Startups

(Reuters) – SunGard Data Systems Inc, the computer software maker that was taken private in 2005 for $11.4 billion, is exploring a sale of its data managing operations that could fetch up to $2 billion, several people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The business for sale, which offers data center space and technology infrastructure to clients looking to safeguard their data, has earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of around $200 million, the people said. SunGard, owned by private equity groups Bain Capital LLC, Blackstone Group LP, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners LP, KKR & Co LP, Providence Equity Partners Inc, Silver Lake and TPG Capital LP, is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc on the possible sale, the people said. The people asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. SunGard officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment while representatives of the private equity owners either declined to comment or were not immediately available to comment. Goldman Sachs declined to comment. The assets for sale are referred to as “managed services” and are within what SunGard calls its “availability services” business, which has helped customers recover data following major disasters such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The exploration of the sale comes amid SunGard’s challenges in competing with rivals such as IBM Corp. Moody Investors Service Inc said in February that SunGard’s availability services business “has not executed effectively in a recovery/business continuity industry that is otherwise showing growth.” Availability services accounted for a third of SunGard’s $4.26 billion revenue and adjusted EBITDA of $1.25 billion in 2012. The company’s other main business, which it calls “financial systems” and which provides software and technology applications to financial services professionals, accounted for 62 percent of the revenue but just 28 percent of the EBITDA. Despite a torrent of private equity-backed initial public offerings that have capitalized on the strong stock market this year, SunGard has held back on seeking a flotation. Moody’s has argued that SunGard will have to show sustained organic revenue growth in its core financial systems business and stabilize the availability services business before it launches an IPO. The seven private equity firms carried out their first dividend recapitalization of the company last year, paying themselves a $720 million dividend by borrowing the money. Nevertheless, the company managed to cut its total debt to $6.7 billion as of the end of 2012, a decline of $1.2 billion from the end of 2011. It is not clear to what extent the buyout firms would use proceeds from the sale of the managed services business to deleverage SunGard versus paying themselves another dividend. At the end of 2006, SunGard had a ratio of total debt to adjusted EBITDA of 5.9 times. At the end of March, this ratio had improved to 4.8 times. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock The post SunGard Explores $2 Billion Data Unit Sale – Sources appeared first on peHUB.

Nok Nok Labs, a security startup focused on making two-factor authentication even stronger, raised a $4 million round of debt financing today from exist investors Onset Ventures and DCM. The company announced a $15 million first round of funding in February, though a spokesperson explained to VentureBeat that this funding actually closed in 2011. Two factor authentication is getting a lot of attention now that big companies such as Apple, Twitter, Evernote, and other are employing it. All of these companies have been the subject of hacking stories in the last year, and hope two-factor will be an extra bit of security for its users. As it stands, two-factor usually involves sending the user a code, which supplements the traditional username and password login combination. The code is sent either through an app, such as Google authenticator; a dongle, such as RSA’s SecureID; or through an SMS message. But even Nok Nok is saying that two-factor in its current state needs to be just the base-level for what this technology could be. “We think the market will come to the realization that much more will have to be done to address current authentication issues,” Nok Nok Labs senior director Jamie Cowper told VentureBeat in an earlier interview. “We expect to see the enthusiasm for SMS two-factor authentication to dim and the adoption of more innovative approaches in the future.” Nok Nok is working on its Unified Authentication Infrastructure product — a form of two factor authentication that companies can build off of. The technology takes advantage of existing features in the devices their employees already have. For example, if an employee is trying to access something on their smartphone, they may have to swipe a finger to prove they are really there. The infrastructure is just that — the scaffolding on which developers can come in and build their own forms of two-factor authentication. The debt funding comes in the form of convertible notes to existing investors. The spokesperson would not otherwise elaborate whether this financing would be put toward product or other areas within the company. Unified Authentication Infrastructure image via Nok Nok Labs Filed under: Deals, Security

