Shares Now Trading on NASDAQ Global Market Under Symbol "ALIM"
ATLANTA, Apr 23, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX News Network) -- Alimera Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq:ALIM), ("Alimera") today announced that it priced its initial public offering of 6,550,000 shares of common stock at a price to the public of $11.00 per share on Wednesday, April 21, 2010.
In addition, Alimera has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 982,500 shares to cover over-allotments, if any. The gross proceeds of the offering, before expenses, from the sale of shares, are expected to be $72.05 million, assuming the 30-day over-allotment option is not exercised. The closing of the offering is expected to take place on April 27, 2010.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.
Shares of Alimera common stock began trading on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol "ALIM" on Thursday, April 22, 2010.
This registration statement relating to the initial public offering of shares of common stock of Alimera has been declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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By Scott Denne
Attensity Group Inc. said it has signed an agreement to acquire Biz360 Inc. in a cash and stock deal that will bring its data analysis capabilities into the world of social media.
Biz360, which makes social media monitoring software, had raised nearly $30 million in Series A and B financing. The latest round came two years ago, with a $10 million Series B from Foundation Capital, Granite Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. Those three firms will take a stake in Attensity as part of the deal.
The company declined to disclose further terms of the deal.
Attensity's goal is to turn Biz360's product, which will be called Attensity360, into a social customer relationship management service by integrating several of its own technologies into Biz360's monitoring tool, said Michelle de Haaff, Attensity's chief marketing officer.
Attensity will immediately offer deeper analytics on Biz360's platform, since the technologies already have been integrated through a previous co-selling agreement. Other features that send actionable information to the right person in a company and help them better act on it will be integrated in the summer, de Haaff said.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Attensity was formed just over a year ago when it raised $39.6 million from Aeris Capital AG, the investment firm of SAP AG founder Klaus Tschira, and bought up three companies in the unstructured data analytics space.
Prior to this deal, Aeris Capital owned 98% of Attensity and will still be the majority shareholder when the deal closes, which is expected in the next 10 days, de Haaff said.
Foundation Capital's Skip Glass will represent the new shareholders on the combined company's board.
By Gavin O'Malley
Nearly all ad executives and media buyers plan to increase spending on online video this year, according to new research from branded video ad network BrightRoll. Indeed, 94% of respondents said they plan to increase their spending on video -- up from 87% last year.
But where do they plan to spend their creative budgets? The majority -- 54% -- plan to spend them on interactive pre-roll, as opposed to branded entertainment, at 20% -- consumer content or webisodes, at 15% -- or other forms of creative content, at 11%.
Overall, 83% of respondents said they are receiving greater value for their spend this year than they were last year, which they attribute to lower rates, better targeting, more access to better inventory, and the emergence of performance-based metrics like cost per engagement and cost per video view.
"Online video underwent a cycle of massive innovation in 2009, and has matured into a highly effective platform for advertisers to connect with their target audiences online," said BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti.
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By Ron Callari
If you're a small business owner with a limited marketing budget how do you compete online with no Internet presence. Even in the year 2010, there are still some local business operators that either for lack of funds, time or expertise who do not have a Web site. Can free social networking be the answer for these type of merchants?
LinkedIn has over 50 million members worldwide (at last count) and is one of the few social networks that addresses the issues of business people. However, its often used more as a resume-building platform for job-seekers than as a resource for small businesses. A small business operator might be able to find a few group forums to join on LinkedIn, but chances are there would be limited interaction from members in addressing specific business needs.
While Ning is an off-the-shelf-build-your-own social network, there would be an opportunity for niche small businesses to band together based on common products or services - for example, "plumbers," "carpet cleaners," "maid service," etc. However, even after Ning reached the one-million total network milestone just recently, the company recently lost Gina Bianchini, one of its co-founders and cut-back its staff by 40% due to lack of Google Adword sales off its 'freemium' sites.
"We are going to change our strategy to devote 100 percent of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity," Jason Rosenthal, COO stated in a memo. "We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning."
In early April, the Insurance Newtworking News reported on a study that estimated that only 16% of small businesses in the US actually use social media sites to promote themselves.
MerchantCircle, the nation's largest social network of local business owners thinks they can make that percentage grow significantly.
