VentureBeat

Apprion, a Moffet Field, Calif. company that makes wireless integration systems for harsh environments like industrial plants, has raised a new round of funding led by a strategic investment from cellular giant Motorola.

Plants are a little different from your standard wireless environment — temperature extremes, toxic chemicals and dangerous equipment are all par for the course, and the average worker isn’t exactly lugging around a laptop. That being the case, the requirements for networking are a bit different. Sensors, cameras, RFID tags and walkie-talkies all need to mesh together, which can be difficult if they’re all made by different companies.

Like a Cisco for the manufacturing world, Apprion does the work of integrating different wireless applications together and providing centralized controls and visualization, providing a brain for the growing nervous systems of sensors and monitors scattered around modern foundries, pharmaceutical plants, refineries and other facilities.

The opportunity to become the go-to company for Apprion’s kind of product isn’t small, according to CEO Mike Bradley. He says there are about 76,000 plants with 100 or more employees, the size at which they are likely to want networks in place. Systems for each of those plants range from $100,000 to $1 million dollars.

A number of other companies are working on wireless equipment and sensors to go into industry, hospitals, businesses and even the growing, green sort of plants. Motorola itself makes communication equipment for construction and industry workers, including cell phones and walkie-talkies. However, there are relatively few companies working on tying all those pieces of equipment, including RFID sensors, together in a software interface.

The exact size of the investment wasn’t disclosed, but Apprion raised $12 million in its first round, and has now taken a total of $23.5 million. Motorola led, and was joined by existing investors Chevron Technology Ventures, Anvil Investment Associates, Advanced Technology Ventures and Allegis Capital.

Here’s the latest action:

More earnings info — While we wrote earlier about Microsoft’s earnings, plenty of other companies are posting theirs, too. Motorola disclosed that its market share is down to 9.5 percent, while Qualcomm’s profit is up. Amazon’s Q1 profits rose 30 percent, Nintendo profits hit a record high on strong Wii and DS sales, and Juniper Network’s profits leaped 66 percent over last year’s.

Greenhouse gas emissions are accelerating — The rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide has gone from one part per million each year in the 1960s, to 1.5ppm in the 1980s, to 2ppm in 2000. Now emissions appear to have picked up even more sharply, with the latest numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing an increase of 2.4ppm last year. Overall levels are rapidly approaching 400ppm; an atmospheric concentration of 450ppm is widely held as a point of serious danger.

Russia looking into Internet censorship — While the Russian media is kept under tight control, Internet access in the country has so far remained unfettered. That may be set to change, as Ars Technica reports.

CNET and Yahoo to ink editorial / ad deal – Yahoo has agreed to run much of CNET’s content on its site, as well as selling remnant advertising from the company, according to Kara Swisher.

Another Twitter engineer flitters away — Lee Mighdoll, a VP of engineering and operations added to the Twitter team back in January, has left the company. That follows the departure of chief architect Blaine Cook, for reasons still not entirely clear. Twitter has come under a lot of criticism this past year for its downtime issues, perhaps having some heads roll will help shore things up. The company also may also be preparing to raise a new Series C round, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

Ooma lowers prices in bid to compete — Ooma, as you’ll recall, is a startup selling $400 units that allow people to make free calls, for life, over a broadband internet connection. Following a rumor from Valleywag that the company is struggling, it has rolled out a new scheme to sell units for $249, with an optional monthly service plan for “enhanced telephony services”.

Google’s $70M restaurant bill — Even for Google’s famous free lunch, somebody pays: The company itself. The bill comes to $70 million, according to the Silicon Alley Insider. My question: Who gets the tip?

Motorola announced that it’s investing in VirtualLogix, a maker of virtualization software for communications devices and infrastructure equipment. This shows that virtualization is still a hot investment trend, and not just in the core desktop and server markets.

Terms of the investment have not been disclosed. VirtualLogix’s technology does real-time virtualization, or the ability to split a computing platform into different partitions and shift from one partition to another quickly. While companies like VMware do this for corporate servers and desktops, VirtualLogix does it for communications devices (cell phones, other devices) and infrastructure.

In the mobile space, it allows users to move applications from desktops to devices easily. And it allows one device to run multiple operating systems. It also promises to improve the quality of service and security as well. That’s important in an increasingly open mobile world.

Motorola joins VirtualLogix’s current investors Atlas Venture, Cisco, DFJ Esprit, Index Ventures, Intel Capital and Texas Instruments.

