Today, I added a map from Platial to show where in the Sacramento region emerging businesses are located. If you would like to add a startup or high growth business please do. As I find time to add portfolio companies to the map the view may become more interesting as we see visually where companies are starting and locating.
Roseville, CA
International DisplayWorks, Inc. (IDW) (NASDAQ:IDWK) announced that its stockholders approved Flextronics International Ltd.'s proposed acquisition of IDW at a special meeting of IDW stockholders held today.
Pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement, assuming the transaction closes on November 30, 2006, as currently scheduled, holders of IDW common stock will receive 0.5653 Flextronics ordinary shares for each share of IDW common stock they own at the closing of the acquisition.
Roseville, Technology, BusinessSacramento, CA
Net Music Makers.com today announced plans to launch its online collaborative website in March 2007. In preparation for its launch, NMM will make its site available in January to allow bands to create a personal website and access a virtual studio that allows public and private collaboration to create new music available for international podcast and internet radio broadcast.
Sacramento, Technology, Business
Sacramento, CA
Raging Wire announced it has initiated an 89,000 sq. ft. expansion of their data center due to strong market demand for high-density, Class "A" Tier IV data center floor space.
Sacramento, Technology, Business
"Today’s Fortune 500 companies have recognized that designing and managing a top-tier data center is a core competency in itself. These companies are not interested in traveling down an intensive capital learning cycle to 'get this right.'" said John Hoffman, CEO of RES. "In fact, we have had several top Silicon Valley companies move out of their recently built corporate data centers because they were not able to utilize high-density blade servers due to power and cooling restrictions inherent in their internal designs.
The premier issue of Sactown magazine hit the mailbox today. Check it out here. More to come...
The Sacbee.com now offers online text adlinks from Quigo through a technology called Adsonar. Advertisers are able to bid on positions, only the top three ads show on any page, and improve their positioning through improving the click thru rate. The system provides automated ad tracking for impressions and clicks. The ads generally appear at the bottom of the page. Advertisers are able to target their ads to specific sections online such as the home page, business page, or sports page. This seems like a good way to target local online readers. The Tech Tomato is testing the system to increase traffic to our blog. We'll see how well it works.
Circuit-design startup hires a CEO who's been there, done that
El Dorado Hills-based Mutant Logic Inc., an angel-backed startup that's developing technology to streamline circuit design, has hired a chief executive officer who has experience with another El Dorado Hills startup that landed a big payday.
Bob Bennett, the company's new CEO, was a vice president for ShareWave Inc., which made networking products for home entertainment systems. Chip-maker Cirrus Logic Inc. (Nasdaq: CRUS) of Austin, Texas, bought ShareWave in Oct. 2001 for about $92 million in stock.
Funtastic, which started locally last year, has six new centers in the works
When Jim and Suzanne Kerr opened their Funtastic Play Center in El Dorado Hills last year, parents were so impressed with the children's activities center they assumed it was part of a chain.
"Everybody was asking, 'Where did you buy the franchise?' " Jim Kerr recalled.
A year later, on the first day the Kerrs had state approval to franchise, they sold three. In the first two months of franchising, the Kerrs have sold six franchises. A seventh is pending. Locally, sites are planned for Elk Grove, Natomas and Roseville.
Elk Grove is set to open in January. February should see centers in Natomas, Roseville and Hayward. Santa Clarita and Palmdale are scheduled to open in March.
The Kerrs have a letter of intent for Asheville, N.C. They're also selling their El Dorado Hills center to a franchisee. The first half of next year, the couple will focus on developing California. Then they'll pursue Portland, Ore., Seattle and Phoenix.
Opening the Elk Grove Funtastic are Stacie Morgenstern of Elk Grove, mother of three kids, and her sister, Kirstin Toms of Lincoln, a mother of two youngsters.
Jim Kerr, co-founder of Funtastic Play Centers: “We’ve had 4,000 kids through our doors.”
KidsPark, a rival company, plans centers in Folsom, Natomas, Elk Grove, El Dorado Hills
A Bay Area franchised chain of hourly, drop-in child-care centers is adding three more local sites by next summer as part of a multi-state expansion.
KidsPark Inc., which entered this market a year ago with a center in Rocklin, expects to open in Folsom next month, Natomas in January and Elk Grove this summer. El Dorado Hills is scheduled for 2008.
Sacramento Business Journal
by Kelly Johnson
Staff Writer
Great concept for Funtastic, and a cafe makes the experience good for parents too. There is a lot of competition and some well know failures so this will be interesting to watch as the market matures.
In 1989, Shari Fitzpatrick opened her first retail store, Shari’s Berries Inc., in Sacramento, CA. What began as a hobby and gift idea years before soon became a passion and a booming business, resulting in four successful retail locations in the greater Sacramento area.
I can't wait to try her new delightful creations. Perfect for the holidays.
