Commonwealth Capital Ventures News Feed

Morningstar, Inc. Acquires ByAllAccounts, Inc., Provider of Innovative Data Aggregation Technology for Financial Applications

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:00:00 EST

CHICAGO, April 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today acquired ByAllAccounts, Inc., a provider of innovative data aggregation technology for financial applications.

ByAllAccounts uses a knowledge-based process, including patented artificial intelligence technology, to collect, consolidate, and enrich financial account data and deliver it to virtually any platform. The company has built a network of more than 2,100 clients, 4,300 custodians, and 40 platform and service providers. Clients include independent financial advisors, asset managers, wealth managers/family offices, trust companies, and broker-dealers. Currently, more than $730 billion in assets move daily through the ByAllAccounts aggregation engine.

Joe Mansueto, chairman and chief executive officer of Morningstar, said, "The ability to efficiently provide a holistic view of an investor's total financial portfolio is now a requirement for wealth managers—not a 'nice to have' capability. ByAllAccounts is a trusted name with a reputation for high-quality and sophisticated aggregation technology that eliminates manual data entry and mitigates human error. We expect this acquisition to enhance many of Morningstar's key solutions across our core customer groups, particularly bolstering our offerings that support an advisor's workflow. We plan to integrate the service into our offerings as well as expand and develop ByAllAccounts' third-party distribution relationships."

ByAllAccounts has about 60 employees based primarily in Massachusetts. James Carney, president and CEO, will continue to lead the business.

"Morningstar has extensive reach within the wealth management community," Carney said. "Becoming part of Morningstar will broaden our distribution and give us access to its breadth of capabilities, including its vast investment data expertise. As investment vehicles become increasingly global in nature, Morningstar's international operations will also allow us to respond to the growing need for data aggregation outside the United States."

Morningstar acquired ByAllAccounts for $28 million, subject to working capital adjustments.

Spotify Acquires The Echo Nest

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00:00 EST

SOMERVILLE, MA — March 6 – Spotify today announced that it will acquire the industry’s leading music intelligence company, The Echo Nest. The acquisition supports Spotify’s strategy to grow global music consumption and overall revenue back to the music industry by building the best user experience and music discovery engine for millions of global fans.

This deal will allow Spotify to leverage The Echo Nest’s in depth musical understanding and tools for curation to drive music discovery for millions of users around the globe. The addition of The Echo Nest to Spotify will also strengthen Spotify’s ability to help brands and partners build amazing music experiences for their audiences.

“We've been fans of The Echo Nest for a really long time and honoured to have their talented team join Spotify,” said Daniel Ek, Founder and CEO, Spotify. “At Spotify, we want to get people to listen to more music. We are hyper focused on creating the best user experience and it starts with building the best music intelligence platform on the planet. With The Echo Nest joining Spotify, we will make a big leap forward in our quest to play you the best music possible.”

“Since founding The Echo Nest, Brian Whitman and Tristan Jehan have created a company completely and beautifully obsessed with understanding the world of music to help fans discover more music,” said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. “Joining forces with Spotify gives us the opportunity to continue doing so as part of the fastest-growing service in the world; we're thrilled to be part of a team equally as passionate about connecting more people with more music."

The Echo Nest will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Somerville, MA where it has been a key component of the growing Boston-area tech scene. The Echo Nest will also continue to operate in San Francisco. The Echo Nest API will remain free and open to support its robust developer ecosystem. The developer community is crucial to the success of both Spotify and The Echo Nest and will remain a priority for the combined companies.

About Spotify Spotify is an award-winning digital music service that gives you on-demand access to over 20 million tracks. Our dream is to make all the world’s music available instantly to everyone, wherever and whenever they want it. Spotify makes it easier than ever to discover, manage and share music with your friends, while making sure that artists get a fair deal.

Spotify is now available in 55 markets across the world, with more than 24 million active users and over 6 million paying subscribers: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.

Since its launch in Sweden in 2008, Spotify has driven more than a billion US dollars to rights holders. Spotify is already the second biggest source of digital music revenue for labels in Europe (IFPI, 2011) and the biggest and most successful music streaming service of its kind globally.

The Echo Nest Joins Spotify!

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00:00 EST

We’re very excited to announce that The Echo Nest is joining Spotify, starting today! We can’t imagine a better partner for our next chapter. Spotify shares the intense care for the music experience that was the founding principle of our company, and it’s clearly winning the hearts and minds of music fans around the globe. Our dedicated team of engineers, scientists, music curators, business, and product people are utterly electrified with the potential of bringing our world-leading music data, discovery, and audience understanding technology directly to the biggest music streaming audience out there.

Together, we’re going to change how the world listens.

We started this company nine years ago in a kitchen at the MIT Media Lab, our dissertation defenses looming. We never wanted to do anything but fix how people were discovering music. None of the technologies in those days were capable of understanding music at scale. We both were working on our separate approaches, that, when combined, could really do that. All the while, we were watching the world of music change around us. We knew some version of Spotify was to come, and that the real power was in that beautiful moment when you found a new band or song to love. Every decision we’ve made since then, including today’s announcement, was made from that vantage point of care and often insane passion.

Starting a company is a bit crazy. You get the idea you can build a family from scratch and let them loose on the problem that drives you. We moved into an empty room in Somerville, MA in 2005, were soon joined by our CEO Jim Lucchese, and then grew a team of around 70 people, all through the power of communicating our one big idea. It’s hard to overstate how special this place is. With the team we have, we always have every expectation we can do whatever it takes in the service of music. We’ve written a lot of code, we’ve invented technology that will power the future of music for decades to come, we manage reams of data, and we work with everyone in the business. But the true power of this place stems from the people: an amazing family, fully dedicated to building the future of music.

We had such great help on the way. Tristan & Brian’s advisor at MIT and one of the fathers of computer music, Barry Vercoe, supported us through seed investment when we graduated, and when Jim joined, we brought on our dear friends Andre and Dorsey Gardner at Fringe Partners. As we grew, we tapped the great support of Elliot at Commonwealth, Antonio at Matrix and then Jeff at Norwest. And in between was the help and support from dozens of family and friends. We couldn’t have done it without them.

Obviously, moving from behind the curtain to the front stage comes with its own share of questions and challenges. We’ve been lucky enough to work with a wide range of creative companies and independent developers who showed the world what could be done with our technology. They helped us craft and refine our product to where it is today. We look forward to working with partners to embrace the new opportunity to build apps and services using The Echo Nest and Spotify. As we explore this new direction, we’ll help each other move forward.

When we began talking with our longtime friends at Spotify about working together, it became clear how much they share our vision: care for the cause of music at scale. We spent our first weeks together just giddy at the potential of all that special Echo Nest magic working directly with the world’s best place for music. You’re about to see some great stuff from the new Echo Nest-enabled Spotify, and we’re excited to hear what you think. We’re all staying in town, our API stays up, and every single person at our company will continue to focus on building the future of music. Talk to you soon; we’ve got some work to do.

Acacia Communications Announces the Industry’s First Coherent 100G CFP Module Designed for Metro Networks

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:00:00 EST

London, September 23, 2013: Acacia Communications, the leader in delivering intelligent transceivers for ultra-high speed fiber optic transmission to the telecommunications infrastructure industry, today at ECOC 2013 announced the industry’s first coherent 100G CFP module. Acacia’s newest product is designed specifically for metro networks and reduces the size, power consumption and cost and for the first time provides carriers and content providers a 100G metro solution that is more cost effective than 10G.

“Our new solution enables cost-sensitive metro network operators to move to 100G and achieve significant performance and capacity benefits,” said Acacia Communications President and CEO Raj Shanmugaraj. “Cost, power and size are critical and to date the service providers have been forced to stay with 10G or 40G levels of performance. Our new 100G coherent CFP module leverages our co-development of ASIC and module hardware/software and coupled with efficient photonic integration offers carriers optimal flexibility. Coherent CFP is a technology game changer and our AC-100 CFP is the first to market.”

“CFP is a standardized common interface in transport, packet optical and router equipment. Enabling single wavelength coherent 100G PM-QPSK in a CFP form factor provides a compelling metro network solution. Moving from 10G to 100G requires a module that can achieve multi-vendor interoperability across gear like routers, switches, and transmission equipment, and also be flexible to support driving down the costs and power demands,” said Daryl Inniss, VP and Practice Leader of Components at Ovum.”

Acacia’s innovative new coherent AC-100 CFP transceiver takes full advantage of the two major tectonic technology shifts underway in high speed optical communications, namely powerful digital signal processing implemented in small geometry CMOS and extensive photonic integration. “By leveraging these two disruptive technologies in our 100G coherent CFP, we have been able to maintain all the performance advantages of our coherent long-haul module while reducing cost, size and power consumption dramatically. These capabilities provide carriers and content providers with a compelling 100G solution to address capacity needs in their metro networks,” said Acacia’s Co-founder and Director of HW/SW, Mehrdad Givehchi.

Key features of the new pluggable AC-100 CFP include:

· Framing and OTN functionality, making it possible to turn client CFP slots into LH interfaces

· A single common pluggable interface that can be used across different service platforms, providing optimal flexibility from a planning and sparring perspective – very similar to the XFP at 10G;

· Support for the important ZR application (80km unamplified links) that is not supported today by any commercial 100G transceiver;

· Superior tolerance to fiber impairments and ROADM filtering;
Acacia’s coherent 100G CFP modules will be sampling the end of 2013. The company recently announced a $20 million expansion round of funding and that it had significantly expanded its worldwide headquarters in Maynard, MA and facilities in Hazlet, NJ.

BitSight Technologies Launches Industry's First Information Security Risk Rating Service

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 00:00:00 EST

BitSight Technologies, a startup that recently secured a $24M Series A funding round, today launched the first in a series of new cybersecurity offerings that deliver accurate and timely ratings on the information security effectiveness of organizations around the world. The ratings, which are based on externally visible network behavior, are generated daily to keep track of the continuously shifting nature of an organization’s security state.

BitSight’s new service offering – the BitSight Partner SecurityRating – provides objective and up-to-date ratings on the information security health of a company’s partner ecosystem so it can better protect sensitive business and customer data shared with third-party vendors. The information security ratings, which range from 250 to 900, are similar to consumer credit scores, with higher ratings indicating better security postures.

According to a February 2013 Ponemon Institute survey, 65 percent of organizations transferring consumer data to third-party vendors reported a breach involving the loss or theft of their information. In addition, nearly half of organizations surveyed did not evaluate their partners before sharing sensitive data.

“Traditional approaches to measuring and mitigating partner security risk, including network security audits and assessments, have fallen short,” said Stephen Boyer, co-founder and CTO of BitSight. “These methods fail to deliver an objective and simple way to understand the effectiveness of an organization’s network security practices. BitSight Partner SecurityRating delivers a single, daily rating that encapsulates the information security integrity of any third-party network, allowing customers to make data-driven, risk-based decisions.”

How the BitSight Platform Works
Using online sensors placed at strategic points around the Internet, the BitSight platform collects and analyzes publicly available Internet traffic flowing to and from an organization. Suspicious behaviors, such as participation in a DDoS attempt or communication with a known botnet, are analyzed for severity, frequency, duration and confidence to create an overall rating of the organization’s current security health. Ratings are derived entirely from the outside; no special disclosures are required and no intrusive testing is conducted on the rated company.

“BitSight’s unique, data-driven approach to information security rating provides organizations with valuable insight to more confidently mitigate risk,” said Charles J. Kolodgy, Research Vice President of Security Products for IDC. “On a broader scale, it should also help the industry reduce the overall number of third-party data breaches.”

“Throughout my career, organizations have always wanted a better way to protect themselves against
the weak links in computer networks that are not their own,” said Shaun McConnon, CEO of BitSight.

“BitSight tackles that problem in a unique and more effective way, ensuring that information sharing
between partners is protected, yet remains open.”

Currently, Fortune 1000 companies in the healthcare, financial services and retail industries use BitSight Partner SecurityRating to protect the sensitive data they share. Delivered as a SaaS offering, key features of the service include:

Up-to-Date Partner Ratings – BitSight processes and analyzes terabytes of data daily to rate thousands of organizations, including the world’s most popular data and outsourced service providers in the hosting, storage, manufacturing, advertising, HR and legal sectors. New ratings are presented daily via the Customer Portal.
Timely Alerts – BitSight customers are alerted of significant changes to their partner ratings so they can quickly and proactively take steps to mitigate and prevent possible data breaches. In addition, BitSight delivers detailed information on individual risk vectors so that the sources of risk can be identified and shared with partners.
In-depth Analytics – BitSight provides customers with analytical tools that assess trends, compare individual ratings against industry benchmarks, and rank ratings within their portfolio. Partner groups can be created based on size, industry, type of data being shared, or business objective in order to help organizations better manage partner risk.

For more information on the BitSight Partner SecurityRating service, visit www.bitsighttech.com.

About BitSight Technologies
BitSight Technologies is transforming how companies manage information security risk with objective, evidence-based security ratings. The company’s SecurityRating Platform continuously analyzes vast amounts of external data on security behaviors in order to help organizations make timely risk management decisions. Based in Cambridge, MA, BitSight is backed by Globespan Capital Partners, Menlo Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Commonwealth Capital Ventures. For more information, please visit www.bitsighttech.com or follow @BitSight on Twitter.

Verivo Introduces Enterprise Mobile App Development Platform Posted by Rubeena Hasan on the Mobdevapp website/blog

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 00:00:00 EST

Verivo, a popular enterprise mobility establishment, has recently made waves with the launch of their unique mobile app development platform called Akula. Built with the help of rigorously collected feedback from users and clients and a prolonged and careful study of the enterprise mobile app market, Akula promises to bring together cutting-edge functionality to airtight security in the field of enterprise mobile app development.

