Category Archives: IPO

by Brian Solis

With the market meltdown underway, or better described as a reset in the financial services industry, people are crying that the sky is falling and predicting that the current tech bubble is about to burst.

Wait, we’re in a bubble?

While the amount of VC money available and deals are steadily rising, we’re still not seeing anything that would resemble a bubble or a resession in the tech sector quite yet.

Most deals are still modest.

No IPOs to really point to.

Although we were set for a scare, our industry barometer, Google (NASDQ:GOOG), is rebounding nicely.

However, there are some interesting things in play that could set the stage for some milestone exits. And, what happens from there is anyone’s guess.
For example, I was watching the news about Bear Stearns, an 80-year old American financial institution, selling for only $236 million. While tech hasn’t necessarily felt the burn of the current or impending recession (however you want to look at it), we’re certainly not teeing things up in a way that make sense to the rest of the world.

Just to give you some perspective:

Widget phenomenon Slide is rumored to have a $500 million valuation.

Ning’s valuation is reported to be $214 million.

Meebo is looking to raise $25-30 million, which could put its valuation somewhere between $200 – $250 million.

We are all well aware of Facebook’s whopping $15 billion valuation.

What’s the exit for these companies? Acquisitions or IPOs of course. Media and also tech companies are keeping a watchful eye on these and many other companies as prime acquisition targets to transcend their existing business into the new economy.

But what’s different this time over Web 1.0 is critical for analyzing what lies ahead for the tech sector.

Companies are using the money to build businesses and communities with many already generating revenue. The focus seems more about strengthening the foundation for scale rather than cashing out.

That’s an important point that reminds everyone that we are still feeling vulnerable and humbled from the last go-round (hopefully anyway).

There are also reports that predict that social media will go unaffected by the recession as companies learn and realize that their marketing and advertising dollars are stretched effectively in social networks over traditional media.

So, for now, it seems like this time, the recession is “theirs” and not “ours.”

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.

by Brian Solis

Al Gore-backed Current TV is making a run at a $100 million IPO. Wow

The Emmy award-winning network launched in 2005 banked 2007 annual revenue of $63.7 million, which is up 68% from $37.8 million in 2006.

Current is reportedly the only 24/7 cable and satellite television network and Internet site produced and programmed in collaboration with its audience. Current connects young adults with what is going on in their world, from their perspective, in their own voices.

With the launch of Current.com, a fully integrated web and TV platform, viewers can participate in shaping an ongoing stream of news and information that is compelling, authentic and relevant to them.

I ran into Al Gore at Paragon in San Francisco last year, which is down the street from Current’s HQ. He actually stopped to talk for a bit. That was nice.

Back to the IPO.

The proposed IPO is set for NASDAQ under the ticker “CRTM.” No word on timing or shares yet.

Current is reaching 51 million homes, of which, 41 million are in the US.

More at PaidContent

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Plaxo, or Facebook.

by Victor Karamalis

Yesterday (10-Oct 07), Om Malik of GigaOm showed an interesting graphic of Facebook’s traffic dropping using Comscore’s information for the first time since February 2007 as shown here on Compete.com. Although this may be too premature to say that all those Facebooks API’s have lost traction, there could be a bunch of factors involved. So, before everyone stops to make Facebook Apps and jump over to other social networks, let us see if it is just an off month with some plausible explanations.

First of all, Facebook has been the social network of choice for most undergraduate students. They have just started the school year. In addition, people that have been away from work for the month of August had to play catch up in the office in September. Also, Compete‘s numbers only focus on unique visitors from the United States. This may be the case as well for Comscore’s Media Metrix Service. As of this post, information concerning Comscore’s metrics could not be obtained. Global traffic needs to be taken into consideration (just like global markets in the financial space).

Let’s just make the most obvious point. This has only been for one month. Although Om’s popped out that spreadsheet from his Fedora seems scary for Facebook with more than a nine percent decline (he will contact FB tomorrow on this if it’s true), the primary concern for Facebook is if the bottom line has been affected. This includes any large multi million dollar advertising deals with the likes of Microsoft as reported over the summer that are in the pipeline. Continued traffic decline could hurt future deals like this and potentially jeopardize its multi-billion dollar IPO valuation a few notches down. On the other hand, ambitious Facebook application developers still have over 24 million users to target. But, it is just too soon to get this feeling of panic.

By Victor Karamalis

Facebook is looking to get even more cash from Microsoft according to the Wall Street Journal. The Redmond based company is in talks with Facebook to buy a five percent stake in Facebook as reported in the Wall Street Journal and Reuters earlier today. This is already in addition to the 200 to 300 million dollars that Microsoft committed through 2011 from last month’s advertising deal.

The deal is worth to be about 300 to 500 million dollars. This roughly brings Facebook’s valuation nearing $15 Billion dollars. The reason for Microsoft to buy a stake in Facebook is the 39 million user base (up from 24 million in May). They want access to the youth demographic actively using Facebook. Its founder Mark Zuckerberg has always said that he wants to keep it independent before it goes to the market for a seemingly realistic IPO.

The problems that both Microsoft and Facebook face in courts worldwide seem to be more of nuisance issues than blocks. Facebook’s problems stem from a 50 state investigation on web sexual predators. Earlier today, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office subpoenaed Facebook and “accused it of not keeping young users safe”. Last week, Microsoft had its share of problems when European Union courts upheld a lower court’s decision on embedding the Windows Media Player with its operating system. These judicial issues validate the actual reach that the social networking site and the software maker have on the U.S. and the world respectively.

Facebook Microsoft Andrew+Cuomo Mark+Zuckerberg billion

By Victor Karamalis

For those of you that have been caught up in the credit crunch crisis with the credit derivatives market of the past week and hurricane woes in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, VMware went IPO on Tuesday. VMware, (NYSE:VMW) is a software company that primarily deals with server virtualization. This squeezes more productivity out of servers by way of networking virtual machines, storage, and CPU utilization.

EMC, the world’s largest maker of data-storage computers and software, bought VMware in 2004 for $635 million. It decided to sell about 10 percent which is presently 33 million shares for an initial $23 to $29 a share. It came out at a whopping $50 a share and finished at just over $61 for the high this week.

VMware is based in Palo Alto and has more than 20,000 organizations as customers. Virtual servers are here to stay because they make business sense not only in terms of productivity, but also in terms of saving money in terms of electrical costs by way of electricity and air-conditioning server rooms, labor costs, and real estate costs that would otherwise be spent on more servers and racks. Even more so, for those of you that need a better understanding of why this is important, Web 2.0 interactions drive up a lot of network usage and you need servers to handle the traffic. In addition, as more people use Web 2.0 applications and online communities, the ability to manage this is being done with server virtualization.

Clearly there are other competitors in this space such as Microsoft and SWSoft but what this IPO really did was put a spotlight on Tech for the rest of the business world. Doing the math, the IPO raised $1.1 billion which is the largest IPO of a technology company since Google’s IPO back in 2004. Considering the amount of trouble that financial institutions such as Bear-Stearns and CountryWide have had in the past few weeks, it shows investors that Technology companies are less volatile and more certain than the instrument leveraged companies mentioned prior. This is a clear indication that technology companies including some startups may be less risky as investments. This IPO also goes to show that technology is also a fundamental pillar in today’s society that should be embraced and vested.
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