alarm:clock

Another Day, Another 223 Points Lost

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:03:15 -0500

Forget about the spike in the Dow on Thursday. Between Friday and today, those gains are wiped out. Tomorrow will probably test our "8000 bottom" theory once again as we can't see any good news on the horizon. With more analysts becoming pessimists due to lower earnings expectations and a continually weakening economy, there's a chance that we may have been too high in our estimate. Moving to the lighter side (if there is one these days), we saw that our favorite over the counter stock, Zap (ZAAP:OTC BB) released its earnings today. While the company increased its revenue by 52% to $3.1m for Q3 2008, Zap still lost $2.5m. If Zap was ever going to make it as an electric car company, now would be the time. Our concern with Zap is that they are releasing vehicles that are seemingly inferior to the electric cars Toyota released in the 90s. The Zap Xebra sedan's top speed of 40 mph and a range of 25 miles is not even close to what the Toyota EV could do. Still, we are fairly certain that electric cars will play a larger role in the future. Buying a thousand shares with the...

LocalMatters Circles The IPO Runway But Doesn't Land

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:21:55 -0500

Denver's Local Matters which operates online yellow pages, has withdrawn registration for an IPO, citing of all things "changed circumstances regarding the securities markets." We like the company and understand that its funders have been waiting a long time to get their money back from this one but an IPO now is a joke. The company is essentially a roll-up, including most recently in October 2005 when Local Matters acquired Online Web Marketing, the makers of AreaGuides.net. So there are a lot of shareholders. Local Matters has raised $43.5M in VC funding since 2002, from Spencer Trask Ventures, Sandler Capital Partners (38.2%), Kings Road Investments and Software Seed Capital Partners. View - site...

Global Harmony.com Rival Be2 Raises €15M

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:38:39 -0500

Munich, Germany-based matchmaking services Be2 has raised €15M from the Index Ventures' Growth Fund. Angel investors and Banexi Ventures were the company’s initial investors. The startup says it has 12M member and has been cash flow positive despite a headcount of 225 employees. What have they done right? First, the dating business is not ad supported - they charge credit cards for the service. It also seems that they have targeted under-served markets first of all. Secondly, they target an older age group - 25 to 69 year olds. View - site...

The Weekly Tech:Stocker Roundup

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:23:48 -0500

So the Dow dropped 337 points today. While it doesn't make for a great start to the weekend, it could have been worse. The market shouldn't have jumped as much as it did yesterday so today's settling should have been expected, especially with the news released today. Let's take a look at a few of the highlights: Citigroup (C:NYSE) announced today that they plan on shedding 35,000 employees. That might not have been so shocking if they hadn't already axed 23,000 employees earlier this year. Chief Executive Vikram Pandit isn't exactly inspiring shareholder conference by not communicating a clear plan of action for the near and long term future of the company. Maybe he thinks the cost cutting plan he introduced in May is still relevant. Our moles on Wall St. heard that a few people on the board were trying to float rumors about Mr. Pandit's exit to see the reaction on the street. Whether or not this is true, we still think the company is in trouble. Hopefully, other financial services firms won't look at Citigroup's lack of decisive leadership and totalitarian cost-cutting measures as the way to gain investor confidence. If you've ever thought about buying...

Note To Staff: The Markets Really Don't Respond Favorably To Higher Unemployment Numbers

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:12:48 -0500

There was plenty of bad news today from the likes of Wal-Mart (WMT:NYSE), Applied Materials (AMAT:NASDAQ), and yesterday's doom and gloom after the bell from Intel (INTC:NASDAQ). And let's not forget that the initial jobless claims rose by an alarming 33,000 over last week's total of 484,000. So how does the market respond? By jumping 552 points. While it would be fun to wonder what other types of lousy news could trigger such a market increase, the staff at tech:stocker believes today's gains were the result of the market dropping briefly below our bottom number of 8000. The last time the Dow dropped below 8000 during this current financial crisis, the markets quickly rallied to close the day with a solid gain. For investors who are wondering where the bottom is, our pick of 8000 is looking a lot stronger. Unfortunately, our number could be tested quite a few more times before the market recovers from its current mess. For today's pick, the staff at tech:stocker decided to listen to one of its junior members and look at a tech company located in the land of a thousand lakes, MTS Systems (MTSC:NASDAQ). In case you didn't know, MTS is...

