Apple - Brian Marshall, of Broadpoint AmTech, shares his outlook on the stock particularly with the iSlate?

Brian Marshall, of Broadpoint AmTech, shares his outlook on the stock.
- iphone sales consensus in the 8-9 million range for the quarter
- $11.75 street eps high multiple. 22x multiple. 260 price target. 25% upside
- table device encourages ecosystem of application developers
- extension of current product offering - ipod, iphone, imac, i-tv, islate?

- source: nyt

Top Stock: Jeff Auxier, Auxier Asset Management and Will Nasgovitz Portfolio Manager Heartland Advisors provides their top 10 stocks for 2010.

Jeff Auxier, Auxier Asset Management and Will Nasgovitz Portfolio Manager Heartland Advisors provides their top 10 stocks for 2010.

- Weight Watchers (ticker WTW) - 1.5 billion people obese worldwide. 23lbs per person overweight. 10x p/e. historical low. average is 20x. free cash abundant. $147b obesity costs per year. "tremendous opportunity"

- Navigant Consulting (ticker NCI) - specialty consulting company specializing in CDO implosions, hedge funds, < 13x p/e

- Tidewater (ticker TDW) - trading at book

- Exxon - (ticker XOM, XTO) - cheaper way to buy is using XTO. 3% arb

Steve Forbes, Forbes CEO discusses this past decade's performance in the stock market and a look ahead to the next decade

Steve Forbes, Forbes CEO discusses this past decade's performance in the stock market and a look ahead to the next decade

Entrepreneur.com: 2010 Franchise 500

Top 10 Franchises for 2010

Rank

Name

Startup Costs

$84,300 - $258,300

1

Subway

Submarine sandwiches & salads

$995,900 - $1,842,700

2

McDonald's

Hamburgers, chicken, salads

$40,500 - $775,300

3

7-Eleven Inc.

Convenience store

$3,716,000 - $13,148,800

4

Hampton Inn/Hampton Inn & Suites

Midprice hotels

$111,000 - $239,700

5

Supercuts

Hair salon

$26,427 - $84,094

6

H & R Block

Tax preparation & electronic filing

$537,750 - $1,765,300

7

Dunkin' Donuts

Coffee, doughnuts, baked goods

$11,400 - $35,050

8

Jani-King

Commercial cleaning

$102,250 - $161,150

9

Servpro

Insurance/disaster restoration & cleaning

$1,835,823 - $7,615,065

10

ampm Mini Market

Convenience store & gas station

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Green@Google: Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss renewable energy and the path to real impact.

Vinod's biography:

Vinod Khosla
Vinod grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur, despite growing up in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. Since age 16, when he first heard about Intel starting up, he dreamt of starting his own technology company.

Upon graduating with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he failed, at age 20, to start a soy milk company to service the many people in India who did not have refrigerators. He came to the US and got his Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon University. His startup dreams attracted him to Silicon Valley where he got an MBA at Stanford University in 1980.

Upon graduation he was one of the three founders of Daisy Systems, which was the first significant computer aided design system for electrical engineers. The company went on to significant revenue, profits and an IPO, but Khosla, driven by the frustration of having to design the computer hardware on which the Daisy software needed to be built, started the standards based Sun Microsystems in 1982 to build workstations for software developers. At Sun he pioneered "open systems" and RISC processors. Sun was funded by long time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

In 1986 he switched sides and joined Kleiner Perkins where he was and continues to be a general partner of KPCB funds through KP X. There, through the years, with other partners, he took on Intel's monopoly with Nexgen/AMD (the only microprocessor to have significant success against Intel, sold to AMD for 28% of AMD), incubated the idea and business plan for Juniper to take on Cisco's dominance of the router market, to formulate the very early advertising based search strategy for Excite, and to transform the moribund telecommunications business and its archaic SONET implementations with Cerent (sold to Cisco for $7B), and many other ventures. He helped in creating value, having fun, succeeding, failing (remember Dynabook?) and driving impact in partnership with entrepreneur, and the partners at KPCB.

In 2004, Khosla, driven by the need for flexibility to accommodate four teenage children and a desire to be more experimental, to fund sometimes imprudent "science experiments", and to take on both "for profit" and for "social impact" ventures, formed khoslaventures, funded entirely with family funds. His goals remain the same - work and learn from fun and knowledgeable entrepreneurs, build impactful companies through the leverage of innovation, and spend time as a partnership making a difference. He has a passion for nascent technologies that can have a beneficial effect and economic impact on society.

Vinod's greatest passion is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology based businesses. Vinod assists or serves on the boards of a number of the companies including EASIC (programmable ASIC platform), Infinera (optical communications), Kovio (printed electronics), Skyblue (internet PC), Spatial Photonics (Micromirror displays), Xsigo (datacenter switch), among others.