Shari has refocused her creative energies by expanding her offerings through her latest company, The Berry Factory. Considered the “Founder’s Reserve Label”, her exclusive collection has taken hand dipped berries to the next level. In addition to Shari’s original creations, The Berry Factory features a variety of innovative new selections including Cheesecake Berries, Truffle Berries, Caramel Berries, Caramel Apple Wedgies, Baseball Berries and for the holidays, Candy Cane Berries. The Berry Factory ships gourmet gifts nationwide.
Shari continues ownership of her original Shari’s Berries Company and all locations feature The Berry Factory collection.
High-Tech Direct 2006
Registration Form
People around the globe are applying technology in astounding ways, and you'll hear about it at this year's High Tech Direct gathering on Thursday, December 7th from 4:00 - 7:30 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel Sacramento.
When: Thursday, December 7, 2006 4:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Where: Radisson Hotel Sacramento, 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento, CA 95815
The Sacramento-based digital music and video distributor signed agreements ranging from two to 10 years with the independent music labels. Digital Music (Nasdaq: DMGI - News) will distribute the tracks to online stores, as well as through ringtones, mastertones and wireless phone service.
Digital Music's new catalogs are from:
Hacienda Records, out of Corpus Christi, Texas, which includes tejano, traditional Tex-Mex, conjunto, salsa, pop and gospel music. Hacienda features Freddie Fender and other Latino artists. Evangeline Recorded Works Ltd., which contains 1960s and 1970s rock, country, Americana and roots music. Brilliant Classics, which includes classical and opera music, mostly featuring Western European orchestras and ensembles. The Loser's Lounge, which is a series of performances arranged around a single artist's catalog.
Sacramento Business Journal
Merger & Acquisition activity, Downtown K Street redevelopment
Today the State of California approved for release $181 million in funding for stem cell research. This funding which was approved by the voters of California in the landmark proposition 71 will go to fund research grants across the state.
The funding today alone makes California's Institute for Regenerative Medicine the largest program in the world.
Learn more here
Professor Larry Goldstein and David Granet, M.D. discuss the basic science behind stem cell research.
In October, CIRM announced that it had received 232 applications from researchers at 36 California non-profit institutions for Scientific Excellence through Exploration and Development (SEED) Grants. SEED Grants are intended to bring new ideas and new investigators into the field of human embryonic stem cell research, and offer an opportunity for investigators to carry out studies that may yield preliminary data or proof-of-principle results that could then be extended to full scale investigations.
The SEED Grant applications will be reviewed by CIRM’s Grants Working Group later this month, with recommendations scheduled to be considered by the ICOC in February 2007. The ICOC may award up to $24 million for 30 SEED Grants at that time.
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced that it has already received 70 applications for Comprehensive Research Grants, the second group of stem cell research grants it will award since passage of Proposition 71 in November 2004. The applications are from individual researchers at 23 non-profit institutions in California.
Will it be long before a market develops to license and commercialize the research discoveries found through these grants? I imagine researchers will be flocking to California, if not already, to take part in this cutting-edge research.
There are big implications for big pharma and biotech in California. These funds may be enough to start the next great boom for biotech and biomedical companies. The University of California, Davis will be a big recipient of some of the CIRM funding.
Techcoire recently held a BioSummit higlighting research in the area.
Is the region prepared for bio revolution? Discuss.
Unify Corp. on Monday announced that its aquisition of Redwood City based Gupta Technologies has been completed.
Unify paid $6.1 million in cash to acquire Gupta from Halo Technology Holdings, Inc.
Unify stock closed at 24 cents, down 3 cents on the OTC Bulletin Board.
This reminds me of when Michael Jordan retired and they replaced him with that one guy. What's his name? If you can tell me I'll send you a free gift.
Sacramento is getting another professional basketball team.
The Fresno Heatwave of the American Basketball Association is relocating to Sacramento, where it will play at Cosumnes River College. The new Sacramento Heatwave will play its first home game Dec. 3 against the Maywood Buzz, said marketing director Carey Garcia.
Team owners Reggie Davis and Greg Chambers decided to move to Sacramento for its basketball enthusiasts. In the capital city, the team hopes to draw about 1,500 spectators per game, compared to the 200 or 300 it was drawing in college ball-focused Fresno.
Are your Web surfing fingers getting tired?
There may be a reason. Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, says a mammoth milestone was reached during the month of October.
"There are now 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them," said Netcraft's Rich Miller.
"Within that, there are some that are busy and updated more often, and that represents the active sites, which are at about 47 or 48 million," he said.
Bloggers, small businesses, and simplicity have combined to create the dramatic growth of sites, much of it just in the past two years.
"The bottom line is it's much easier to create a Web site nowadays, and it's much easier to make money with a Web site," said Miller.
Netcraft uses the domain name system to identify Web sites, check how many of them are in a particular location, such as what operating system and Web server software they're running, and then publishes its information in a monthly report.
There were just 18,000 Web sites when Netcraft, based in Bath, England, began keeping track in August of 1995. It took until May of 2004 to reach the 50 million milestone; then only 30 more months to hit 100 million, late in the month of October 2006.