Mobile apps often have one significant negative. Either they provide a rich, memorable usage experience, or they provide tight, efficient scalability and security. In most cases, these two aspects of app development remain mutually exclusive, and so far all efforts to marry the two have been somewhat disappointing. Verivo's Akula promises to bring about the union providing a framework which allows for rigorously implemented security, extensive multi-platform capabilities, support for multiple back-ends and the ability to still develop apps which provide great usage experience. With a lot going for its favor, the Akula platform may be the next step in the advancement in the world of mobile app development.

Akula is essentially an enterprise-grade mobile app development platform, sporting an open design and back-end independent. It is a comprehensive toolbox for mobile app development, with dedicated tools for front-end design, back-end deployment, testing and troubleshooting and other proprietary tools. The USP of Akula is that it offers the declaration of strict security norms and policies which makes it possible to centrally control and monitor all app activities and safeguard sensitive corporate data. Lastly, Akula also allows universal operability, which means developers can use to make apps which are compatible with most devices and mobile OS platforms.

The key to Akula's apparent success lies in the fact that they have separated the front-end and the back-end of mobile apps into to mutually exclusive distinct territories. This makes for intuitive work, because there need not be any compromise in the app use experience due to increased priority of security. This also makes for a significant decrease in downtime, at the same time bringing down development costs by a sizeable percentage.

Akula was planned and developed after a lot of research into customers? preferences and trends. Verivo made the platform available for trial, where the response was favorable. It became generally available on June 28th. Deployment is said to cost $15000 approximately. Users can also download a free copy of the framework and use it without restriction for a time period of one month. Its architecture supports the use of a delocalized, JAVA based server to handle the back-end, thereby making it a lot easier to understand but also incredibly effective.

Akula has answered a lot of prayers as far as enterprise level mobile app development is concerned. The segmented approach to development helps eliminate a lot of unnecessary overlap, and is a conducive environment for developing meaningful and highly functional apps. What remains to be seen is how they keep updating and adapting the framework to be even more versatile and efficient.

BitSight Technologies Secures $24 Million Series A Financing to Help Companies Assess and Manage Technology Risk

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EST

CAMBRIDGE, MA June 5, 2013 BitSight Technologies, a provider of innovative big data analytics for risk management, today announced it has closed a $24 million Series A round of financing from Globespan Capital Partners, Menlo Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Commonwealth Capital Ventures. The new funds will be used to expand product development efforts, hire sales and marketing personnel, and launch the Company's first product. As part of the financing, Globespan Capital Partners, Dave Fachetti and Menlo Ventures, Venky Ganesan will join Flybridge Capital Partners David Aronoff, BitSight's CEO Shaun McConnon and co-founders Stephen Boyer and Nagarjuna Venna on the Company's Board of Directors. BitSight received seed funding from the National Science Foundation, Flybridge Capital Partners and Commonwealth Capital Ventures.

We are excited to bring a new evidence based approach to quantifying security risks while providing our customers with actionable insight to quickly respond to emerging data security threats, said Shaun McConnon, CEO, BitSight Technologies. With this financing, BitSight is well positioned to drive innovation in the security risk management market. We are continuing to hire the best people in their fields of expertise to enhance BitSight?s innovative platform.

BitSight's mission is to bring empirical, evidence based, data-driven decision making to organizations for quantifying and managing risk. BitSight's global platform collects and analyzes vast amounts of data on security behaviors, processes and technology to identify and quantify security risk, providing organizations with the insight needed to proactively and efficiently address security concerns.

We've been very impressed with how much BitSight has achieved on the seed investment, said David Aronoff, General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners. From building out the product, to rapidly getting customer validation and hiring a world-class team, they have done a fantastic job at growing the Company. They are building a company that will re-define how companies assess security risk.

BitSight is approaching the problem of managing information security risk with a unique lens, said Venky Ganesan, Managing Director, Menlo Ventures. By combining big data analytics with evidence of outcomes, BitSight is fundamentally changing how companies are talking about information security risk.

We were impressed by the quality of customers using BitSight's solution in financial services, healthcare and retail, said Dave Fachetti, Managing Director, Globespan Capital Partners. The big data revolution is here and BitSight is at the forefront of bringing this transformation to information security.

Networking tech firm Acacia raises $20M, eyes IPO

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 EST

Maynard-based Acacia Communications, which offers networking technology for increasing computing bandwidth, said Wednesday it has raised $20 million in funding led by Boston-based Summit Partners.

Acacia saw more than $30 million in revenue in 2012, and expects to double that amount this year, CEO Raj Shanmugaraj said in an interview. The company will likely make a decision about whether to pursue an IPO in several quarters from now, he said.

"I think we've got all the ingredients to have a successful outcome there," Shanmugaraj said.

Acacia, which specializes in offering 100-gigabit networking technology, said the new funding will be used to launch new products and expand its market presence.

Summit Partners managing director Peter Chung will join Acacia?s board of directors in connection with the funding. The investment is the first by Summit Partners into networking technology in a number of years, Shanmugaraj said; Summit had previously invested in firms including E-TEK Dynamics, Finisar and M/A COM Technology Solutions.

Also taking part in the new round for Acacia were existing investors Matrix Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Egan-Managed Capital. Acacia isn't disclosing how much funding it had raised previously, but this new round is the firm's largest yet, Shanmugaraj said.

Acacia's product combines optical technology, high-speed hardware, novel chip design and other technologies; the product aims to replace the currently dominant 10-gigabit technology.

The company has been commercially shipping its components since the fourth quarter of 2011. Acacia supplies equipment makers, which in turn supply Internet service providers such as Comcast and Verizon.

The increased use of video, mobile devices and LTE is "depleting their bandwidth capacity, and they need to add more," Shanmugaraj said previously.

Acacia was founded in 2009 by CTO Benny Mikkelsen, formerly the founder of Acton optical technology firm Mintera (acquired by Oclaro); Mehrdad Givehchi, director of hardware and software, previously a developer at Mintera; and Christian Rasmussen, director of DSP and optics, who was also a technologist at Mintera.

Shanmugaraj, meanwhile, came to the company after nine years running business development at Alcatel-Lucent.

I previously featured Acacia in 13 hot Boston tech firms I'm watching in 2013 and Who will succeed Acme Packet as Boston's next great networking tech firm?

Verivo Software Delivers on Enterprise Mobil App Development, HTML5 By Tony Rizzo of TMCNet

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EST

Verivo Software is one of those “old timey” pioneers of the mobile enterprise apps space, dating back to the early years of BlackBerry and BlackBerry’s deep penetration and near pervasive use within financial institutions. Back then it was “the” mobile toy that mattered, and Verivo (known as Pyxis Mobile back then), even delivered professional stock trading applications apps built to run on old Research in Motion Pearl smartphones.

We ourselves started covering the company in 2003, and Verivo was already a veteran by then.

But don’t let “old timey” fool you. Today, the firm has rolled with the modern mobile times we live in, and though never letting go of its BlackBerry heritage, has smoothly moved into a predominantly iOS and Android world. The company has primarily focused over the last five years on delivering “native” applications built around its Verivo Software enterprise mobility platform, and has long stayed true to its belief that native mobile apps always deliver the only kinds of end user experiences that keep users satisfied.

There’s more to it than that however – along with keeping users happy, Verivo’s goal has also always been to keep developers and enterprise IT happy – by ensuring that Verivo delivers a true “write once, deploy to many” framework and architecture. One code base can be quickly prototyped, tested, developed and created that can in turn be deployed directly to iOS, Android and…yes, BlackBerry (at least prior to BlackBerry 10)

And because it is that old timey company, Verivo has always ensured that today’s platforms remain compatible with older versions that long time customers may still be running.

Once deployed, Verivo-built mobile applications are easy to manage. What we mean by “managed,” here, is in a developer’s ability to modify, tweak and make other changes to apps based on field feedback, feature additions and or changes to currently deployed apps. The ability to quickly drive updates and then quickly redeploy is critical for delivering the most effective applications possible.

Verivo’s platform does this, and we’ve spoken to enough Verivo customers over the last several years to know the platform delivers

We will note here that Verivo doesn’t simply fit itself into some predefined category. There are always attempts to squeeze vendors into “categories” – is Verivo a MEAP (mobile enterprise application platform)? An MCAP (mobile consumer application platform)? Something else? Why waste one’s time categorizing? The truth is that Verivo will deliver whatever mobile apps an application requires – whether they are internal, B2B or B2C

Finally, Verivo looks to put the power into the hands of its customers’ developers. Though the company has a professional services team, its key goal is not to “build the apps” but to help customers get out the door and master the mobile learning curve. Verivo’s goal is to get out of the way of what the customer needs to do.

In a sense, Verivo is successful when the mobile app students become the masters. It is a model that has worked well for the company for more than half a decade.

HTML5 on the Rise

All of that said, we’ve been asking Verivo for some time now when it would seriously begin to get on the HTML5 bandwagon – by which we mean not as a wholesale shift in how its platform works, but rather in providing HTML5 capabilities to its customers as another developer option. The truth of the matter is that HTML5 is now good enough to lead the charge on any number of mobile apps. We’ve never been satisfied with Verivo’s answer on this front – primarily that HTML5 was not good enough to match native app performance.

To get a more conclusive answer from Verivo, a number of weeks ago we sat down with CEO Steven Levy to get to the bottom of what we’ve thought of as Verivo’s HTML5 conundrum. It didn’t take Steven long to get to the issue – in fact he raised it himself a mere five minutes into our conversation as a “now legitimate disruptor” for enterprise mobile app planning

Steven pointed out that the company certainly had good revenue generation in 2012, which he pegged at 35 percent over 2011. And the company gained an excellent 20 percent increase in its customer base. That said, Steven also noted that, “There was a substantial shift in the enterprise market in 2012 revolving around two key points – a huge increase in iOS development for enterprise business apps and a much greater interest in HTML5 than we had anticipated would be the case in 2012.” Steven noted that the latter issue in particular has become an issue that Verivo now needs to significantly step up its game on.

One of the issues that center on HTML5 is a perhaps false impression that an enterprise can simply leverage some HTML5 tools and simply put their own in-house HTML developers to work. As part of this Steven adds, “The desire by enterprises to embrace HTML5 caused many businesses to take a step back in 2012 to review their options rather than moving forward with using mobile development platforms such as Verivo’s.”

Steven does note that the notion of what a modern mobile development platform is needs to evolve to some degree.

Having come to this point in our conversation, Steven made it clear that Verivo is moving quickly in 2013 to deliver the HTML5 platform capabilities that are now being demanded by enterprises. He did note that it’s not only about HTML5. And he underlines that native development is still critical. There are many other things, some of them more subtle and some more overt – such as marketing strategies – that Verivo will be undertaking throughout 2013 to meet the growing and evolving mobile development needs of the enterprise.

Steven also notes that the mobile development platform – though evolving to some degree, as noted earlier, remains the key piece of Verivo’s offering. One of the things Steven makes clear is that, “Mobile development in the enterprise in now mainstream. There is a premium today on hiring mobile developers, but there is a problem. Everyone wants to hire them, but it is a world of limited supply and high demand there simply aren’t enough of them – the way to offset this is to effectively use a robust mobile platform. That platform needs to deliver not only HTML5 capability but that native mobile OS performance we’re already well known for.

And yes, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 will also become important.

Steven did assure us that Verivo has a good deal up its sleeve on these fronts that is still off the record. We’re looking forward to taking a trip up to their offices, signing an NDA and getting a behind the scenes look at what some of these things are. We are also very interested in checking out the new Verivo fire pit they had installed on the grounds of their new offices! But that’s another story. We’ve also been told of a wine bar.

Our conversation then hit on the biggest challenge that Verivo faces – which, predictably, falls under having to disavow enterprises of the DYI mentality – their desire to do it themselves. Steven alluded to this earlier when he spoke about enterprises possible viewing HTML5 as a DYI panacea. DYI delivers on the “build” but fails to take into account all of the subtleties of “deploy and manage.” The latter two are in fact much more critical to rapid mobile development than the build component. We fully concur with that perspective.

Verivo v7.5 with HTML5 Support

Following our conversation, on March 26, 2013 Verivo publically uncovered a bit more on what it is working on when it announced Release 7.5 of the Verivo enterprise mobility platform – which now sports a Hybrid Browser Control for iOS and Android. This delivers increased flexibility to developers for designing mobile apps using both native and HTML5 content, which allows for the creation of true hybrid apps.

Developers can now access device features including camera, accelerometer, compass and geo-location by using Cordova’s JavaScript APIs to create more interactive and device accessible apps. HTML5 developers also gain access to Verivo’s new JavaScript APIs, which allows mobile apps to easily read and write from back-end data sources securely via Verivo’s platform server. The Hybrid Browser Control enables users to:

· Build rich, visual presentation elements to be added to native apps using existing HTML5 Web content, accessing back-end data.

· Access native device features and events within HTML5 Web content to allow users to use common features such as contacts, notifications, media, capture and GPS.

· Add more complex operations into mobile apps including charts, graphs, navigation and drill-down menus into native apps by leveraging backend data in HTML5 Web content.

It’s good to see Verivo step up its game. The Hybrid Browser Control is a small but excellent first step from our perspective for moving forward on HTML5, and also from our perspective – which as we noted earlier on we’ve mentioned to Verivo dating back to the second half of 2011 – it is something the company needed to deliver on.

