Co-founded by Tristan Harris and Can Sar, Apture developes ‘Apture Highlights,’ a browser extension that aims to plug the “search leak” that the company says is taking place with content on the web. Apture highlights a search leak as when a users is reading content, wants more information about a keyword or phrase and then opens another browser tab to search for the information on Google, Bing or Yahoo. The downside for the content publisher is that the user disengages with the actual content by leaving the page.
Austin-based aDealio Raises $1M and Launches New Business Listings Product for SMBs Over 700 businesses create Business Listings in the first two weeks - Investors include star lineup including CRV, Benjamin Ling, Michael Tanne, Angus Davis, Jim Armstrong, Ed Roman and others. Austin, TX (PRWEB) August 19, 2011 Founded in early 2010 by Ryan Koonce, aDealio is a marketing super-center for SMB's and National Brands that want to reach local consumers. aDealio is currently offering 5 products: Business Listings, Coupons, Limited-Time Promotions (aka "Daily Deals" or "Flash Sales"), Email Marketing and Loyalty Programs. "Most SMB marketing providers are just parasites," says Koonce. "We're changing all that by putting the business in the drivers seat - even though sometimes we have to teach them how to drive." The new Business Listing feature lets businesses create a presence on the aDealio site, where they can add Limited-Time Promotions, Coupons, Reviews and Loyalty Programs. Listing a business and adding coupons is currently free, some fees apply to featured promotions and loyalty programs. aDealio operates local sites in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco and is in the process of launching 20 more. In addition to its database of over 5 million aDealio subscribers, the Company also has "deal" distribution partnerships with Facebook, Yahoo and Tippr, as well as a national travel vertical at http://travel.adealio.com. Businesses can request their listing today by visiting http://www.aDealio.com/business. Koonce is no stranger to startups. In 1997 he co-founded SocialNet with Reid Hoffman (of LinkedIn fame), and subsequently founded Sequoia-backed Popular Media, which helped big brands with viral marketing in the pre-Facebook era. As for launching a tech business in Austin Koonce says, "It's not Silicon Valley, but it's a great place to run an Internet start-up… and it's a short flight to San Francisco if needed". http://www.adealio.com/austin?si=1 For additional information, please contact Ryan Koonce at 866-380-5990 |
SAN FRANCISCO: The Indian entrepreneur in America — a middle-aged man who runs an IT consulting outfit or a body shop. That person has not disappeared. But it's a stereotype that is now being challenged by a new clutch of entrepreneurs looking beyond the usual realms that Indian entrepreneurs are identified with.
"A lot of traditional Silicon Valley industries like semiconductors and networking have matured. Today's Indian entrepreneur is simply where the market is. And that obviously includes social, mobile and cloud," says Vish Mishra, a venture capitalist at ClearStone Ventures and global head of the world's largest entrepreneurial body, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).
While still in his 20s, Aayush Phumbhra started textbook rental Chegg
— which in a few years made several acquisitions and is now rumoured to
be filing an IPO in the near future. Just six years out of college,
Kunal Sarkar createdLumos Labs, a gym for the mind. "What has changed is that there are a lot of younger street-smart Indian entrepreneurs today," says Tim Guleri, a former serial entrepreneur and managing director at Sierra Ventures. Indian women entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley remain few and among the most prominent faces is Sramana Mitra.
With her all-virtual venture One Million by One Million, Mitra advises entrepreneurs on strategy, lets them access her network and mentors them for VC pitches. The fee: $1,000 a year. Mitra wants to 'nurture' 1 million entrepreneurs, each with $1 million or more in revenue, by 2020.
Indian entrepreneurs are blooming in all hues. Take Harjinder S Bhade's company Coulomb for instance. By providing a network of charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) and their applications throughout the world, Coulomb has made EVs practical for consumers.
It
had started out as The Indus Entrepreneurs in 1992 with the name ‘TiE’
being symbolic of the South Asian or the Indus roots of the founders.
Over the years, TiE has evolved to stand for Talent, Ideas and
Enterprise which, by the way, is what its current moniker is. Vish
Mishra, venture director with Clearstone Venture Partners
and president of TiE Silicon Valley, and Kiran Kini Malhotra, executive
director of TiE SV, sit on the round table with Techcircle.in’s
contributing editor Sudarshana Banerjee at the TiE Silicon Valley
headquarters at Bunker Hill Lane, Santa Clara. Vish talks about the
business of innovation and the entrepreneurial ecoscape in India and the
USA. Kiran tells us more about the TiE Angels. Sudarshana concludes the
session. We distil some of the key notes from the discussion for you.
SB: There is no dearth of talent, and there is a burst of entrepreneurial energy. But lets face it, the Indian ecosystem is still extremely difficult to foster technological innovation. Vish, could you share your thoughts on this.
VM: For a country of 1.2 billion people, how many IITs do we have in India? How many graduates do they produce? How many of those engineers stayed in India? They get their education in the taxpayer’s expense, but find their way to the US and other places because they can not get a similar level of opportunity in India.
Entrepreneurship needs an ecosystem – of financial means and a strong support system. Individuals need the freedom to pick and choose, the freedom to be funded. Talent plus attitude plus hard work becomes meaningless, if the right environment is not available. Think of a farmer. If he does not have access to fertile soil, even the best quality of seeds, watering, and tlc (tender love and care) will not yield a crop.
India needs to improve its infrastructure. There are significant hygiene and sanitation issues. People don’t have a choice but to be occupied with the challenges involved in the daily business of living; this is not the kind of environment that promotes entrepreneurship or innovation.
Major corporations in India are not investing as heavily into R&D as their foreign counterparts. Research labs do not have adequate funding.
The wave of innovation in India is recent – say 20 years old. We are many, many years behind in India. It is going to take us a long, long time to catch up; but the good news is that the country is absolutely on the right path.
SB: We hear a lot about immigration reforms. Everybody, from Bill Gates to Mike Bloomberg, and of course, Barrack Obama is talking about this. What is going on?
VM: See, US has a deep, strong shortage of technical talent, the precise reason why the H1B visa came about. There was this shortage 40 years ago, and there is still a shortage today. We need people with scientific or engineering backgrounds, especially those with strong technology and math skills. America celebrates entrepreneurs as heroes unlike any other societies, and at the end of the day, these people are helping American businesses do better. Unfortunately, the problem is people abuse the system, and a lot of nonsense keeps going on.
If the Staple Act came to pass, you could make sure the brightest and best kids kept coming to the US, and stayed here after they finished school – making it easier for employers here to recruit the best talent. (The Staple Act was sponsored by Arizona Representative Jeff Flake. It proposed to amend the existing Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize students who have earned a Ph.D. degree in the US in science, technology, engineering, or maths to be admitted for permanent residence. This bill never became law).