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By Staff Reporters
After the failure of a reverse-merger deal in 2008 with Raven Biotechnologies Inc., VaxGen Inc. said it has signed an agreement to buy another venture-backed company: in vitro diagnostics maker diaDexus Inc.
The VaxGen/diaDexus stock-for-stock deal is slated to close in August, following the approval of diaDexus' shareholders. Under the deal, shareholders in diaDexus will become shareholders in VaxGen, owning 60.9% of the combined company. The company, which will be renamed diaDexus, will be managed by diaDexus' officers.
Based in South San Francisco, Calif., VaxGen operates a biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility with a bioreactor for cell cultures and microbial biologics. The company, which trades on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board, has ceased independent drug-development programs. The company reported $32.3 million in cash-on-hand as of the end of 2009 and has three employees.
DiaDexus, also based in South San Francisco, has produced the PLAC test, a blood test designed to assess the risk of coronary heart disease and ischemic stroke associated with atherosclerosis. The company generated $11.7 million in revenue in 2009, with a net loss of
$5.5 million. The company, which has 56 employees, said in a news release that it plans to use the reverse-merger to raise capital to continue expansion of its commercial organization and secure broader reimbursement for the PLAC.
DiaDexus raised a $40 million Series E round in early 2007 from Baker Brothers Advisors, Bain Capital's Brookside Fund, Burrill & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Rho Ventures, Mosaix Ventures and Scale Venture Partners, according to VentureWire archives. The company previously had raised $127.5 million.
VaxGen did not return calls for comment.
By James Temple, Chronicle Staff Writer
The fight to control local advertising is shaping up as the next great battle in the technology sector.
Some see it as Version 2.0 of the war to own online search, a rare opportunity to shorten Google Inc.'s lead in the highly lucrative Internet advertising space. Big companies like Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Apple Inc. appear determined not to let the opportunity slip away, while a bevy of startups have emerged to claim it for themselves.
"All the major players and smaller players are gravitating toward local," said Cyrus Krohn, director of local programming for Microsoft's MSN portal. "I don't think anyone can afford to sit this out."
There is growing concern, however, that Google isn't playing fair in this fight. A handful of competitors fret the company is trying to extend its dominance into this emerging market through anti-competitive means and have shared those worries with the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Why does local advertising matter?
While online search has transformed the way large businesses reach consumers looking to buy books, arrange vacations or consume media, it's had far less impact on the way people interact with the mom-and-pop shops that represent a huge slice of commerce.
Big firms jump in
They do buy online advertising today, but at nowhere near the rate of big companies.
From 69 to 74 percent of large businesses pay to advertise through Google, Yahoo or Microsoft's search engines, while only from 31 to 47 percent of small firms do so, according to a survey by Outsell Inc.
Many believe the nearing ubiquity of mobile devices, specifically location-aware smart phones and tablets, promises to close the gap. The tools can know where consumers are, where they've been and - once they enter a search query - what they're looking for.
Boost to mobile searches
As such, mobile advertising can reach consumers at that critical period when they're most likely to spend money in the real world. These trends will boost mobile local search advertising from $160 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion by 2013, research firm Kelsey Group forecasts.
In fact, within the mobile and portal sectors, there's hardly a recent headline that doesn't touch on the local opportunity.
It's largely why Apple Inc. bought mobile ad network Quattro Wireless and last week announced a system to deliver ads over applications on its iPhone and iPad devices. In addition, it helps explain why Google is attempting to buy Quattro competitor AdMob and why Microsoft is dangling carrots like free music to get users to download its Bing search tool onto mobile devices.
Local databases grow
Because it's difficult to serve up local ads without local content, companies are also beefing up local databases, reviews and news. Late last year, Google reportedly attempted to buy local review site Yelp and launched Place Pages for Google Maps, which aggregates reviews from directories like OpenTable and Citysearch.
Similarly, Microsoft launched MSN Local Edition last month, Yahoo rolled out its Neighbors forum for local discussions last fall, and AOL bought local news site Patch last year.
"All the big guys want to own local mobile advertising and they can't effectively do that unless they can deliver local content," said Ben Smith, co-founder of MerchantCircle.