Plenty of startups are determined to see proof that Apple won’t be Silicon Valley’s only phone company. That was evident at the eComm conference this week on Emerging Communications. I was taken aback by the variety of ideas floated at the conference. So much is afoot that I’m thinking there will be many kinds of companies in all parts of the phone industry in Silicon Valley.

Apple wasn’t at the conference, but its success has inspired start-ups and big companies alike. Consider the list of speakers: the Google Android guy. The Yahoo Fire Eagle guru. Someone from eBay’s Skype division and even a far-out social visionary from Microsoft Research.

Marc Smith, the researcher from Microsoft’s Search Labs, said that he would love to see an application that tracks his moment-by-moment whereabouts so that it could figure out if he were skating or riding in a cab, which would allow the network to push him the most appropriate information for any given moment.

Among the small firms, the dreams were just as big. TerraNet wants to sell mobile handsets to the four billion people on earth who can’t afford one. That makes the 276 million users of Skype’s free voice-over-Internet-protocol service seem puny. Even little Ribbit, the maker of a “soft switch” that lets you stick a cross-protocol phone widget on any site, called itself “Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company.” Read the rest of this entry »

Battery maker A123 Systems has secured its place as the most heavily funded battery startup, adding $30 million in its fifth round of funding.

Early this year, A123 broke $100 million. The Watertown, Mass. company, which is developing new lithium ion technology, already has some products on the market, mainly batteries for hand-held power tools. More importantly, companies like General Electric are considering its technology for use in upcoming hybrid vehicles.

A123 has shown itself to be rather aggressive, chasing down potential customers and acquiring Hymotion, a related battery tech firm, and with the potential for battery storage technology, it’s no surprise that plenty of firms are ready to invest.

The company didn’t disclose which investor led the round, but aside from a number of well known venture and private equity firms — Sequoia Capital, North Bridge Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures, FA Technology Ventures, OnPoint and Carruth Management — several other large institutions invested, including General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Alliance Capital, Motorola, Qualcomm, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Desh Deshpande, who is the company’s chairman.

Other lithium ion battery companies include San Francisco’s Li*On Cells and Fremont, Calif.’s Mobius Power (see our June coverage). Other battery companies working with lithium ion or some other material include Valence, Saft, EEStor and Infinite Power Solutions.

Clearwire, the company that is building WiMax, a new wireless technology boosts the performance of wireless broadband, has raised $600 million in its initial public offering. It begins trading today.

Clearwire, of Kirkland, Wash., reported a net loss of $240 million last year, largely because it is building out its WiMax network, and has yet to start selling it. It remains a big risk. Sprint-Nextel plans to roll out a competing WiMax network next year, and there are many other competing offerings outside of WiMax.

WiMax differs from WiFi in that it has much longer ranges — as much as 10 miles vs. WiFi’s reach of a few hundred feet.

The IPO priced this morning at $25 a share, at the top of its planned range. The IPO is signficiant because the stock markets have been jittery lately, the Nasdaq having lost more than 6 percent of its worth since WiMax filed its IPO papers. Telecom IPOs have been rare. Clearwire’s biggest backers are Motorola ($300 million invested) and Intel ($600 million invested)

Updated

The latest round-up from tech-land:

Second Life hype continues — Sun holds a conference in the virtual world, and pisses off a journalist, who has a point. Why make it so tough for people to get to your message? But that hasn’t deterred others from joining the trend. Dell did something similar. And now Second Life has launched a business plan competition for “resident” entrepreneurs. The prize is a little less than US$2k, but it does include help from real marketers (Edelman) and panel of real judges (including Charles River’s Susan Wu, who told us several weeks ago she is a big fan of Second Life; update: She responds with comment below).

Snap provides link previews — This is a pretty cool feature. Snap is offering Web site owners a short snippet of code they can place in their Web site, which gives users a preview of pages linked to, without them having to click. We’ve written about the Pasadena company before. (Similar to Browster and Cooliris which let you download
a tool so that you can get previews of search result pages — but they serve the user, not the Web site owner.

Zoo supposed to be safe for kids– Launched by Infospace, zoo.com is a search engine that removes adult and unsafe wording and phrasing, but John Battelle makes a single search, and finds it wanting. Still, it looks like a great start.

Noteworthy calendar mashups by 30 Boxes — See here for example . 30 Boxes allows calendar updates with RSS feeds from Flickr and other sources.

Motorola bought Good for $500M — At least that’s what the Deal is reporting. That’s a decent outcome for investors, who’d pumped in about $200. We heard that investors Crosslink and BA Ventures doubled their money, but haven’t confirmed this with a second source.