By Philippe T. Schenk, Grove Street Advisors I’ve been wondering if the uncertainty around taxes in the United States had an impact on private equity investment decisions and if it led to a misalignment of interests between the taxable GP and the tax-exempt LP. U.S. buyout deals spiked in Q4 2012 to hit the second-highest quarter by number of deals as well as capital invested over the past five years, according to data from PitchBook. This new peak does not appear to have marked the start of improved deal volume as evidenced by the substantial drop in activity in Q1 to levels not seen since the lows of the financial crisis in 2009. The picture is even more pronounced when looking at exits, where the last quarter of 2012 set new five-year records by number of exits as well as capital raised, followed by a 2009-like first quarter. Schenk We will never find out if the 2012 year-end deal frenzy was triggered by the uncertain U.S. fiscal policy, but it is safe to assume that it had a material impact. It is also interesting to note that January saw a much higher volume of deals than February and March. This is presumably due to transactions that weren’t completed before year-end but were not cancelled despite the missed tax benefit. The bigger question, however, is if the taxable GPs in charge of investment decisions prematurely pushed for exits to avoid probable higher taxes, before companies could realize their full potential. This behavior would be in conflict with the profit maximization goals of tax-exempt institutional LPs, who provided the bulk of the financing. According to S&P Capital IQ, the average purchase price multiples (EV/EBITDA) for the first half of 2012 had dropped to 8.1x, compared to 8.8x in 2011 and 8.5x in 2010. During the second half of 2012 the multiple jumped to 9.1x and subsequently dropped to 8.4x in Q1 of this year. The higher multiples could be the result of GPs bringing forward better-quality companies to capture savings on their gains. The spike in prices paid corresponds with the higher deal volume mentioned earlier, hence making deals more attractive to sellers, but it is impossible to say if there was money left on the table. In addition to pricing, leveraged loan volume was up considerably in Q4, but debt-to-equity ratios remained stable, alleviating the concern that more leverage was used to push transactions through before year-end. It is likely that tax uncertainty drove up buyout deal volume in Q4 but price multiples paid for deals temporarily increased, too, and debt to equity ratios remained stable. Overall, LPs did benefit from higher distributions based on higher volume as well as higher prices. Given that the average holding period for companies has increased in general, it is good to get some cash back. Philippe T. Schenk is a principal with Grove Street Advisors LLC. He focuses on fund investment activities across sectors, including fund due diligence and evaluation, as well as monitoring existing investments. Prior to joining Grove Street in 2010, Schenk worked at Credit Suisse in New York, where he most recently was responsible for global business development within the alternative capital division. Photo courtesy of ShutterStock The post Did Tax Uncertainty Drive Bad Investment Decisions? appeared first on peHUB.

July 9-10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Tickets On Sale Now Facebook announced today that the company now has one million active advertisers — companies or organizations that have advertised on the social network at least once in the last 28 days. The company attributed that feat to small businesses, saying that this milestone is due in large part “to the small businesses growing their businesses online and in their local communities via Facebook.” Apparently, small business does get social. Facebook’s director of small business, Dan Levy, thanked those businesses: I know business owners like these invest their hard earned money and time into running their companies. So today, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I want to say thank you to them and to the over one million businesses like them who are active advertisers. You have chosen Facebook as a partner to grow your business. We appreciate the chance to work with you, and we celebrate your success. Two months ago Facebook announced that there were two billion connections between local businesses and people in the site’s social graph, and in an average week local business pages get more than 645 million views and 13 million comments. The company did not release new data on those points, but the up-to-date numbers are doubtless higher today. With Facebook building ever-stronger connections between local businesses and their customers online — and an ever-growing wallet share of local advertising budgets — local search and recommendation engines such as Yelp and OpenTable and the tradition iYPs are potentially getting cut out of their traditional stomping grounds. Facebook’s local ambitions are also challenging Google Local and Google Places, both of which collect data on local businesses and drive local advertising on Google, Google, Maps, and more for the search and advertising giant. photo credit: Andrea Costa Creative via photopin cc Filed under: Business, Entrepreneur, Media, Social .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat { width:278px; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; padding:10px; float:right; border:1px solid #e4e4e4; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; color:#000; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat .logo-date-wrap { width:100%; display:block; float:left; margin-bottom:8px; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat img { float:left; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat .date-location { float:right; font-size:12px; line-height:14px; text-align:center; padding-left:7px; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:3px; border-left:1px solid #e6e6e6; color:#585a5b; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat .cta { display:block; clear:both; width:100%; border-radius:5px; border:1px solid #1864b1; color:#fff; text-shadow: 0px -1px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); text-align:center; text-decoration:none; font-weight:600; font-size:18px; line-height:17px; padding:4px 0px 6px 0px; background: #1f80e4; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%, #1862ae 100%); background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#1f80e4), color-stop(100%,#1862ae)); background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#1f80e4', endColorstr='#1862ae',GradientType=0 ); }

