News

Airvana Files for IPO
Mobile broadband startup hopes to raise $75 million.
By Scott Martin
Mobile broadband technology startup Airvana on Thursday filed to raise as much as $75 million in a proposed initial public offering. The maker of hardware and software for high-speed networks is backed by Qualcomm, Matrix Partners, Commvest, and Sycamore Networks Chairman Gururaj Deshpande. Airvana could give investors something to crow about: profitability. The company reported net income of $74 million on revenue of $170 million last year, according to documents filed with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission. Spectral Advantage analyst Joe Nordgaard said the company's technology has a leg up on competitors at helping customers—they have already signed up Nextel-Sprint and Verizon—deliver Internet telephony, push-to-talk, and high-speed data services. "I believe there are a number of companies that need their products—there's an opportunity to do plug-and-play products," he said.

 

MySpace Adds News Service
Online news arrives, social networking style.
By Leah Messinger
MySpace announced today the launch of MySpace News, a service that aggregates content from newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other web sites. "We looked at the explosion of micro-content on the web, and we wanted to derive meaning from all of that," said Brian Norgard, cofounder of Newroo. MySpace's parent company Fox Interactive Media acquired Newroo last year. Many industry experts said at the time that they believed the acquisition would lead to a feature such as MySpace News. On the site, news pages are divided into 25 main themes, such as sports and entertainment. Then they're further organized into 300 subcategories both big and small, such as USC football. The aggregation process is based on a search algorithm, but users rate individual stories to determine their rank on a page. "We're putting it to the community to be the editorial engine driving our news service," said MySpace cofounder and president Tom Anderson in a press release.

 

Is Vonage VC's VoIP Hangup?
In the wake of Vonage's bankruptcy admission, investors say VoIP still in play.
By Cassimir Medford
VoIP is still a valid investment opportunity, VCs say, though there's a twist. The shift in strategy came after an admission by VoIP leader Vonage Holdings on Tuesday that it's teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as a result of a devastating patent litigation loss against Verizon. Vonage's meltdown marks the end of the landline VoIP services as an investment opportunity. But investors who plowed over $2 billion into landline VoIP service are now targeting VoIP equipment suppliers and mobile VoIP service providers. Two VCs with Boston-area firms, Justin Perreault, a partner with Commonwealth Capital Ventures, and Ahmet Ozalp, a partner with Atlas Venture, say there is still a lot of investment life left in the VoIP market. "There are still opportunities for VCs in VoIP, but perhaps not in consumer services like Vonage," said Mr. Perreault.

 

Oracle Picks Up AppForge
Database giant grabs mobile software developer.
By Scott Martin
Database software behemoth Oracle has swallowed up mobile application developer AppForge. Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle confirmed the acquisition on Wednesday. The agreement has not been formally announced, but the web site of AppForge redirects to Oracle.com. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. "Oracle has acquired the intellectual property assets of AppForge, a company formerly based in Atlanta with a mobile application development and mobile applications platform," an Oracle representative said in a statement sent by email. Oracle declined to comment further. Atlanta-based AppForge closed its doors March 13 and was being picked over by creditors, according to a Wikipedia entry. A later entry said the company was in the process of being sold.

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