Quintura, visual search engine, is first Russian investment by a Western VC? — That’s the claim of this story in Read/Write Web. [Update: This claim seemed bizarre to us, and we should have been more skeptical. Turns out, Intel Capital alone has made three investments in Russia: Akella (aka Digital Storm), Electro-Com (a power-line telecom company), and Infinet Wireless. See this page, and scroll down. There are no doubt many more. Update II: Quintura Chief exec Yakov Sadchikov points out we misread the Read/Write Web story, which says it's the first Western VC investment into a Russian Internet company (see original release). Intel's Akella publishes games online, but isn't Internet driven at its core, so we stand corrected once again...]

Update on RockYou — We updated our earlier post about the lawsuit against Rockyou founders charging intellectual property theft. In case you missed it, here’s the complaint, the IM conversation, and the order, thanks to Venkat. Finally advice by attorney Todd Rumberger about how to not get sued when leaving your company. Lots of people think you can move freely in California, but not always.

Lots of executive changes lately — First, there was the Live shakeup. Next, Jason Calacanis, co-founder of Weblogs and head of the new version of Netscape resigns from AOL in the wake of the departure of AOL CEO Jon Miller, who some say was pushed out. Some say it is strange that he is replaced by president of NBC Universal, Randy Falco, an old media guy — but others suggest Miller hadn’t made any progress, so who knows. Finally, Fox Interactive chief Ross Levinsohn, architect of News corps’ purchase of Myspace, resigned to pursue “other opportunities.” Peter Levinsohn, his cousin, take his place.

AboutUs is a wiki site, and we don’t get it — The traffic of AboutUs has risen steadily, prompting various articles, including recently one on Techcrunch. Some people are skeptical, though, including Jeff Nolan. Jeff notes the local “puff” piece coverage of AboutUS from the local paper (blow). Now the site appears down (but here’s a cache)

Ray King hasn’t had a home run yet. But investors in his newest venture, AboutUs Inc., think King could be building the next Google.

King’s Portland company has just closed a $1 million initial financing round for its wiki, or collaboratively created Web site, listing the names of Web sites and information about them.

….While freely admitting he doesn’t use wikis, and doesn’t really understand them, “Ray is a very intelligent guy, and people are finding the site,” [investor] Holce said.

Nokia hasn’t bought Ryze — For the record, Nokia has not bought the social contact company, Ryze, a competitor to LinkedIn, chief executive Adrian Scott assured VentureBeat. (We mention this since it was making the rounds.)

O’Reilly forms venture fund — It is true that O’Reilly has formed a venture fund called AlphaTech Ventures. The effort began late last year. However, the two partners of the fund, Bryce Roberts and Mark Jacobsen, aren’t willing to talk until all the paperwork is done.

13 Buyout firms sued for collusion — The defendants include Silver Lake Partners, of Menlo Park. Dan makes some good points. See the full complaint.

Will Hansen Medical save the valley’s long-time venture firm, Vanguard Ventures? — Hansen, one of Vanguard’s companies has finally gone public, which could give the struggling Vanguard what it needs to stay alive. The firm desperately needs some results, especially after one of its other hopes, Asthmatx recently withdrew its IPO offering.

Two widely covered stories:
–Tivo DVRs to allow Internet video programming — Story here.
–Microsoft’s music player, the Zune, has been slammed universally. One example. Next we find out it isn’t even compatible with Vista.

(Updated with confirmation that Kleiner and others made money)

Motorola will buy Santa Clara wireless messaging company Good Technology for an undisclosed amount, in an effort to compete for big business clients.

Research In Motion’s Blackberry has dominated the corporate mobile email market, and Motorola’s Q device has failed to make significant traction. Moreover, Motorola’s rival, Nokia, bought mobile email provider Intellisync in February.

The market for wireless email has been brutal, with players like Visto, of Redwood City and NTP, the Virginia-based patent-holding company, filing suit against others and extracting large licensing fees. NTP forced RIM to pay a $612.5 million settlement. While Good has licensed technology from NTP, it is still the subject of a lawsuit from Visto, which itself has raised fresh cash even while losing money.

That competition and costly legal battles most likely pressured Good to sell, though it’s unknown whether all investors made money from the deal. Investors Kleiner Perkins, BA Ventures, Crosslink Capital and several other firms collectively invested more than $200 million into the company. (Update: We since confirmed that Kleiner, at least, made money from the deal.)

Here’s the Mercury News story about the deal, which shows there is disagreement about how well Good is doing. Here is Good’s annoucement on the deal.

Motorola is close to acquiring East Coast company that sells servers and other products for television-on-demand offerings, Broadbus Inc, for approximately $186 million in cash, PE Week reports.
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