of its personal cloud success. “And overall, we had a strong quarter in cloud, which gives the company healthy momentum to gain adoption into 2017 as a testament to our innovative product development, solid customer relationships and strategic partnerships.”

He added that the combination of Synchronoss with Intralinks will create a company capable of enhanced growth. “Together with Synchronoss and Intralinks as one company, we believe we can deploy enhanced enterprise and mobile solutions to our customers, while opening up new enterprise distribution channels across the world.

“With the Intralinks acquisition, enterprise will now represent over a third of our total revenues, thus helping us further diversify our business model over the coming years. On our carrier business, messaging has proved to be a key linchpin of cloud adoption, engagement and monetization with our existing customers,” he said.



Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly, and is republished here with her permission.


at 8:36 PM 0 comments

Phorum 2017: Digitizing the Enterprise

Phorum 2017: Digitizing the Enterprise

Thursday, April 27 | 8:30 AM–6:00 PM
SugarHouse Event Center
1001 N. Delaware Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19125




Written by Peter Coffee, VP for Strategic Research, Salesforce

Join us on April 27, 2017 for our annual technology conference that will focus on digitizing the enterprise.

An overall label like "digital transformation" can mean too much, or not enough. It can be such a broad term that it gives no useful checklist for the essential components of a strategy; it can be so vague that anyone can claim to be running the race, when perhaps they are merely getting to the point of being able to take their mark and get set to start.

We're proposing a four-pillar framework, all of whose parts are necessary to any future-enabled organization.

CONNECTED: the domain of engineers. This is the nuts-and-bolts of bringing in the bits, whether they represent customers' intentional communications or connected devices' event-driven data, with consideration of volume and latency and accuracy -- and probably, a stratified architecture that has enough knowledge at the edge to know what's worth telling the center. Are you connected? How, to whom, with what data points and streams being archived in what ways?

AWARE: the domain of business units. This is the everyday, increasingly 24×7 hard work of proving to served communities that the data they're contributing inspires prompt and effective attention to their needs. This is making sure that the Facebook posts get answered, that the Tweets yield quick replies, that the telemetry gets reliably classified as to normal operations versus anomalies needing urgent response. Are you aware? How are you demonstrating that in ways that your audience will value?

SMART: the domain of data scientists and algorithm developers. This is the necessary application of technology to leverage the hard work of awareness, in the face of the huge data volumes from connectedness, to enable personalized enlightened proactive interactions with your customers. Is your awareness making your actions smarter, or just busier? Are your connections yielding value in prediction and recommendation, or just improving your bookkeeping of the less enlightened things you've been doing too long?

TRUSTED: the domain of business leaders, or (if they don't take this seriously enough) of regulators and legislators. This is the creation and sustainment of a culture that says "We will collect data with respect, use it with consideration, and manage it with discipline." Are you treating the data that originates with your customers as if it were just another business record? Or are you recognizing that today's customer is increasingly prepared to pay someone else a higher price, if part of what they're buying is greater confidence in that vendor's or service provider's data stewardship?



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2/15: Universal Takes a Stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners; Welcome to the era of Data Center Consolidation




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BuzzFeed, Wilshire Studios Developing Series on Murder of Mississippi Teen (Variety)

Universal Takes a Stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners (Fortune)

Comcast Business Plans Metro Fiber Expansion in Boston (Telecom Ramblings)

Comcast Accounting Chief to Retire (Multichannel News)

Alphabet Taps McCray to Lead Access Unit, Including Fiber (Bloomberg)


With $15M in funding, Caavo aims to unify all your streaming TV boxes and services (TechCrunch)





Welcome to the Era of Great Data Center Consolidation (Fortune)
"And, Salesforce is not leaving its own data centers behind. 'Our infrastructure remains our primary focus as public cloud is still too expensive for many of the primary markets we are in,' Benioff tells Fortune via email.


You Can Now Plug Directly Into Salesforce Servers at Equinix Data Centers (Data Center Knowledge)

South Jersey startup secures $400K in follow-on funding after $600K seed round (Philadelphia Business Journal)


TheBlindGuide acquires UPenn startup ThirdEye, bringing computer vision to the visually impaired (TechCrunch)








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2/14: NBC News names Oppenheim president, returns Deborah Turness to Europe; Closing the digital gap in pharma




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Foxconn group to see iPhone 8 windfall in the second half of 2017 (South China Morning Post)

Apple’s Eddy Cue says the future of TV is much more interactive (The Verge)

Here’s What an Apple Exec Says About a Big Media Acquisition (Fortune)

NBC News Names Noah Oppenheim President, Deborah Turness Moves to International Role (Hollywood Reporter)
NBC takes a 25 percent stake in the European network Euronews.