Bertelsmann Invests In Mobile Ads' Mojiva

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:07:19 -0500

NYC's MoJiva has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Bertelsmann Digital Media. The startup has built a mobile advertising platform. Interestingly, the firm has hired a CEO with a shady recent past. David Gwozdz was most recently SVP of Phorm. This is the British startup that is the European version of NebuAd - and in fact caused a bigger stink in Europe than NebuAd did in the US. So we are not crazy about management, and we are also not crazy about the startup. Mobile advertising is going to take a huge hit in this market where media buyers are pulling back in a huge way from alternative channels like mobile. There are a couple of startups in mobile advertising that have built value but Mojiva is not among them. View - site...

Even Now, We Still Recommend Storing A Few Bucks In EMC

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:35:51 -0500

After taking yesterday off to honor the country's veterans, we were hoping to return to a more stable market today. So much for hope. With Dow dropping 4.73%, we're starting to come back the bottom of 8000 (possibly even as low as 7800 briefly) that we predicted recently. But even more disturbing is today's Intel (INTC:NASDAQ) announcement lowering their revenue for the fourth quarter to $9b, give or take $300m. Considering Intel already lowered investor expectations in October when they announced their earnings, to have them revise the revenue outlook a few weeks later is a really bad sign for the markets. Also fairly disturbing is eTrade's (ETFC:NASDAQ) $0.23 death spiral today. This is particularly troubling for anyone invested in this stock as eTrade is currently seeking $800m in TARP money at a time when there market cap is $763.6m. This leads us to the question why the government would give CEO Donald Layton a check that is greater than the company's current worth? While eTrade crushed our 12-month target of $1.75 within a month of issuing it, our revised 12-month target of $1.25 is approaching faster than we expected. Don't be surprised if acquisition talks start heating up...

White Board Tech's IdeaPaint Raises $5M

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:30:15 -0500

Boston's IdeaPaint has raised $5M in Series A funding from Breakaway Ventures. It's an odd product. They make paint that turns a chalkboard or a wall into a white board. They have a variety of use cases ranging from cute kids rooms to corporate think rooms, to schools. The idea came out of Babson College’s entrepreneur program. We are not clear on what kinds of margins you can find in the paint business but we do think there will be plenty of demand here given how much people want to white board and give that we agree that white paint walls are way cooler than white paint boards. View - site...

HomeAway's $250M Round Sits Well

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:48:18 -0500

We know that today's massive $250M Investment Into HomeAway is going to be ridiculed up and down the blogosphere. We are in the tank for HomeAway and its investors - Technology Crossover Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures. The startup runs a number of the top vacation rental search sites and makes a living both from ads and fees charged to home owners. HomeAway gives a few reasons for the loot, it needs special explanation as it already raised $231M in prior rounds. First of all they have $60M in debt and we know those bankers want their money. Also, it seems that some shareholders want to take money off the table. Finally, some of this money will go to buy more sites. HomeAway has already rolled-up 11 vacation rental sites - are there more out there we wonder? The deal is the right one because: 1) This is a good time to make buyout offers to site owners who may be nervous about their mortgages. 2) Anyone who wants to compete with HomeAway at this point surely has given up. 3) This is an eCommerce + advertising deal so its a hedge on the ad market pull-back....

Carbon Footprint Measuring's Planet Metrics Raises 1st Round

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:29:01 -0500

Burlingame CA's Planet Metrics, which sells carbon modeling and visualization software, has raised $2.3M in Series A funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and angel investors. The startup also announced its first big client - the CES trade show. Planet Metrics sells software that it claims will pinpoints where the carbon is coming from and how changes in different practices affect emissions. We have a friend who runs logistics for a sizable company that covets its green reputation who says he was interested in products like Planet Metrics. But he points to a couple of problems. Today's lousy economy does not favor outlays for new software projects that are not core to the business. Moreover, those companies that see this as core already built internal processes to measure and change their practices. So we suspect this will be a good business but the window is a few years out. View - site...