It’s worth noting that Verivo’s website is loaded with very useful videos and an excellent video-based walk through of its “build, deploy, manage” mantra – too many DYI IT and enterprise developer mindsets miss the critical pieces of deploy and manage – it’s well worth investigating.

That leaves us looking forward to a trip up to the Verivo offices, scoping out the fire pit, checking out the wine bar, and then signing that NDA.

Qvidian is Named a Marketo Solution Partner for New LaunchPoint Ecosystem

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:00:00 EST

BOSTON, MA—November 14, 2012 – Qvidian, the market leader in sales effectiveness applications, today announced a partnership with Marketo, the leading provider of cloud‐based marketing software. Qvidian is a solution partner to Marketo’s new LaunchPoint Ecosystem—which includes the most innovative solutions in categories such as sales tools, analytics and big data, lifecycle marketing, top of the funnel conversion and lead data enrichment.

“Marketo has done a great job partnering with savvy technologies and solutions to make it easier for marketing teams to impact revenue,” said Lewie Miller, president and CEO of Qvidian. “We are excited to help marketers achieve this goal by combining Marketo data with interactive Sales Playbooks and powerful analytics.”

Qvidian Sales Playbooks & Analytics serves up marketing content and tools to the seller in context of the deal they are working on, delivering the right content to sales reps at the right time. Qvidian is tightly integrated with salesforce.com, provides Round Trip™ CRM integration and helps to connect Marketo data, CRM data, sales processes and sales training in one easy‐to‐use solution. “Qvidian is an ideal Sales Tools solution partner for the LaunchPoint ecosystem,” said Robin Bordoli, VP partner ecosystem at Marketo. “Their Sales Playbooks solution has the critical ability to leverage data from Marketo and salesforce.com and dynamically serve‐up Sales Playbooks to help the sales person advance deals forward.”

Marketo LaunchPoint launches as one of the five pillars of Marketo’s recently announced Marketing Nation, the convergence of people, ideas and technology that empowers marketers across the world to succeed like never before with a marketing platform. The Marketing Nation taps into the experience of more than 2,000 of Marketo’s customers and its 21,000 powerful users who can now pool their knowledge to help other customers find and use the best marketing solutions.

Qvidian will be participating in Marketo’s “From Good to Great” virtual event during a panel discussion on “Marketing and Sales: It’s Time to Play Nice,” today at 10:30 am PT. Register now!

Putting its sights on customized software By Taryn Plumb

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:00:00 EST

It’s been four years since Apple first came out with its slogan-turned-cliche, “There’s an app for that.” And while it might seem like there really is an app for everything these days, some see a largely uncharted territory in the mobile space: customized apps for mid-sized and large businesses.

Waltham-based Verivo Software believes so strongly in that demand — both now and into the future — that it relaunched itself to focus on the area earlier this year. The firm shifted its business model, expanded its sights and physical space and changed its name from Pyxis Mobile Inc.

The company has moved from selling packaged apps (largely to financial service companies), to providing a platform that allows businesses across various industries to build, deploy, manage and update their own cross-device mobile apps for employees and customers.

“We want to help customers take ideas that they believe will help their business, and make those ideas a reality through a mobile initiative,” CEO Steven Levy said.

They’re just delivering what the market wants, Levy said. When the company was selling packaged apps, customers frequently asked for changes, and apps were tweaked on a per-customer basis.

Once it made the shift to a customized software platform, the company experienced instant gratification.

In 2011, Verivo saw a surge in new customers, Levy said, with large names such as CSX Corp. and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. coming on board. Over the last two years, its customer base has widened into manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, gas and oil, and many other industries, Levy said, with “rapid adopters” being in the financial services, business services and health care fields.

“Every quarter we’re announcing record run rate,” said Levy, although he declined to provide specific revenue figures. Similarly, the company is continuing to add to its base of more than 100 employees (including, in June, CTO Arnold Epstein); its developing teams in London (where it now has an office) and the Netherlands; and it’s beginning a gradual expansion into Asia.

Fueling this expansion is $17 million in venture capital the company received in January from Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Ascent Venture Partners and Egan-Managed Capital. Pyxis was previously backed by $7.1 million in Series A and Series B rounds.

According to Chris Silva, a mobile analyst with San Mateo, Calif.-based Altimeter Group, Verivo has helped to change the dialogue around mobile enterprise apps.

Previously, it was technology first, business need second — for example, a company would adopt a system, then task developers with creating an app — whereas now it’s the other way around, he said.

Levy likewise touts Verivo’s CPU-based pricing (as opposed to per-app or per-user), along with the platform’s security and updating features and HTML5 capabilities. The company released its newest version (7.4) in October, which will provide support for its global expansion with the inclusion of double-byte character sets.

Overall, the mobile apps market is still “pretty early,” Silva said. Levy agreed, calling the development process never-ending.

“This space is moving so fast, that the transition keeps going,” he said. “The innovation is at a breakneck pace.”

Qvidian and the Alexander Group Partner to Provide a Dynamic Sales Playbook Solution

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:00:00 EST

LOWELL, MA – October 23, 2012‐Qvidian, the market leader in cloud‐based sales effectiveness applications, and the Alexander Group (AGI), a leading sales management consulting firm, today announced a partnership to provide salesorganizations with the ability to close more deals by streamlining sales complexity during the entire sales process.

By coupling AGI’s best‐in‐class sales process consulting with Qvidian’s SalesPlaybooks & Analytics cloud‐based application, sales and marketing leaders willbe able to dynamically deliver tailored content to their sales teams at the righttime during the sales process.

“We believe our partnership with Qvidian will change the game for sales teams,”said Gary Tubridy, senior vice president and general manager, Alexander Group. “By connecting marketing and sales strategies through a standardized executiontool, the Qvidian Sales Playbook, we can simplify complex sales processes andenable reps to close more deals.”

Sellers will see immediate value of the Sales Playbook for a specific lead, account,or opportunity, as they receive real‐time competitive insights, interactivecoaching, and other sales tools from a single source integrated withSalesforce.com. Executives will have automated, accurate forecasts based uponexecution of the sales process within each deal, as well as detailed analyticsaround the successful usage of content and processes.

“AGI has helped the world’s leading sales teams drive growth for over 25 years,”said Lewis Miller, president and CEO, Qvidian. “We are looking forward tocombining their sales process and coaching experience with our saleseffectiveness technology to improve productivity and results during the entiresales process.”

Qvidian is a sponsor of the Alexander Group’s annual Chief Sales Executive Forum, which attracts Global 2000 sales and marketing leaders. Forum attendees gather strategic and tactical insights from highly regarded keynote speakers and explore sales related issues and innovative solutions during highly interactive sessions. Qvidian and AGI are jointly presenting a session at the conference entitled “Improving Sales Effectiveness with Sales Playbooks.”

Qvidian Extends Leadership Position in the Proposal Automation Market With Over 200 New Customers Added Year‐to‐Date

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:00:00 EST

LOWELL, MA – October 17, 2012‐Qvidian, the market leader in cloud‐based sales effectiveness applications, today announced Version 9.1 SR1 of its market leading Proposal Automation application. The company also announced over 200 new customers year‐to‐date, bringing the total number of Qvidian Proposal Automation customers to over 1,000—four times the number of their closest competitor.

Recently, several hundred customers attended the company’s user conferences in the U.S. and Europe and feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

“Qvidian has cut down on the amount of time it takes us to respond to a proposal by 50% or more,” said Kristin Ochal, senior proposal reporting coordinator, AmeriHealth Administrators. “Qvidian Proposal Automation has been both a lifesaver and a timesaver, and it really has changed the game for us as a company.”

Qvidian Proposal Automation helps customers quickly create client‐centered proposals, collaborate on RFP responses, and assemble customized presentations, while enforcing consistency across all documents. On average, Qvidian’s customers create sales documents 45% faster and improve their win rate by 38%.

“The Qvidian team thrives on innovation and has been able to provide a constant stream of enhancements to our Proposal Automation application,” said Lewis Miller, president and CEO of Qvidian. “As a result, our customer satisfaction scores are extremely high, and we have the most widely adopted proposal automation application in the marketplace today.”

Qvidian Proposal Automation 9.1 SR1

Qvidian Proposal Automation 9.1 SR1 contains over a dozen new features and enhancements, saving users time and increasing their productivity, including:

● Drag and Drop: Move content record(s) from one folder to another via the drag-and-drop operation

● Resize of the Library Panel: Expand the library panel to view long folder titles

● Generate URL: Create a URL for library content and send it to recipient(s) for content download and consumption

● Preview Screen - Action Operations: Can select certain menu actions - download, edit, save to clipboard - when previewing content

● Translation Workflow Feature Set: Enables better managing and tracking of multiple translated content records

● Salesforce.com Integration: Improved integration with Salesforce.com

Verivo Software CEO Wins Executive of the Year Award

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:00 EST

WALTHAM, MA, Sep 24, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Verivo Software, the enterprise mobility company, today announced that CEO Steve Levy has been named Executive of the Year in the Information Technology category at the 10th American Business Awards event, recently held in San Francisco. In addition to the prestigious Gold Stevie Award, the company also received a Silver Stevie Award in the Fastest-Growing Tech Company of the Year category.

The American Business Awards' Stevies recognizes the achievements and contributions of businesses worldwide and this year more than 3,000 nominations were submitted in a wide range of categories. Stevie Award winners were selected by more than 300 executives worldwide who participated in the judging process.

"I am honored and grateful to have received this award and attribute our success to the entire Verivo team -- a team that is passionate about innovation and delivering cutting-edge technology to our customers," said Steve Levy, CEO, Verivo Software. "As the enterprise mobility market evolves, Verivo will continue to strengthen its platform with new capabilities to further empower our global clients so they can consistently meet their mobility needs, and accelerate their business results."

Verivo's unique platform has been steadily gaining ground and considered a game-changer in the industry. Under Levy's leadership, the company reported an increase in license bookings of 220 percent in 2011, revenue run rate of 50 percent and customer base increase of 170 percent.

Only Verivo's enterprise mobility platform empowers organizations to build apps five times faster, deploy apps simultaneously across multiple devices, and manage and update apps in seconds -- easily and securely. Verivo's platform includes AppStudio -- a visual development tool that enables users to build and maintain sophisticated and customized apps without having to write code for multiple devices. This drag and drop software eliminates the need to have device-specific skills in-house or re-submit updated apps to app stores. Verivo's platform also enables an app to be connected to multiple back-end systems and is priced per central processing unit (CPU) vs. per user, per app.

Samsung puts $4M into Carbon Design Systems

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 00:00:00 EST

Samsung Venture Investment Corp. has made a strategic investment of $4 million into Acton-based Carbon Design Systems, the company said Wednesday.

Carbon Design Systems, which develops software tools to create virtual hardware models, said the funds would support development of electronic system level (ESL) design tools, including the company's virtual prototypes.

An investment manager at the Samsung venture arm said the technology would help Samsung's development of consumer devices, and the new partnership would "offer Samsung a way to more broadly expand and fast track adoption of ESL tools."

The funding brings Carbon Design Systems to at least $40 million raised since its founding in 2002. Past investors have included three Boston area venture capital firms — Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Flagship Ventures and Matrix Partners.

Ericsson : Sand 9 Closes Additional Series C Investment

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 00:00:00 EST

Sand 9, Inc., a pioneer in precision MEMS timing products for wireless and wired applications, today announced that Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), a world-leading provider of telecommunications equipment and services to mobile and fixed network operators, has invested $3 million in the company.

Timing devices provide the 'heartbeat' for all electronic applications, which include wireline communications infrastructure and cellular base stations, as well as mobile and wireless applications. Sand 9's micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) timing products offer significant advantages over legacy quartz crystal solutions, which currently dominate this market. Sand 9's timing products offer greater immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and vibration in combination with low noise and high stability, which ensures precision timing--even in ruggedized environments.

"Ericsson has a well-earned reputation as one of the world leaders in communications infrastructure and base station equipment," said Vince Graziani, CEO, Sand 9. "Their investment in Sand 9 validates our emphasis on MEMS timing products that deliver high robustness, without sacrificing performance."

Technical Differentiators

Sand 9's timing products are the first MEMS devices that use piezoelectric actuation to achieve the stringent phase noise and short-term stability requirements for wireless and wired applications. Their spurious-free resonator design, in conjunction with a low phase-noise oscillator, enables a low-jitter product, which can reduce packet loss and enhance network efficiency in communications applications. The capability for integration, combined with high immunity to noise, shock and lead-free reflow temperatures, addresses quartz crystal weaknesses that system designers have been forced to work around for decades.

U.S. Navy Tests Show Visible Assets' Readers, Tags Can Operate at Zero Safe Separation Distance to Ordnance

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:00 EST

The results, the company reports, confirm that its RuBee tags can be installed directly on or built into explosive devices, and be combined with a variety of sensors, to help diagnose and manage the maintenance, use and decommissioning of munitions.

By Paul Prince

July 26, 2012—The U.S. Navy, like other military organizations within the United States and around the world, maintains sites at which it stores bombs and other types of ordnance that are detonated by what is known as an electro-explosive device (EED), or an electrically initiated device (EID). An EED or EID is an explosive or pyrotechnic component activated by the application of electrical energy.

Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) produced by RFID tags and readers, as well as other automatic identification technology (AIT) equipment, may have the potential to inadvertently actuate or disable EIDs contained in ordnance. This unintended actuation could result in safety (premature firing) or reliability (dudding) consequences. The inadvertent actuation or disablement of electrically initiated ordnance by EMR is known as Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO).