By Marsha Walton
CNN
In its fourth quarter, Hewlett-Packard's business divisions pulled together to deliver solid revenue and profit growth. Watch out, Big Blue
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has taken a big step toward laying official claim to the title of world's biggest tech company. On Nov. 16 the Palo Alto (Calif.) company reported fourth-quarter earnings that, thanks to all its business units performing well, exceed the annual sales IBM (IBM) is expected to post in its fourth quarter, which ends Dec. 31. "This has been a defining year for HP," a buoyant Chief Executive Mark Hurd told reporters during a conference call. And no, he wasn't referring to the pretexting scandal that dominated headlines earlier this fall.
Instead, Hurd was discussing fourth-quarter results that put to rest many of the questions that have dogged HP in recent years. For the past decade, investors and industry analysts have wondered whether the company had become too diverse to be manageable. For a lot of those years, nearly all of the company's profits came from its printer business—or more specifically, its hugely profitable ink cartridge business. But this quarter, all of the company's main businesses more than pulled their weight.
by Peter Burrows
BusinessWeek Technology
A Silicon Valley startup is announcing a new cell phone mapping service to let users know when their friends are nearby.
The so-called social mapping service by Palo Alto-based Loopt Inc. was to announce Tuesday it has teamed with Sprint Nextel Corp. 's Boost Mobile LLC, to launch the feature for the carrier's youth-oriented Boost-branded phones.
The service is free through the end of 2006 and will be $2.99 a month next year, following a 30-day free trial.
Using the phones' built-in GPS satellite technology, the Boost Loopt service could alert users whenever their friends are within a half-mile to 25 miles. The real-time tracking would only occur for those who have agreed to be located and had given the user their cell phone numbers.
At any given time, a person can temporarily cut out from being "spotted" by their friends as well.
Source : Taliyanews
In a first of its kind deal between a major search provider and a large wireless carrier, Sprint has tapped Microsoft to provide search and pay-per-call ads to its subscribers.
The deal will make Microsoft's fledgling Windows Live Search for mobile product available to Sprint wireless users. Along with Sprint ring tones, games, screen savers and other services, Sprint users will be able to use the Windows Live Search technology to perform local area searches, according to the companies. Ingenio is providing the pay-per-call infrastructure.
“This is really the first major deal where a brand name Internet search provider and a carrier are getting in bed in a major way,” Mark Donovan, VP and senior analyst with M:Metrics, a mobile metrics research firm. “Sprint has been beaten up in the public markets recently because of their performance, but they’ve been doing very well in being a leader in data services, in getting their subscribers to do more than just talk on the phone."
Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to show off its strength in search and compete with Yahoo and Google in the mobile space, where both competitors have recently unveiled advertising initiatives. The Sprint arrangement is Microsoft's first partner collaboration on mobile sponsored links, though the company previously offered mobile ads via its direct channel at mobile.live.com, according to a spokesperson. It has also done display advertising pilots in the US and Japan.
ClickZ News
By Matthew G. Nelson | November 17, 2006
Telecom company SOS expects 40% more revenue this year; has added staff
Telecommunications company SOS is on track to boost its annual revenue by almost 40 percent and has hired 12 employees as more small and midsized businesses in the Sacramento area embrace Internet-based phone service.
SOS -- formerly Special Order Systems Inc. -- has 35 employees, compared to 23 a year ago. Its annual revenue should reach $12 million this year, from $8.7 million in 2005, said Gia McNutt, the company's chief executive officer. The company has a profit goal of $4 million this year.
Sacramento Business Journal - November 17, 2006
by Melanie Turner
Staff Writer
Sacramento startup KeyEye Communications Inc. is banking on the enormous rise in the use of computer data and on demand from companies to move that data more cheaply and efficiently.
"We expect a huge amount of growth in the market for high-speed," said Chuck Fox, the company's new chief executive officer, citing a recent surge in demand for data such as Web-based videos, huge files that increase the amount to be transmitted between computers.
Sacramento Business Journal - November 17, 2006
by Melanie Turner
Staff Writer
Trash-handling company Waste Connections Inc. has agreed to acquire some Southeast U.S. assets of a unit owned by Waste Management Inc. The purchase price was not disclosed.
Waste Connections (NYSE: WCN) said the assets, which provide waste collection, transfer and disposal services, represent about $22 million in additional annual revenue, bringing the Folsom-based company's year-to-date annualized revenue added through acquisitions to $50 million. The company had more than $800 million in revenue over the past four quarters.
The transaction is expected to close within 60 days.
In May, Waste Connections purchased franchise operations serving El Dorado County from its larger competitor, Houston-based Waste Management (NYSE: WMI), for an undisclosed amount.
Waste Connections also said it refinanced its senior credit facility, cutting it from $850 million to $750 million at a lower interest rate and extending its maturity by one year to Jan. 2012.
Sacramento Business Journal - 11:12 AM PST Friday
