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Archive for the ‘Gerbsman Partners’ Category

Amidst Spotify Rumors, Facebook CEO Talks Music & Media

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, internet, Investments, Market research, Social Networks, Strategy, Technology, tagged , , , , , on May 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from GigaOm.

“As rumors of a pending Facebook/Spotify deal swirled, Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at the e-G8 Forum in Paris Wednesday and reasserted that he has no plans to become the CEO of an entertainment company.

“We don’t have the DNA to be a music company or a movie company,” Zuckerberg said in an onstage one-on-one with Publicis CEO Maurice Lévy.

The comments come just as Facebook is reported to have deepened its partnership with Sweden-based startup Spotify to roll out a more fully integrated music-streaming service within the social networking site, according to a Forbes report published Wednesday citing anonymous sources. The report claims the feature will be called either “Facebook Music” or “Spotify on Facebook.” The new service will reportedly not be available in the United States, as Spotify has not yet cleared regulations to be used in the US.

However, a source familiar with Spotify denied the deeper integration when reached by GigaOM. The company already has a “Spotify on Facebook” feature that allows Facebook users to share links to Spotify songs on their profile pages. A Facebook spokesperson responded similarly, telling me “there’s nothing new to announce” and pointing to the existing integration between the two companies. “Many of the most popular music services around the world are integrated with Facebook and we’re constantly talking to our partners about ways to improve these integrations,” the spokesperson said. Both Facebook and Spotify have separately raised funding from telecom mogul, Li Ka-Shing.

Whether the Spotify/Facebook rumor du jour is true or not, Facebook is clearly keen to get more immersed in the media and entertainment industries. At e-G8, Zuckerberg noted that while Facebook had no ambitions to move the company from Silicon Valley to Hollywood, entertainment companies could do well to take advantage of all that social networking has to offer. “I hope that we can play a part in enabling… the companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social,” he said. “We’re going to see a lot of the transformation in these industries over the next three, five years.””

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Connecting The Dots On eBay’s Local Shopping Strategy

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Market research, Strategy, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from TechCrunch.

It’s no secret that eBay has been heavily investing in a local commerce strategy.

The central core of this is trying to capitalize on the $917 million online-to-offline buying market, which Forrester estimates will eventually reach $1.3 trillion (although this number seems low) and account for nearly 50% of total retail sales by 2013. Virtually every acquisition in the past year (besides the company’s $2.4 billionpurchase of GSI Commerce) has been of a company that is dabbling in local payments or linking to merchants (Milo, RedLaser, Where, FigCard). If you look closely, a clear strategy is emerging that positions eBay at the center of mobile shopping, local commerce, and payments (through PayPal). Let’s connect the dots.

Online-To-Offline and Comparison Shopping

eBay’s first foray into the local commerce arena was though the acquisition of barcode scanning mobile app RedLaser last June. RedLaser’s barcode scanning technology allows users to comparison shop on the go. Anyone can scan a barcode on an item at a store and then automatically access any eBay listings of the product on the marketplace. Sellers can also use the scanning technology to scan an item and list the product in very little time. RedLaser’s technology was quickly integrated into eBay’s dedicated iPhone and Android apps.

The company then bought Milo for $75 million, which aggregates and lists real-time in-store product inventory for over 50,000 stores across the country; featuring over 3 million products from Target, Macy’s, Best Buy, Crate & Barrel and more.

Most recently eBay integrated Milo into a few of its core products, including RedLaser. So with a single scan of a product in a store, users can see which nearby retailers have a product in store, and at what price. eBay also integrated Milo’s results into its own marketplace, allowing users to include local shopping tab in search results to check a product’s local, or in-store, availability directly from the eBay search results page.

But surfacing local product results and integrating barcode scanning only scratches the surface of local and mobile commerce and its potential. There’s no doubt that eBay is reaping the benefits of mobile commerce (the company expects to do $4 billion in mobile gross merchandise volume in 2011).

Local Payments

And eBay realizes that in order to really capitalize on local and mobile in the ecommerce experience, the company also has to be a part of the point of sale for local merchants. And eBay has a player in this race—payments giant PayPal. PayPal has been making its own small forays into local commerce and late last year launched a new version of its popular iPhone app that allows users to find businesses near their immediate location that accept PayPal as a form of payment. The feature rolled out in San Francisco initially, but we haven’t heard much about the initiative since last November.