Consumer Electronics' Recycling's Gazelle Raises $6M

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:09:05 -0500

If you caught 60 Minutes over the weekend you might have been jolted by a segment on the havock caused by consumer electronics disposal with results like brain damage, kidney disease, cancers, and mutations. Boston's Second Rotation (Gazelle.com) is either going to be cast as a savior or part of the problem to these scandals but the fair appraisal would seem to be that they are on the side of good for electronic waste recycling. Personally, we find it a challenge to get rid of our old electronics and certainly we don't want to make anyone sick with it. Gazelle says they will pay us for our old junk, which is fine, but was is nicer is that they say they will send us a box and pay for shipment. Second Rotation has raised $6M in Series B led by RockPort Capital Partners with Venrock Associates. View - site...

Solar Home Lighting's D.light Design Raises $6M

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:50:30 -0500

India's D.light Design has raised $6M in Series A funding led by Nexus India Capital with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Garage Technology Ventures, the Mahindra Group, Acumen Fund and Gray Matters Capital. So what draws all these moths to D.Light? Simplicity and big numbers it would seem. India's massive lower classes rely on kerosene lanterns at night. D.light says it can bring more shine to homes using solar panels. The startup was launched by some Stanford MBAs. View - site...

Banking On Adobe's Creative Suite 4 To Produce Profits

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:43:12 -0500

Today's 73 point drop in the Dow should be a strong signal to investors. After all, China did announce a $600B stimulus plan today. Some of that money should find its way back to the U.S. eventually. And yet, investors decided to sell today. Should you be selling? If you haven't sold by now, we recommend looking at your individual investments and only selling stocks that are not "stable companies". What do we mean? For example, if you have any companies that are outpacing the Dow in their decline, take a closer look at them and see if there is an obvious reason why the stock is tanking (didn't meet earnings expectations, revised guidance warning investors, or downgrades by trusted industry analysts are a few warning signs). If there's a good reason behind the drop, sell. If not, hold on to it and even consider buying a few shares to lower your cost average. Looking for some help to boost the portfolio, the staff at tech:stocker decided to look at Adobe (ADBE:NASDAQ). When we decided to research Adobe, we had a hard time figuring out why we hadn't written about this company sooner. Over the last few years, the...

Barracuda Networks Buys Cloud Storage's BitLeap

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:12:57 -0500

Computer-data backup and disaster-recovery technology's BitLeap has been bought by Barracuda Networks for an undisclosed amount. Barracuda sells email and Web security appliances and is known for its anti-spam weaponry. Founded in 2004, BitLeap says its growth was 900% from 2005 to 2006 and 128% from 2006 to 2007. The firm says its 2008 revenues are "much more than $1M." Campbell, CA's Barracuda raised a $40M Series A round in 2005 from Sequoia Capital and Francisco Partners. BitLeap did rounds of start-up financing totaling just $265K from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, a state-funded economic development organization. The simple idea here seems to be to expand Barracuda's product offerings with a budget that it can afford while also adding some nice client base. We favor this kind of M&A deal at this time as its not a merger of two highly financed startups. Bitleap's founders View - site...

AT&T Deals $275M For WiFi Hotspot's Wayport

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:34:33 -0500

AT&T has bought Irving, TX's Wayport for roughly $275M in cash. Wayport operates WiFi hotpots for partners and has been in the game forever and has raised $155M since 1998 with key investors Seven Rosen Funds, New Enterprise Associates, Millennium Technology Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. We think of Wayport most prominantly as one of those super anoying services that we find in hotels that want $10+ per night to hop on the Net. They had deals with Wyndham, Marriott Vacation Club and Four Seasons hotels and more recently they did a deal to put WiFi in McDonald’s - we still have yet to see anyone hanging out sipping a milk shake and logging on. AT&T boasts that the deal gives it another 20,000 hot spots which brings its total to 80K hot spots. View - site...