Visible Assets, a manufacturer of 134 kHz tags and readers based on the RuBee (IEEE 1902.1) standard, has announced this week that its tags, portable handheld readers and base-station wireless technology are the first to be certified by the U.S. Department of the Navy with a zero Safe Separation Distance (SSD) for ordnance. Other wireless RF-based technologies (EPC passive RFID, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth and UWB) have tags under the HERO test program that may be safely applied to ordnance, according to John K. Stevens, Visible Assets' CEO and chairman, but the readers of those tags typically have SSDs ranging from 3 feet to 12 feet. Therefore, Stevens says, reading those tags may constitute a risk near HERO Unsafe ordnance, while his company's hardware can be safely operated.

In November 2011, at the request of Visible Assets, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), located in Dahlgren, Virginia, conducted a HERO safety evaluation test of Visible Assets' fixed readers and antennas, handheld reader and battery-powered tags. Based on the testing results, the Naval Surface Warfare Center concluded that the firm's equipment can be used safely with electrically initiated ordnance purpose of test at a zero SSD, including munitions deemed to be HERO Unsafe/Unreliable.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) defines a HERO Safe ordnance item as one that is percussion-initiated, sufficiently shielded or otherwise protected so that all EEDs contained by that object are immune to adverse effects (safety or reliability) when the item is employed within its expected radio frequency environments. A HERO Unsafe ordnance, on the other hand, consists of ordnance items containing EEDs that have not been classified through testing as HERO Safe or HERO Susceptible, while HERO Unreliable ordinance is any object whose performance is degraded due to exposure to an RF environment.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center's tests involved Visible Assets' Sidewinder (SW-121) and Blaster (Base-110) base stations, in conjunction with its Ranger reader antenna (RP-A351), handheld pRap reader (PRP-100) and 1T tag (TID-100-W-1T-S). "The 1T tag is our longest-range and most powerful active tag," says Stevens, who notes that the tag is currently available on the company's Web site, as model TAS-112-B-107-B.

According to a report issued by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, the RuBee base stations tested are capable of operating from power level 1 to power level 7. The highest power level was evaluated first, after which the power was decreased until a level was identified as achieving the goal of having a zero SSD from HERO Unsafe or Unreliable ordnance. Therefore, only power levels 7, 6 and 5 were evaluated.

Based on the HERO safety-evaluation test results, the report indicates, NSWCDD concludes that at power level 5, RuBee base stations with a Ranger antenna can operate safely at a zero SSD to HERO Unsafe or Unreliable ordnance, but the antenna terminals must not come in direct contact with ordnance. In addition, the pRap reader has a zero SSD from HERO Unsafe or Unreliable ordnance, and the 1T tags have no HERO restrictions. As such, NSWCDD recommends that the RuBee base stations be designed to have maximum power output at level 5. In the case of the operational use of multiple RuBee base stations with as many as two Ranger antennas, the report recommends that a minimum distance of 8 feet be maintained between two transmitting Ranger antennas in free space, as well as in confined electrically reflective spaces.

"All our products use the tested base station, Version 409, and as long as we lock down power 5, we meet HERO Zero specification," Stevens says. "This HERO Zero certification means we can be safely used in all of these SI [sensitive item] stores. We have a number of existing working installations in the U.S., at DOE, Australian Defense, and Special Forces in Abu Dhabi, UAE, but none have been HERO Zero-certified. We are starting our first HERO Zero installs as we speak, in both the Mid-East Gulf and Asia.

U.S. Department of Defense Certifies RuBee (IEEE 1902.1) Wireless Has a HERO, Zero Safe Separation Distance (SSD) from Fused Ordnance

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:00:00 EST

The U.S. Navy released a test report that shows RuBee Auto-ID wireless tags, handhelds and base stations have a zero (0) Safe Separation Distance (SSD) on HERO SAFE and HERO UNSAFE Ordnance. Other wireless technologies (RFID, WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth) have typical HERO SSDs of 3' to 12'.

STRATHAM, N.H., July 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Visible Assets, today announced that RuBee (IEEE 1902.1) is the first wireless technology to be certified by the U.S. Department of The Navy with a zero Safe Separation Distance (SSD) for tags, portable handheld readers and base stations for HERO SAFE and HERO UNSAFE ordnance. The Report 8020/SER Q52/2250, "Hazards ofElectromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO) Safety Evaluation Test Report for Near-Touching Use of RuBee (IEEE 1902.1) Base Stations with Ranger Antenna, 1T Tags, and pRapReaders in Proximity To HERO UNSAFE /UNRELIABLE Ordnance" dated May 18th 2012, is based on MIL STD 464C. Other wireless RF based technologies (RFID, WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, UWB) have tags under the HERO test program that may be safely applied to ordnance, but the readers or integrators typically have SSDs of from 3' to 12'. Therefore, reading these RF based tags may become a risk near HERO UNSAFE ordnance, while RuBee tags can be safely read.

"This is a landmark result for RuBee and IEEE 1902.1, and is the first Auto-ID technology where both tags and readers have obtained a zero SSD under HERO tests for fused ordnance," said John K. Stevens, CEO of Visible Assets. "This means RuBee can safely provide real-time audits, accountability, pedigree, diagnostics and security to a wide variety of explosive devices, ordnance and munitions, stored in the many thousands of sensitive item stores and facilities around the world. RuBee wireless tags can be installed directly on or built into the devices and can be combined with a variety of sensors to help diagnose and manage the maintenance schedule, use and decommissioning of the devices. HERO zero SSD certification opens up many new important sensitive item Visibility opportunities for RuBee system and will help ensure the safety, control, visibility, and security of all sensitive items."

"HERO certification by the U.S. Navy is one of the most demanding and important RF safety programs in the world. Because RuBee is magnetic, not RF, the Navy had to develop a new magnetic safety test protocol for fused ordnance under MIL STD 464C," said Jason August, Chief Technology Officer of Visible Assets. "These test protocols have all been based on worst possible case scenarios with large safety factors. The outcome that RuBee tags, readers and base stations can be safely used on HERO SAFE ordnance, enables our existing military customers to expand their use of RuBee to all sensitive item stores."

RuBee is based on magnetic energy, not RF energy. RuBee works on and inside steel, as well as under water. RuBee provides asset security and visibility in harsh environments where RFID, WiFi and ZigBee are unable to operate. Visible sells several integrated network, Three-Layer Security products, including Asset 20/20 and Armory 20/20™. Armory 20/20 provides real-time secure, fully automated weapons inventory, check in/out and ultra sensitive, exit/entry management. RuBee Three-Layer networks are all based on embedded Oracle software systems, and provide high security visibility, with no significant eavesdropping, tempest or target risk. RuBee is the only wireless asset visibility technology that is approved for use in secure areas within the United States. RuBee has no known intrinsic safety risks and is approved for use by the U.S. government for safe use on high explosives.

To view the full Navy HERO report, visit: (www.rubee.com/HERO).

Antenna Software Names Bill Smith Chief Financial Officer

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EST

JERSEY CITY, NJ - June 27, 2012 - Antenna Software, Inc., helping enterprises to build, manage, and publish mobile apps and websites that transform business, today announced that Bill Smith has joined the company as chief financial officer. Smith is a seasoned financial officer, bringing broad financial and software industry experience to Antenna and the executive leadership team, where he will report directly to Jim Hemmer, Antenna's president and CEO.

"We are extremely excited to welcome Bill to the Antenna team," said Hemmer. "Bill's stature and experience as a CFO makes him a great addition to our leadership team, and his background in software, combined with his solid understanding of global finance, accounting, and financial leadership is impressive. His prior successes in investment banking, corporate development, and investor relations are particularly valuable to us at this stage in our evolution. I'm confident he will be instrumental in helping us drive even greater business growth and cement our market leadership on a global stage."

Smith joins Antenna from Kayak Software Corporation (Kayak.com), a travel services provider, where he served as chief financial officer, helping prepare the company for its initial public offering. Prior to Kayak, he spent 13 years at Novell, Inc. where he held a number of positions in the areas of financial planning and analysis, corporate and business development, strategic planning, and investor relations.

"I'm thrilled to be joining a recognized industry leader in one of the most dynamic and exciting markets in business today. Antenna's experience helping the Fortune 1,000 transform their businesses and address key concerns, like BYOD, with its award-winning mobile lifecycle platform is exciting," said Smith. "I look forward to joining the company's strong executive leadership team and helping to steer Antenna's continued financial growth as we prepare to take our business to the next level."

Smith began his career as an investment banking analyst with Merrill Lynch in New York and London. After three years at Merrill, he pursued his MBA at the Wharton School of Business. Upon receiving his degree, he worked as an investment banker for The Bridgeford Group and Cowen & Company.

The Echo Nest Raises Over $17 Million in New Financing to Bring Big Data to Music

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:00:00 EST

SOMERVILLE, MA, July 12, 2012 -- The Echo Nest, the world’s leading music intelligence platform, has closed a $17.3 million financing round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Prior investors Matrix Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Fringe Partners, Jim Pallotta and board member Michael Brown also participated in this round. The Echo Nest plans to use the funds to support continued sales growth, international expansion, and new product development. The company is also announcing major additions to its Fanalytics listener data platform in pursuit of even better understanding of music.

The Echo Nest established itself as the leading music big data company by providing open, API-based access to the largest repository of dynamic music data in the world, with over one trillion data points. Its tools enable media companies and independent developers to build intelligence about music content and music fans into applications to make them more engaging. In addition to a growing community of over 15,000 application developers, The Echo Nest has established a customer list that includes industry leaders such as Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio, eMusic, MOG, Spotify, Nokia, the BBC, and VEVO.

This latest round of funding will help The Echo Nest further strengthen its market-leading position with a focus on international sales and marketing. The financing will also support continued development of "Fanalytics": data-driven solutions to help leading media companies better understand music fans.

The Echo Nest is announcing two product enhancements to Fanalytics. First, Taste Profile Similarity is a new data service that gives applications and music services the ability to connect like-minded fans by determining their overall musical compatibility within a larger group. It represents an enhancement to The Echo Nest's Taste Profiles, a web service that builds in-depth preference profiles of every music fan on a given service based on each fan’s music collection, listening behavior, and other factors.

The new Taste Profile Similarity service has a wide range of applications that go well beyond streaming music, with the rise of “social discovery” and other social media applications. One early, real-world example of Taste Profile Similarity in action can be found on the blog of Paul Lamere, Director of Development of The Echo Nest (http ://musicmachinery .com).

Second, the company is offering a sneak peek into its work in "affinity prediction" -- how music preference is predictive of other media preferences and psychographic attributes. As one example of the many applications of this, The Echo Nest demonstrated a predictive correlation between musical activity and political affiliation. More detail is available in a blog post published today by the Echo Nest’s CTO Brian Whitman (http ://notes .variogr .am).

"We are thrilled to add Jeff Crowe and Norwest to The Echo Nest team." said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. "Norwest immediately recognized the enormous opportunity around applying a big data approach to music -- particularly in how understanding each online consumer's musical identity can enable a new world of deeply-personalized, social, and profitable applications. In addition, the firm brings a depth of experience in helping data-driven companies define and dominate their respective markets."

"The Echo Nest has distinguished itself as the clear market-leading data company focused on the most pervasive form of entertainment consumption: music," said Jeff Crowe, Managing Partner at Norwest Venture Partners. "We are very excited about the company's business model of exploiting the data opportunity around music consumption, the team’s excellent progress in inking a steady stream of industry-leading customers, and the large market opportunity in understanding digital consumers' musical identity on a mass scale."

"More than any company I've seen in the last few years, The Echo Nest has done a terrific job of taking the core principles of the analytically-driven, successful web companies — big data processing, machine learning, and cutting edge information retrieval — and applied it to the digital music domain with a fury that has built a strong business that has everyone talking," added Antonio Rodriguez, General Partner at Matrix Partners and The Echo Nest board member.

"It is an exciting time to be working with The Echo Nest," said Elliot Katzman, General Partner at Commonwealth Capital Ventures. “Their customers integrate The Echo Nest’s innovative music intelligence platform into their own cutting-edge applications to enrich the listening experience of over 100 million fans every month. The company has continued to make excellent progress since our initial investment in 2008, and we are looking forward to even more exciting developments ahead."

For more news on this financing click below:

Article from Fastcompany.com click here

Article from Boston.com click here

Article from Musically.com click here

Autodesk Positioned to Transform Construction Industry Through Vela Systems Acquisition

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EST

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., June 8, 2012 — Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, announced the acquisition of Vela Systems, a provider of cloud and mobile field management software for the construction industry. The addition of Vela Systems field management products to Autodesk’s growing portfolio of cloud and mobile products is helping to extend the value of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and project data to construction customers in the field. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“BIM has tremendous value in the planning and design aspects of construction projects, but if you can’t get that rich data into the field, at the point of construction, you are leaving out the critical ‘last 100 yards’ in the process. Integrating Vela Systems and its cloud and mobile products with the Autodesk BIM portfolio transforms the business of construction, delivering valuable information to job sites anywhere in the world,” said Amar Hanspal, Senior Vice President, Information Modeling and Platform Products Group.”

Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, Vela Systems extends the power of BIM with cloud and mobile technologies that enable project and company-wide programs for streamlined management of quality, safety, commissioning and field construction. The powerful reporting tools provide immediate visibility into issues in the field, allowing for proactive management and resolution, rather than time consuming and expensive overruns caused by a reactive approach. Vela Systems software and services are integrated with current Autodesk integrated project management software including Autodesk Navisworks, the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry’s standard comprehensive set of integration, analysis, and communication tools for project review.

