The Atlanta Business Chronicle is reporting that Noro Moseley Partners has raised $107 million for NMP VI. They intend to get the total to $200 million before closing out the fund.
This news means that Noro will be getting more active and that is good news for technology startups in the Southeast.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting (paywall) that business.com is going to be auctioned off. Credit Suisse is running the auction.
Business.com is generating EBITDA in the $15 range and the site’s traffic is rapidly growing. The company is expected to be sold for between $300 to $400 million. Sky Dayton and Jake Weinbaum at ecompanies took quite a bit of grief when they purchased the domain for $7.5 million in 1999. Looks like they are going to get a nice pay day.
If EarthLink does not approve additional funding for Helio it will be interesting to see if Sky uses some of his proceeds to step up to the plate.
You can call the Clintons I lot of things. Stupid is not one of them. This is brilliant and it’s going to go viral in a big way.
With that said, I can not believe that voters chose Celine Dion’s “You and I”. Bill’s call of Smashmouth’s “I’m a Believer” would have been so much better. If Hillary gets elected (which I can’t see coming to pass) I can think of a certain Elton John song that would be most fitting.
For the record, I loved the final episode of the Soprano’s, thought the choice of “Don’t Stop Believin” as the final song was most excellent, and would never, ever under any circumstances vote for Hillary Clinton.
Tip from a vc.
On Monday night 10 of my old partners in crime from MindSpring and EarthLink went out to the Ted to watch the Braves take on the Red Sox. The place was electric. Schilling was on the mound for Boston. He got shelled. Pulled after 82 pitches, which was about the speed of his fastball. My buddies and I never left the Chop House. As the elder statesman of the group I ended up covering the victory celebration at The Dark Horse.
On Tuesday morning my associate Ben Hill of VentureLab sent me a link to an Shilling/startup analogy on Seth Goldstein’s blog. As a guy that worked for the largest company in the world that just happens to base part of employee reviews on one’s ability to use analogies I have to appreciate Seth’s work.
As a baseball fan I have to appreciate that Curt Shilling has a blog. And not only that he has an online gaming company.
Today the ATDC is officially launching its blog, PeachSeedz.
Like the ATDC itself, PeachSeedz is dedicated to helping Georgia technology entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. If we do it right, and we intend to, PeachSeedz will allow ATDC to serve more entrepreneurs by sharing experiences and insights beyond the physical walls of our incubators.
You can expect one of two posts per week on PeachSeedz written by the various members of ATDC staff in their areas of expertise. I anticipate having healthy participation by ATDC member company leaders and employees and invite you to join in these conversations.
Allen Graber is the ATDC’s newest Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR).
This begs the question what exactly is an EIR? It means different things at different places but at ATDC we bring on EIRs to strengthen the ATDC community by adding experienced, successful, former executives of technology start-up companies to the team on a short-term basis. These are usually folks that are looking for their next opportunity and are the types of people that can run early stage ATDC companies (three of the last four are doing just that). The EIR makes a commitment to work at least a day a week with ATDC companies. They essentially serve as a free consultants for companies that can benefit from their experience.
It also begs the question on how Allen fits into this mold? I have known Allen for many years. Way back in the day we interviewed him to become a Territory Manager at MindSpring. We wanted to hire him. He wanted lots of money. We did not have it. He went and started HyperMart instead. Sold it to Go2Net. Go2Net goes public, gets bought by InfoSpace. Allen makes a lot of money.
After all that Allen became a founding member of the Atlanta Technology Angels, played CEO of SPI Dynamics, and was an SVP at SearchIgnite. In a nutshell he has a wealth of entreprenurial and Internet business experience that can benefit ATDC companies (for that matter non-ATDC companies).
We are pleased to have him as part of the team.
Evoca, a member of ATDC Savannah, just added the ability to record Skype calls into its audio recording platform. While there are some other companies out there that have the same functionality, Evoca is the only company to completely integrate a solution within the Skype client.
To get started signup for an Evoca account if you do not already have one. Then add your Skype username to your Evoca account simple instructions to record a call. Once you do that the application sends you an instant message with details on the location of the recording and how to get a transcript of the call. It is also quite easy to locate and edit the details of the recording within the Evoca web app.
My testing went off without a hitch. I did find that things worked a bit smoother if you connected to the Evoca Call Recorder contact before completing the call. If you have the need to record your Skype calls I don’t know of an easier way to do so.
The Atlanta CEO Council has just announced a call for companies to present at the ION Venture Forum to be held September 25-26 at the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta.
This is a major investor showcase for emerging technology companies. They are expecting 120 – 150 venture capitalists at the event. I had the opportunity to do a submission for CipherTrust that was accepted and give the company’s investor presentation at the event in 2003. It was well worth the time.
If you are looking to raise venture capital in the near future you can apply here. Applications close August 17.
Chris Chandler of Yahoo Mobile Singapore recently asked me to endorse some work that he did back in the day at MindSpring. I said sure. Which got me playing around on LinkedIn. If you go there and type “Chris Chandler MindSpring” in a search you will be taken to this page. It is very interesting to note that if you are not connected to Chirs this profile does not contain his full profile and delivers the following pitch:
But the link to get to his full profile is just a bit higher in the page.
LinkedIn seems to be delivering different profile information and this upsell based on current relationship status. Nothing wrong with that I suppose but it used to up to the user to make this decision.
I do know that there is no way I would ever, ever pay $240 a year to use LinkedIn. Would you?
With earnings season well past us I am long overdue with my update on stocks that I control. As I said beore, for the most part I
leave the handling of my stock portfolio to professionals. But I like
to keep a little chunk in play money so that I can invest as I see fit.
The number of stocks in the mix has increased from four to six. Here is the run down.
AAPL. Sold a bit of my Knology holdings at the end of April and bought Apple at $100. Basic reason for doing so is that I like their CPU traction. Beyond the numbers I hear folks in enterprises switching to Macs and neighbors asking me what I think of mine because they like the TV ad. The stock is up 22% in 60 days.
ELNK. I own
a little less EarthLink stock these days. I sold some to buy Netflix. EarthLink reported a loss of $.24 while analysts were expecting a loss of
$.30 and got a nice little pop. I have to keep it real and say I don’t see a business in consumer muni Wi-Fi.
JOE. Joe is a good name for a dog and that is what I call Florida’s largest real estate development company. Stock is down $10 (16%) since February. Holding until I figure out something better to do with the money.
KNOL. Knology is a cable overbuilder offering triple play services. Rodger Johnson has this one firing on all cylinders. And the stock is delivering as well. Up to the $19 range from $13 in February. I locked in some gains and purchased Apple with the proceeds.
NFLX. Recently purchased the stock for two reasons. They are well connected and I think someone is going to take them out. End of story. For now.
SCUR. Came into
this via my time at CipherTrust. Missed out on the big sell off when restrictions were lifted. Would like to see a little recovery before starting a measured unwind with most of the results going to the money professionals. The $15 I predicted in February seems far, far away.
Overall my 12 month return is 37%. I’ll take that.