SB: We just read Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen say how he got burnt innovating just for the heck of it. How is innovation in business different from innovation as a function of creative outburst?
VM: Innovation in business happen when you identify a specific problem you want to address, and focus towards solving that problem in the best possible way. Innovation just for the sake of innovating, because you feel like you have to innovate, does not work.
Once you identify the area you want to work in, maintain a steady focus. The focus towards the problem has to stay fixed, or else a lot of effort is wasted. (A lot of our readers have seen how disastrous ‘requirements creep’ and shifting goals can get).
Don’t make innovation a multi-variable process. Most innovation is not complex. Focus on one very simple way to do something. Do not involve too many things; if there are ten or fifteen things that have to fall in place for your solution to work, the failure probability increases in multiples.
Experiment fast, decide fast. Start fast, fail fast. (In a slightly different context, Carly Fiorina would say ‘perfect enough, fast enough’). If you are too cautious, you are starting slow, which is bad. If you think whatever you are working on is not working, move on. Don’t think, I can’t fail, and continue with something that will not work. If you tried and failed, but tried genuinely, that is okay.
We are all born equal; but fact remains individuals with equal access to opportunities do not always perform equally. Identify what you are really really good at, and focus on your specific talent. Do not try to think about ten other things you also have to do, and get frustrated because you can not do them as well.
Ultimately, good innovation has to connect to the market. It has to result in commerce or increased business.
Anecdotically, TiE members have created a quarter trillion dollars of value worldwide since its inception, and innovation played a key-role in the value-creation process.
SB: The TiE Angels program has around 100 angels, and has been funding on an average a company a month since its inception. Kiran, could you share some details with us.
KKM: TiE
Angels, was launched in July 2010. It is an angel investment group
formed by charter members of TiE Silicon Valley. (Charter members are
successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives and senior professionals,
and inclusion in this exclusive club is by invitation only).
There are currently around 100 investors in TiE Angels, and more than 40 people have already invested. These angels are all ‘accredited investors.’ (As per Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements, only accredited investors are eligible to invest in certain types of investments which are considered high risk, hedge funds, for example. These are high net worth individuals, who satisfy certain income and asset prerequisites specified by the SEC). The angels are investing in their personal capacity.
TiE does not run a fund, and does not itself make any investments. These investments work just like any other investment; and the investors are in no pressure to make any commitments, nor are the applicants allowed to solicit for funds.
TiE can be involved at every step of the process – right from facilitating seed investment to helping with deciding on the exit strategy. After the initial investment, the goal is to take them to institutional investors for subsequent rounds in a year or two, as the companies grow and need more capital. At this stage there is a lot of competition, and a lot of companies are not able to raise capital in subsequent rounds of financing.
TiE Angels are looking to fund companies that are really serious, really promising, and have gained some traction or have raised some money. The idea is not to give $50,000, because that kind of money will not last long. The exact amount is decided on a case by case basis; but companies can expect upto a million dollars in capital, though we have not given a million dollars to a single company yet.
So far ten companies have been funded, and the number is expected to go up, as applications come in every day, and evaluations and discussions keep happening.
SB: There are guns, germs and steel; and then there is IT.
Over the years, as Vish pointed out, TiE members have created about a quarter trillion dollars worth of value. How much is a quarter trillion dollars? Just to put a perspective to the number, it is more than the current market cap of Google, Microsoft, or IBM.
If you have Java on your machine, and you do, then you have Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun, and a TiE charter member and mentor to thank. Why can’t we have a company like Sun or a Google started in India?
Out of a population of around 1.2 billion people, how many Bill Hewitt and Dave Packards have we lost because they did not have access to primary education?
It can be challenging for new angel groups to make more than two or three investments in their first year, even when deal flow is exceptionally good.
TiE Angels, founded last summer in Santa Clara, CA, has invested in seven portfolio companies in eight months. Typical investments are between $250,000 and $600,000.
TiE Angels is an outgrowth of TiE Silicon Valley, the founding chapter of TiE Global, a not-for-profit, worldwide network of successful entrepreneurs, professionals, and business executives.
"Last year members of the TiE chapter in Silicon Valley decided it was time to organize an angel group. We wanted to formalize our investing relationship, provide seed capital, open up to more people, and help take companies to the next level," says Vish Mishra, TiE Silicon Valley president and charter member of TiE Angels.
How did TiE Angels get off to such a fast start?
The advantages of Silicon Valley are unique considering the number of entrepreneurs, the size of the angel investor pool, and the access to domain expertise.
TiE Angels works to be among the best of angel groups by
learning from other angel groups, leveraging professional expertise and
relationships, striving for efficiency, and coaching and mentoring
entrepreneurs.
Members are experienced and well-connected
"Our members are all successful entrepreneurs, executives, and business owners," Mishra says. "We have people who are just starting companies, people who have started, grown and exited companies to start their second or third business, and even people who are retired after being CEO who want to stay actively engaged."
TiE Angels now has about 75 members; most are local to Silicon Valley with a few people from outside the region.
"Every month we pick up at least four to five new angels. They hear about us, attend a meeting, and like what they see," says Venktesh Shukla, TiE Angels chairman.
TiE Angels benefit from the connection to TiE Silicon Valley and TiE Global
Many TiE Angels members knew each other through TiE Silicon Valley, which is the largest of the 56 chapters of TiE Global.
"TiE Global was founded by people from India and that part of the world in 1992 and now has more than 13,000 members in thirteen countries, says Deepak Bhagat, charter member of TiE Angels.
"Some founders were the first generation immigrants from the corporate world. Some were successful entrepreneurs," Bhagat says. "The focus is on entrepreneurship. We create seminars, classes, and networking events, such as TiEcon, a two-day convergence of speakers, investors, and 125 startups showing their technology in the Innovation Expo."
While the original TiE organization was started by participants of Indian descent, TiE is open and inclusive to all entrepreneurs. Their diverse investments include Vigilent, an American company, and Vyycore, an Israel-based firm with offices in Silicon Valley.
TiE Angels adds value to TiE through the quality of members and the intensity of interaction between them. "TiE Angels give people a reason to talk and collaborate with each other because they are working on a deal. That increases the overall value to TiE as the value of any network is exponentially higher if the members interact with each other a lot," Shukla says.
TiE Angels builds on the best practices and processes of established angel groups
"We talked to a lot of groups in the beginning," says Shukla. "I personally talked with six or seven angel groups. Our process was to incorporate the best practices and to learn what to do and not to do. We focused on structure, process, discipline, and the code of conduct."