July 9-10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Tickets On Sale Now Adobe released its earnings today, to a positive reception from investors. After bringing in $1.01 billion in revenue, the company’s stock is up a little over four percent in after-hours trading. Revenue met analysts’ expectations. Operating income came in at $111.3 million, net income settled at $76.5 million. The company’s stayed otherwise relatively steady today, closing at $43.36 a share. In May, Adobe announced that it is getting rid of its Creative Suite software, a package of programs that focused on design and editing capabilities. Creative Suite, which traditionally appeared as a box that you could buy in the store and subsequently own, is instead giving way to Creative Cloud. This is a subscription-based software as a service product that will deliver a lot of the same functionality, just through the Internet. Adobe’s director of product marketing explained that the Creative Suite 6 will be the last available, and that the company will not continue to develop for it. Adobe says its subscriptions for Creative Cloud have increased to 700,000 subscriptions from the end of the first quarter 2013, when the company only had 221,000. Adobe image via midiman/Flickr Filed under: Business .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat { width:278px; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; padding:10px; float:right; border:1px solid #e4e4e4; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; color:#000; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat .logo-date-wrap { width:100%; display:block; float:left; margin-bottom:8px; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat img { float:left; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat .date-location { float:right; font-size:12px; line-height:14px; text-align:center; padding-left:7px; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:3px; border-left:1px solid #e6e6e6; color:#585a5b; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat .cta { display:block; clear:both; width:100%; border-radius:5px; border:1px solid #1864b1; color:#fff; text-shadow: 0px -1px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); text-align:center; text-decoration:none; font-weight:600; font-size:18px; line-height:17px; padding:4px 0px 6px 0px; background: #1f80e4; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%, #1862ae 100%); background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#1f80e4), color-stop(100%,#1862ae)); background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#1f80e4', endColorstr='#1862ae',GradientType=0 ); }

More and more jobs deal in the virtual realm, and are done by people sitting down at desks at computers. Desk work can be made interesting in its own ways, but it’s always fun to visit a company that’s actually making physical stuff. So for this episode of TechCrunch Cribs, we jetted over to New York City to check out the headquarters of Quirky, a startup founded back in 2009 with the aim of “making invention accessible.” Quirky is a company that crowdsources ideas for unique physical products — gadgets, kitchenware, furniture, and the like — and manufactures them at large-scale production so that they can be actually sold in stores. This process entails lots of prototyping, so Quirky’s downtown Manhattan office is full of fun stuff like 3D printers that help them bring invention ideas to life. It all made for a really fun tour, led by Quirky’s co-founder and head of people and culture Nikki Kaufman, and you can see it all in the video embedded above.

July 9-10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Tickets On Sale Now Recently soft-launched Foundersuite offers entrepreneurs a set of tools and templates to lessen the burden of starting a company. The site is debuting with four modules and four template bundles. “It’s designed to help founders know what to do next, providing guidelines and structure to the messy job of starting a project,” CEO Nathan Beckord told Venture Beat in an exclusive interview. “We’re aiming at people who want to build high gross, scalable businesses,” Beckord said. Competing services already exist for each of the modules, such as Survey Monkey or even Excel spreadsheets, but Beckord said there’s value in having the tools all in one place. “There are alternatives, and ways of cobbling together existing tools to achieve similar effects, but I don’t think there’s anyone else who’s taken the approach to put together a suite of tools,” Beckord said. Presently the four modules include Idea Valuation, Corporate Docs, Investor CRM, and Progress Tracker. Idea Valuation lets entrepreneurs evaluate business ideas. The idea summary tool – a short form of a business plan – helps founders articulate their business ideas clearly and concisely. The app’s social survey tool taps existing social networks such as LinkedIn to get feedback on an idea. Corporate Docs provides a range of documents from incorporation documents to burn-rate spreadsheets. Investor CRM is a customer relationship management tool specifically designed for entrepreneurs attempting to raise startup cash, Beckord said. The dashboard, below, lets owners quickly understand where they stand with fundraising campaigns and helps them plan next moves. The dashboard also includes alerts for upcoming fundraising activities. Source: FoundersuiteFoundersuite/courtesy image The last module, Progress Tracker, helps founders produce visualizations for investors and other stakeholders that include production, team building, funding, press, traction– just about anything an entrepreneur wants to visualize, Beckord said. Charts and graphs can be emailed from within the app. The bundles consist of dozens of documents ranging from pitch decks to recruiting templates. The four modules and bundles are just the beginning for Beckford and his team. For example, one feature the company plans to roll out is a key metrics table for the Progress Tracker module. With it, founders are able to share actual financials with investors, Beckord said. In addition, there are three new modules and several new feature enhancements in the works using the company’s agile development system, Beckord said. He showed me several wireframes of soon-to-be implemented features. But, he said that while the team wants to build out new features, they’re careful to keep the tools simple and focused. “I don’t want to let it sprawl,” he said. With hundreds of startups currently using the system, and potentially thousands more to come, one obvious concern was privacy. “We’re very strict on privacy,” Beckord said, “We don’t share anything.” The company plans to add 32-bit SSL encryption for an added layer of security soon. The San Francisco based company is self-funded and currently has about 700 startups using the app, Beckord said. The app has a seven day free trial for all modules. After seven days, each module is available for a monthly subscription rate: Idea Valuation is $7, Investor CRM is $15, and Progress Tracker is $7. Template bundles are available for $11 each. “We’re viewing this as an idea lab,” Beckord said, “We just sit around thinking up new tools for founders.” Top image credit: Peshkova/Shutterstock Filed under: Business, Entrepreneur, Gadgets, Small Biz .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat { width:278px; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; padding:10px; float:right; border:1px solid #e4e4e4; font-fami

