Another interesting M&A; news comes from China. Xinhua Finance aims to acquire Mergent.

"Xinhua Finance, the fast-growing Chinese financial information company, has been actively pursuing a plan to become the first Chinese company to list in Tokyo, with Nomura Securities as its lead underwriter.

However, the decision to acquire Mergent may signal a preference for a US listing. Fredy Bush, chief executive of Xinhua Finance, said: "There is an underwriter in the US that is making a compelling case for going to Nasdaq."

If the company - which bought AFX News' Asian operations 18 months ago and US-based Market News International for undisclosed amounts - does launch its initial public offering in New York, it would represent a blow for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which has been lobbying hard to secure its first Chinese listing.

Mergent, which was spun off from Moody's Investors Service, the ratings company, in 1998 will add crucial database technology and information to Xinhua Finance's existing ratings work.

Xinhua Finance will try to develop a dividend product for China based on Mergent's popular "dividend achievers" reports that track which US companies are the best dividend providers."

Xinhua is an agressive media company I watch out for a couple of months now. They keep surprising me with bold steps.

Who said the times of mega VC rounds are over? Apparently it can still be achieved. TechTarget has received stunning US$ 70 million from Technology Crossover Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners. The company looks pretty interesting as it does niche publishing, something I'm pretty much working with in the last months...

Here are some indicators:

• Current member base of enterprise IT professionals - 2,874,748
• Number of industry-specific Web sites for enterprise IT professionals 19
• Total monthly impressions 42 million
• Total monthly page views 12 million
• Average number of Webcasts produced each month 50
• Opt-in E-Newsletters sent each month 70+
• Number of invitation-only IT conferences 10+
• Number of sponsors and advertising customers 1,500+

Venturewire announced their TopTen Enterprise Start-Ups last week. "The award recognizes start-up technology companies that are best positioned for long-term success in the business software and services industry."

• Blazent, San Mateo, CA has some much needed solutions:
  "Whether you are launching an enterprise-wide server consolidation initiative or evaluating new server purchases for an expanding business unit, Blazent helps you maximize the value of your server and storage infrastructure, as well as your financial investments. "


• Composite Software, San Mateo, CA which has a promising mission:
  "The Composite Information Server makes all enterprise data accessible as if it existed in a single location. Through dashboards and other information applications, business analysts, managers and executives can now obtain complete, real-time views of their business operations - views that can be stored, reused, and combined with other views."
  
• Gluecode Software, El Segundo, CAprovides open source application infrastructure and seems to be competitive to Grand Central


• Intelligent Results, Bellevue, CA which says the following about their product:
  
  "Intelligent Results delivers business analytics software and solutions that unleash the value stored in unstructured data. This enables companies to discover powerful new insights and trends not possible from existing structured data, and turn those insights into operational and competitive advantage."


• MetaMatrix, New York, NY has a very tough pitch for their sales people:
  "MetaBase serves as a map of the enterprise's data resources, including relationships among elements and keys on the same or disparate data sources. The MetaBase Modeler, a UML based diagramming tool, is used to build E/R diagrams and graphically produce relationships."


• Pivia Software, Cupertino, CA has something any ecommerce company needs - performance:
  
  "Application generation bottlenecks are often the most crucial problems enterprises must resolve in order to be fully functional. Pivia offloads the origin web site infrastructure by applying a number of technologies including connection pooling, SSL optimization, static caching, and application smart caching. In concert, these technologies can reduce the load on databases, application servers, and web servers by as much as 90% as well as increase web application responsiveness."


• Proofpoint, Cupertino, CA probably company 101 to sell anti-spam and anti-virus solutions


• Quadrus Financial Technologies, Vancouver, British Columbia is a thread for Intel apparently:
  "The Quadrus system can perform tasks in seconds that can take other systems hours to complete (achieving gigaflop performance on standard desktop computers and teraflops on distributed server environments) and offers users the ability to dynamically extend and customize system functionality to handle even the most complex models, instruments and analytics."


• Syndera, Redwood City, CA claims to have found a new way to improve business intelligence:
  "Syndera offers a comprehensive application that delivers real-time visibility across the organization to align business, operations and IT around the same goals."


• Wily Technology, Brisbane, CA helps companies to monitor their application performance:
  "Introscope, the industry-leading enterprise application management solution, provides deep visibility into the entire application environment and helps enterprises keep their mission-critical applications high-performing and available 24x7."

So many enterprise software companies in California - impressive. For me some concepts are pretty interesting, alas most companies have been discovered already by the financial community and investment will be less thrilling. Also interesting to note if you browse through the different sites, they offer a very similar approach to present the company and the respective solutions. Indeed some seem to be cloned. Is this the pressure from users or just the same web design/marketing company?

Seth has been so nice to send me his newest book "Free Prize Inside" a while ago. So here comes my review.