Shukla feels lucky that there are so many angel groups in Silicon Valley. "If you listen to them and to their experiences," he says, "you can make sure you don't make the same mistakes and come out ahead. That's what happened for us."
TiE Angels follows a volunteer network model. All investments are made by individuals. Entrepreneurs submit their business plans online for review by the TiE Angels screening committee. The committee narrows the submissions down to eight entrepreneurs. Those eight are invited to present to the TiE Angels steering committee.
"We give the entrepreneur ten minutes to pitch and ten minutes to answer questions," Mishra says. "Out of the eight, we pick three to come back the following week and present to the group. We share the deal sheet, collect interest, and recruit a lead investor."
Other members who express interest in the deal join the leader on the due diligence team.
"We are so deeply embedded in the high technology companies of Silicon Valley and have members from just about any company you can name, chances are there are some members of that team that know something about any market or technology or if not, know who to call," Shukla says.
The group considers every business plan that comes in and is open to syndication. The angels are considering ways to more proactively collaborate with other angel groups.
"It so happens that we have invested in all five of our core segments-social media, mobile space, energy, cloud space and life sciences," Mishra says. "We use Angelsoft as a software tool and are moving very fast."
TiE Silicon Valley provides offices and staffing and financial support for TiE Angels. "We review the arrangement with TiE every six months," Shukla says. "We're likely to consider a modest charge to our angel group members eventually."
Deal flow is great and angels are engaged
"The word about TiE Angels is out. We are seeing very good deals. The quality has been fabulous," Mishra says. "We've had several entrepreneurs tell us that the best thing that happened to them is the TiE connection. We have people who have gone through other funding networks, and they come to us and say what a delight."
TiE Angels receive about twenty business plans a month.
"All of us here are well connected and spread the word," Shukla says.
"We are hands on. We know how to evaluate companies and what clicks and what doesn't click. I haven't had so much as fun in a long time," says Bhagat.
TiE Angels want to invest an additional $6 million in an additional twelve companies in the next twelve months. "We have a wonderful chance of making it," Mishra says.
TiE Angels helps portfolio companies stay on track and meet milestones
"The combined net worth of this angel group is at least $3 to $4 billion, but the real differentiator is our deep domain expertise," Shukla says.
"TiE Angels are straight-forward and organized. Good entrepreneurs can find money, but when we waste time, we can never get it back," says Mark Housley, CEO of Vigilent, a TiE Angels portfolio company in the energy management field.
"The lead they appointed on our deal has been unbelievably responsive," Housley says. "We gave him a list of all the things we needed help with and asked what they could do. He sent our list out to members, and we got an incredible response with high quality connections and great follow-up. I can call up one of the TiE guys any time and get advice from someone who has skin in the game. All they care about is helping Vigilent win."
Vigilent was awarded "Best in Energy" in the TiEcon Innovations Expo this past May. Verizon (http://sv.tie.org/news-and-views) reports that Vigilent's intelligent energy-management systems in 24 Verizon data centers resulted enabled Verizon to shut down 40 percent of the air conditioners and reduce greenhouse gas emission by more than 66 million pounds of CO2.
"From the very start of the investment, the network of people that we gained access to, the short cuts that we would otherwise have to spend time and money to establish, and the coaching they provided have had tremendous positive impact on Vyycore," says Doron Koren, Vyycore president and CEO.
Vyycore makes chips that extend the range of coverage by up to 100 percent, lower battery consumption by up to 50 percent, and increase data transfer rates up to 200 percent while dramatically reducing the cost of the power amplifier. Vyycore was recently awarded "Best in Show" honors at both TiEcon and MobiTechFest East.
"We have a great match-our need for help and TiE Angels' desire for helping," Koren says. "We really communicate a lot, but they don't try to run the company. It's all about plans, advice, financial, advice, what do you think about this or that. This is very important for a young company trying to be a big company. They are helping us succeed."
TiE Angels see the potential of great ROI and are having fun reaching for it
"Every company that we invested in is doing better than the plan," says Mishra. "We had invested $600,000 into one company, were barely into the company for two months, and we had an exit offer. We didn't really want an exit to materialize so soon; we want to continue helping build the company first. Give us a couple of years, and then you can expect some exits."
At TiEcon, two TiE Angels told Shukla that participating in the angel group had changed their lives.
"What happens here is that angels find out about opportunities they might not otherwise see," he says. "And even if they found out about them, they would never get an opportunity to sit on a board or become an advisor. As an investor from TiE Angels, they can put up $25,000 to $50,000 and be represented by a board member from our group. Now they carry some clout."
Recently TiE Angels were invited to review a company founded by a group of Russians.
"It used to take $10 to $20 million to start a company," says Bhagat. "Now you can do it on $3 million or less. The founder of one of the companies I'm engaged with now started it on a credit card. This is a huge technology shift. We just love it. Technology keeps us going and awake at night. There is so much excitement. We want to contribute to it."
CalPERS: Best & worst PE & VC funds
By Dan Primack June 22, 2011: 3:39 PM ET
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) is the country's largest investor in private equity and venture capital, with $50 billion of exposure to nearly 700 funds. It also is one of the most transparent, thanks to a 2002 skirmish with the San Jose Mercury News.
CalPERS publishes the cash-in/cash-out, investment multiples and internal rates of return (IRRs) for all of its underlying funds, and recently updated the information through December 31, 2010. The lag isn't terribly surprising in private equity reporting, although CalPERS (by its own admission) was supposed to have this information up weeks ago.
Below I've posted the entire portfolio, ranked by IRR (from highest to lowest). For those unfamiliar with this data, please don't pay too much attention to funds raised in 2008 or later, due to an inherent "j-curve" that can artificially harm an immature fund's performance data. All that is missing are CalPERS' stakes in the management companies of Apollo Global Management, Carlyle Group and Silver Lake Partners, which I discussed earlier this month.
View the article and download the data here http://bit.ly/kLhxaH
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31, 2010 — Today at VMworld 2010, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire Integrien, a leader in real time application and infrastructure performance analytics software, and TriCipher, a leader in secure access management and enterprise identity federation for cloud hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) applications.
Integrien: Simplifying Performance Management and Improving Operational Efficiency
“Today’s IT organizations are under pressure to increase service levels and build the next-generation infrastructure and applications for the cloud — all with the resources they have today,” said Boaz Chalamish, vice president and general manager, management products, VMware. “The dynamic nature of modern infrastructures and cloud environments requires a new management paradigm, and VMware is uniquely positioned to build on the foundation of virtualization and fundamentally improve how organizations manage IT services.”
Integrien’s patented real-time performance analytics solution helps customers simplify the complexity of managing application and infrastructure performance by transforming data from existing management tools into actionable intelligence. Combined with VMware vCenter management products, Integrien’s capabilities enable VMware customers to achieve the level of automation and control required for virtualized and cloud infrastructures.