Khosla is a charter member of TiE, a not-for-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals founded in 1992 that now has more than forty chapters in nine countries. He is also a Founding Board member of the Indian School of Business. His current passion is Social Entrepreneurship with a special emphasis on Microfinance as a poverty alleviation tool. He is a supporter of many microfinance organizations in India and Africa. He has been experimenting with global housing. Vinod is also passionate about alternative energy, petroleum independence, and the environment. He can be reached at vk@khoslaventures.com.

Public SaaS Benchmarking

Public SaaS Benchmarking

Public SaaS Benchmarking (Oct. 09)

View more documents from Philippe Botteri.

Sheer Awesome Technology - Avatar: The Movie, Extended HD Trailer

Sheer Awesome Technology - Avatar: The Movie, Extended HD Trailer

Bessemer 10 Laws Of Being SaaSy Fall 2008

...a look back

Bessemer 10 Laws Of Being SaaSy Fall 2008

View more presentations from Philippe Botteri.

Seeking great guest contributors for 2010

Shoot us an email if interested. techstartups@gmail.com

topics: startups, tech, entrepreneurship, venture capital, innovation.

RepairPal raises $4 million Series A financing from Grelock, Adelante, Tugboat

RepairPal,the leading destination for auto repair and maintenance information, today announced the completion of its $4 million Series A financing. Tugboat Ventures led the round that also included individual investors:

Rick Keister, former CEO of Keystone Automotive Industries (acquired by LKQ Corp.) and former President of Aftermarket at Delco Remy
David Strohm, Partner at Greylock Partners, board member at EMC and VMware
Mark Goines, former Intuit executive and board member at Mint.com
Michael Torres, CEO of Adelante Capital Management
Dave Whorton, Managing Partner at Tugboat, joined RepairPal's Board of Directors. Mr. Whorton was co-founder of Drugstore.com (DSCM) and founding CEO of Good Technology (acquired by Motorola). Prior to founding Tugboat Ventures, Mr. Whorton was a managing director at TPG Ventures and associate partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he worked on the firm's AutoTrader investment. Mr. Whorton currently serves on the Boards of Directors of SuccessFactors (Nasdaq: SFSF), Cuil, RichRelevance and NewSchools Venture Fund.

“We’re thrilled to have Dave and the other new investors who share our vision and commitment to creating the highest quality data and products in the marketplace,” said David Sturtz, CEO of RepairPal. “With this investment we can significantly advance our roadmap and ability to deliver value to our customers, partners and visitors.”

"In a large and important industry viewed skeptically by consumers, RepairPal has built the definitive database of consumer-accessible auto repair costs, and has established itself as a trusted partner to consumers, dealerships, shop owners and key industry players. Their commitment to customer success and technical excellence reflects the key values of great ventures such as Amazon and SuccessFactors," said Mr. Whorton.

About RepairPal
Award-winning RepairPal is the only automotive resource delivering free, "instant" RepairPrice Estimates via the Web and its popular iPhone mobile application. RepairPal provides the most accurate auto repair and maintenance information available anytime, anywhere, built by its team of factory-trained and ASE-certified technicians. RepairPal's patent-pending technology generates more than 70 billion unique RepairPrice Estimates for almost all passenger vehicles and every zip code in the country. It also has the most comprehensive directory of auto repair facilities in the U.S. and a proprietary database of each model's common problems. RepairPal is an Approved Vendor for the Automotive Service Councils of California (ASCCA) and a Member Benefit for the Automotive Service Association (ASA). It has established partnerships with AAA (Northern California, Nevada & Utah), AOL Autos, CustomerLink, Cars.com, Bosch, ACDelco, Belo Interactive, AutoNation and Gabriels Technologies. RepairPal is headquartered in Emeryville, CA.

CloudShare Raises $10MM Series B Funding from Sequoia Capital, Gemini Capital, and Charles River Ventures

CloudShare Raises $10MM Series B Funding from Sequoia Capital, Gemini Capital, and Charles River Ventures

CloudShare, formerly IT Structures, announced it has received $10M in series B financing from Sequoia Capital, Gemini Capital, and Charles River Ventures (CRV). The company plans to use the investment to fund product development and expand its go-to-market capabilities.

CloudShare, a Menlo Park-based startup, has developed what could be revolutionary for solution providers and ISV’s selling software or appliances: A way for organizations to instantly deploy multiple, independent copies of their existing demo or training environments in the cloud. The company says its ability to raise a significant round of funding at a higher valuation than its previous round — in a down economy — reflects the stability of the company and the value it provides.

“CloudShare has taken all the necessary steps to solidify its market position and prepare for future growth. We are impressed by the team and track record CloudShare brings to the table, and are immensely pleased to be backing a company that we believe is not only capitalizing on cloud computing, but using it in the right way to benefit business users,” said George Zachary, Partner at Charles River Ventures.

CloudShare customers, which include such industry leaders as VMware, Cisco, SAP and more, have already delivered over one million VM demo, PoC (proof of concept) and training hours to date, representing over six quarters of consecutive double-digit usage growth for CloudShare. This early success demonstrates the practical, revenue-oriented, immediately useful nature of the CloudShare platform.

