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Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category

Three startups bring in VC funds for battery, fuel cell tech

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Investments, Market research, Strategy, Technology, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is some cleantech news from Cleantech.

“An Azusa, Calif.-based advanced battery company looks to close $27M, ClearEdge Power brings in $15M and stealthy Khosla-backed Seeo raises $8.6M.

CFX Battery expects to have $27 million in the bank in the next 60 days, but the company is still keeping specifics of what it is doing on the quiet side.

The Azusa, Calif.-based advanced battery company’s CEO Joe Fisher told the Cleantech Group today that his company has secured $5 million of its $27 million Series B round, without disclosing investors.

The announcement was among at least three cleantech companies that secured venture capital financing today, according to regulatory filings. CFX would be the largest if it brings in the $27 million, which Fisher is confident it should be able to do quickly. He said the company is also open to new investors.

The company plans to use the funds to continue to advance its research and development, for manufacturing equipment as it scales up to production, for working capital related to the equipment, and potential acquisitions in the battery space, Fisher said.

“We’re looking for niche-type smaller companies that have good intellectual property and potential to fit into our portfolio,” he said.

Other funding announcements today included fuel cell micro-combined heat and power (CHP) generation system developer ClearEdge Power raising $15 million in its fifth round of financing. And Berkeley, Calif.-based Seeo, a Khosla Ventures-backed company, raised more than $8.6 million in new venture capital financing (see Khosla-backed Coskata, EcoMotors come out of stealth and Stealthy Khosla-backed battery startup driving economic makeover?).

ClearEdge Power, which has locations in California and Oregon, manufactures what it said it are highly efficient CHP systems for residential and small commercial buildings, based on its expertise in fuel cells, fuel processing and systems integration.”

Read the full article here.

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More IPO gossip, new prospects include: Greenplum, LinkedIn, Pacific Biosciences and Zynga

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Market research, Strategy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is a recent article from CNN.

“If you have been an investor in technology IPOs in recent months you’ve done well.

Starting in April, and really gathering momentum this summer, there has been a slew of tech companies that leapt through the public market window including Changyou (CYOU), Rosetta Stone (RST), OpenTable (OPEN), and most recently Emdeon (EM).”

The article continues,

“Right now in Silicon Valley, investment bankers are busy making the rounds of promising portfolio companies trying to convince them of the wisdom of an IPO. There is always the question of what kind of company can – or should – go public. During the last wave of tech IPOs, after the dotcom bust, the rule of thumb was that firms with $100 million in revenue and profitability were IPO candidates.

Investment bankers on the prowl in Silicon Valley

Now, according to one prominent venture capitalist who asked to remain anonymous, investment bankers are telling him, “If a company can show revenue of $15 million per quarter, a good business model – and if not profitability, a path to profits – they can deliver an oversubscribed offering.” (One wonders wonder whether these simply are investment bankers who have had nothing to do for the last 12 months, trying to make their bonus figures.)

Venture capitalists have not had much to be happy about, either. It wasn’t just IPOs, but acquisitions that came to a screeching halt during the recession. Both of these groups desperately want the IPO window to stay open, and so far it is.”

And concludes,

“In Google’s day it was bulge-bracket investment banks – Morgan Stanley (MS), CSFB (CS), Goldman (GS), Lehman Bros or no one. The economics of the banks (characterized as going “down-market” to even do $500 million IPOs) required bigger deals. Today’s deals, with their much more modest size, are better tailored for the boutique banks – Thomas Weisel Partners, Jeffries, JMP Securities, Piper Jaffray, and the like. These are the banks pounding the streets in Silicon Valley the hardest.

Could it all end badly? Of course, and usually it does when the rush toward IPOs at some point sends half-baked companies into the public markets and they tank. But between now and then we are likely to see a group of very high quality tech companies look to go public – think Greenplum, LinkedIn, Pacific Biosciences and Zynga among many others.

For those investors with the stomach, it might not get much better.”

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Microsoft-Yahoo merger under review

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, internet, Investments, Market research, Microsoft, Strategy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Although a few days old, I found this article for todays post. It´s old news that Yahoo and Microsoft is partnering up – but what just hit me is that the forced antitrust review needed for the advertising deal might just be the precursor for a forthcoming merger.

Here is a Associated Press piece by way of The Eagle.

“WASHINGTON — Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. hope that by joining forces, they can tilt the balance of power in Internet search away from Google Inc. First, however, Yahoo and Microsoft have to convince regulators that their plan won’t hurt online advertisers and consumers.

As the U.S. Justice Department reviews the proposed partnership, approval figures hinge on this question: Will the online ad market be healthier if Google’s dominance is challenged by a single, more muscular rival instead of two scrawnier foes?