Why? Well, scaling this feature broadly to other cities is a challenge for even a large company like PayPal. Not only do they have to find the local businesses, but PayPal has to teach them how to use their mobile apps as a payment mechanism. Wouldn’t it be much easier to acquire a company that could help PayPal and eBay do this?

Enter Where, a geo-location service and mobile advertising company that already has millions of active users across many mobile platforms. The apps show local listings for restaurants, bars, merchants, and events, and also suggests places and deals for you based on your location and past behavior. Where also offers a location-based ad network, which allows advertisers to show their mobile ads only to people near their store, or perhaps near a competitor’s store (after the user opts in to see these types of ads). Currently, more than 120,000 retailers, brands and small merchants use Where’s network daily to reach new audiences and deliver real-time foot traffic to their doorstep.

eBay of course acquired Where a few weeks ago, and housed the company within PayPal. Not only does this give PayPal much more of a reach with its payments service, but it gives eBay a platform to to enter into the the local deals market. As Where’s CEO Walt Doyle told us after the acquisition, “eBay is about connecting buyers and sellers and Where is about connecting people with places.” Ebay can now tap into connecting consumers with local businesses and can be a part of the transaction with PayPal.

PayPal also just bought mobile payments startup FigCard, a Boston-based startup that allows merchants to accept mobile payments in stores by using a simple USB device that plugs into the cash register or point-of-sale terminal. All the consumer needs is the Fig app on his or her smart phone. The connection with PayPal is that when consumers setup their payment information, they could add PayPal as a payments option and pay for goods via their mobile phone.

Eliminating the need for an actual wallet has always been a goal for PayPal, and if the company can scale FigCard’s technology (perhaps to many of those merchants using Where?); PayPal could have a stake in the mobile wallet race.

The ‘Pivot’

In the past year, it’s fair to say that eBay and PayPal have spent over $200 million on the acquisitions I mentioned above. That’s a fair chunk of change even for a company that is making billions each year.

There’s no doubt that eBay is invested heavily in this strategy and believes that the future of the company is based on both online to offline purchases, local and mobile commerce. eBay VP of engineering Dane Glasgow recently told us that one of the challenges for eBay in this strategy is being on the pulse of technology, which is constantly evolving.

But as retail evolves, eBay is shifting its business as well, and it will undoubtedly be interesting to see if the company can connect the dots with all these acquisitions and technologies to create a powerhouse in mobile and local commerce. The challenge is that some of these initiatives aren’t really that complimentary to eBay’s core marketplace and auction business.

While eBay won’t be quitting the auction business anytimesoon, the marketplace business itself isn’t growing as fast as PayPal. PayPal now represents 39 percent of eBay’s total revenue, and nearly made $1 billion in revenue for the company in the first quarter of 2011, up 23 percent from the same quarter in the previous year. Marketplaces brought in $1.5 billion, up 12 percent from the same quarter in 2010.

Pivot is a word that tends to be over-used in the tech world, but in eBay’s case that is exactly what we are witnessing—a major pivot in the company’s business model to local commerce. It’s certainly not easy for any company to “pivot,” especially one as massive as eBay. If it manages to pull this off so late in the game, it could herald a whole new era of growth for the company.

As Glasgow tells us, “it’s a new retail environment, where the convergence of online and offline are coming to life through mobile and local experiences.” Can eBay position itself fast enough to flourish in that environment?”

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Steven R. Gerbsman will be a guest speaker at the Center for UC Berkeley Executive Education Venture Capital Executive Program May 16-20, 2011.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Gerbsman Partners, Marketing, tagged , , , , , , on May 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Steven R. Gerbsman, Principal of Gerbsman Partners, will be a guest speaker at the Center for UC Berkeley Executive Education Venture Capital Executive Program taking place May 16-20, 2011.

He will speak on the topic Maximizing Enterprise Value of Under Performing Deals on Thursday, May 19 over lunch, 12:00-1:15 PM.