Comcast to Launch ‘Xfinity Stream’ App on Feb. 28
(Multichannel News)

SAP: Hidden Figures (Vinnie Mirchandani / Enterprise Irregulars)

Amazon Is Quietly Becoming a Major Player in Enterprise Software (The Street)


Closing the digital gap in pharma (McKinsey & Co.)

Untapped Opportunity Lies in Pharma’s Supply Chain
(Supply Chain Executive)

Linode challenges DigitalOcean with its new $5 instances (TechCrunch)
Linode's been mostly quite for a while. Meanwhile, no word on when it might complete its previously announced move to Philadelphia.





at 10:12 AM 0 comments

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2/13: Samsung reportedly signs deal with Apple to make more OLED panels for iPhone 8; Ivanka Trump clothing no longer shows up on Burlington’s website




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Comcast Comes To Roku (but it’s not the app you wanted) (Zatz Not Funny!)

The top 5 execs leading cable (very quietly) into wireless (FierceCable)

AT&T lights up gigabit fiber in five new metro areas (Ars Technica)



Samsung reportedly signs deal with Apple to make 160 million OLED panels for iPhone 8 9 to 5 Mac)

Ivanka Trump Clothing No Longer Shows Up on Burlington’s Website
(Fortune)

Oracle Fleshes Out Cloud Data Strategy (EnterpriseTech)

The rocky road to digital transformation – CEO Infosys under fire (Diginomica)


The Equestrians of North Philly (The Atlantic)
Didn't know about this - remarkable.





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Philly Tech People News 2/13: Siemens proposes former SAP boss Snabe as next chairman; Entercom Names McCann to Lead New Content Group




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Jim Snabe 2013 / Wikipedia

Pai to Be FCC Chair (Multichannel News)

Siemens proposes former SAP boss Snabe as next chairman (Reuters)








Scott O'Neil: CEO for the NJ Devils, Philadelphia 76ers and Prudential Center (Podcast: Fortune Unfiltered)

Scott McAllister joins Comcast as SVP of Digital Transformation (Philly Tech News)

Entercom Names McCann to Lead New Content Group (RadioWorld)

Dell Boomi Names VP of Business Development to Expand Global Partner Channel

NFI Adds James S. Shafer to Engineering Leadership

Lee takes principal role at Osage (Global University Venturing)

Jerry Leimkuhler Joins Ben Franklin as Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Bioclinica Medical Imaging & Biomarkers Announces Pivotal Hires

Greenphire Appoints Dave Espenshade as Vice President, Contract Research Organization Partnerships




Previous: Philly Tech People News 1/19: Local guy Patterson making good at PTC ThingWorx

Philly Tech People News 12/26: RevZilla co-founder Bucci to depart; New leadership joins Ben Franklin Tech's board

Philly Tech People News 12/11: QVC promotes new blood; Comcast, Verizon name key strategy execs




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BVP Partner Sees Big Year for Cloud IPOs (Bloomberg Video)



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The trouble with OTT: Not ready for Prime Time?

Tom Paine



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With all the complaints about DirecTV Now, I've got to say Dish's Sling TV has big problems, at least on my MacBook. It crashed at least five times the other night while I was trying to watch basketball, and rebooting is a painfully long process. Its seems to be getting noticeably more unstable rather than less. I've been a user for over a year.

Some people have told me they don't have those problems on other devices, such as Roku, though I see that there have been some on that platform as well. I thought closing all other apps might help, but it really doesn't. Reinstalling the app (prescribed solution) might help sometimes, but doesn't always, and its a pain to do over and over again.

There are a legion of similar complaints on the web.

I never have problems with Netflix and YouTube. Of course, those are different delivery systems, and Sling TV's troubles appear to be mostly (though not exclusively) with live broadcasts, not canned.

There are still industry-wide technical challenges with OTT that need to be addressed. 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch (Fox owns about 1/3rd of Hulu) says Hulu remains “very, very focused” on avoiding the kinds of technical hiccups that have haunted DirecTV Now and Sling TV when it launches its own broad OTT offering later this quarter. We'll see.

Sling TV is celebrating its 2nd birthday this weekend with a free weekend trial that has less than a day to go. A full week trial is available if you put your credit card on it and remember to cancel at the end of the week.

Sling TV is estimated to have 1 million subs, several times more than either DirecTV Now or Playstation Vue.

Update 2/24: Since I wrote this piece, the problems I've been having with Sling have magically almost
disappeared.





at 7:38 PM 0 comments

Sunday highlights: Wharton MBA investor charged with insider trading in Comcast-DreamWorks Animation deal; New FCC chair closely guards strategy




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Nets Sell Jersey Sponsorship to Koch-Backed Company Infor (Bloomberg)

SEC charges Chinese investor with insider trading in Comcast-DreamWorks Animation deal (LA Times)


New FCC chair closely guards his strategy to restructure net neutrality (Reuters)

Gannett, McClatchy close out a dismal year (Ken Docter/Politico)

Amazon cloud leader Andy Jassy sizes up the competition in rare public remarks about rivals
(GeekWire)

Amazon spent just $103M on acquisitions last year, down sharply amid broader tech M&A slowdown (GeekWire)

Retailers Are Offering Free Phone Charging to Get Customers in the Door (Bloomberg)
Features ChargeItSpot.