I really like Seth's style of writing. It's easy to understand and he packs things into short sentences. Yet it is no simple stuff. He successfully describes the small differences that are so difficult, to see yet so much needed, to create something remarkable in today's marketing. The free prize is in Seth's terms a product that has an edge that is unique. It's more than an USP it's something outstanding.

This book is a wonderful guideline what could be your very own next billion dollar idea and how you will nurture it.

"The unsatisfied are the folks who don't even realize that they've got a problem that needs solving...That's were the real growth comes from, and where you will find the customers you need when your current product becomes obsolete."

It is especially written for the rather inexperienced entrepreneur who looks for an opportunity within an organization:

"There's no correlation between how good your idea is and how likely the organization [you are in] is to embrace it. None."

I really liked the book it's a good read for one weekend. If you are interested in more stuff from Seth, just mail Ashraf and you have a good chance that he will send you some gifts from Dubai (as I experienced).

Such a pity - VC Buzz was one of my favorite VC destinations. They are closing down on 4th of June.

"Dear VC Buzz Newsletter Subscriber,

Thank you for you past support of VC Buzz. Regretfully, we will be ending the VC Buzz Newsletter subscription service on June 4, 2004. The VCBuzz.com Web site will be shut down on the same day.

We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to subscribe to our internet.com Daily newsletter. The internet.com Daily Newsletter lists summaries and links to InternetNews.com-produced stories focusing on the internet. Subscribers will get the day's top internet stories pushed directly to you from our team of real-time news editors who are focused 100% on the internet industry. "

Seems this free weblog has demolished the competition :)

We featured Pay by Touch some time ago. Now they make headlines with another US$ 25 million infusion. I'm impressed this is a big bet.

Have a look at their demo (WMP required).

Paul Allen has found the newest M&A; rumor:

"So here's why a Google/Skype combination would work:

1. Google will have nearly $3 billion available in the short term; they could invest as much as Skype needs to finish building out the technical infrastructure so that Skype users can call any phone in the world.
2. Google has hundreds of millions of users and could dramatically increase the number of Skype downloads and therefore exponentially increase the value of the Skype network.
3. Google already offers voice access to some of its search and news services; but they could integrate voice activated queries and audio responses from the Google servers into the Skype service. It would be amazing to drive down the freeway with my Skype mobile phone and Jabra earpiece and say "search Google for Mexican restaraunts in Sandy, UT" and have it retrieve and tell me all the listings. Or a million other more important queries.
4. Even more important to me, I want Google to offer me audio access (both send and receive) to my gmail from any phone, and I want it to be free. I remember when Onebox.com did this back in 1999. You could send a voice email message from your phone. It was so hot that Phone.com paid $850 million (in bubble money, of course) to acquire them with only 2.5 million non-paying customers. I'm guessing that the Skype infrastructure would make this possible with no long distance charges.
5. Google may someday develop audio search engines that could access all of my previously recorded email messages and phone conversations (and meetings that I tape on my iPod with the Belkin voice recorder accessory). Owning Skype would give them a lot of audio data to play with in their Labs."

It would be such a delight, alas I fear we might have to wait a little :)

Ed Sim has a great post that highlights the risk to overhype your company:

"When you have a grandiose launch you set high expectations for your company. As my colleague, Ben Tanen, put it, "they would have to be the next generation phone company" to deem their execution worthy of their launch. Anything short of that and they would be deemed a failure."

Great marketing as in the case of Cometa Networks can be a burden. Be sure not to oversell as buyers will expect extreme returns from your products.

The entrepreneur of the year 2004 has been chosen by Ernst&Young.; This years award goes to Philippines based Tony Tan Caktiong, founder of Jollibee Foods Corporation. Jollibee is the country's leading fast food chain and employs 26000 employees in 1000 branches leading to more than US$ 500 million in revenue.

Click continue to see all this years nominees.

I discussed the Jamba deal announced some days ago with some friends. Still I'm curious what exactly Verisign seeks in the Jamba technology?

The Samwer brothers held just 16% of the corporation by the time the company was sold. Jamba was expecting sales of US$ 84 mio in 2004, so the multiple would be around 3.25. Pretty low for a high growth company nowadays isn't it?

Just realized that Bloglines now serves this RSS feed to 100 subscribers. Good to see you...

- the latest Carnival of the Capitalists. It is probably the biggest of it's kind for a long time and gives you a great selection of noteworthy articles from the blogosphere.

I just came across this well drafted overview (pdf)about economic indicators in the UAE between 2000 and 2003.

Seems the Monster has even more appetite, after buying jobpilot.de last week monster.com announced the acquisition of tickle.com the grand-daddy of social software.

