VentureBeat

Silver Lake Partners, a Menlo Park, Calif. buyout firm that bought Seagate, Flextronics, Gartner and other companies before turning them around, has finished raising its third fund at $9.3 billion in capital, according to LBO Wire (no link). It’s much larger than the firm’s previous fund, raised in 2004, of $3.6 billion.

The pace at which the private equity industry keeps raising money is astonishing. The amount of capital swashing around among the world’s investors is huge, and these investors have little choice but to earmark it for various asset classes, such as stocks, bonds and alternative investments — including private equity.

Here’s a piece suggesting there are dark clouds gathering on the private equity industry: “At issue is nearly US$1 trillion that is not producing any returns, and the numbers are expected to reach even higher levels.”

Also, Silver Lake has undergone a rebranding. It has lost its initial logo, which looked very similar to the old logo of high-profile venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins (which had been an investor in Silver Lake in previous funds through another partnership, Integral Capital Partners). That may be because Roger McNamee, an initial partner at Silver Lake with close ties to Integral and Kleiner, has since left the firm. Kleiner itself has also refashioned its home page in recent months.

1. Funny or Die raises $15M, despite chance of latter
2. Did White House lead rejection of California’s emissions claims?
3. Redhat CEO Matthew Szulik resigns
4. Startup.com’s Tuzman to save Roo.com
5. Netsuite’s stock soars past $35
6. Cisco’s Charles Giancarlo, leaves to Silver Lake Partners
7. Jacked, online sports service, raises $6.5M
8. Top 10 Seattle-area tech stories of the year
9. Miasole reportedly lays off 40 workers
10. Ausra’s proposed 177MW plant is approved

Funny or Die raises $15M, despite strong chance of latter — Being funny is hard, but Will Ferrell made his career from it. That’s probably why Sequoia Capital and others have trusted Funny or Die, a startup project between himself and co-founder Adam McKay, with another $15 million. Here’s the problem: With 30 writers and only one big hit (The Landlord), we’re not so sure that “Funny” is a strong enough business plan to nurture this particular web baby. Portfolio has the full story.

Did White House lead denial of California’s right to regulate greenhouse emissions? — See here.

Redhat CEO Matthew Szulik resigns, replaced by Jim Whitehurst, former COO of Delta Airlines — CNET reports.

Online video company Roo.com lays off fifth of staff, and now appoints Kaleil Tuzman to take over — Roo was accused of mismanagement, board members were forced out, and an executive was indicted for money laundering and felony. Now Tuzman, the former CEO of the bubble era GovWorks.com, who was embodiment of excess during the Internet bubble, as captured in the documentary Startup.com, has taken over.

Netsuite’s stock opens $26, and roars past $35 on first day of trading — The company is now valued at $2.1 billion. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and his family own more than 70 percent of that.

Cisco Systems’s number two, Charles Giancarlo, leaves to Silicon Valley private equity firm, Silver Lake Partners — He was the heir-apparent to Chairman and CEO John Chambers, and he helped manage some important mergers, such as WebEx, and put in 14 years of service. But with Chambers set to stay between three and five more years, Giancarlo’s itch finally got too great. “I went home one day and talked to my wife and said, ‘Honey, I now know what you mean by a biological clock.’” In February, Cisco also lost Mike Volpi, another senior executive, who left to to join a start-up. (Forbes has details.)

Jacked, a service that runs stats, news and photos beside online sports programming, raises $6.5M — The Santa Monica, Calif. company’s first round was led by Core Capital Partners and Gabriel Venture Partners, with participation from Provenance Ventures. It announced a deal to provide its service on NBCSports.com

The top 10 Seattle-area tech stories of the year – Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter John Cook keeps a close eye on his city, and he’s assembled a list of the area’s top 10 stories of the year. Included are briefs on the area’s year in venture funding (the best since the dotcom bubble), strong results by Clearwire and Imperium Renewables, retreats from Jobster and Isilon, and more.

Miasole reportedly lays off 40 workers — Three disgruntled ex-employees revealed to VentureWire that solar CIGS maker Miasole recently laid off 40 of its staff. The story isn’t new, though; Back in October, CNET floated the same rumor, only to be told by Miasole CEO David Pearce that it was just a few contractors. The company itself isn’t currently responding to inquiries about the layoffs.

Ausra’s proposed 177MW plant is approved — We reported a month ago that solar thermal company Ausra is planning a 177 megawatt generation plant in California’s San Luis Obispo county, but the tricky hurdle of gaining regulatory approval for the plans remained. The bureaucrats have now given it a thumbs-up.

VentureBeat talked last night with Roger McNamee (pictured left), asking him why his firm, Elevation Partners, would want to buy into Palm, a company that many people see having a tough time ahead, given intense competition.

Some doubt its chances of survival as a standalone company.

[See our initial coverage of Elevation's $325 million in investment into Palm. Also see the Mercury News coverage. The Elevation-Palm deal comes amid a wave of M&A activity -- see coverage here of Flextronics' acquisition of Solectron yesterday. Finally, the acquisition of Avaya, a computer networking company, for $8 billion by Silver Lake Partners and TPG, announced yesterday, is the latest in a trend of massive private equity buyouts.]

Here’s how McNamee explains the Palm deal. His starting thesis is that mobile is big and getting bigger — that technology is increasingly allowing people to take and get content wherever they want. Only about seven percent of cellphones are smart-phones today. Within some time frame, say ten years, all devices will be smart-phones, he said. And with only a few players with the know-how to offer a full platform — he counts three, Apple, RIM and Palm — this bet makes a lot of sense, he said.

Here’s more on why: A significant cycle of hardware innovation over the past year has made mobile devices smaller, but those devices are imperfect, he said. Each of them — the Q, the BlackJack, the Pearl and the Palm Treo — have had their own limitations. “It’s really hard to do more than one thing really well,” McNamee notes.

Because hardware has made so many advances, the accompanying software makes a significant difference. Apple succeeded with the iPod not merely because it gives you a hard drive to carry tunes around with you, but also because of its surrounding architecture, including The iTunes store and supporting software. People won’t buy music from a platform that doesn’t have all these parts, he said. The same success has been seen by the video-console players, where McNamee has looked closely: One vendor takes charge of the key components and makes them all work together.

So what are the characteristics of the players most likely to succeed in the smart-phone industry? McNamee lists them: They’ve got to be innovative, have software, have good systems engineers and be ready to take risks.

Who fits the bill? “At a minimum, RIM, Palm, and in three weeks, Apple,” says McNamee, “But not everyone.” Many software makers failed at making the transition to graphical mode interfaces on the PC; similarly, many phone companies won’t transition either, he said.

Because all phone will one day be smart-phones, “this is not a winner-takes-all situation,” he said. He believes Apple’s iPhone will be successful. Its base of some 100 million iPod users, mostly satisfied customers, gives Apple a huge start. RIM also continues to do well. And Palm, too, has got what it takes. Having recruited Jon Rubinstein, and benefiting from idea guy Jeff Hawkins, the company has a team of innovators that is difficult to replicate.

And thus begins the slow, steady grind by Palm to reassert itself.