“VMware has led the transformation of IT infrastructure, significantly reducing complexity through virtualization,” said Dale Quayle, president and CEO, Integrien. “As such, VMware is the company that is best-equipped to redefine the IT management discipline for this new world. We are very excited to join VMware and align around a management vision that can deliver value for both our customers and employees.”
TriCipher: Bridging Hybrid Cloud Security, Improving End User Provisioning and Security of SaaS Applications
As customers evolve to a hybrid cloud composed of customer-owned and SaaS applications, internal and external infrastructure clouds, technologies for identity federation, SaaS authentication and access management are required to deliver convenient application access for end users and security controls for IT. TriCipher's capabilities will support multiple VMware initiatives, including identity-based security, integration of hybrid clouds and managed access to SaaS application from any device, where and when a user needs it.
“Customers are increasingly looking for ways to take advantage of the flexibility and new services in the public cloud and want to extend the security and control of their private clouds to this new environment,” said Brian Byun, vice president and general manager, cloud services and applications, VMware. “TriCipher brings to VMware important authentication and identity technologies that will accelerate our delivery of new solutions for hybrid cloud integration and end user computing.”
“TriCipher has been a pioneer in the field of identity and access management as a service, providing secure authentication and seamless single sign on access to over 3,000 public and private Web and SaaS applications,” said John De Santis, chairman and CEO of TriCipher. “We are excited to join the VMware family and further build on our foundational technology to fulfill VMware’s cloud and end user computing vision.”
Both acquisitions are expected to close in the third calendar quarter of 2010. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. VMware does not expect the transactions to have a material impact on its previous expectations for 2010.
About VMware
VMware delivers virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes. With the industry leading virtualization platform – VMware vSphere™ – customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2009 revenues of $2 billion, more than 190,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the timing and consummation of the Integrien and TriCipher acquisition and the integration of Integrien’s and TriCipher’s technology into VMware’s technology platforms, business and operations. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of numerous risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) failure to complete the Integrien and TriCipher acquisitions due to the failure to satisfy one or more closing conditions for the transaction; (ii) failure to successfully integrate Integrien’s and TriCipher’s technology, employees, business and operations into VMware’s business and operations; and (iii) failure to successfully execute VMware’s IT as a Service and cloud computing strategies;. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 31, 2010 – Meru Networks, Inc., today announced the pricing of the initial public offering of 4,386,784 common shares at a price to the public of $15.00 per share.?Of the shares sold in the offering, Meru Networks is offering 3,575,000 shares and selling shareholders are offering 811,784 shares. Meru will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling shareholders. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 658,017 common shares from Meru at the initial public offering price. The shares are expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Market on March 31, 2010 under the ticker symbol "MERU."
BofA Merrill Lynch is acting as sole book-running manager for the offering. Baird, Cowen and Company, JMP Securities and ThinkEquity LLC are acting as co-managers.
A registration statement relating to the shares of Meru common stock offered in the initial public offering was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 30, 2010. The initial public offering is being made solely by means of a prospectus. Copies of the final prospectus, when available, may be obtained from: BofA Merrill Lynch, 4 World Financial Center, New York, NY 10080, attention: Prospectus Department, or e-mail prospectus.requests@ml.com.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
About Meru Networks?Founded in 2002, Meru Networks provides a virtualized wireless LAN solution that cost-effectively optimizes the enterprise network to deliver the performance, reliability, predictability and operational simplicity of a wired network, with the advantages of mobility. Meru's solution represents an innovative approach to wireless networking that utilizes virtualization technology to create an intelligent and self-monitoring wireless network, and enables enterprises to migrate their business-critical applications from wired networks to wireless networks, and become all-wireless enterprises. Meru's solutions have been adopted in all major industry vertical markets, including Fortune 500 enterprises, healthcare, education, retail, manufacturing, hospitality and government. Meru is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.merunetworks.com or call (408) 215-5300.
Iron Mountain Acquires Mimosa Systems
Iron Mountain Adds All-in-One, On-Premises Archive to Complement its Cloud Offerings; Company Now Capable of Managing Information Wherever it Resides
BOSTON (Feb. 22, 2010) –
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), an information management services company, today announced it has acquired Santa Clara, Calif.-based Mimosa Systems, Inc., a leader in enterprise-class content archiving solutions, for approximately $112 million in cash, subject to closing adjustments. The deal provides Iron Mountain with an integrated archive for email, SharePoint data and files, and gives the company an on-premises archiving option to complement its existing cloud-based archives.The ability to archive and manage data both onsite, inside the customer’s firewall, and remotely in the cloud makes Iron Mountain a one-stop shop for data capture, archiving and management. It also provides the company’s customers with greater flexibility and choice for managing their information.
Additionally, the company can now capture and manage a broader range of enterprise information from so-called "edge-of-the-network" devices like desktop PCs and laptops as well as from company repositories like email stores, SharePoint servers and file systems. Many larger businesses still prefer to keep this data on their premises today. Finally, the acquisition allows Iron Mountain to extract intelligence from the information it manages both on-premises and in the cloud, advancing the company’s larger strategy to help enterprises lower the costs and risks associated with storing and managing information.
"We’re really excited about adding Mimosa Systems," said Ramana Venkata, president of Iron Mountain Digital, the technology arm of Iron Mountain. "We acquired Mimosa because we believe it offers the best archiving technology on the market, and the company shares our philosophy to help customers reduce the cost and risk of storing and managing information. By combining Mimosa’s on-premises archive with our cloud-based technologies, Iron Mountain can now store, recover and discover digital content wherever it resides. This is a great example of the type of technology acquisition that fits well within our long-term growth strategy."
Mimosa NearPoint™ is an enterprise archiving platform with applications for retention and disposition, eDiscovery, compliance supervision, classification, recovery, and end-user search, enabling customers to reduce risk, and lower their eDiscovery and storage costs. Mimosa has more than 1,000 enterprise customers and is recognized by industry analysts as a fast-growing, visionary archiving company.
"Enterprises today are buried in email and other forms of user-generated content, making information storage and management a complex, expensive and risky exercise," said Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst of the Taneja Group. "This deal strengthens Iron Mountain’s position in the market as a comprehensive provider of information management solutions. Its customers now have greater flexibility to store and manage their information onsite or in the cloud, where it makes sense for their budget and business."
NearPoint joins a broad portfolio of content archiving, data protection and recovery, and eDiscovery solutions from Iron Mountain Digital. Customers wanting to archive email can now choose either NearPoint for onsite archiving or Iron Mountain’s Total Email Management Suite, powered by Mimecast® technology, for archiving email in the cloud. Additionally, customers can use Iron Mountain’s Digital Record Center® for Compliant Messaging for email that must meet SEC regulations and supervision.