Pinterest and Curalate are now pinned - to each other (Philly.com)




Could New York tech company's move to NIZ signal a trend? (Allentown Morning Call)




at 5:29 PM 0 comments

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SAP Unveils Next-Generation, Intelligent ERP with SAP S/4HANA Cloud (Press Release)


SAP Unveils Next-Generation, Intelligent ERP with SAP S/4HANA Cloud

February 9, 2017 by SAP News 252 Hot Story
NEW YORK — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today introduced the latest advances to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and shared its innovation road map for the industry’s next-generation, leading-edge cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite.

With a new architecture of in-memory technology in combination with contextual analytics, digital assistant capabilities, machine learning and the award-winning SAP Fiori user experience, SAP S/4HANA Cloud enables customers to instantly adjust and adopt business processes and models and act on real-time insight and advice. The announcement was made at SAP Capital Markets Day at the New York Stock Exchange, where SAP executives showcased a combination of strategy and innovation.

The ERP offering from SAP provides enterprise-ready functionality for digital business in industry and line-of-business functions, with faster deployment, time to value and lower entry costs of cloud delivery. Industry research firm IDC predicts that the software-as-a-service (SaaS) business applications market will grow 17 percent annually to $103.9B in 2020 from $47.4B in 2015.*

“Decades ago, SAP invented and became the leader in first-generation ERP,” said Darren Roos, president of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. “Later, we were early to build first-generation cloud ERP along with other new cloud vendors. While many cloud ERP vendors remain on this early architecture, SAP did not stop there, and invested in innovating the next generation of cloud ERP. SAP S/4HANA Cloud encompasses the latest architecture and technology innovations, along with SAP’s proven set of business management expertise to usher in a true new generation of intelligent ERP in the cloud.”

Intelligent, Immediate, Integrated

Thanks to the SAP HANA platform, SAP can help companies to get a real-time view of their business, with the assurance that SAP is managing their digital core and offering superior integration with SAP’s full portfolio, including SAP SuccessFactors solutions for human capital management, SAP Ariba solutions for procurement, SAP Hybris solutions for customer engagement and commerce, Concur solutions for travel and expense management, and SAP Fieldglass solutions for services procurement and external workforce management.

The latest release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud enables customers to carry out their digital transformation faster and to make business processes more efficient through increased transparency, automation and quality. Different solutions in the cloud ERP suite include:

SAP S/4HANA Professional Services Cloud, delivering end-to-end project management
SAP S/4HANA Finance Cloud, an easy-to-use modern finance solution that includes procurement and order management capabilities, and supports large enterprises and subsidiaries
SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management Cloud, combining professional services and finance capabilities for comprehensive real-time business management

“As a purpose-driven business with an ambitious strategy, we realized we needed a best-in-class ERP solution to support our growth,” said Bob Barton, chief financial officer of MOD Pizza, the pioneer of the “fast casual” pizza segment with over 200 locations and over 4,000 MOD Squaders system-wide. Named America’s fastest-growing chain restaurant by research and consulting firm Technomic, MOD Pizza had 220 percent growth in 2015. “MOD prides itself on its commitment to employees and customers, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud gives us a stable, scalable platform to help us manage our business and our people cohesively, with real-time access to reliable, actionable information.”

Road Map for Innovation

SAP also outlined the road map for future cloud ERP innovation. The quarterly updates planned by SAP include setup wizards that will grow increasingly intelligent with machine learning and artificial intelligence; prepopulated, easy-to-adjust settings; and additional cloud-to-cloud integration and external application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate with other applications and legacy systems. In addition, SAP detailed plans for including blockchain digital ledger capabilities and Internet of Things capabilities that will support broader global, digital business models, as well as plans for partners to build localization and industry vertical extensions.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, see here.

For more SAP news, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and join the dialog at the hashtags #S4HANA and #CapitalMarketsDay.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to the boardroom, warehouse to the storefront, desktop to a mobile device – SAP software empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 345,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Note to editors:

To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:

Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States Only: +1 (800) 872-1727

For more information, press only:

Jim Dever, +1 (610) 661-2161, james.dever@sap.com, ET
Hilmar Schepp, +49 6227 7-46799, hilmar.schepp@sap.com, CET
SAP News Center press room, press@sap.com

* IDC, Worldwide and Regional Public IT Cloud Services Forecast, 2016-2020, Doc # US40739016, Dec. 2016.
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
© 2017 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices.

Origin: http://news.sap.com/sap-unveils-next-generation-intelligent-erp-with-sap-s4hana-cloud/.WJ4JdT5D8Cw.linkedin



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