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Early Bird Tickets on Sale Big data startup Cloudera has announced a shakeup of its executive team, with cofounder Mike Olson stepping down as CEO and former ArcSight CEO Tom Reilly stepping in to take his place. Olson will stay on as chairman and chief strategy officer. Olson welcomed Reilly into his old job with this canned statement: With over 30 years of enterprise software experience, I am pleased to welcome Tom to the Cloudera family. We have long set the pace for the commercial adoption of Hadoop and with Tom’s leadership and focus Cloudera will accelerate the pace of innovation, continue to deliver growth and extend our market leadership. Today’s announcement reinforces Cloudera’s commitment and investment in the Hadoop open source community and the continued success of open source initiatives. Cloudera is a well-known player in the big data space, and it has raised a staggering $140 million in venture capital to date. It is best known for selling a version of Apache Hadoop that is packed with more features and support. Now the company’s fate will line up with Reilly, who has a lot experience but a lot of work ahead of him. Cloudera’s announcement hints that Reilly will help position the company for its next steps, whether that be an IPO or an acquisition. Cloudera writes (emphasis ours): Reilly joins Cloudera from HP, the world’s largest technology company, where he served as the vice president and general manager of enterprise security. Prior to HP, Reilly served as CEO of enterprise security company ArcSight, an early innovator in SIEM technology. Under Reilly’s leadership ArcSight became the market-leading platform for enterprise security intelligence adopted by the largest public and private organizations globally. He led ArcSight through a successful initial public offering and subsequent sale to HP in 2010. Filed under: Cloud .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate { width:278px; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; padding:10px; float:right; border:1px solid #e4e4e4; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; color:#000; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate .logo-date-wrap { width:100%; display:block; float:left; margin-bottom:8px; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate img { float:left; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate .date-location { float:right; font-size:12px; line-height:14px; text-align:center; padding-left:7px; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:3px; border-left:1px solid #e6e6e6; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate .cta { display:block; clear:both; width:100%; border-radius:5px; border:1px solid #1864b1; color:#fff; text-shadow: 0px -1px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); text-align:center; text-decoration:none; font-weight:600; font-size:18px; line-height:17px; padding:4px 0px 6px 0px; background: #1f80e4; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%, #1862ae 100%); background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#1f80e4), color-stop(100%,#1862ae)); background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#1f80e4', endColorstr='#1862ae',GradientType=0 ); }

As it promised it would, Google is fighting the government’s gag order on releasing how many users are monitored by the National Security Agency. Unlike Facebook and Microsoft, Google and Twitter publicly rejected a government deal to disclose the total number of spying warrants for user data, which would include (but not detail) the number of requests coming from the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). “Lumping national security requests together with criminal requests—as some companies have been permitted to do—would be a backward step for our users,” explained a public statement following the petition. Unfortunately, as both I and the Washington Post have suggested, even if Google is successful, the most pressing concerns would remain a mystery. Google’s transparency report discloses the number of court orders and users affected, but not what data was given up. Can the government read emails, monitor Gchats and Google Voice phone calls, as leaker Edward Snowden has claimed? Additionally, if it’s true that the government can demand broad swaths of data, like search logs, the number of affected users could number in the millions. Releasing the total number of users affected would be tantamount to revealing vital sources and methods of surveillance. Citing their 1st Amendment rights, the petition notes that “Google’s reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in the media…Google must respond to such claims with more than generalities.” There is reason to be optimistic that allowing Google to detail the FISA requests would help repair its reputation. Facebook reported that between the 9,000-10,000 government requests, only 18,000-19,000 users have been affected. This seems to cast doubt that a single government request permits wholesale monitoring of an entire population’s activity. So, while we wouldn’t know what was being given away, most users could breathe easy that they aren’t a target. I’m sympathetic to Google’s position; certainly they probably want to disclose everything, or just stop the snooping altogether. But, even under the best case scenario, the public is still in the dark. Read Google’s full petition below. View this document on Scribd

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