The 4-year-old Mountain View company has accomplished this task itself by building a sort of Facebook for small local businesses that allows them to connect to potential customers and partners. It boasts 1.1 million merchants, 60 percent of which have no other online presence. More
Tod Sacerdoti, CEO of BrightRoll Interview with FoxBusiness.com Live. Tod discusses how advertisers are reaching consumers online using video.
By Ben Kepes
News releasing right now that Box.net (more on them here) has just secured a $15million C round. Led by Scale Venture Partners and with previous box investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and US Venture Partners both taking a share of the action, this round shows that VCs are coming strongly out of a recessionary quiet phase and are actively looking to make investments.
Part of the impetus to invest in Box (beyond the obvious land grab) is the meteoric growth it seems to have achieved – Box has now got an impressive four million userbase and is seeing some really impressive revenue growth – they’ve seen enterprise revenue growth of more than 500% from 2008 to 2009, with reported continuing momentum into 2010 with a record first quarter - up 300% from Q1 2009.
Rory O’Driscoll, Managing Director of Scale Venture Partners is understandably talking this deal up, saying that: For more than ten years, ScaleVP has backed companies that have built fast - growing, successful businesses based on the software-as-a-service model, Box.net has established a leadership position by challenging and redefining traditional enterprise content management, and is poised for aggressive growth going forward.
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By Matt Bowman
Funding comes one week after Box launched an iPad app. Scale’s Rory O’Driscoll joins the board.
Cloud-based file-sharing service Box.net just bagged a $15 million series C Round to expand its engineering, sales and marketing efforts, bringing its total venture funding to $29.5 million. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners, and Scale’s Rory O’Driscoll has joined the Box board of directors. CEO Aaron Levie told us was existing investors DFJ and US Venture Partners also participated heavily in the round.
Box.net started out in 2005 as an ftp alternative. In February of 2008, it added collaboration and morphed into a Google Docs alternative. Since then, the company has added features and integrations at a swift clip, and has grown into a Microsoft SharePoint competitor. More
By Liz Gannes
We see a lot of crazy funding deals (ahem: Zynga, Foursquare) these days for Internet startups, but here’s one on a more standard path.
Box.net, the cloud-based content management platform, has brought in $15 million in Series C funding led by the SaaS-focused firm Scale Venture Partners, and including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and U.S.Venture Partners. It brings the company’s total funding since 2005 to $29.5 million. More
By Leena Rao
Cloud storage and document sharing startup Box.net is announcing significant news today: the startup has just raised $15 million on Series C funding led by Scale Venture Partners, with existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and U.S. Venture Partners participating. This brings Box.net’s total venture funding to $29.5 million. As part of the deal, Rory O’Driscoll, Managing Director with Scale Venture Partners, has joined Box.net’s Board of Directors. The startup’s CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie did not disclose the valuation for the round but said the funding would be used for building out the platform further and for hiring staff in the company’s sales and engineering divisions.
Since its launch in 2005, Box.net has steadily been growing its cloud-based content management system, and has now accumulated more than 4 million users, with hundreds of thousands of businesses using the application. And the startup is seeing top line growth, with a 500% rise in revenue from 2008 to 2009, and a record first quarter – up 300% from Q1 2009 – thanks to deals with the Oprah Winfrey Network, Volvo, and Nokia Siemens are using Box.net (Box declined to give us exact revenue numbers). More
Cloud Content Management Provider Also Announces Record Business Revenue Growth, 4 Million Users
Palo Alto, Calif., April 7, 2010 - Box.net, the leading Cloud Content Management provider, today announced that it has secured $15M in Series C financing led by Scale Venture Partners, bringing the company's total venture funding to $29.5M since its launch in 2005. Existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and U.S. Venture Partners also participated in this funding round, and Rory O'Driscoll, Managing Director with Scale Venture Partners, has joined Box.net's Board of Directors. The company, which also announced record business revenue for Q1 2010, will invest this capital in expanding its technology platform partnerships and bringing a feature-rich Cloud Content Management solution to the enterprise.