The addition of the NearPoint content archive also offers customers an enhanced eDiscovery solution set for quickly finding content and applying legal holds across email, file and SharePoint data. For larger litigation matters, organizations can easily transfer their onsite data to Iron Mountain’s cloud solution, Stratify Legal Discovery® Service. For smaller matters or in instances where companies want to begin the eDiscovery process on their own, they can do so onsite with Iron Mountain’s early-case assessment tool for eDiscovery, eVantage™.
The Mimosa team will be retained and become an integral part of Iron Mountain Digital. The president and CEO of Mimosa Systems, T. M. Ravi, will assume the role of chief marketing officer for Iron Mountain Digital, responsible for all marketing functions and helping to drive strategy planning and execution for Iron Mountain Digital.
"It’s a win-win situation for our customers and partners who can now leverage Iron Mountain’s global reach and comprehensive information management services," said T.M. Ravi. "The Mimosa team will play a key role in the development and execution of the company’s cloud and on-premises information management strategy."
About Mimosa?
Mimosa Systems, Inc. delivers next-generation email, file and SharePoint archiving solutions for information immediacy, discovery, and continuity. Mimosa NearPoint is the industry’s most comprehensive unstructured information management software solution for email, files, collaboration systems and instant messages, enabling archiving, eDiscovery, storage management, and recovery in a unified solution. Mimosa is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, recognized for its competencies in networking infrastructure solutions, ISV/software solutions, and advanced infrastructure solutions.About Iron Mountain Digital
Iron Mountain Digital is the world's leading provider of information management services for data protection and recovery, archiving, eDiscovery and intellectual property management. The technology arm of Iron Mountain Incorporated offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to thousands of companies around the world, directly and through a worldwide network of channel partners. Iron Mountain Digital is based in Southborough, Mass.
About Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM) helps organizations around the world reduce the costs and risks associated with information protection and storage. The Company offers comprehensive records management and data protection solutions, along with the expertise and experience to address complex information challenges such as rising storage costs, litigation, regulatory compliance and disaster recovery. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain is a trusted partner to more than 140,000 corporate clients throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit the Company's Web site at www.ironmountain.com.
HOPKINTON, MA – September 1, 2009 – EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Kazeon Systems, Inc.– a leading eDiscovery software provider for corporations, legal service providers, government entities and law firms. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2009, subject to customary closing conditions and is not expected to have a material impact to revenue or EPS for the full 2009 fiscal year.
With Kazeon, EMC will be able to offer end-to-end, in-house eDiscovery and litigation readiness solutions as part of the EMC SourceOne family for integrated but modular eDiscovery, archiving and compliance. Kazeon allows organizations to quickly and reliably identify, preserve, collect, process, analyze and review information in accordance with the widely accepted EDRM (Electronic Discovery Reference Model) framework. Core to Kazeon is its ability to handle Electronically Stored Information (ESI) that resides anywhere in the enterprise environment -- including content on laptops, desktops, content management repositories (including, EMC Documentum), Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange, Lotus Domino, email archives and file shares.
The Kazeon offering is available as an appliance, enabling organizations to quickly deploy the solution. This enables Early Case Assessment (ECA) to determine case merit and legal strategies, possibly avoiding costly legal fees. Kazeon’s targeted collection capabilities ensure avoidance of the classic problem of over-collection which often leads to high retention and review costs. In addition, Kazeon’s legal hold management capability ensures no erroneous deletion of data and its metadata. Further, the Kazeon solution is capable of performing fine-grained analytics, including concept-based search and analysis, and offering a collaborative review platform for distributed reviewers.
Kazeon enables organizations to take a proactive approach to eDiscovery. The same solution that enables end-to-end, in-house eDiscovery can also be leveraged for the policy management of information that resides in multiple disparate systems across the enterprise. Kazeon is unique in its ability to identify and classify information and take appropriate action, such as preservation, deletion or migration of documents into EMC storage for litigation hold, and EMC Documentum for records management.
The acquisition will further strengthen the power of EMC’s SourceOne portfolio. EMC SourceOne is an integrated family of products and solutions for eDiscovery, archiving and compliance. Unlike other offerings, SourceOne offers solutions that solve particular customer challenges today, and -- in conjunction with the Data Loss Prevention capabilities offered by RSA, EMC’s security division -- EMC can now offer customers an industry-leading set of capabilities for discovering, classifying and managing information, enabling a full information governance strategy for the future. Each of the SourceOne offerings stands alone, but also integrates in a modular way with each other to provide a comprehensive solution. SourceOne leverages EMC tiered storage and archive infrastructures.
“As legal, regulatory, and governance requirements continue to become more stringent and expensive, it is now mandatory for customers to have a solid in-house strategy for information governance and eDiscovery,” said Andrew Cohen, Vice President and General Manager of EMC’s eDiscovery Business. “It no longer makes sense to collect an over-sized set of content by reactively gathering physical media, such as hard drives and backup tapes. Organizations can save significant money by intelligently indexing and finding just the relevant information, and then collecting it in forensically sound and secure ways, all in-house. Kazeon, as part of the EMC SourceOne suite will solve customer challenges across the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). With the addition of Kazeon to the EMC SourceOne family, we will be able to offer our customers tremendous functionality, saving them money, reducing risk, avoiding unnecessary legal fines and enabling them to deploy a true information governance and eDiscovery strategy.”
“At Kazeon, we’re committed to providing customers with the most accurate, scalable and legally defensible eDiscovery solutions,” said Sudhakar Muddu, Founder and CEO, Kazeon. “Customers across the globe are performing accurate and efficient eDiscovery, realizing dramatic cost savings and risk reduction by leveraging our broad range of solutions. Becoming part of EMC is the right strategic move for us – giving us the resources of a world-class leader in information management to effectively take our market vision to the next level. We are excited about this acquisition.”
Upon completion of the acquisition, Kazeon will become a part of EMC’s Content Management and Archiving Division.
About Kazeon Systems, Inc.
Kazeon is a leading eDiscovery solution provider for corporations’ legal and IT staff, legal service providers and law firms. The company’s independently validated solution provides the most accurate, scalable, legally defensible and court-proven eDiscovery to perform both in-place as well as target Analysis and Review, Collection and Culling, and Legal Hold for Electronically Stored Information (ESI) across the enterprise. The solution performs Early Case Assessments and fine-grained eDiscovery across multiple ESI sources such as email servers, file shares, archives, content repositories, laptops/desktops and remote offices. Kazeon has been lauded by various analysts and industry forums, including Gartner’s eDiscovery MarketScope where Kazeon was rated “Positive” two years in a row across all eDiscovery categories and the Socha-Gelbmann eDiscovery Survey 2008 where Kazeon was recognized as a Top 5 eDiscovery software provider. For more information, visit www.kazeon.com or call 877-KAZEON1.