“Since founding CloudShare in 2007 we’ve been focused on developing our technology, with the promise that it will revolutionize the way sales demos and PoC’s are conducted. We’ve officially come out of stealth mode with marquee customers, a proven cloud-based technology platform, and $10M in funding to help build out our vision. We now have all the right assets in place and we look forward to reaping the benefits in 2010 and beyond,” said Zvi Guterman, CEO of CloudShare.

About George Zachary

Focus: Consumer Internet and infrastructure
Exits:
Andale - acquired by Vendio, 2006
Shutterfly - IPO 2006, (Nasdaq: SFLY)
Supertracks - acquired by Centerspan, 2001
Accrue Software - IPO 1999
Critical Path - IPO 1999, (OTC:CPTH)
Securify - acquired by Kroll-O’gara, 1999
Ovation Entertainment
Sandcastle - acquired by Adobe Systems
Telebot - acquired by Z-Tel

Prior Experience:
General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures
Led Nintendo 64 development at Silicon Graphics
Marketing Manager at virtual reality pioneer VPL Research and CATS Software

Education: Joint BS, MIT/MIT Sloan School

About CloudShare
CloudShare is a quick and easy way to share copies of your complex IT environments, online, so you can collaborate with customers, partners, and colleagues – for Demos, Proofs-of-Concept, Training, or other enterprise applications – without wasting time copying gigabytes of software or shipping machines and people. Going beyond basic webinar or “virtual lab” offerings, CloudShare’s solutions enables users’ extended interaction in dedicated “hands on” production-grade replicas of their existing IT, delivered as cloud-based SaaS – while centrally monitoring and managing it all. Leading solutions providers have adopted CloudShare as their vendor of choice to extend access to their virtual infrastructure from the Enterprise to the Cloud. Backed by Gemini, Sequoia Capital and Charles River Ventures, CloudShare is a privately held company based in Menlo Park, with globally accessible sales offices and SaaS platform. For more details visit www.CloudShare.com or call 1-888-609-4440.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong discusses the company's strategy post-Time Warner.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong discusses the company's strategy post-Time Warner.

SaaS Social Marketing Automation Leader Genius.com Raises $7M from Accel Partners, Emergence Capital, MDV, and Walden International

SaaS Social Marketing Automation Leader Genius.com Raises $7M from Top Tier Investors to Drive Faster Growth

Genius.com Incorporated, a leading on-demand provider of B2B marketing automation, sales lead management, and email marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals, announced today a $7M growth round of financing led by new investor Deep Fork Capital. All of the company’s existing investors participated in the round, demonstrating their deep commitment to Genius' long-term success, the company's social marketing automation leadership and the overall market opportunity. The funds will be used to expand Genius’ sales and product development efforts with a clear sight to profitability.

"Our business has been on a steep upswing with record revenue and customer growth over the past 4 quarters despite the harshest economic environment in memory," observed David Thompson. "This round of financing will help us grow even faster and compete more aggressively, extending our leadership position in the marketing automation space into the enterprise and beyond. The fact that all of our existing investors participated in the round as well as our new lead investor Deep Fork Capital underscores our success to date and validates the huge opportunity for Genius.com.”

Genius.com is the first SaaS solution that delivers the benefits of social marketing automation to both Marketing and Sales, making it easier and more efficient for Sales and Marketing to reach, respond and build relationships "in the cloud" and ultimately recognize revenue.

"We were very impressed by the quality of the Genius business, their team, and the massive market opportunity for what is the best positioned company in the SaaS marketing automation space," noted Andre de Baubigny, Managing Partner of Deep Fork Capital. “With top tier investors like Accel, MDV, Walden and Emergence, Genius has an exceptional syndicate of investors, making them far and above the most promising long-term player in a very hot category." Other recent Deep Fork investments include Trulia, a real estate search company, and Amie Street, a digital music retailer.

“MDV continues to see huge upside in Genius.com as they carry their impressive run into 2010 and beyond,” said Nancy Schoendorf, General Partner, MDV. “With the addition of over 120 customers in less than 8 months, including such notable companies as Hoover’s, Information Builders and Intuit, Genius has quickly become the marketing automation leader supplanting companies that can’t offer marketers the same quick time to value.”

About Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of excellence and innovation in venture capital, and is dedicated to partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally, with offices in Palo Alto, California, London, UK, and Bangalore, India as well as in China via the IDG-Accel Partnership. With over $6 billion under management, Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Admob, Alfresco, BBN, Brightcove, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook, GlamMedia, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, JBoss, Kayak, Macromedia , metroPCS, Playfish, Polycom/PictureTel, QlikTech, Real Networks, Riverbed, Springsource, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, and XenSource. For more information on Accel, visit: http://www.facebook.com/accel.

About Emergence Capital Partners
Emergence Capital Partners is a leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services investing. The firm's mission is to help build market leading, successful businesses in partnership with great entrepreneurs. Emergence partners have funded and helped build over 25 On-Demand companies, including Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors and Lithium -- more than any other early-stage venture firm. Having assessed thousands of companies in the TES sector, Emergence Capital has developed significant expertise and resources focused on the critical factors of success in the market. For further information, visit www.emcap.com or call 650 573-3100.