"We're on the verge of a massive shift as IT departments across businesses of all sizes look to cloud-based services as secure, low cost and user friendly alternatives to traditional enterprise software solutions," said Aaron Levie, Co-founder and CEO of Box.net. "At Box, we're seeing incredible momentum for our Cloud Content Management platform, driven by a workplace that has exploded beyond the office walls, and a workforce that needs anytime, anywhere access to crucial business content across all kinds of applications and devices. FTP sites, file servers and overly complex SharePoint deployments are no longer cutting it; fueled by this new investment, we'll continue to disrupt and redefine what has traditionally been a fragmented and cost-prohibitive market, delivering a sophisticated solution that stays true to our core mission of making it easy to manage, collaborate and share all types of content online."
“For more than ten years, ScaleVP has backed companies that have built fast-growing, successful businesses based on the software-as-a-service model,” said Rory O’Driscoll, Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners. “Box.net has established a leadership position by challenging and redefining traditional enterprise content management, and is poised for aggressive growth going forward. I look forward to working with Aaron and his team as the company continues to build market share across market areas and geographies.”
More than 4 million users and businesses ranging from SMBs to Fortune 100 companies use Box.net's Cloud Content Management solution to simplify file management, facilitate collaboration and accelerate team productivity. Box.net saw enterprise revenue growth of more than 500% from 2008 to 2009, with momentum continuing into 2010 with a record first quarter - up 300% from Q1 2009 - driven by deals with large enterprises such as the Oprah Winfrey Network, Volvo and Nokia Siemens Networks. Also in the first quarter, Box.net launched strategic integrations with Google Apps and SAP StreamWork to expand its OpenBox platform, which includes Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, and other key business applications. The company broadened its mobile offering in early 2010 with an enhanced version of its iPhone application, integration with QuickOffice, and was the first to bring Cloud Content Management to Apple's iPad with the Box App for iPad. In May, Box.net will host Altitude 2010, bringing together c-level executives across all sectors to explore cloud adoption and innovation.
"Cloud Content Management is an exciting new category of software with massive market potential, both as a holistic content management solution for previously under-severed smaller companies, and as a dynamic layer on top of existing ECM services at larger enterprises," said Larry Hawes, Lead Analyst, Collaboration and Enterprise Social Software, Gilbane Group. "As the fundamental nature of organizations continues to evolve and the demand for user-friendly, web-based sharing options increases, we'll see a wave of new technologies like Cloud Content Management challenge long-standing approaches to enterprise IT."
For more information, please visit www.box.net.
About Box.net
Founded in 2005, Box.net provides Cloud Content Management for over 4 million users and companies ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Box.net's dynamic, flexible content management and collaboration solution empowers users to access and share content online, and gives IT professionals unprecedented visibility into how content moves within their organizations and beyond.
About Scale Venture Partners
Based in Foster City, California, the ScaleVP team is a long-standing partnership with a consistent, top quartile track record of returns for the past decade. ScaleVP’s market-tested investment strategy, extensive operating networks and go-to-market expertise help identify and build successful portfolio companies in technology and healthcare markets. The ScaleVP team's collaborative and active approach provides entrepreneurs a competitive advantage for growth and category leadership. Representative portfolio companies include Alimera Sciences, ExactTarget, Frontbridge, IPC The Hospitalist Company, mBlox, Monolithic Power Systems, National Healing, NComputing, Omniture, Orexigen, ScanSafe, Everyday Health, and Zogenix. For more information, visit www.scalevp.com.
For more information, please contact:
For Box.net:
Ashley Mayer
Box.net
ashley@box.net
206.909.6481
For Scale Venture Partners:
Carol Sacks
Tenor Communications
carol@tenorcom.com
650.520.8261
By Tomio Geron
Box.net Inc., which is taking on Microsoft Corp.'s Sharepoint and other collaboration services, has raised $15 million in Series C financing led by Scale Venture Partners, bringing total funding to
$29.5 million.
Existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and U.S. Venture Partners also participated. Valuation was not disclosed.
The company has more than four million users and had revenue growth of more than 500% from 2008 to 2009, and the first quarter of 2010 was up 300% from the prior year period, the company said. New customers include Oprah Winfrey Network, Volvo and Nokia Siemens Networks.
"Businesses are moving all their information to the cloud," said Aaron Levie, founder and chief executive of Box.net. "We're able to help small and medium-sized businesses manage their content and collaborate online."
Box.net's Cloud Content Management service enables people in a company to access their data from anywhere using a variety of devices, from laptop to iPhone to iPad.