“Vela Systems has been a longstanding partner of Autodesk, and has been leading the charge in the field. The confluence of cloud computing, iOS mobile devices like the iPad and BIM has enabled a new way to deliver and manage construction projects of all types. With the acquisition, we will accelerate this revolution in field management through a broader solution and greatly enhanced distribution,” said Josh Kanner, co-founder, of Vela Systems.

Combined with the Autodesk BIM portfolio, the Vela Systems software has already helped contractors, owners, architects and engineers accelerate project schedules, reduce project risk, and improve the flow of information, including key data and project photos, between project stakeholders. Autodesk users can now reduce reliance on manual processes to track progress, document work activities and resolve issues. With the Vela Systems integration, users can also visualize the as-designed building in the field to improve quality and fidelity to design intent; streamline reviews; save money with more efficient workflows by linking physical tasks to a virtual model; and capture critical data on materials, systems, and equipment.

Business Outlook

This transaction is expected to have no impact on guidance issued on May 17, 2012.

Intel Capital Leads $23M Venture Capital Round in Sand9

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EST

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Sand 9, Inc., a MEMS technology company developing products for wireless and wired applications, has raised a total of $23 million in its Series C financing round led by Intel Capital with significant participation from Vulcan Capital.

Intel Capital and Vulcan Capital join existing investors Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, General Catalyst Partners, Khosla Ventures and CSR. Sand 9 said it will use funds to ramp volume production as they go to market and to expand their product portfolio.

Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) timing devices are ‘miniature machines' that ensure synchronicity and stable operation in complex electronic devices, from smartphones and tablets to industrial test and measurement systems and communications infrastructure equipment. Sand 9's MEMS timing-device platform is the industry's first to achieve the stringent phase noise and short-term stability requirements for wireless and wired applications. The spurious-free resonator design - which can enhance network efficiency due to reduced packet loss - can result in fewer dropped calls. Combined with high immunity to noise, shock and lead-free reflow temperatures, the Sand 9 high-precision platform addresses Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) weaknesses that system designers have been forced to work around for decades.

"The MEMS oscillator market is still at a nascent stage, representing less than one percent of the total timing market of $6.3 billion," said Tony Massimini, chief of technology,Semico Research. "By offering drop-in replacement - and technical benefits over established silicon quartz crystal timing devices - MEMS companies have already begun to capture market share from the legacy suppliers: quartz crystal manufacturers. Sand 9 is broadening the competition for this exciting segment of the MEMS market."

"Sand 9's precision MEMS technology has the potential to address the limitations of quartz timing products and substantially improve the performance, quality and cost of mobile devices while making them easier to design and manufacture" said David Flanagan, managing director, Intel Capital. "We look forward to working with Sand 9's outstanding team, and welcome them as a new Intel Capital portfolio company.

"Intel Capital's depth of knowledge and attention to detail have been extremely beneficial to Sand 9 as we migrate from research and development toward shipping product into the market," said Vince Graziani, CEO, Sand 9. "This significant infusion of capital will enable us to commercialize our first product, ramp volume production and rapidly execute on expanding our product portfolio to service broader market needs."

As part of the funding, Intel Capital appointed Dr. Siva Sivaram, an industry veteran with significant semiconductor process and operational experience as well as founder and CEO of Twin Creeks Technologies, Inc., to join the Sand 9 Board of Directors.

QlikTech Acquires Expressor Software to Deliver the Data Users Need with the Governance IT Requires

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EST

RADNOR, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- QlikTech (NASDAQ: QLIK), a leader in Business Discovery — user-driven Business Intelligence (BI), today announced it has acquired Expressor Software, a Burlington, Massachusetts-based data management software company and QlikTech Qonnect partner. QlikTech acquired Expressor's data management solution to help facilitate the expansion of QlikView deployments so people in an organization can have the data they need to make better decisions with all of the critical IT security and governance. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Accelerating Data Governance for the New Enterprise

As Enterprise Business Discovery momentum has increased, the need for QlikView customers to describe data consistently and then reuse it to speed up deployment of additional applications has grown. To expand the use of QlikView's Business Discovery platform, a metadata intelligence solution will help IT departments to know what data is being used and how it is being used (data lineage), while ensuring consistency and appropriate reuse of common data definitions (data governance).

"With this acquisition we are taking Business Discovery to the next level, offering a new breed of rapid, iterative metadata intelligence that delivers control at the core and flexibility at the edges of an organization," said Anthony Deighton, QlikTech Chief Technology Officer.

How it Works: Descriptive Rather Than Prescriptive Approach

With the practical data governance as-you-deploy approach, customers describe data consistently as they build QlikView apps rather than being locked into doing it all upfront with a prescriptive semantic layer.

With the QlikView Expressor active metadata intelligence solution, customers can:

Capture and manage the semantics of data while building QlikView applications to efficiently reuse data definitions
Deploy quickly across the enterprise by establishing a repeatable and consistent view of common business and data definitions
Provide users and IT with increased confidence in data through data lineage analysis
Realize value from ‘big data' by handling large volumes of diverse information sources
Enhance QlikView's position at the core of information architecture by addressing all data flow requirements into and out of QlikView

"Expressor fits squarely in our acquisition strategy. We are acquiring complementary, tuck-in technology that will enhance the value we provide to our customers as we further develop and bring to market these solutions. We are also adding more than 20 outstanding people, primarily software engineers, expanding our R&D skill set," said Lars Björk, Chief Executive Officer of QlikTech.

Click here for QlikTech's website

The Echo Nest and Discogs Deliver Crowdsourced Music Data to Apps

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00:00 EST

SOMERVILLE, MA, PORTLAND, OR, May 22, 2012 -- The Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform powering smarter apps across the web and devices, has incorporated Discogs into its Rosetta Stone platform, a universal music data translator that facilitates "big data" integration into apps on all platforms.

As part of the deal, Discogs' rich database of user-generated music information -- one of the largest sources of music information in the world, especially for electronic and vinyl releases -- is seamlessly incorporated into The Echo Nest's Rosetta Stone. This allows developers to access all of that data at a deep level, safe in the knowledge that they're matching the appropriate artists on Twitter, Facebook, or Spotify (more partners listed below) to Discogs' extensive information on music releases.

The Echo Nest's Rosetta Stone also hooks into Discogs' marketplace, where music fans buy and sell music on any physical format. With Discogs' artists mapped into Rosetta Stone, app developers can include in their apps not only Discogs' information on millions of releases in 17 languages, but releases offered for sale in the marketplace.

Developers can now access release dates, artist credits, label, album covers, marketplace inventory, and more, for any artist on Discogs, and match that to the artists on any or every other Rosetta Stone platform, offering potential for never-before-seen music apps.

In addition to new partner Discogs, The Echo Nest's Rosetta Stone includes 7Digital, EMI, Facebook, Free Music Archive, JamBase, LyricFind, Musicbrainz, MusixMatch, Playme, Rdio, Seatwave, Songkick, SongMeanings, Spotify, and Twitter.

Kibits Comes Out of Stealth with Social Networking App

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 EST

Backed by $1 million from Google Ventures and other prominent investors, Cambridge startup Kibits today launches an app that lets users create “mini-social networks” on a mobile device, in a bid to make social technology more useful than ever before.

Through the app, users are able to create an individual “Kibit” for any occasion that arises (which can exist for as long or as short a time as needed). The Kibit can include chat along with sharing of photos, video, notes and documents.

“Our hope is that this is an app that people use for the conversations that are relevant to them at the moment,” said Kibits co-founder Matt Cutler. “At any given time you have half a dozen conversations going on — two are work-related, a few are social, a few are home-related. Kibits creates one environment for all of those to occur.”

For example: A family spread-out geographically might want to create a Kibit to interact with each other over the holidays. “It can help them feel like they’re connected,” Cutler said, but not feel like they have to share their thoughts and photos with everyone on Facebook, for instance.

Another scenario might be for a family looking to buy a car, that might want to create a Kibit for collaborating over the course of a few weeks around the process, he said.

There are also plenty of business use cases, such as a real estate agent who wants to collaborate with a client, Cutler said. The normal way of doing that is to take photos and write up a report, sharing those later on with the client. That can all be done in real-time via Kibits, Cutler said. “It’s a living, breathing conversation — way faster and way more useful.”

Users can also find other people to interact with in their immediate vicinity, and connect to other apps such as Facebook. The interaction and collaboration happens in real-time, and enables sharing with just the people who are appropriate at the moment.

“You don’t have to broadcast everything to the whole world,” he said. “What we set out to do with Kibits is to have a system which can augment your real-world interactions and relationships.”

The app, which is released today for iPhone and iPod Touch, has been quietly under development since late 2010. Kibits is based at Dogpatch Labs in Cambridge and has a team of “less than 10,” Cutler said.

The company, named one of “Five You Should Follow” by Mass High tech’s startup Watch in February, received a $1 million seed funding in the first quarter of 2011, but hasn’t previously disclosed the funding (I included the startup as one of “10 stealthy Boston startups I’m watching” in November).

The funding comes from Charles River Ventures of Cambridge, General Catalyst Partners of Cambridge, Commonwealth Capital Ventures of Waltham and Google Ventures (which has a Cambridge office), along with angel investors including HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah and MIT professor Ed Roberts.

Cutler said the company will likely be looking to raise more funding in the not-too-distant future, which should allow the company to build out the team and make the app even more useful. “We’re just getting started with this,” he said. “As you use the app, you’ll probably think, ‘It would be cool if it could do this.’ Believe me, there’s a lot more we feel we can tie together with this.”

Still, Cutler believes that even in its first phase, the app is already “pushing the boundaries of what you can do on your mobile device.”

“We see it as a digital complement to the real-world experience,” he said.” We don’t see a ton of other people doing that.”

Advent Software Selects ByAllAccounts to Provide Retail Account Information to Advent OnDemand® Users

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 EST

BOSTON -- May 15, 2012 - Advent Software, Inc., (NASDAQ: ADVS), a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, announced it has selected ByAllAccounts, Inc. to provide retail account information to users of the Advent OnDemand® service. This new capability will enable investment advisors who use Advent OnDemand® to electronically access retail account information from brokers and custodians.

ByAllAccounts uses its patented technology to access retail account information from custodian and broker websites, automating a process that many financial advisors are still doing manually - namely entering data from paper statements or downloading data from an online account. Advent will now make data from ByAllAccounts available to Advent OnDemand® users via Advent Custodial Data (ACD). As a result, Advent OnDemand® users will be able to augment their managed data with some additional retail account information.

“We are always looking for ways to expand access to custodial data for our clients,” said George McLaughlin, senior director, Advent Software. “By working with ByAllAccounts we are now able to offer retail account information to Advent OnDemand clients, making it easier for them to report on their clients’ assets.”

In a ByAllAccounts’ survey, almost 75 percent of financial professionals said they provide advice on all of their clients’ assets, including those assets held outside their firm’s primary custodian. “We know how important it is for advisors to be able to provide exceptional service to clients,” said ByAllAccounts President and CEO James Carney. “Being able to get held-away assets data smoothly integrated into a solution like Advent OnDemand® is an enormous advantage for advisors.”

Enterprise Saas Market Gains Momentum

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 EST

SaaS Seeds Ready to Bloom

By John Dix

March 12, 2012 06:28 AM ET

Network World - One expected benefit from the shift to the cloud is the emergence of a refreshing new crop of innovative software suppliers.

The enterprise software market, after all, has withered as the biggest developers consolidated control through acquisition. But when the big guys resisted the shift to software as a service for fear of cannibalizing their lucrative maintenance annuities, just enough light got through for thousands of SaaS seedlings to take root.

Read full article here

Kibits Corp. Introduces App for iPhone and iPod Touch

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 EST

Kibits Corp. today announced the release of its namesake micro-social networking app for iPhone and iPod touch, available now on the App Store. The first-of-its-kind Kibits App introduces a new, natural way for mobile-centric consumers and professionals to engage with friends, family, and co-workers from the convenience of their iPhone or iPod touch.

By leveraging unambiguous real-world relationships—such as existing contacts and Facebook friends, calendar appointments, and physical proximity—the Kibits App is the fastest way to create and connect with groups on-the-fly. Each Kibits group serves as a micro-social network, enabling focused conversations with real-time sharing of photos, videos, links, locations, notes, even documents from iCloud and Dropbox, along with built-in chat, comments, and ratings. All with a single app that automatically organizes the conversation.

"Today, consumers and professionals alike are increasingly taking a 'mobile-first' approach to personal connectivity, communications, and computing," said Matt Cutler, co-founder and CEO of Kibits. "We built Kibits specifically for these users: by tapping in to nearly all of the capabilities of iOS, the app offers an intuitive, powerful new way to connect and collaborate in real-time and in the real world. Now people can avoid juggling dozens of single-purpose apps in order to share different types of media with their friends and co-workers."

As a micro-social network, Kibits spans social and professional contexts. For example:

Share with different groups of friends. Use Kibits to have one conversation with a local circle about local news, another to plan a get-together with best friends, and yet another to commiserate with fellow parents about toddler temper tantrums.
Simplify family communications: Create a single place to stay in the loop about schedules, dinner plans, activities, and the quick changes in plans that inevitably make up the day.
Coordinate with colleagues. At work, Kibits provides unified, real-time spaces for sharing and discussing project-specific information, from quick photos of whiteboard notes to documents related to critical client deliverables.
Hold on-the-fly discussions at an event. Kibits allows users to temporarily see if other Kibits users are nearby, and invite them to join a group. These unique proximity-based social features are useful for connecting with people at a conference or the PTA meeting or quickly adding your co-workers to a discussion.