About Deep Fork Capital
Deep Fork Capital (DFC) is a leading balanced-stage venture capital fund focused on providing equity capital and convertible debt financing to companies in the consumer technology, digital media and cleantech spaces, DFC principally works closely with the world’s most formidable early stage venture firms and highly effective strategic corporate investors. Current DFC portfolio companies have included Amie Street, Dash Navigation [acquired by Research in Motion], Genius.com, SearchMe, Reach Media Group, Moblyng, Trulia, weplay and Digital Artists Entertainment.

About MDV—Mohr Davidow Ventures
MDV—Mohr Davidow Ventures is a leading early stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs building companies in the areas of cleantech, information technology, and life sciences. The firm has built a reputation among entrepreneurs as a partner by taking a hands-on approach to investments and working skillfully to architect and build successful companies. The team brings years of real-world experience to accelerate each company's time to market and optimize its long-term success. Category-leading companies funded by MDV include Agile, Audience Science,Broadbase (KANA), Brocade, Epigram (BRCM), FormFactor, Ipsilon Networks (NOK), Kalpana (CSCO), Nanosolar, ONI Systems (CIEN), Peppers and Rogers Group (Carlson Marketing), Requisite Technology (CKCM), and Shutterfly. Founded in 1983, MDV has $2 billion under management. For more information, please visit www.mdv.com.

About Walden International
Walden International ("WI") is a leading international venture capital firm that has been providing investors access to early-stage, cross-border, IT opportunities with the advantage of an unrivaled Pan Asia network since 1987. The firm's funds total over US$1.5 billion in committed capital. WI's network of multi-cultural professionals spans China/ Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. With over 100 years of combined experience, WI's investment team has funded leading technology companies including Creative Technology and Leadis Technology, SINA, and SMIC. With six offices throughout Asia and the United States, the firm has extensive network relationships with major institutions, Asia governmental entities, strategic investors, and entrepreneurs throughout the Pan Asia region. For information, please visit www.waldenintl.com.

About Genius.com
Genius.com is the leading provider of sales lead management and demand generation solutions that enable both marketing and sales users to quickly identify and connect with their best prospects, without IT. Genius.com is a Sales 2.0 leader with over 500 corporate customers who use Genius solutions to automate email marketing and lead nurturing campaigns that deliver the most qualified leads directly to their frontline sales reps, so they can immediately follow-up on their best opportunities.

Genius.com is a privately held company funded by Accel Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Emergence Capital, and Walden International, with headquarters in San Mateo, CA. For more information, visit www.genius.com or email Info at Genius.

Over 3 million hits for Alicia Keys Live Full Concert on Youtube

Over 3 million hits for Alicia Keys Live Full Concert on Youtube

Finally! Mac & Linux for Google Chrome in (Beta)

Google Chrome for Mac (Beta)
From Google's official blog: "We've been working hard to deliver a first-class browser for the Mac — it took longer than we expected, but we hope the wait was worth it! We wanted Google Chrome to feel at home on the Mac, so we've focused on uniting our clean, simple design with subtle animations and effects to create a snappy and satisfying browsing experience on OS X. As you might expect, the speed of Google Chrome for Mac is something we're very proud of. If you have a Mac, try installing the beta and see how fast it launches — there's hardly even time for the icon in the dock to bounce!"

It's well worth the download.

Download beta version here

Interview with John Chambers, CEO of Cisco - Recovery is fragile but Cisco is expecting mid-teen growth. 2001 was worse

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, talks to CNBC's Jim Goldman.
- Company recently optimistic about growth globally
- Analyst day in Silicon Valley
- Reiterates 12-17% growth, surprise
- Optimisim last few weeks and months
- Technology is "Cool" again
- Costs cut as much as possible by co's
- CIOs need to think about innovation in technology
- Bottom in Q1'09
- Summertime seeing first sequential growth
- Cutting to Innovation
- First stage of economic recovery
- Concern about false front? Overseas buyers retreat with weak dollar?
- FX NOT a big impact. US is not carrying world
- Selling architecture - video, productivity
- Growth in the mid-teens
- Billions of $$ spent on key deals
- DOJ , SEC, FTC scrutinizing M&A
- Cisco successful at M&A - 90% of acquisitions fail - do you keep engineers, top management, gain marketshare?
- 70% of Cisco's deal hit or exceed plan - gadzoox
- Competitive advantage
- Most companies want to be acquired by Cisco - 135 deals
- 30 major competitors in every field in exciting markets
"We are the most aggressive this last year that we have ever been," Chambers said. He ticked off several big moves the company made just between Oct. 1 and mid-November, including four acquisitions around the world and a partnership with EMC and VMware. The deals included the major acquisitions of wireless IP infrastructure vendor Starent Networks and of video powerhouse Tandberg. Cisco couldn't have done all that without a new management structure introduced in the past few years, which he said ended the classic "command and control" organization in which one or a few top executives drive all new initiatives."