About EMC
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC’s products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.
# # #
EMC and Documentum are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation. RSA is a registered trademark of RSA Security Inc. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
This release contains “forward-looking statements” as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (iv) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (v) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.’s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vi) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (vii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (viii) component and product quality and availability; (ix) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) war or acts of terrorism; (xii) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (xiii) fluctuating currency exchange rates; (xiv) litigation that we may be involved in; and (xv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
If I told you that a game company you’ve never heard of will be a top ten entertainment company in 2009, you’d probably laugh. But that’s the ambition of Alok Kejriwal, chief executive of Games2win, and his cofounder and chief technology officer, Mahesh Khambadkone.
India-based company Games2Win
has flown largely under the radar of the American press, but has managed to established itself as one of the web’s fastest growing gaming sites in less than a year. The company was founded by entrepreneur Alok Kejriwal along with seasoned gaming professional Mahesh Khambadkone in June 2007, and now counts around 6 million monthly users with a worldwide distribution.
October 10, 2008 - William Quigley
It is hard to believe that just 8 years ago, venture capitalists were facing what we all thought would be the ‘great crash’ of our lifetimes. Meaning the one and only significant crash we would see before we retired. After all, even with two world wars, a cold war, and an unprecedented energy shock in the 1970’s, the 20th century only had one Great Depression. The Dow dropped 90% from its high during the Great Depression. NASDAQ dropped 80% from its high after the tech bubble burst. Market collapses of that order are only supposed to happen once in a lifetime. But now, due to the financial crisis of 2008, the consensus opinion among wall street and venture investors is that we are at the beginning of another great crash and long term economic malaise (note Sequoia’s amazing comment about a 15 year secular bear market).
Now is far from the best time for an entrepreneur to try to raise money. Venture capital investment has been flat this year, and initial public offerings, the vehicles by which VCs achieve their outsize returns, have been almost nonexistent. "It's never been harder to create the kind of company that VCs look for," says Jim Armstrong, a managing director in the Santa Monica, California, office of Clearstone Venture Partners. The ideal candidate for venture backing, he says, has the potential to quickly become a public company worth at least $1 billion -- a tall order in this economy. Even so, venture capitalists, by their nature, are always on the lookout for an interesting deal, and many firms are sitting on huge war chests of capital raised over the past few years. So, as part of an annual exercise, we asked Armstrong and partners at three other firms that invest in young, fast-growing companies to take a look at this year's Inc. 500 (which we published in September, and which you can find at Inc.com). Please note that the panel was given no information beyond what was printed in the magazine: no balance sheets, no business plans, and -- gasp! -- no PowerPoint decks. Nevertheless, the VCs gamely told us which companies caught their fancy.
Nokeena Networks Inc., a startup that is developing technology to better distribute and store online video, is the latest company to benefit from the incubation approach taken by Sumant Mandal, a managing director of early-stage venture capital firm Clearstone Venture Partners.
Mandal tells Tech Confidential that Clearstone, along with Trinity Ventures, is leading an $8.7 million Series A round in Nokeena, which has been in stealth mode until now. Mandal is taking a seat on Nokeena's board, as is Trinity's Fred Wang. Angel investors in the company include B.V. Jagadeesh, the CEO of 3Leaf Systems (he also co-founded Exodus Communications and is the former CEO of NetScaler Inc.); Raj Singh, managing director of Redwood Venture Partners; and Rajeev Motwani, a Stanford University computer science professor who was an early backer of Google Inc.
TheDeal.com
by Mary Kathleen Flynn Posted 04:33 EST, 5, Aug 2008
Born as a technological puzzle, Nokeena Networks Inc. has raised its first round of venture capital to commercialize technology that it says will help solve the problem of how to better deliver and store online video.
The Santa Clara, Calif., startup, which until now has remained under the radar, has raised $8.7 million in a Series A round led by Clearstone Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures, said Sumant Mandal, a managing director with Clearstone. "Nokeena's video delivery system is going to change the cost curve for most video publishers, especially as high-definition video comes online," Mandal said.
He and Trinity's Fred Wang will join Nokeena's board of directors.
Nokeena evolved out of conversations Mandal had with company co-founder Prabakar Sundarrajan about the challenges of delivering high-quality online video.
"We got to brainstorming on the next big problem to be solved," recalled Sundarrajan, who developed Nokeena with company CEO Rajan Raghavan, another entrepreneur. "The light bulb went off on the oncoming tsunami of high-quality Web video. That was the genesis of Nokeena."
Such methods typifies Mandal's approach to innovation, said entrepreneurs who have worked with him. Specifically, he seeks to identify an inefficient business process or related factor that technology can improve. He then asks a trusted entrepreneur to come up with a solution to the puzzle. If the answer looks promising, they start a company.
Although such methods are certainly not unique, and indeed would be familiar to any business school graduate, Mandal, who joined Clearstone in 2000, brings a special talent for refining ideas into companies.
Frank Addante, founder of the Rubicon Project, a startup that helps Web sites optimize unsold advertising space and that has raised $21 million from Clearstone and other VC firms, said the idea for his company emerged from a casual conversation he had with Mandal after bumping into the VC while jogging by his house one day in the spring of 2007. "What's fascinating is that after every meeting with Sumant I always feel smarter — not because of what he tells me but because of what he asks me," Addante said.
Clearstone is a good fit for Mandal, 39, who continues to focus on incubation or "co-creation," as he calls it. The firm, which invests in a range of early-stage software, Internet, telecommunications and other companies, was formed in 1997 as Idealab Capital Partners, the venture capital arm of technology incubator Idealab Inc. Idealab Capital Partners is known for backing PayPal Inc., which eBay Inc. bought for $1.4 billion in 2002, and NetZero, now owned by United Online Inc., among other investments. Today Clearstone is on its third fund and has offices in Santa Monica, Calif., Menlo Park, Calif., and Mumbai.
Mandal's predilection for building companies from their earliest conceptual phases naturally has led him to seek out like-minded entrepreneurs with startup experience. Sundarrajan, for example, helped launch another Clearstone portfolio company called Mimosa Systems Inc., which makes archiving software for large companies and which has raised $51.5 million in venture capital. Sundarrajan also served as an adviser on another Clearstone startup, DiVitas Networks, which makes handsets that link cellular and wide-area networks and which has raised $23 million.