The Kibits App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

Mobile Industry Experts Launch Verivo Software

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

The Pyxis Mobile team today announced the launch of Verivo Software, the enterprise mobility company dedicated to helping businesses drive their mobile initiatives and impacting their bottom-line. Verivo leverages Pyxis Mobile’s assets and technology, along with its new and expanded business model, product line and management team. Only Verivo’s enterprise mobility platform empowers companies to build, deploy and manage apps quickly and easily to meet today’s market demands.

The company also announced that it has secured $17 million in growth capital funding to further boost sales, fuel marketing programs and accelerate its product development roadmap as it expands its global presence.

The latest round of funding is led by Commonwealth Capital Ventures, with participation from Pyxis Mobile’s existing investors, including Ascent Venture Partners and Egan-Managed Capital.

Read the full press release here

Seniorlink Closes $5.0 Million Round of Funding

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST

Seniorlink today announced the completion of a $5.0 million round of funding led by Commonwealth Capital Ventures. The company also announced that Elliot M. Katzman, General Partner of Commonwealth Capital Ventures, will join Seniorlink’s Board of Directors.

The funding will be used primarily to strengthen Seniortouch™, Seniorlink’s web-based care management system, and to develop other information technology assets that improve Seniorlink’s ability to manage care on behalf of frail elders and people with disabilities.

“We are pleased to find an investor who shares our commitment to helping frail elders and people with disabilities live with dignity and independence,” said E. Byron Hensley, Chairman and CEO of Seniorlink. “We look forward to working with Elliot and the Commonwealth Capital team to grow our business and accelerate our ability to innovate in this very exciting market.”

“By providing a solution that reduces the total cost of elder care with improved outcomes, Seniorlink has created a very exciting company in the fast-growing health care market,” said Elliot Katzman, General Partner, Commonwealth Capital Ventures. “We’re delighted to work with Byron, Tom and the Seniorlink team, all of whom are passionate about serving this very important and rapidly expanding market.”

About Seniorlink

Seniorlink offers expertise in managing care for frail elders and people with disabilities, and an innovative service model, Structured Family Caregiving (SFC), for those who need care coordination and significant help with activities of daily living.

Verizon Acquires CloudSwitch

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EST

Verizon Communications Inc. announced today that it has acquired CloudSwitch, an innovative provider of cloud software technology, in a deal that will simplify the move to the enterprise cloud and help to boost industry adoption. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Verizon plans to combine CloudSwitch, a privately held company based in Burlington, Mass., with its Terremark IT services subsidiary, further accelerating the company’s global cloud strategy by enhancing Verizon’s hybrid cloud and cloud-to-cloud capabilities.

CloudSwitch brings Verizon breakthrough software that enables enterprises to more easily and securely move applications, or workloads, between company data centers and the cloud without changing the application or the infrastructure layer – eliminating a key barrier to widespread cloud adoption.

With CloudSwitch’s technology, enterprises gain new flexibility and greater control in moving to and from the cloud, while extending security over applications and data. In addition, enterprise applications remain tightly integrated and can be managed as if they are running locally. When combined with Terremark’s advanced IT and security capabilities, this technology further enables total enterprise-class cloud solutions (private-to-public, public-to-public and hybrid) across the globe.

“The cloud market is a rapidly growing opportunity, with very real benefits both for our business customers and the consumers they serve,” said Bob Toohey, president of Verizon’s global enterprise unit. “With the acquisition of CloudSwitch, Verizon has taken another step forward in defining the enterprise cloud.”

John McEleney, CEO of CloudSwitch, said: “By joining Verizon, we will be able to deliver a solution that combines our software with the market-leading infrastructure cloud play. Our founding vision has always been to create a seamless and secure federation of cloud environments across enterprise data centers and global cloud services. Together, we will be able to provide enterprises with an unmatched level of flexibility, scalability and control in the cloud with point-and-click simplicity. This will go a long way in helping achieve widespread adoption of the cloud especially when managing complex workloads.”

Verizon, through its Terremark subsidiary, offers advanced enterprise-class IT, cloud and security services on a global scale. Terremark provides customers with the ability to improve IT infrastructure and boost application performance in today’s complex and dynamic business environment. Visit the Verizon IT Solutions & Hosting website for more information.

Read the full press release here

ByAllAccounts Listed as one of the Top 20 Technology Products Used by Advisors According to InvestmentNews Survey

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 EST

The top 20 technology products used by advisers The most popular products, overall, according to an InvestmentNews survey Featured in InvestmentNews, August 23, 2011

1. MoneyGuidePro (PIE Technologies Inc.)

2. Money Tree

3. Junxure (CRM Software Inc.) 1

4. Portfolio Center (Schwab Performance Technologies)

5. Redtail Technology

6. Albridge Solutions

7. ByAllAccounts Inc.

8. Advisor Workstation (Morningstar Inc.)

9. eMoney360 (eMoney Advisor)

10. Advisor Workstation (Morningstar Inc.)

See the full list here

Alex Laats Featured in Boston Herald Article on Investing in Defense-Oriented Companies

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EST

Alex Laats talks with the Boston Herald about Commonwealth’s interest in asymmetric warfare and counter-terrorism technology companies that have received government funding in areas such as cyber security, sensors, and analytic and infrastructure security.

Read the full article here.

Evestnet and ByAllAccounts Partner to Offer Data Aggregation Service

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EST

Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE: ENV), a leading provider of innovative investment and practice management solutions for financial advisors, and ByAllAccounts Inc., the financial advisors’ choice for data aggregation services, are pleased to announce a strategic partnership that gives financial advisors a new opportunity to grow client wealth and increase their assets under management through the Envestnet|Vantageä performance reporting solution. This strategic partnership delivers a comprehensive view of client accounts and performance reports on a variety of investable assets, including 401(k)s, 529 plans and annuities, within a single web-based platform.

Envestnet|Vantage’s™ performance reporting solutions make it possible for advisors to eliminate manual data entry and to advise on held-away assets. By easily incorporating client portfolio data with wealth management and performance reporting tools, the solution reduces time spent on administrative tasks and improves efficiency, transparency and the ability for advisors to present holistic views of their client’s wealth, including assets that are held away.

Advisors have already started to weigh in on the benefits of the new strategic partnership. “Before the Envestnet|ByAllAccounts relationship, there was no eloquent way to get access to accounts not in the Envestnet feeds, such as held-away assets,” said Kent Fitzpatrick, managing director of Asset Strategy Consultants – Boston. “The ByAllAccounts’ data aggregation technology automatically delivers the needed positions, transaction details and balances. Now we can view and monitor these assets daily as well as do performance analytics and this has changed the game completely. Where we have actively solicited clients’ held-away assets we have increased our AUM by 40 to 50 percent.”

“Advisors today are given a plethora of tools that enable them to deliver better customer service, increase productivity and focus on critical business needs. But without the flexibility to incorporate these tools into their systems advisors face unnecessary complications,” said James Carney, ByAllAccounts president and CEO. “Our strategic partnership with Envestnet® gives financial advisors the freedom to use our service within a familiar workflow that they already know, trust and use. They stay in control and don’t have to change a thing.”

“Envestnet® is committed to delivering industry leading reporting solutions that create value for advisors and their clients. Our relationship with ByAllAccounts further serves our mission by giving financial advisors robust tools to report, bill and provide advice on held-away assets,” said James Lumberg, Envestnet’s managing director for reporting solutions. “Our goal is to make it easier for advisors to provide holistic views of their client’s wealth and enhance the value of their advice while increasing assets under management. The level of access and insight that Envestnet|Vantage™ delivers gives advisors a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded field. ”

Visible Assets Adds Richard Clarke to its Board of Directors

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST

Excerpt from PE Hub article 6/7/11, by Jonathan Marino

Visible Assets just boosted its visibility. The tracking-technology company just added Richard A. Clarke to its board of directors...The addition of the former senior White House homeland security and counter-terrorism advisor and chairman and CEO of Good Harbor Consulting may help the New Hampshire-based real-time security tracking device company procure more federal contracts.

But Visible Assets’ tracking products — specifically, its RuBee wireless device — have applications beyond the military, such as protecting oil and gas companies’ drilling operations, says John K. Stevens, chairman and CEO of the company.

Read the full article here

Alex Laats Discusses Commonwealth's Interest in Technology-focused Security and Defense Companies

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST

In an interview with Global Security pipeline analyst Andrew Elwell, Commonwealth General Partner Alex Laats revealed that the types of defense and security technologies and sectors that are of most interest to Commonwealth are those associated with counter-terrorism, such as sensor technologies used for visual surveillance and imaging as well as infrastructure security. He also explained that cyber security is an area of interest.

Read the full article here. (Subscription required)

Antenna Awarded Red Herring Top 100 North American Tech Company

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST

At an award gala celebrating North America's most innovative and promising private companies held June 15 in Hollywood, Calif., Antenna Software received high honors by being named to the Red Herring Top 100 North America award.

Red Herring's Top 100 North America list has become a mark of distinction for identifying companies and entrepreneurs that will shape the technology landscape and change the way people live and work. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize the game-changing potential of companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube and eBay for their innovation and undeniable impact on business and society.

"Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no means a small feat," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across North America to the Top 100 Winners. We believe Antenna embodies the vision, drive and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. Antenna should be proud of its accomplishment, as the competition was very strong."

Red Herring's editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of companies relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the "buzz" and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in North America.

Read the full press release

SoundBite Communications Acquires SmartReply, a Mobile Marketing Pioneer

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST

SoundBite Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SDBT), a leading global provider of cloud-based proactive customer communications solutions, today announced the acquisition of key assets of SmartReply, a mobile marketing pioneer. SmartReply had been delivering mobile marketing solutions for approximately 40 companies, including many of the top retail brands in North America. The acquisition advances SoundBite’s position in mobile marketing and significantly expands its penetration in the retail vertical.

According to ABI Research, the U.S. market for mobile marketing and advertising is growing at a 23 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) with 2011 spending estimated at $1.6 billion.

“A comprehensive mobile customer communications strategy has become an absolute ‘must have’ for today’s consumer-facing organizations,” said Jim Milton, President and CEO of SoundBite Communications. “While the Mobile Collect acquisition provided us with a market-leading mobile collections solution, today’s SmartReply acquisition provides SoundBite with a leadership position in both mobile marketing and retail. We are firmly committed to accelerating the build out of our mobile offering, via organic investment and future acquisitions, to enable our clients to proactively communicate across the full customer lifecycle.”

“SmartReply has been a great partner and I am excited about the acquisition,” commented Tim White the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Fashion Bug, a 700 store women's apparel retailer. “Fashion Bug chose SmartReply for their retail and mobile expertise, and now with the stability of a public company like SoundBite and the additional technology solutions they can provide, this is a definite positive for partners like us.”

“SoundBite’s deep technology portfolio, including its interactive, multi-channel communications and intelligent preference management platforms, immediately expands the solutions that can be offered to the client base previously served by SmartReply,” said David Savage, former CEO of SmartReply. “I believe SoundBite is now the ‘one to watch’.”

Acquisition Creates a Disruptive Force in Mobile Marketing In addition to domain expertise, the SmartReply acquisition brings to SoundBite a roster of highly-regarded retail brands which complement the existing client base for SoundBite’s broad cloud-based product portfolio.

The combination of SoundBite and the key assets of SmartReply results in:

Mobile Marketing Expertise: Companies in retail, financial services, telecommunications and media, and energy and utilities will benefit from SoundBite’s intimate knowledge of the mobile marketing industry and the complex requirements, global market trends and best practices associated with mobile marketing campaigns.
Deep Technology Portfolio: Leveraging SoundBite Engage, a multi-channel communications platform, and SoundBite Insight, a preference management platform, clients can develop, deploy and optimize interactive mobile marketing strategies. These campaigns can leverage knowledge of consumer stated preferences and observed behaviors to drive more intelligent communications and improve business results.
Express Consent Expertise: Following the asset acquisition, SoundBite will obtain the services of several former SmartReply employees who have developed expertise in obtaining and leveraging express consent from consumers for mobile marketing as well as voice messaging. As a result, SoundBite will be positioned to manage express consent for millions of consumers across more than ten retail brands.

To accelerate its growth in the mobile marketplace, SoundBite has established a Mobile Services business. Mike Romano, a co-founder and the former EVP of Sales of SmartReply, joins the business as Senior Vice President of Mobile Sales and Services and reports to Mark Friedman, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at SoundBite.

Read the full press release here

Antenna Software and Reval Listed in Network World's "10 SaaS Companies to Watch"

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST

Excerpt from Network World article, June 6, 2011 (linked below): These days, companies are applying the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to just about everything, from core business functions, including IT, to industry-specific processes. This list, compiled with the help of SaaS trend watchers and users, provides a representative look at what types of software you'll find offered in the cloud.

#1 Antenna Software
#9 Reval

Read the full article here.

Antenna Software Named a Finalist for the 2011 Red Herring Top 100 North America Award

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 EST

Antenna Software, Inc., helping enterprises to build, manage and publish
mobile apps and websites that transform business, today announced it has
been selected as a finalist for the Red Herring's Top 100 North America
award, a prestigious list honoring the year's most promising private
technology ventures from the North American business region.