John Chambers is Chairman and CEO of Cisco. He has helped grow the company from $70 million
when he joined Cisco in January 1991, to $1.2 billion when he assumed the role of CEO, to its current
run rate of $36 billion. In November 2006, Chambers was named Chairman of the Board, in addition to
his CEO role.

Tonchidot Raises $4 Million in Series A Funding - DCM

Tonchidot Corporation today announced it has closed a $4 million Series A financing round.

New investor DCM led the financing with participation from existing investor ITOCHU Technology Ventures (ITV).
Tonchidot has already launched their service, called Sekai Camera, in Japan and is planning to offer the service to a broader global audience. Sekai Camera is a social Augmented Reality (AR) service for browsing and sharing user-generated text, photos, voice, and other location-based information. The funding will help accelerate the company’s global expansion. Concurrent with the funding, Osuke Honda from DCM will join Tsuyoshi Ogawa from ITV on Tonchidot’s board of directors.

“Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera provides a completely new experience to mobile internet users,” says Osuke Honda of DCM. “We believe that Augmented Reality represents a tremendous opportunity for investors, particularly as you look to a global platform. We have studied the AR market for some time now and believe Tonchidot’s technology platform and business model to be the most compelling among competitors in the space. We look forward to working with Tonchidot as they bring this exciting new experience to mobile users worldwide.”

“We sought out an investment partner with true global capabilities and specific knowledge of and expertise in markets in the Pacific Rim and the US,” says Tonchidot CEO, Takahito Iguchi. “DCM has already provided us with invaluable operational guidance and access to a global network of resources and we look forward to working with them going forward as we look to launch Tonchidot to a global scale.”

About Tonchidot
Tonchidot Corporation (Tokyo, Japan) offers an innovative web service/application named “Sekai Camera”, which enables mobile devices to “change the view of the real world.” Sekai Camera enables camera-attached mobile devices, through an easy-to-use augmented reality (AR) interface, to access hypertagged social, informational and entertainment services over the internet. Tonchidot first announced its Sekai Camera concept at TC50, 2008, and released in Japan its iPhone version in September 2009. For more information, visit www.tonchidot.com.

About DCM
DCM is an early stage venture capital firm supporting entrepreneurs building world-class technology companies. The firm’s partners manage US$1.6 billion and have funded leading technology companies including 2Wire, 51job (Nasdaq: JOBS), @Motion (Openwave), About.com (The New York Times Co.), All About (Jasdaq: 2454), Arroyo (Cisco), Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR), Dang Dang, eDreams (TA), Foundry Networks (Nasdaq: FDRY), HireRight (acquired by USIS), Internap (Nasdaq: INAP), IPivot (Intel), Neopath Networks (Cisco), Neutral Tandem (Nasdaq: TNDM), nQuire (Siebel), OPI, PGP Corporation, Recourse Technologies (Symantec), RockYou, Scigineer), SMIC (NYSE: SMI), Sling Media (EchoStar), Ustream, VanceInfo (NYSE: VIT) and Vimicro (Nasdaq: VIMC). DCM offers hands-on operational guidance and access to an extensive network of resources, including close relationships with many of the Pacific Rim’s leading companies and investors.


Osuke Honda
Principal

ohonda@dcm.com

EDUCATION:
Hitotsubashi University
B.A. in Law
Keio University Graduate School of Business Administration
M.B.A.
The Wharton School,University of Pennsylvania

SECTORS/INTERESTS:
Japan-related companies
Consumer Internet
Digital Media
IT Services

As a Principal, Osuke Honda brings a powerful combination of strategic and venture investments, business planning and development, as well as operational experience to his role in identifying new investment opportunities and helping build global companies.

Prior to joining DCM, Osuke was a Principal and operation committee member at Globis Capital Partners, formerly Apax Globis Partners, a pre-eminent venture capital firm in Japan. He led investments in consumer internet, digital media and IT services sectors.

Previously, Osuke held multiple positions at Mitsubishi Corporation, the largest trading house in the world. Here he led various initiatives which involved operations management in the automotive sector as well as business planning and new business development for the CEO Office, Machinery Group. He established strategic alliances and joint ventures with partners across the globe and executed both strategic and venture investments.

Osuke was born in Japan and spent his childhood moving between Texas, California and Tokyo, which created the basis of his cultural flexibility and high tolerance to rapidly changing environments. Besides spending time with his wife and son, Osuke enjoys practicing judo and kyokushin-karate and holds the rank of black belt in both disciplines.

Gartner revises its 2009 PC forecast - Good signs for PC makers - Acer, H-P, Dell, Lenovo?

A new report predicts a pickup in clean-technology investing in 2010 and that Warren Buffett will lead the way.

A new report predicts a pickup in clean-technology investing in 2010 and that Warren Buffett will lead the way. Dallas Kachan highlights the report, including what category looks likely to surpass solar energy.