"Tickle has been profitable since the second quarter of 2002. Through April 30, 2004, trailing twelve-month revenue was approximately $25 million. Monster Worldwide anticipates that the transaction will be earnings neutral in 2004 and accretive in 2005. The consideration paid for the transaction consisted of one million shares of Monster Worldwide common stock, an initial cash payment of $29.5 million and a three-year payment of approximately $40-plus million, related to achieving certain financial objectives."

This company is amazing - although most (or all) of the companies services are still free it just raised US$ 20 million in series C from Cisco and Sequoia Capital. As the discussion about privacy concerns continues Plaxo has been able to catch more than 700 million of adress data sets that can be a valuable treasure.

Cnet has an interesting sidenote how Intel expands R&D; facilities in Russia in a smart way:

"Instead of outsourcing to them, we hired them," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said. "This is a rare opportunity, where you can get intact design teams."

As Siemens seems disappointed from sales of the new Xelibri line that has been planned as the second mobile for everyone it stops selling the brand:

"We'll continue to serve this market segment,'' Axel Schafmeister, a spokesman for Siemens's cellular business said in a telephone interview. While Siemens is abandoning the Xelibri brand, it will sell fashion phones under the Siemens name in future, he added."

"Siemens introduced the Xelibri in January last year to help boost its share of the market for more expensive, fashionable handsets. A lack of buyers caused full-year operating profit from mobile phones to drop 67 percent, Siemens said in November. "

Wow, my sincere respect goes to the Samwer brothers. Many thought their first sale of alando.de to ebay was pure luck. With Jamba they have shown it is luck and good entrepreneurship that has driven them to success.

"Internet and telecom company VeriSign on Monday said it has agreed to acquire Germany's Jamba, a wireless content provider, for $273 million in cash and VeriSign stock.

VeriSign said the deal could have incremental impact to its June-ending second quarter, when the deal is expected to close, and would be neutral to 2004 earnings per share and modestly accretive in 2005.

Berlin-based Jamba provides wireless content services to millions of wireless subscribers in nine European countries through its distribution and billing relationships with carriers such as Vodafone, T-Mobile and KPN. "

Dubai is probably the best place in the Middle East to do business outside of Israel. The city is a great mix of shopping cathedrals, wonderful beaches, skyscrapers and business parks.

Source: vienture.com

I recently discovered Dubai-based entrepreneur Ashraf Sheikh with his very informative (though not often updated) weblog. Ashraf is also organizing a networking event the Dubai Mixer. If you are in Dubai don't miss...

Mario sends in the announcement of the first (?) angel round of weblogsinc.com that have a similar business model as Creative Weblogging. I'm curious about how this money will be used...

"Calacanis wouldn't answer questions about his own company's funding, but Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban did. Cuban wouldn't say how much he's invested in Weblogs Inc. but confirmed he's putting some money to work in the space. I am an investor [in Weblogs Inc.], and excited about it is all I can tell you," Cuban told The Post. "

Meanwhile vc-facts reports an angel round for OpenBC the Germany based social networking company has used the latest b-to-v investment gala in Zurich to attract business angels with powerful networks and pockets for their first round. OpenBC is cash flow positive and has shown an impressive growth already.

Also the audio media verlag GmbH Munich could find angel investors following up one of the Hamburg Business Angel Lounges. Audio Media develops an audio book magazine with bi-monthly editions. Although the market for audio books became crowded in the last years, the news stand is an almost virgin area for audio books in Germany.

Phil links to Jeff Pulvers hot news about Skype. I had made some (fairly easy) predictions about Skype in March. Now the skype founders haven given the babies names:

"As previously hinted, SkypeOut will provide Skype users on a prepaid basis the ability to place calls to the public switched telephone network. During the talk, I found out that G.729a will be used as the codec to perform the PSTN interconnect, so at least for the moment, when SkypeOut launches, customers placing calls to the PSTN may not always be able to experience the higher quality sound that Skype normally uses for it's own Peer-to-Peer communication."

"SkypePlus will offer Skype customers value-added services including: Voicemail and the mapping of DID (Direct-Inbound-Dialing) numbers."

Rajesh links to Dan Bricklin's thoughts about software licenses.

I guess is very much right with his perspectives. Software distribution has changed as we are even talking about utility computing for many basic software (and hardware) services.

I got a bit deeper into the topic of social software recently. It seems there something of a battle going on between the open networks Ryze, OpenBC, Orkut, Tribe and Friendster and LinkedIn and the only internally active such as VisiblePath and ContactNetworks on one side and Spoke and Zero Degrees.

if you are coming to or staying in Germany and if you are in the process to increase your reach via business networks this linkfest might be a help for you.

Tim Draper who invented a new form of VC pitching last year is back with the second round to pitch your billion dollar idea through the AO weblog.

Honestly if you have any idea of value it might be better included into a private email to him, but still there are some pundits that have placed their idea in the comments section...

(Thanks for the hint goes to Patrick)