During the several months leading up to the announcement, hundreds of
companies in the telecommunications, security, Web 2.0, software,
hardware, biotech, mobile and other industries completed their
submissions to qualify for the award. Finalists for the 2011 edition of
the Red Herring 100 North America award are selected based upon their
technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor
record, customer acquisition and financial health. This unique assessment
of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and
standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the "buzz"
and make the list a valuable instrument for discovering and advocating
the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

"This year was very rewarding," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red
Herring. "The global economic situation has abated and there are many
great companies producing really innovative and amazing products. We had
a very difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists.
Antenna shows great promise and therefore deserves to be among the
Finalists. Now we're faced with the difficult task of selecting the Top
100 winners of Red Herring North America. We know that the 2011 crop will
grow into some amazing companies that are sure to make an impact."

Antenna is committed to simplifying and managing the inherent
complexities of mobility, creating apps that people love to use. The
company provides a single platform that spans B2E and B2C mobile
offerings and supports the latest and best in standards-based and
emerging technologies and devices. With the Antenna Mobility Platform
(AMP), businesses can build, manage, publish and consume native apps and
mobile Web content on any device, anywhere in the world. Leading
companies the world over are deploying mobile apps and mobile Web content
from Antenna for a better way to manage their teams, engage with their
customers, elevate their brand and transform their business.

"As the mobility market has exploded, so too has our commitment to
providing innovative solutions backed by a proven mobile infrastructure
that satisfy the complex, varied and evolving needs of the enterprise,"
said Jim Hemmer, President and CEO of Antenna. "Being named as a finalist
to the Red Herring 100 is a testament to Antenna's dedication to our
customers' and partners' success and our culture of excellence. We are
honored to be in the same company of such industry-defining companies and
past Red Herring 100 award winners as Google, Salesforce.com and Yahoo!"

The finalists are invited to present their winning strategies at the Red
Herring North America Forum in Hollywood, Calif., June 13-15, 2011. The
Top 100 winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony the
evening of June 15 at the event.

Cultivating the Next Generation of Successful Entrepreneurs

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 EST

At Commonwealth Capital Ventures, we work beside our entrepreneurs with the patience needed to build successful businesses. Commonwealth Associate Casey Gibbons is representing the firm in two TiE-Boston initiatives that support and expand upon the firm’s philosophy by cultivating the next generation of successful entrepreneurs.

Grooming the Next Generation of Startup CEOs

TIE’s Startup Leadership Program (SLP) is an initiative to groom the next generation of startup CEOs Selected to be a Fellow in TiE-Boston’s SLP, Casey draws upon his experience working with Commonwealth partners on software as a service (SaaS), Internet, and digital media investments as well as his background as co-founder of NextPlay, a SaaS provider of applications for high school athletes and college coaches engaged in the recruiting process, to mentor SLP entrepreneurs.
The program employs classes, workshops, and other professional development opportunities to educate and assist entrepreneurs, many of whom are working on their first venture. Several ventures have already received funding and others are seeking funding. As one of the few investors in the class, Casey lends an investor’s perspective to the activities and lessons, providing insights into the basics of raising capital and “what investors are looking for.” He also has offered entrepreneurs who are more focused and experienced in product development advice on formulating better business models and go-to-market strategies.

Casey has found it beneficial and rewarding to help fellow entrepreneurs with the challenges they face at the early stages of building a business:

“TiE’s SLP fosters a sincere culture of cooperation between entrepreneurs. All of the Fellows are deeply committed to helping each other out as they attempt to build meaningful businesses that will have a positive impact on the world. I have found that this is the same dynamic that is a key driver of success and source of enthusiasm at Commonwealth; it is deeply rewarding to work alongside entrepreneurs and help them in whatever ways possible to create successful long-term businesses that positively affect the world around us.”

Teaching and Inspiring New Entrepreneurs

TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TyE) is a business plan competition developed to educate and inspire high school students to be entrepreneurs through mentor-based programs. Taught by experienced industry leaders, the program is designed to foster innovation, leadership skills, creativity and self-confidence.

Through TyE, Casey mentors a team of high school students, offering guidance and advice as they build a business plan in order to compete in the TyE Business Plan Competition. As this is the students’ first exposure to entrepreneurship, Casey helps them with the fundamentals, including identifying a problem, creating a product or service that will solve it, understanding the market opportunity, acquiring customers, financial fundamentals, developing a business plan, and building an investor presentation.

Casey has found mentoring new, young entrepreneurs to be deeply rewarding. He found his experience co-founding NextPlay in his senior year of college a powerful and inspirational experience, and has found the opportunity to guide students through their own initial experiences with entrepreneurship extremely satisfying:

“It’s great to see the students develop and get excited about entrepreneurship. This happens in pretty much every class when they learn something new that fits into the bigger picture of their business plan and vision,” said Casey.

“TyE is all about teaching and inspiring young entrepreneurs who will go on to change the world,” he continued. “This is a mission that is critical for everyone engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to support. It is a tenet that Commonwealth cares deeply about.”

Tungle Acquired by Research In Motion

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 EST

Tungle has been acquired by Research In Motion.

Tungle.me offers a free web-based application that lets users share calendars across companies and platforms, schedule meetings with individuals or groups inside or outside their company, and propose multiple meeting times in invitations. The service currently syncs with a number of calendar applications, including Outlook, Google Calendar, and Apple iCal.

Since Tungle’s launch in 2009, the company’s scheduling offering was being used at 800 Universities around the world, by 40% of Fortune 1000 companies, and users from over 150 countries.

The entire Tungle team will be joining RIM immediately.

Commonwealth Capital Ventures' Mike Fitzgerald to Keynote First Session of MassTLC's SaaS Business Model Series

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EST

Mike Fitzgerald, Managing General Partner at Commonwealth Capital Ventures, will keynote and serve as moderator for the first session of the Mass Technology Leadership Council’s SaaS Business Model Series. In his session keynote, titled “Thinking Outside the Box to Stay Ahead of the Curve,” Fitzgerald will offer key trends for market, distribution and operations that lead to success in a SaaS business. In addition, Fitzgerald will moderate a panel of executives from both small and large SaaS organizations who will share tactics on:
• the business opportunities and models that SaaS creates
• leveraging market knowledge to define your product and business model,
• finding a scalable sales model that encompasses pricing, packaging, distribution and your customer’s buying process.

Details
Where:

IBM
404 Wyman Street
North Entrance
Waltham, MA 02451

When: Thursday, April 7, 2011 from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM

For more information or to register, please visit http://saasseries1.eventbrite.com/

youDevise and First Coverage Merge to Form Global Trade Idea Network for Institutional Investors

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 EST

The leading providers of alpha capture networks for financial markets – youDevise Ltd. of London and First Coverage of Boston – today announced they have merged into a single entity, forming the first comprehensive global network for institutional investors and brokerages.

youDevise and First Coverage market online services that enable institutional investors to receive short- and long-term trade ideas from their brokerage firms, making it easier for money managers to identify ideas with real value. Trade ideas are time sensitive, client specific long/short recommendations, based on all information likely to affect a stock’s price near term.

The combined company, which will operate under the youDevise name, serves more than 150 institutional investors, including major hedge funds, traditional money managers, and specialist alpha capture funds, and more than 560 sell side firms, from the largest bulge brackets to smaller boutiques. Together, the two platforms transmit more than 2,000 ideas a day on stocks, up 60% from a year ago, primarily traded on markets in the US, UK, Europe and Asia.

youDevise launched its Trade Idea Monitor (the TIM) in 2005 and First Coverage debuted its eponymous service in 2006. Integration of the platforms is expected to be completed in 2011, with the best features of First Coverage becoming part of the TIM. Until then, users will have continuous access to their service of choice and will be updated when new enhancements are released.

Investors in the merger include a syndicate of venture capital firms comprised of Commonwealth Capital Ventures of Boston, GrandBanks Capital of Boston, and JLA Ventures of Toronto. All three were original investors in First Coverage.
The merger will give money mangers access to brokers with specialties in all developed and emerging markets. The merger will eliminate the need for brokers to use multiple systems and help reach a greater number of clients. For both, the merger will increase 24/7 sales and support through youDevise offices in London, New York, Boston, Toronto, and Hong Kong.

“youDevise is pleased to join forces with the First Coverage team because we are both passionate about the future of trade ideas,” said Colin Berthoud, Founding Partner of youDevise. “The merger makes tremendous sense for our clients who can use the combined network to access knowledgeable counterparts on any scale of stock in any sector anywhere in the world, while providing brokers with new ways to monetize their intellectual property.”

"Our shared ‘customer first’ commitment, to help the buy and sell side create value from trade ideas, will be significantly enhanced," said Roland Beaulieu, CEO of First Coverage. "Given the alignment of our visions, technologies and strategies, the combination of youDevise and First Coverage creates the premier alpha capture platform in the world."

“The continued financial support from institutional investors underscores their confidence in the rapidly growing alpha capture market,” said Jeff Hurst, a General Partner and Co-founder of Commonwealth Capital Ventures. “Its strengthened position enhances youDevise’s ability to meet the increasing global market demand for what has become a highly dynamic new front in institutional investing.”

The combined company is headed by Rich Koppel and Colin Berthoud, founding partners of youDevise. First Coverage’s Roland Beaulieu and Commonwealth Capital Ventures’ Jeff Hurst, have joined the youDevise Board of Directors.

In addition to the TIM, youDevise markets the Hedge Fund Information Provider (HIP), the leading online platform used by Funds of Hedge Funds directly or through large administrators, such as Northern Trust (NASDAQ: NTRS) for front, middle and back office management information and decision making.

The Importance of Market Timing and Development in Successful Investing

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

This is a republished article.

For VC investors, startups that take advantage of market opportunity are always the best bets. And in making decisions on whether or not to invest, VCs not only must have the foresight to predict areas that will be hot several years into the future, but also a thorough understanding of market timing, development and return potential.

It is important that early stage venture capitalists fully understand the status of market development so that they do not invest expensive capital too far ahead of the market. And it is best when CEOs have the right vision and timing for the company and when the company’s products are superior. It is rare, however, for all the pieces of the puzzle to come together in this way. Small companies can only play a limited roll in driving new markets, and if the vision and products are too far ahead of the market, the risk is that investors will be spending too much capital on opportunities that do not have enough near term potential. This can reduce, or even eliminate, their returns.

VCs who correctly anticipate the rate of market development and the return potential will be able to judge the right rate of investment. With a good knowledge of how fast the market will develop, the company’s place in it and ability to execute – VCs should have good handle on how much to invest at what rate, what kind of market return to expect, and how hard to push each company they invest in.

The venture market frequently will relay market knowledge to companies looking to raise additional capital. While startups often had exits in three years or less in the pre-bubble market, it can take seven or more years today. For this reason, it is sometimes better to substitute time for capital.

The key to successful investing is patience and taking the long view. Sometimes companies are simply ahead of their markets and it is necessary for them to adjust their perspectives to achieve neutral operating cash flow sooner rather than later. VCs can have much more patience with companies that are not burning cash. In order to reach cash flow neutrality, companies should size their operations to fit the likely potential revenue stream. Impatient VCs and CEOs will spend too much chasing markets that are not ready. But if they are realistic, they will distribute funds more slowly or use other people’s capital, or venture debt, or work to become cash flow neutral. The important thing is to minimize the burn rate when the company’s market prospects are uncertain.

There is a catch, however, in that competitive activity may drive the company’s need to spend. This is why a thorough understanding of the competitive landscape in any given market is essential to recognizing the potential for development. Companies that know what competitors are doing can set up their pricing, promotion, placement, and products accordingly, and will be better able to participate in market growth. Should competitors begin to spend aggressively though, companies may be forced to spend to keep up.

This competitive issue notwithstanding, one of the venture industry’s big sins is investors spending too much money pushing companies too hard before their time or before they have products or business processes in place. This can result in VCs putting in too much money and driving down the ultimate return. Even worse, a negative syndicate psychology can poison the outlook for the company, causing an early shutdown or sale, long before the market has a chance to develop. The process of assessing the rate of market development and opportunity holds many ambiguities. Companies that have experienced investor and syndicate partners who share their philosophy regarding how to build and how to gauge proper timing will be able to address these issues more effectively.

Clearly, there are numerous factors are involved in successful investing. Picking a winner is never a sure thing. Forward thinking VCs who carefully consider where companies fit in terms of market timing and development, and who are willing to substitute time for capital will greatly increase their chances of success.

Not By Funding Alone: The Benefits of Service Oriented Approaches

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

This is a republished article.

While venture funding is a big factor in making entrepreneurial ideas reality, VCs who operate primarily as financier "owners," buying startups as if the startups work for them, are unlikely to build a track record of good returns. VC investment is about entrepreneurs, not VCs. By thinking and acting, first and foremost, as service providers to their entrepreneurs and management teams, VCs are more likely to achieve long term, ongoing success across their portfolios.

VCs who act as service providers are better able to fulfill the critical role of constructive partners dedicated to helping portfolio companies succeed. They emphasize collaboration over individual partner interests, and patience rather than keeping score on short term company performance (while disregarding the negative impact that can have in the long term). Partners at such firms work together as collaborative teams, leveraging their combined experience, expertise, and network of resources to benefit portfolio companies. Their activities focus on services supporting company performance and are appreciated by management and board members alike.

This approach is in direct contrast to “financier/owner” oriented VCs who often only get actively involved with companies during financing activities, give precedence to short term results over long term strategy and direction, and treat management team members as subordinates. Such approaches provide no basis for establishing collaborative, team-based relationships with portfolio companies. With service provider approaches, however, VCs can enhance valuable, long term relationships with management teams and co-investors, thus positioning themselves to be truly effective.