On the eve of President Barack Obama's gathering on jobs, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt says regulatory changes could spur banks to lend to smal

On the eve of President Barack Obama's gathering on jobs, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt says regulatory changes could spur banks to lend to small and midsize businesses to get the economy going again.

Movik raises $8.5M from Highland Capital Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners

Movik raises $8.5M from Highland Capital Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. The company was founded in 2006 as Lyra Networks Inc. The innovative Movik Content-Aware Mobile Edge solution addresses the fundamental and difficult challenge of scaling the RAN and mobile core CapEx/OpEx in a cost-effective fashion in response to explosive growth in data traffic, while meeting the performance expectations of a growing subscriber base.

Movik Networks is headquartered near Boston, MA and has an R&D group in Bangalore, India. The company is focused on delivering purpose-built solutions that bring content and application awareness to the edge of the mobile network. Movik is led by a seasoned management team with a proven track record of delivering products to carriers.

Ramji Raghavan, the founder and former CTO of Bedford-based Coriolis Networks Inc., co-founded Movik with his former partner and co-founder at Coriolis, Surya Kumar Kovvali, who is Movik’s vice president of technology.

The Rainmakers:
Ramji Raghavan
Founder / CEO
Prior to founding Movik, Ramji was the General Manager of the Transport Business Unit of Telsima, where he ran a multi-site organization developing and marketing Ethernet transport and IPTV/WiMax backhaul products. Prior to Telsima, Ramji was the Founder and CTO of Coriolis Networks, where he set the technical vision and product strategy for the company. In his roles at Telsima and Coriolis, he drove several business development and marketing activities and was instrumental in securing partnerships with tier-1 MNCs, multiple tier-1 carrier wins and building a market presence in U.S, Europe, India and Japan. Prior to co-founding Coriolis, Ramji was a group leader in the High Performance Networking Group of Digital/Cabletron, where he directed software development of the GigaSwitch ATM/IP switch team. Previously, he held technical leadership positions in Motorola. Ramji holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and an MS from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.

John Calcio
Founder/VP of Business Development
Before joining Movik, John was the VP of Business Development and Strategy at Ellacoya Networks, a leading vendor of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology for wire-line and wireless service providers which was recently acquired by Arbor Networks. At Ellacoya, John established and managed all the channel relationships and was instrumental in partnerships with Nokia/Siemens and Alcatel/Lucent. Prior to Ellacoya, John held Director of Business Development roles at Siemens Network Convergence and Juniper Networks (through the acquisition of Unisphere), where he planned, executed and implemented strategic partnerships for these next generation network equipment companies. John holds an MBA from Dartmouth College, as well as an MS and BS in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.



Sean Dalton is a General Partner focusing on breakthrough opportunities in mobile technologies, semiconductors and advanced materials. He currently represents Highland on the boards of CHiL Semiconductor, Innovative Silicon, MokaFive, Movik Networks, QD Vision, Starent Networks (Nasdaq: STAR), Tatara Systems and Zoove and also actively works with ANDA Networks. Sean is a former director of AccessLan Communications (acquired by Advanced Fibre Communications), Altiga Networks (acquired by Cisco), Casero (acquired by Radialpoint), CCTV Wireless (acquired by TerreStar), Covergence (acquired by Acme Packet), Envoy Networks (acquired by Texas Instruments), Ocular Networks (acquired by Tellabs), Optasite (acquired by SBA Communications), P.A. Semi (acquired by Apple), Telcobuy.com (merged with World Wide Technology) and Telica (acquired by Lucent). The prestigious Forbes Midas List has recognized Sean as one of the top venture capitalists in the industry.

Tel: +1 (781) 861-5500
Fax: +1 (781) 861-5499
sdalton@hcp.com

Background
Prior to joining Highland, Sean was a Venture Associate at Fidelity Capital focusing on investments in communications and electronic commerce. Before Fidelity, Sean worked as a Product Manager - Internet Services for GTE where he developed remote access and other network services for ISPs and large business customers. While at GTE, Sean led the nation's first ADSL trial for Internet access.

Education
University of Delaware, B.S., Electrical Engineering
University of Pennsylvania, M.S., Electrical Engineering
Harvard Business School, M.B.A.

Interests
Sean enjoys skiing and lake sports. He's also a long-suffering Philadelphia sports fan. More practically, he holds an interest in national politics and old home restoration. Sean lives in a Boston suburb with his wife and four children.

Zoosk Secures $30 Million in Series D Funding - Bessemer, Canaan Partners and ATA Ventures - Zoosk has been redefining the online dating experience

Zoosk Secures $30 Million in Series D Funding

Zoosk, the world's largest social dating community, today announced it has closed a $30 million Series D round of funding. The round was led by new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, the oldest venture capital firm in the United States. Existing investors Canaan Partners and ATA Ventures also participated. As part of the funding event, David Cowan, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, joins Zoosk's Board of Directors.