The first step toward getting an answer came this month when Microsoft and Yahoo filed paperwork with federal regulators to comply with the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, an antitrust law governing mergers and alliances between competitors. The Justice Department has until early September to approve the agreement or — as is likely in this case — request additional information.

European regulators are also expected to review the deal. Microsoft and Yahoo are bracing for the probes to extend into early next year, and the outcome is far from certain.

Just nine months ago, Google abandoned its own proposed partnership with Yahoo to avoid a showdown with the government, which had concluded that Google was already too powerful in the lucrative market for selling ads alongside search results.

Google had hoped to extend its reach even further by selling ads next to some of Yahoo’s search results, and in the process, keep Yahoo out of Microsoft’s clutches. Microsoft aggressively lobbied against the partnership.

With the Google-Yahoo inquiry behind them, U.S. antitrust regulators are likely to enter this examination with a clearer definition of the Internet search landscape and a better understanding of how it affects the steadily growing online advertising market.”

Read the full article here.

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Is the U.S. Market Again Ripe for IPOs?

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Investments, Market research, Social Networks, Strategy, Technology, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is an intresting article from Money morning.

“Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s (NYSE: GS) initial public offerings (IPO) guru Tom Tuft has joined Bruce Wasserstein’s Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) as chairman of Global Capital Markets Advisory and vice-chairman of its U.S. investment banking, in what could be a sign that the market for IPOs is thawing.

Tuft, a 33-year Goldman vet who co-founded its equity capital markets business in 1985 and became its chairman in 2004, was involved in several high-profile IPOs, including those of The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) and RJR Nabisco Inc. He also advised Lazard on its own IPO in 2005.

A slowdown in mergers and acquisitions has prompted Lazard to expand its equity capital markets and restructuring operations, working on nine of the top 10 bankruptcies this year, Bloomberg News reported. Capital raised by IPOs in the first half of this year was $11.4 billion, down 85% from the same period last year according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“There is demand for companies to come public,” David Menlow, president of IPOFinancial.com told Bloomberg. “The fact that we haven’t seen that many is not an indication that companies are not out there ready to come public.”

The article continues.

The “Silicon Valley Six”

“An informal poll of venture capitalists and others conducted by Reuters yielded six successful companies with revenue of $100 million or more in Silicon Valley that are ripe for acquisition or an IPO, excluding social networking sensations Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. The news service dubbed the companies the “Silicon Valley Six,” which were chosen out of 34 citied in sectors ranging from alternative energy to video games.

The top four companies found were social network LinkedIn Corp., solar panel maker Solyndra Inc., smart grid company Silver Spring Networks and Zynga Inc., which develops games that run on social networks like Facebook or New Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace.

The other two are Guidewire, which develops software for property and casualty companies, and LiveOps, which operates call centers from contractors that work from their homes.

“They are exciting because they…demonstrate what is possible with venture capital,” Sharon Wienbar, managing director of Scale Venture Partners told Reuters. “These are companies that have proven a new, attractive business model that works big in spaces.”

Venture capitalists’ rule of thumb for declaring a company ripe for an IPO is that a company must have  $100 million in sales and have a capitalization of about $1 billion in order to have enough money to meet the reporting structures of the Sarbanes-Oxley act.

“The market is in the early stages of being back,” LiveOps Chief Executive Officer Maynard Webb said. “The market is ripe and open today for great companies.”

While not mentioned in Reuters’ “Silicon Valley Six,” one private company that’s making waves in Silicon Valley is PopCap Games Inc., which publishes and develops easy-to-play, accessible “casual” video games.”

Read the full article here.

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Successful “Date Certain M&A” of Business Unit and its Assets and Intellectual Property

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Distressed Intellectual Property, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Strategy, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Steven R. Gerbsman, Principal of Gerbsman Partners, Kenneth Hardesty, Merle McCreery and Dennis Sholl, members of Gerbsman Partners Board of Intellectual Capital, announced today their success in maximizing stakeholder value for a venture capital backed online marketing solutions company, specializing in lead generation and customer acquisition.

Gerbsman Partners provided Crisis Management leadership, facilitated the sale of the business unit, associated Intellectual Property and assets and recovered receivables. Due to market conditions, the senior lender and the board of directors made the strategic decision to maximize the value of the business unit and Intellectual Property.

Gerbsman Partners provided leadership to the company with

  • Crisis Management and technology expertise in developing the strategic action plans for maximizing value of the business unit, Intellectual Property and assets;
  • Proven domain expertise in maximizing the value of the business unit and Intellectual Property through a targeted and proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process”;
  • The ability to “Manage the Process” among potential Acquirers, Lawyers, Creditors Management and Advisors;
  • The proven ability to “Drive” toward successful closure for all parties at interest.

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 56 Technology, Life Science and Medical Device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $770 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception in 1980, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.2 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A transactions.

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

For additional information please visit www.gerbsmanpartners.com

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