Previously, Sundarrajan was chief technology officer at NetScaler, whose technology helped provide business software applications over the Internet and which was acquired by Citrix Systems Inc. in 2005 for $325 million. He also formerly was senior vice president at Exodus Communications Inc., an Internet service provider that once had a market valuation of $30 billion before going bankrupt in 2001 during the dot-com crash.
"My experience with both Exodus Communications and NetScaler were central to the conversation Sumant and I had on Web video delivery," Sundarrajan said. "Sumant recognized the huge opportunity and indicated that the time was ripe to be bold and incubate a venture focused on solving the challenge of large-scale delivery of high-quality Web video."
The main problem with online video when Nokeena was getting off the ground was that the viewing experience was poor, with pieces often appearing choppy and stopping and starting. Other issues with online video included difficulty scaling up to offer masses of content and incompatible platforms, while as a business endeavor it was proving difficult to make money.
"It is clear that if this trend continued without a suitable solution, Web video delivery growth would stall and viewers would turn away in droves," Sundarrajan said. Nokeena's solution to such problems consists of high-speed video processing and network optimization technology that eliminates video stutters by monitoring congestion on the network and adjusting video transmission accordingly. Angel investors in the company include B.V. Jagadeesh, CEO of virtualization software maker 3Leaf Systems (who also was co-founder of Exodus and CEO of NetScaler); Raj Singh, managing director of Redwood Venture Partners; and Rajeev Motwani, a Stanford University computer science professor who was an early backer of Google Inc.
Nokeena plans to launch its first commercial product next year. As for customers, the company initially will target large content delivery networks, video content aggregators, original video providers and media companies.
As for Mandal, it remains to be seen if his hands-on style to building companies, which has yet to yield any exits, will pay off. But the entrepreneurs he and Clearstone support express confidence that they are on the right path.
"We were two guys with three PowerPoint slides when Sumant and Clearstone found us," said Mimosa co-founder and chief executive T.M. Ravi. "They helped us flesh out the idea and, more importantly, validate the idea with about 70 customers. They introduced us to the majority of those customers."
MARINA DEL REY, CA -- AUGUST 5, 2008 -- Six Degrees Games, Inc., a video game and virtual world publisher, today announced it has secured $7 Million in Series A equity financing led by Clearstone Venture Partners and Prism VentureWorks. These funds will support the product development, launch and distribution of an original
sports-themed virtual world designed for six to 14 year-olds, but open to all ages. The project is currently in closed beta and further details will become available over the next several months.
"It's an exciting time for our entire Six Degrees Games team as we drive toward the launch of an all-new, interactive sports-themed virtual world," said Minard Hamilton, CEO and co-founder of Six Degrees Games, Inc. "In Clearstone and Prism, we have found partners that not only share our vision, but will also add immeasurably to our successful execution.”
“At Clearstone, we take great pride in investing in high-caliber entrepreneurs focused on creating innovative consumer experiences. With Six Degrees Games, there is a unique opportunity to deliver an immersive, branded experience that will appeal to both kids and their parents,” said Jim Armstrong, Managing Director of Clearstone Venture Partners. “We are very excited to be working with Minard, Ben and the impressive team they have put together here in Southern California to go after this massive opportunity.”
“Six Degrees Games is poised to offer the youth market a virtual sports world that surpasses current offerings,” said Will Kohler, Prism VentureWorks. “Prism’s LA presence has opened doors into new, high-value opportunities and Six Degrees Games is a great example of this. Minard, Ben and the Six Degrees Games team have worked with major participants in the world of sports, leagues and brands and understand how to build high-growth, successful companies.”
Six Degrees Games, Inc. was founded in 2006 by Minard Hamilton, CEO, and Ben Jones, President, and is based in Marina del Rey, CA. Prior to founding Six Degrees Games, Minard Hamilton and Ben Jones were senior executives at JAMDAT Mobile, a leading mobile game company which went public in 2005 and was later acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006. Prior to JAMDAT, Hamilton was a senior executive with ESPN and ESPN.com and Jones established and coordinated partnerships between leading game developers and publishers.
As part of the financing agreement, Jim Armstrong, Managing Director, Clearstone, and Will Kohler, Principal, Prism VentureWorks, have joined the company’s Board of Directors.
About Six Degrees Games, Inc.
Six Degrees Games, Inc., founded in 2006 with headquarters in Marina del Rey, CA, is a videogame and virtual world publisher for major videogame systems and personal computers. For more information, visit www.sixdegreesgames.com.
About Clearstone Venture Partners
Clearstone Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm with offices in Santa Monica, CA, Menlo Park, CA, and Mumbai, India. Clearstone has a proven track
record of developing market-changing consumer internet companies, including: PayPal, NetZero, Overture and CarsDirect. The firm has $650 million under management
and is focusing investments in its third fund on seed and early stage companies
in the United States and India. For more information, visit: www.clearstone.com.
About Prism VentureWorks
Prism VentureWorks is an early stage venture capital firm focused on disruptive segments in the Digital Media, Software & Services and Life Sciences sectors. The firm represents a committed team of early-stage investors whose industry operating heritage and domain depth make them valued partners among entrepreneurs and syndicates in building successful businesses. Founded in 1996, the Firm has approximately $1.25 billion in capital under management with offices in Needham, MA and Venice, CA. For more information, visit www.prismventure.com.
Contact Information
Tim DaRosa
Director of Marketing
Six Degrees Games, Inc.
(773) 391-1865
Ad:Tech, San Francisco, Calif. – the Rubicon Project, a company with a mission to automate the large, yet highly inefficient advertising industry unveils an industry first: a free ad server for website publishers, specifically designed to manage multiple ad networks. Also released today is a new enhanced version of its ad network optimization (ANO) service for websites looking to let the experts handle the work of maximizing revenue from their ad space. More than 5,000 websites applied to be part of the company's private Beta; 750 were selected to participate in the program. With today's public Beta release any website interested in building advertising revenue through ad network optimization and ad network management can sign up.
AOL Autos, http://autos.aol.com, today announced an open marketplace for used cars, providing car buyers with access to more than 2.5 million vehicles for sale in the United States and a new set of search and filter tools to more easily find a car that fits their needs.
The AOL Autos used car marketplace features a new intuitive search function that enables users to search for used, certified pre-owned, and private-seller listed cars using natural language queries (e.g., “black Honda Civic”). Users can filter results based on make, model, price, body style and more, resulting in more relevant listings.
AOptix Technologies, Inc. www.aoptix.com a leading edge developer of advanced biometric iris recognition systems announced that it is entering the fast growing iris recognition biometrics market with its proprietary adaptive optics technology.