The funds will support the company's rapidly growing user base, continued global expansion, marketing activities in key geographies, and investments in new features and applications.

"Zoosk has been redefining the online dating experience since we launched nearly two years ago, and singles around the world have embraced our fun, safe, and social network-driven approach," said Shayan Zadeh, co-founder and co-CEO of Zoosk. "We are thrilled to begin our partnership with David Cowan and Bessemer Venture Partners as we work with our investors and Board to take advantage of the incredible opportunities for growth in the online dating space.

"Around the world, online dating is an incredibly popular - and successful - way to find and meet someone special," said David Cowan, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "It is clear to us that Zoosk has created the best experience and platform for the social networking generation."
Zoosk is the world's largest and fastest-growing online dating service. Since its launch in December 2007, Zoosk has attracted more than 40 million singles from more than 40 countries. Singles can join Zoosk via their social networking sites by adding the Zoosk application on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster, via Zoosk mobile (http://m.zoosk.com/), or by signing up at Zoosk.com.

Zoosk recently hit a $30 million run rate based on revenue booked for the sale of Premium Memberships, millions of transactions in Zoosk's virtual economy, and advertising. Singles can purchase Zoosk coins to redeem for virtual gifts and a la carte premium features.
The Series D funding round brings Zoosk's total financing to $40.5 million. Investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, ATA Ventures and Amidzad Partners.

About Zoosk
Zoosk is the fastest growing social dating network enabling millions of singles to meet love interests and forge long lasting relationships. Building on users' social graph and taking advantage of opportunities on social networks, Zoosk has created a safe, fun, and delightful online dating experience. Zoosk has quickly grown to a community of over 40 million singles from more than 40 countries around the globe, including United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Mexico, South Africa and many more. Zoosk is based in San Francisco and was founded in January 2007 by Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr. For more information visit: http://www.zoosk.com/.

About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (http://www.bvp.com/) is a global investment group with offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Mumbai, and Tel Aviv. As the oldest venture capital practice in the United States, BVP has partnered as an active, hands-on investor in Ciena, Ingersoll Rand, Parametric, Skype, Staples, VeriSign, and W.R. Grace, among many others. More than 100 BVP-funded companies have gone public on exchanges in Canada, India, London, and the United States.

About Canaan Partners
Canaan Partners invests in visionary entrepreneurs and provides them the networks, insights and operational guidance required to build high-performance technology and healthcare companies. Founded in 1987, the firm has raised eight funds and completed more than 77 acquisitions and 52 IPOs. With $3 billion under management and a worldwide footprint, the firm's technology team is committed to catalyzing the growth of innovative companies in the digital media, communications & mobility, enterprise and clean tech sectors. Among its successes are DoubleClick, the leading online advertising solution; Match.com, the most popular online dating site in the world; CommerceOne, the company that pioneered B2B ecommerce; SuccessFactors, the global leader in on-demand performance and talent management solutions; WebLoyalty, a leading provider of online marketing and rewards services; and VOIP equipment supplier Acme Packet, which was one of the top ten performing tech IPOs of 2006. Other Canaan technology investments include Active Networks, Associated Content, BharatMatrimony, Blurb, iYogi, Lending Club, N-trig, ON24, Prime Sense, Tremor Media and Zoosk. Canaan has offices in California, Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information visit http://www.canaan.com/.

About ATA Ventures
ATA Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on seeking out early stage private companies which appear to offer above average prospects for capital growth. With over $450 Million of capital under management, ATA Ventures focuses on Information Technology (IT) and provides seed capital and early stages of financing to these companies.

StartupWatch: HipLogic - Smartphone Experience to Mass Market Phones

HipLogic Secures $7 Million in Series B Funding to Deliver Smartphone Experience to Mass Market Phones

Mobile Application Platform Redefines the User Experience

Fremont, CA – December 2, 2009 – HipLogic, Inc., today announced that it has raised $7 million in Series B funding to further develop and deploy its mobile application platform. The HipLogic platform improves content and application discoverability, provides a consistent user experience across all handset models, and optimizes data traffic on cellular networks.

The Series B round includes existing investors Benchmark Capital and Stage 1 Ventures as well as new investors Bay Partners, who led the round, and Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures.

HipLogic’s platform is available for select smartphones as well as feature phones running closed real-time operating systems. It is currently being deployed through a partnership with The Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s leading independent mobile retailer.

“The success of the iPhone has proven that easy access to rich mobile content drives consumption and customer satisfaction,” said Mark Anderson, President and CEO of HipLogic. “This round of funding will fuel HipLogic’s market activities as we deliver this modern style of content experience across mass-market mobile operating systems.”

As part of this funding round, Neil Sadaranganey, representing Bay Partners will join the HipLogic Board of Directors.

“HipLogic will fundamentally change the mobile device landscape by upgrading the experience on phones,” said Sadaranganey. “The team at HipLogic, who was instrumental in the development of J2ME while at Sun Microsystems, is uniquely qualified to get HipLogic delivered onto the approximate 800 Million feature phones and new generation of open system phones that are sold each year.”