The program is designed for investment professionals, economic policy advisors, and entrepreneurs striving to gain advanced, results-oriented training in the venture capital process.

For more information, please visit: http://executive.berkeley.edu/programs/vcep/ and http://executive.berkeley.edu/programs/venture-capital-training/speakers.html.

About Gerbsman Partners

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 68 technology, life science and medical device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $795 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception in 1980, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.3 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A Transactions.

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Gerbsman Partners announces a strategic alliance with Foundation Ventures

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Marketing, Strategy, tagged , , on April 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Gerbsman Partners, a crisis management and private investment banking firm, announces a strategic alliance with Foundation Ventures, a New York City based life science boutique investment bank focused on biotechnology, medical device, and healthcare services companies seeking to raise institutional venture capital or growth capital. Foundation Ventures also provides M&A, strategic partnering and fairness opinion advisory services. Through its affiliate, Prelude Ventures, Foundation Ventures also invests in biotechnology and medical device companies; including bridge financing and syndicate participation opportunities.

Steven R. Gerbsman, Managing Principal of Gerbsman Partners, “This strategic alliance with Foundation Ventures will provide Gerbsman Partners life science and medical device clients with access to early stage and expansion capital. It will also provide the capability for Foundation Ventures to assist potential clients that are in the restructuring and/or distressed stages.”

Philip Taub, Managing Partner of Foundation Ventures, “We see the restructuring and distressed company market as an additional business opportunity in 2011. With our current focus on early stage and expansion capital funding for life science, medical device, and healthcare services companies, this alliance will allow us to concentrate on our core business, while providing us access to the expertise of Gerbsman Partners in maximizing value for companies that are restructuring or distressed.”

About Gerbsman Partners

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 68 technology, life science and medical device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $795 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception in 1980, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.3 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A Transactions.

Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in San Francisco, Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, Europe and Israel.

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The End: Cisco Shuts Down Flip, a $590 Million Mistake

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Distressed IP, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Market research, Strategy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from GigaOm.

“Cisco is giving up on its barely two-year-old $590 million purchase of Pure Digital Technologies, announcing today that it is closing its Flip business unit and cutting 550 employees as part of a larger restructuring. The move comes after clear signs that the outsized deal was not paying off for the technology giant, which is in the midst of refocusing its business on its core networking business.

Cisco said it will close the Flip business, but will continue to support current Flipshare customers who upload and share media to the web. Cisco said it will also refocus its Home Networking business to make it more profitable and connected to the company’s networking infrastructure. It will also move Umi, its consumer Telepresence, into the business Telepresence line and sell it through an enterprise and service provider go-to-market model.

“We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy,” CEO John Chambers said in a statement. “As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network’s ability to deliver on those offerings.”

The closure of the Flip unit comes a couple months after former Pure Digital CEO Jonathan Kaplan left Cisco, prompting questions about the direction of the Flip line of video cameras. Cisco bought Pure in March of 2009, saying the purchase was about extending its presence into the consumer electronics business. The company was also looking to use Pure’s smarts in simple consumer electronics design to rework its home networking business. While the deal has helped Cisco create a new line of more consumer friendly home routers, it didn’t really change the company much, a task that Om mentioned recently is incredibly hard for large companies. And it hasn’t resulted in a big revenue driver in video cam sales.

That’s because while Flip grew fast with its single purpose design, which managed to move millions of units, its continued growth was checked by the rise of smartphones that can increasingly shoot HD video while offering more wireless sharing options, something Flip’s camera’s never included, an irony for a networking company. Another new consumer business, Umi, a home video conferencing product, has also failed to capture a lot of buzz, in part because of its high price. With Kaplan headed toward the door, we speculated that the deal for Pure had turned into a flop.

Now it appears that Cisco is making that conclusion official. CEO John Chambers earlier this month laid out a major reorganization for the company in a memo to employees outlining how the company would refocus on five areas: core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video. While Chambers said Cisco would still focus on video, it appears he was not referring to Flip. This deals a major blow to the idea of a single-purpose simple video cam, which may still have a niche place in the market. But while Cisco jettisons Flip, and admits defeat, the move shows the company is clearly serious about retrenching and getting back to basics.”

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