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
Silicon Valley startup Spock aims to refine people search
How many times have you Googled your ex-girlfriend? The guy from the bar last night? Paris Hilton, Barak Obama, David Beckham?
Instead of sorting through thousands of results from a major search engine the vast majority likely to be irrelevant Web pages a Silicon Valley startup promises more targeted results on people queries.
Menlo Park-based Spock Inc. scours sites such as MySpace.com, Wikipedia, LinkedIn and Flickr, compiling biographies of real people alive, dead, famous, obscure, from New York to New Delhi.
Spock is gaining 30,000 new members per week in an invitation-only beta. It will launch in three to four weeks with a searchable database of 100 million people.
Results often include an individual's photo, age, job title, political or religious affiliations, and research papers or articles written.
The site relies on public data; if you've never given your age or posted a your photo on a blog or other site, that data may not appear on Spock. But if you've submitted information to a company or neighborhood newsletter, or if you've used a social networking site, you may already be Spocked.
Backed by Clearstone Venture Partners and Opus Capital Ventures, Spock works like Wikipedia. Members contribute photos, data, tags or other information about themselves or others.
None of Spock's 30 employees is an editor. Computer algorithms police the site: If you post inflammatory or inappropriate items, your user rating plummets. Everything users add or delete can be traced back nothing is anonymous.
To highlight the ingenuity of Spock, co-founder and CEO Jaideep Singh searched for "Boxer." On Google, the top result is dogs specifically the American Kennel Club's Web site. On Amazon.com, it's underwear. On Spock, it's biographies of California Sen. Barbara Boxer and former World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali.
Broadly defined people searches individuals and groups such as "Al-Qaeda" or "NBA" are among the top Internet queries. Spock, which maintains 200 servers, is bracing for an onslaught of biographies and members.
"Our mission is to index everyone who is knowable," Singh said.
SupplyFrame, of Pasadena, Calif. is the latest to offer a specialized search engine for electronic components — and is also offering useful widgets about those components to embed in spreadsheets or Web sites. It has raised $7 million in a second round of funding.
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Acquisition Extends Seamless Mobility Offerings For Enterprises and Consumers
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Solution Works With Existing WLAN Environment, Enterprise Applications, and Handsets
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 17, 2006- DiVitas Networks today announced that it is entering the enterprise communications market with a new class of unified mobile communications solutions that extends the reach of the enterprise by providing seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular networks. DiVitas' solution works in any WLAN environment, with any PBX, and over any type of fixed, mobile, or wireless network; it also integrates with business and communications applications. A privately held company, DiVitas has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Clearstone Venture Partners and other private investors. DiVitas is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has an office in Bangalore, India.
DiVitas was founded by president and CEO Vivek Khuller and CTO Venkat Kalkunte. Khuller was previously a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Partners, entrepreneur in residence at Matrix Partners, and an executive at Sycamore Networks and Verizon. Kalkunte formerly worked at Cisco, and was founding engineer of Transmedia Communications, which Cisco purchased in 1999. He also worked at Alteon, Stratacom, and other technology companies.
"Today's enterprise workers want to stay connected with their customers and colleagues, yet more than 70 percent of them don't have access to mobile solutions," said Khuller. "Enterprises have had to rely on disparate, costly, and unreliable approaches, including cellular and wireless VoIP. DiVitas' unified solutions let enterprise users stay connected and stay engaged, and put the enterprise in control of its mobile communications at a cost that will enable it to mobilize all workers."
"Convergence is now the core driving force in the evolution of communications - both wired and wireless," said Craig Mathias, a Principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group. "The idea is to provision a common set of services across a variety of networks, from cellular to wireless LANs to landlines. DiVitas is positioning themselves for leadership in this very exciting space."
DiVitas Addresses Gap in Market
DiVitas addresses a major gap in the communications market-the lack of a mobility solution for the full scope of enterprise workers and functions. Cellular is ubiquitous but expensive and device driven, and cannot be managed by the enterprise. Wireless VoIP has limited reach, performance, and device support. Neither addresses the need of enterprises to control communications, hand off Wi-Fi-cell calls seamlessly, and integrate applications with communications. As a result, mobile communications has limited penetration in enterprises. Enterprises pay for mobile voice service for far fewer than half of their employees, and the number of those employees with mobile email is even smaller.
"Clearstone sees a tremendous market opportunity for enterprise mobility solutions, and DiVitas is the first company to take advantage of it by letting enterprise being in control," said Sumant Mandal , a member of DiVitas' board and managing director at Clearstone. "By delivering voice, text, and enterprise applications on one handset, the DiVitas platform promises to cut down on voice mails and missed calls and greatly improve end users' productivity."
The DiVitas solution works in every network environment, whether it is cellular, WiFi, Internet/IP WAN, or wireline, and with every type of mobile phone, including dual-mode phones, WLAN phones, cellular phones, smartphones, and softphones. The company's solution also serves as an application platform for enhanced communications such as CRM, assuring end users of their presence and participation in business operations, irrespective of the underlying network.
Because enterprises own the DiVitas solution, administrators can control and manage communications centrally, without having to depend on service providers. End users need only one wireless handset to access voice, email, and applications as they roam between enterprise and cellular networks, giving them the type of "presence" previously unavailable with mobile communications.
DiVitas Solutions Interoperate with Mobile Phones, Networks
To make it easy for enterprises to adopt its solutions, DiVitas plans to conduct interoperability tests with a range of ecosystem vendors to ensure that the DiVitas solution works in every network environment, with every type of handset, and with every PBX. The company will announce interoperability with a range of wireless LAN, handset and IP/PBX partners.
"Symbol's wireless LAN solutions enable enterprises to cost-effectively increase penetration of mobile voice and data solutions. With the availability of dual-mode phones such as Symbol's MC70, which work both over WiFi and cellular networks, users can be accessible and productive beyond the four walls of the enterprise," said Chris McGugan, senior director of marketing at Symbol Technologies' wireless infrastructure division. "Symbol is closely working with DiVitas to develop end-to-end seamless voice and application handoff solutions for the enterprise across wireless LAN and cellular networks."
About DiVitas
DiVitas Networks is developing a new class of enterprise appliance that provides seamless voice and data mobility over disparate networks to all enterprise employees by taking advantage of disruptive technologies such as WiFi, the Internet, and dual-mode phones. DiVitas is the first company that enables such mobility while giving enterprises complete control of the system. The DiVitas solution enables seamless roaming and WiFi-cellular handoff and extends enterprise security, management, and cost control to mobile communications. End users are assured of their presence and participation in business operations, irrespective of the underlying network, whether it is cellular, WiFi, Internet/IP WAN, or wireline. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, DiVitas Networks is backed by Clearstone Venture Partners. More information is available at http://www.divitas.com .