The HipLogic application platform connects users with the best of social networking, web and entertainment content in a format that is purpose built for mobile and delivered to the Phonetop user interface. HipLogic offers a scalable and portable solution that delivers rich, real-time content at a fraction of the network bandwidth required by browser intensive solutions.

“While we have seen a proliferation of app stores and widgets on mobile phones, less attention has been paid to the important problems of usability, personalization and content discovery,” said HipLogic Chairman, Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital.

Lasky adds, “HIpLogic’s platform elegantly solves these problems with an intuitive phone-top interface. It supplies that “last mile” technology between modern operating systems and a truly next generation user experience.”

About HipLogic

HipLogic was founded to redefine the mobile user experience - making it easy for users to access and use mobile apps and services. The HipLogic application platform features a lightweight, always on, JavaScript virtual machine connected to intelligent cloud services, aggregating information from network operators and the web to create unique mash-ups on the mobile device. HipLogic is a private company funded by Benchmark Capital, Bay Partners, Stage 1 Ventures and Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures. To learn more about HipLogic visit us at www.hiplogic.com or follow us atwww.twitter.com/hiplogic.

Youtego.com: new visual tool for self-visualization in the Internet

Youtego is a new visual tool for self-visualization in the Internet.

We believe in the concept of "recognize yourself to recognize the world around you". This patented concept of self-visualization represents what you believe, feel, know, taught or capable of doing. That concept represents you.

The process of self-visualization in Youtego is a combination of semantics (word, phrase) and its visual representation (picture, photo), that you define and select-crop all by yourself. Ultimately, you get the combination or matrix of visual objects that you personally defined and visualized. That combination is younique, because you are younique! However the elements of that matrix (we call them Tegos) may match with people's Tegos anywhere in the world.

As a result, you start matching with people by elements (Tegos) that you defined and start experiencing this natural feeling that we all, humans possess - discovering the world of people, the world of self-similarities, the world of emotions around you. Aren't we doing that everyday all our life?

We are with you at feedback@youtego.com and http://feedback.youtego.com

Contact us
Phone: +1 (415)9927697
E-mail: alive@youtego.com

Youtego LLC
548 Market St #91559
San Francisco, CA 94104

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"Startup Youtego is bringing a new experience to social networking. It's all
about using images to define yourself, your life, and your interests, and in
the little while that I've been playing with my account, I'm already having
more fun than Facebook ever provided." by Tom Slater, VentureBeat



"If you believe in self-actualization as the final stage in Maslow's
hierarchy of needs, then perhaps Youtego's self-visualizations are a map to
achieving our highest potential." by Dana Oshiro, ReadWriteWeb



"Why it might be a killer?

The site stands as an effective way of getting to know others based on
subjective aspects, aspects that are traditionally very difficult to be
translated when it comes to web-based contact." by KillerStartups

Intel Innovation Conference, with Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute president/CEO.

Intel Innovation Conference, with Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute president/CEO. We look at technology innovation in the past and in the future. What ar run we have had.

Tech Trends in Asia - Interview with Steve Leonard, SVP and President of Asia EMC

Asia is where the adoption of new technologies is highest, believes Steven Leonard, senior VP & president, Asia Pacific and Japan at EMC Corporation. He sheds light on tech trend in Asia, with CNBC's Amanda Drury & Sri Jegarajah.
- Huge adoption across every country
- Internet usage rate is among highest in Korea.
- On whole, Japan not at forefront of adopting new technology. Want to be shown proof of concept
- India, important area for growth. $2B worth of new investment in India - partnerships, products. Represents great market for software R&D
- Goldman has stated growth in 2010. $3.3 trillion total market. tens of billions of dollars of growth
- Pent up demand. Purchases delayed
- EMC is optimistic. Fundamentals and investment plans for Enterprise and SMB are ready to see ROI
- Bullish in General

Get a Job at Google: Billionaire Extraordinair Eric Schmidt Discusses the Economy and Jobs

Discussing jobs, the economy and tech with Eric Schmidt, Google chairman/CEO.

Squareup.com - mobile payments

In February 2009, Jim McKelvey wasn’t able to sell a piece of his glass artbecause he couldn’t accept a credit card as payment. Even though a majority of payments has moved to plastic cards, accepting payments from cards is still difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience. Square was born a few days later right next to the old San Francisco US Mint.

Today the Square team is focused on bringing immediacy, transparency, and approachability to the world of payments: an inherently social interaction each of us participates in daily. We’re starting with a limited beta and rolling out to everyone in early 2010.

Square is backed by Khosla Ventures and a team of angels.

Square, Inc. has offices in San Francisco (Product & Engineering), Saint Louis (Operations), and New York City (Risk & Partnerships). Join us.

Square is:

Buzz Andersen, Robert Andersen, Jack Dorsey, Chris Kampmeier,Paul McKellar, Jim McKelvey, Tristan O’Tierney, Matt Peterson, Randy Reddig,Cameron Walters and Sam Wen.