Service orientated approaches start at the due diligence stage, when there should be a focus on establishing collaborative partnerships and achieving mutual wins. VCs should begin by aligning the interests of all the parties involved -- starting with the term sheet. It is not always easy to get everyone on the same team, but VCs can help by taking the lead on it from the outset. With true collaboration and common goals, rather than individual interests, VCs will be better able to have a large influence on critical business decisions.

As team players, VCs can provide a broad range of supportive services that will help them build productive relationships with management and board members. For instance, VCs might help CEOs identify, recruit, hire and retain executive management teams and outside board members. VCs also might introduce CEOs (and other management team members) to peers at other portfolio companies, enabling them to share past experiences that can lead to better outcomes. VCs can provide other valuable professional contacts as well including commercial bankers, lawyers, accountants, and PR firms, among others. And they can introduce portfolio companies to investment bankers who potentially can help them in selling the company or taking it public when the time comes.

Service provider VCs also can facilitate partnership discussions between portfolio companies (or between portfolio and non-portfolio companies) for early product development or co-marketing and sales relationships. VCs can act as sounding boards for CEOs thinking through issues confronting the business or lining up new equity investors for future rounds of financing, and they can help management think through and accept the reasonable terms and conditions of the financing. VCs can lead co-investor discussions and help management gain consensus within their investor base for important company decisions. VCs also can help with discussions on the tactical and strategic benefits and issues of the current business model, or of alternative business models. They can build credibility for their portfolio companies within the VC and business communities and also can provide access to VC facilities and resources companies can use for sensitive/top secret off-site meetings. VCs often are able to provide perks as well -- such as Red Sox tickets -- that CEOs can use to reward key employees for a job well done. Perhaps most significantly, service provider VCs can introduce companies to potential early customers.

In contrast, VC firms who push their own agendas to excess can create an atmosphere of distrust, and in some cases even animosity, in the board room. Since individual VCs generally are minority, rather than controlling, owners of portfolio companies, the more productive course of action is working to gain the trust and respect of the management team.

By nature, service provider approaches are patient and steady, with VCs committing whatever time is necessary to convey the benefits of the experience and expertise they have gained from guiding numerous companies through the process. These benefits include valuable perspectives on what works, what doesn’t, how to recognize opportunities, and how to avoid mistakes and missteps. VCs willing to put in the time to work with their portfolio companies can become integral members of the team. But while it is beneficial for VCs to play a close, hands-on role, ultimately, the responsibility for running the business and making it successful lies with the portfolio company management team.

Much of the ability of VCs to act as service providers depends on geographic proximity. By making it easier for VCs to spend the time to fully understand their companies, build relationships, and function as supportive members of the team, close proximity can lead to better business decisions. Spontaneous meetings can and do happen and discussions about difficult issues can take place face-to-face in a few hours rather than a day or two later. VCs can easily bring all of their partners together to work on issues, so portfolio companies get the benefit of the entire firm, not just the proponent partner.

Financial backing will always be important for new companies – but cash alone will not spell success. By investing time and sharing the benefits of their experience, counsel, expertise, and networks, service-oriented VCs are more likely to build market leading companies and to achieve excellent investment returns.

Right Sizing: the Foundation for Successful Investing

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

This is a republished article.

Today’s downturn is driving home the lesson that while big risks may yield big returns in boom times, sizing investments appropriately is the only real route to long-term success. Many technology startups are learning this lesson the hard way. Having taken advantage of the overabundance of VC funding during the last upswing by spending too much, too fast – they now find themselves without the means to keep going. Had these companies considered how much to raise at the outset and sought to work with VCs committed to sizing investments carefully, they might be better positioned to ride out today’s tough times.

Appropriate sizing encourages companies to use cash judiciously -- which is the best foundation for staying on course regardless of economic conditions. Properly sized investments always ensure that companies have the right amount of cash to follow through on their business plans. This is especially critical today. If the current recession persists, early stage companies simply will not survive unless they are more cautious about spending and wait for evidence that their sales models are workable before going to market.

The story of Constant Contact, a leading provider of e-marketing tools for small businesses provides a good example of the rewards of using cash cautiously. The company had a highly successful IPO in 2007 – a full eight years after its 1998 launch. There were many ups and downs along the way, including slower than expected adoption of SaaS and unprofitable operations post 9/11. But the company was able to meet the challenges by working to more modest expectations so that it could subsist on a very small amount of venture capital (about $5M) from 2001 to 2002, when it reached break even. The company used that capital to iron out kinks in the marketing and sales model and, by 2005, had excellent market traction and momentum. By the first half of 2007, revenue was up 78 percent.

In order to size investments appropriately, VCs and entrepreneurs must exercise patience by committing enough time to get to know each other. This will enable them to determine if there is a unity of vision and goals, and whether the relationship and the funding will be a good fit. Every investment must be dealt with individually because cookie-cutter approaches don’t work. And, because most companies raise multiple rounds, they must use the funding wisely to reach important milestones that subsequent investors will recognize.

In determining the size of funding rounds, investors and entrepreneurs must realistically assess the ultimate worth of the company and the likely size of the exit. The total investment paid in should be made accordingly. For instance, good exits for software companies typically range from $150M to $250M. While the number of exits will most likely be a lot lower until the economy recovers, companies and investors still need to keep their eyes on the long view and aim to realize exits in this range. To do this, such software companies should strive to consume no more than $25M to $30M in total capital.

Over-funding companies at the outset is not a good approach. For example, rather than investing heavily in sales and marketing early on, companies should first determine if the market is receptive to their products and which sales channels are best. Also, instead of over-investing in product development too soon, companies should concentrate on getting first versions out quickly and getting market feedback.

While such approaches increase the odds of success by using capital more constructively and efficiently, just the opposite is true of companies that have too much capital too soon and no plan for deploying it effectively. In times when there is a surfeit of venture capital available, some VCs can be too anxious to put funds to work sooner and can offer entrepreneurs more cash than necessary to execute on their business plans. As a result, entrepreneurs can believe that their opportunity has so much merit they can spend whatever they want – so they burn through capital too quickly. In addition, companies that raise too much money without making sufficient business progress can have difficulty obtaining subsequent funding rounds from new VC investors. Without funding to move forward, entrepreneurs may see their stake in the company dwindle. To avoid these pitfalls, entrepreneurs must broaden the focus beyond money by getting to know their VCs investors well, and, most importantly, trusting their own instincts, because they know their businesses best.

While having too much cash, too early can cause serious problems – today’s problem of too little capital is not a good thing either. For example, in an attempt to retain more of the company for themselves, some first time entrepreneurs can try to make do with less. A miserly approach like this can leave the company without the funds necessary to follow through on the business plan.

Clearly, sizing investments properly is a major success factor for startups. But it takes time, patience, and work up front, to ensure that each investment provides just the right amount of capital to stay on course and follow through successfully on the business plan. The bottom line on the bottom line is this -- sufficient funding, used efficiently is always the most reliable route to the best exits with the highest returns over the long term.

Antenna Wins GSMA Global Mobile Award for Best Mobile Enterprise Solution at Mobile World Congress

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

Antenna Software, Inc., enabling business transformation through compelling mobile experiences, was announced a winner of the GSMA Global Mobile Awards in the category of Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Solution during the prestigious award ceremony at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Since 1996 the Global Mobile Awards, sponsored by the GSMA, have recognized companies for their outstanding contributions toward driving the growth of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Antenna was selected as a finalist from hundreds of entrants for its portfolio of mobile applications enabled by the Antenna Mobility Platform™ (AMP), before receiving the ultimate nod as winner for best mobile enterprise product or solution.

AMP is an enterprise-class mobile applications platform that accommodates both business to consumer (B2C) mobile applications and employee-facing applications for leading companies in a variety of industries including financial services, retail, consumer packaged goods, life sciences and manufacturing. AMP was built from the ground up to mobilize any data source, over any wireless network worldwide, and to any smartphone or tablet device. Utilizing the latest and best in standards-based and emerging technologies, AMP allows organizations to not only build an application once and deploy it across any combination of devices, but also centrally deploy, manage, and secure these apps across all devices.

“It has been a milestone year for Antenna marked by record-breaking growth, product innovation and industry accolades, culminating in this great honor,” said Jim Hemmer, President and CEO, Antenna. “The Global Mobile Award validates our technical offering and underscores Antenna’s business philosophy – that intelligently designed business apps make users happy and empower organizations to create more meaningful and more profitable relationships with their customers. We thank our customers and partners around the world for choosing Antenna as their trusted mobility partner.”

As smartphone and tablet adoption accelerates and mobile Web and apps usage increases, Antenna is well positioned to help companies navigate the complexities of mobility and drive strategic growth initiatives now and into the future. AMP enables companies to create order out of chaos in the fragmented mobile ecosystem and keep pace with emerging technologies and devices. With Antenna’s mobile technology as the foundation, organizations are empowered to deliver compelling, smooth mobile experiences that satisfy customer demand for both information and purchasing power all from their mobile device.

The Global Mobile Awards judges commented: “Bringing consumer type apps to work for enterprise users and their customers is an important new area of development. This forward thinking capability really enhances the effectiveness of enterprise users and their transactions with customers and suppliers.”

The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world's mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations. For 16 years, the GSMA Global Mobile Awards have showcased cutting-edge mobile products, services and initiatives around the world.

“This year’s awards attracted more than 600 entrants, with many high caliber entries across all categories," said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board, GSMA. “The GSMA congratulates the award winners and commends all finalists for their innovation, ingenuity and important contributions to the success of the mobile industry.”

Antenna Software Acquires Mobile Internet Specialist Volantis

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

Antenna Software, Inc., enabling business transformation and consumer engagement through intelligently designed mobile applications, today announced it has acquired mobile Internet software company Volantis Systems Ltd. The combination of Antenna's proven mobile apps technology with the ability now to harness the power of the mobile Internet, uniquely positions the company as a complete, end-to-end mobile solutions provider for enterprises and carriers. This strategic acquisition makes Antenna the market leader for mobility solutions that address the needs of all users across all Internet-connected mobile devices – from smartphones and tablets through to browser-enabled feature phones.

"According to a recent IDC forecast, in 2011 half of all web users are going to be mobile web users, and by 2014 we estimate they will have downloaded 76.9 billion apps," said Nick McQuire, IDC's Research Director for EMEA Enterprise Mobility. "It's clear that no company can afford to have just a mobile website strategy or just a mobile apps strategy. As such, the combined experience and capabilities of Antenna and Volantis make them well positioned to take advantage of the way in which the mobile Internet is developing on a global scale."

Operating under the Antenna brand, the combined company will continue to provide full support of Volantis' products to its current customers, prospects and partners through its existing teams in the Volantis offices in Guildford, Seattle, Krakow, Pune and Hong Kong – strengthening Antenna's global presence, particularly across Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The addition of Volantis' complementary technology allows Antenna to immediately offer its customers a significantly broader range of mobile web solutions, including the underlying architecture for mobile commerce and enterprise app stores. This adds to Antenna's already robust on-demand (SaaS) Antenna Mobility Platform (AMP) offering, which powers the company's suite of mobile business and consumer applications.

"This is truly a watershed moment for Antenna that takes us closer to our vision of being the mobile platform for the Global 1000," said Jim Hemmer, President and CEO of Antenna. "With Volantis as part of the Antenna family, our customers can go to a single provider for all their mobility needs. Our mobile solutions not only manage the complex requirements of the workforce but also the mobile demands of millions of consumers who want to interact with a brand on the go across myriad devices. In a highly fragmented channel, Antenna creates order out of chaos and delivers a consistent and compelling mobile experience to all."

Volantis brings to Antenna a wealth of carrier and enterprise customers, including T-Mobile, Hutchinson 3G, Telenor, Garanti Bank and Reliance Capital. The Volantis customer portfolio deepens Antenna's already robust carrier portfolio and extends the company's vertical offerings across the financial services, retail, travel, transport, media and entertainment industry sectors.

"Volantis has spent the past decade developing a best-of-breed solution for the mobile Internet," said Mark Watson, former CEO and Co-Founder of Volantis. "Our goal has always been to make the mobile web as accessible as possible to enterprises and consumers, with the most robust technology to support the solution. Joining with Antenna will allow us to continue to invest in the development of our technology while co-innovating as part of the Antenna team to help drive success for the combined company going forward."

Kadient and The Sant Corporation are now Qvidian

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 EST

Kadient Inc. and The Sant Corporation are pleased to announce the new name for their unified organization—Qvidian. Since merging in June 2010, the two companies continued to operate under their separate brand names until today's announcement.

“Everything we do at Qvidian is focused on helping sales and proposal teams gain a competitive edge and win more often,” said Lewis Miller, president of Qvidian. “We’re excited to reinforce this message through our new brand and position Qvidian as ‘The Sales Gamechanger’.”

Qvidian offers a complementary suite of cloud computing solutions that enable sales teams to work smarter, faster, and with greater success. The Qvidian sales effectiveness platform is comprised of three modules:

1. Sales Playbooks & Analytics – Situational best practices, or ‘plays’, enabling sales teams to engage prospects and win more often.
2. Proposal Automation – Powerful and intuitive tools allowing sales teams and proposal professionals to easily produce winning proposals, RFP responses, and presentations.
3. Content Library – Fast access to content and expertise to move deals forward.

“Our company name is new, but our commitment to provide outstanding products, services, and support to our 1,200 customers worldwide remains the same,” said Miller.

The company’s new website is www.Qvidian.com. In addition to company and product information, site visitors can access eBooks, guides, white papers, videos, and other resources to improve sales effectiveness.