While there are a number of enterprise collaboration start-ups that provides things like social networks, Box.net does not require people to join a totally new system.
"Collaboration happens inadvertently once you get in the cloud," said Rory O'Driscoll, managing director at Scale Venture Partners, who has joined Box.net's board of directors. "You start sharing with some in your organization and then with someone in another company."
O'Driscoll said he has been following the company for some time and has been impressed by how it has beat its own expectations.
By Brian Gormley
Venture investors are merging Horizon Therapeutics Inc. and Nitec Pharma AG in hopes of creating a drug company that can make a successful ran at an initial public offering.
Horizon has acquired the Swiss company Nitec in an all-stock deal. The combined company, Horizon Pharma Inc., also secured an undisclosed amount of capital from the venture backers of Horizon Therapeutics and Nitec. Horizon Pharma will soon prepare to go public, according to Chief Executive Timothy P. Walbert, though he didn't say when it would file.
Walbert, who had been CEO of Horizon Therapeutics, of Northbrook, Ill., said it became clear that his company needed a broader pipeline to go public successfully. Horizon Therapeutics has filed for U.S.
approval of one product, the pain medication Duexa. By acquiring Nitec
-- in what Walbert described as a merger of equals -- it has also gained access to Lodotra, a rheumatoid arthritis drug approved in Europe.
Horizon Therapeutics raised about $75 million from Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Scale Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures. Nitec rounded up over $60 million from Atlas Venture, Deutsche Bank London, Global Life Science Ventures, NGN Capital and TVM Capital. Horizon Pharma will be based in Northbrook, with offices in Reinach, Switzerland, and Mannheim, Germany. Walbert declined to discuss the company's revenue.
Horizon Pharma plans to file for U.S. approval of Lodotra this year.
Since patients with rheumatoid arthritis often take multiple drugs, Lodotra could complement many existing products, Walbert said.
Horizon Therapeutics had already filed for U.S. approval of Duexa, which combines ibuprofen with famotidine. Duexa and Lodotra could be approved in the U.S. in 2011, according to Walbert.
In Phase III studies, Duexa reduced the incidence of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug-induced upper gastrointestinal ulcers in patients with mild-to-moderate pain when compared to ibuprofen alone, according to Horizon. The company also plans to file for European approval of Duexa later this year.
In addition, Horizon Therapeutics brings another combination product, HZN-602, a oral drug that combines immediate-release naproxen with high-dose famotidine. The drug is being studied for its ability to reduce risk of upper gastrointestinal ulcers in patients with pain and arthritis. Meanwhile, Nitec's TruNoc will be developed for pain-related conditions.
The Horizon Pharma board includes Sutter Hill Managing Director Jeff Bird, TVM Capital General Partner Hubert Birner, Scale Venture Managing Director Lou Bock, Atlas Venture Partner Jean-Francois Formela, Essex Woodlands Managing Director Jeff Himawan and NGN General Partner Peter Johann. The combined company has about 50 employees, said Walbert, who is also its chairman.
– Combined company has one approved product in Europe (LODOTRA®) and two late-stage U.S. product candidates in pain management and rheumatoid arthritis –
NORTHBROOK, IL. and REINACH, Switzerland – April 1, 2010 – Horizon Therapeutics, Inc. and Nitec Pharma AG, both privately held companies, today announced a definitive agreement in which the two companies have combined in an all-stock transaction. The combined company also completed a concurrent preferred stock financing in conjunction with the transaction.
The combined company will be named Horizon Pharma, Inc., and will be led by Timothy P. Walbert, previously president and chief executive of Horizon Therapeutics. The company will be headquartered in Northbrook, IL, with offices in Reinach, Switzerland (Horizon Pharma AG) and Mannheim, Germany (Horizon Pharma GmbH).
“This combination provides immediate strategic value by strengthening and diversifying our potential product portfolio, as well as providing greater access to the U.S. capital markets,” said Timothy P. Walbert, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Horizon Pharma, Inc. “With LODOTRA® marketed in Europe and anticipated U.S. new drug application (NDA) submissions for both DUEXA® and LODOTRA in 2010, we are optimistic that we will be able to provide patients and physicians with new treatment options in pain management and chronic inflammatory diseases.” More