by Scott Austin, Lead Writer, Venture Capital Dispatch
Start-up CEOs often spend nearly all of their waking hours building their companies. Their investors, on the other hand, typically appear once a month for board meetings. So it’s not surprising that some entrepreneurs may feel a little resentful toward their venture backers.
That’s somewhat evident from the new survey, “A Seat at the Table,” which canvassed more than 500 VCs and CEOs at venture-backed companies and asked them several questions about their thoughts on boards.
Foreign exchange trading has grown rapidly in popularity among individual investors in this last decade, and that opportunity has not been lost on venture capitalists who have put their money behind the trend.
by Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
There are growing signs of tension between some of the players behind the $2 billion deal to sell eBay’s Skype to a group of investors.
On Friday, Joost, the U.K. Internet video company, said that by shareholder vote it had removed Michelangelo Volpi from its board of directors and from his position as chairman of the company. Volpi, a former high-level Cisco executive, stepped down from Joost’s CEO position in July, and is now a general partner at investment firm Index Ventures.
The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going to be when everything moves to “the cloud”–that is, when all your important storage, processing and other needs are handled by vast, professionally managed data-centres.
by James T. Areddy, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Shanghai taxis transport 90 million riders per month. Passengers sit in traffic an average of 18 minutes. Shanghai-based advertising company Touchmedia says those are the ingredients that have helped it raise around $40 million from investors, including a just-completed funding round over $14.6 million in the midst of the young Chinese venture capital industry’s toughest period yet.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
The honeymoon is over for investors in The Knot.
The wedding planning site’s shares are down sharply lower following disappointing Q1 results. Revenues for the quarter of $23.7 million were slightly ahead of the consensus at $23.5 million, and down a tad from $23.8 million a year ago. But the company lost 4 cents a share in the quarter, slightly worse than expected.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Oracle shares actually have gained ground since the company announced its plans to acquire Sun Microsystems thanks in part to the company’s promises to make the deal rapidly accretive to earnings. But in their enthusiasm for the deal, investors may be ignoring some significant risks.
by Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
In the past week, eBay Inc. chief executive John Donahoe has taken steps to divest two businesses, acquire another, and revamp his company’s core e-commerce website.
During a call with investors Thursday morning, Donahoe said he thinks an initial public offering for eBay’s Internet-phone unit Skype will best “maximize value,” but he would be open to an unsolicited offer from another company to buy it outright.
Dell isn’t dead yet. And in fact, Craig-Hallum analyst Christian Schwab this morning goes so far as to suggest the stock offers investors a potential double. Asserting in a research note this morning that the company can still “get its groove back,” Schwab this morning launched coverage of the stock with a Buy rating and a $19 price target.
Is Juniper Networks calling the bottom for telecom and computer networking equipment? A few people think so this morning, the day after Juniper announced that revenue for March-ending fiscal Q1 will be less than originally expected.
There is life after Google–though the increasing number of search alternatives popping up around the U.S. are careful not to take the search giant head-on. With three-quarters of all search traffic, Google might seem unassailable. But potential competitors are busy developing new ways of finding information and hunting down the investors they need to support them. Last year, more than 50 new search companies raised $330 million in venture financing, according to MoneyTree.
A provocative story from Reuters Monday ruminated on which companies are likely to replace Citigroup and General Motors in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Its conclusion: Google and Cisco are the most likely contenders, with Apple and Visa having a less likely chance.
by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
For those wondering what Eric Schmidt thinks of Twitter, the Google chief executive made his views clear on Tuesday. It’s “a poor man’s email system,” said Schmidt at an investor conference in San Francisco.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Surprising no one, Gannett this afternoon cut its quarterly dividend rate to four cents from 40 cents, a reduction of 90 percent.
The publisher of USA Today and other newspapers said the move is “another prudent response to the full-fledged recessions in the U.S. and the U.K. and the continuing difficulties in the credit market.”
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