Stephen’s Posterous

Dow Jones VentureWire reported that Trevi Health Ventures has stopped fund-raising for outside cash for its second fund due to poor market conditions.
 
Managing Director Andrew Fink had told VentureWire in September 2008 that the firm was looking to raise at least $200 million for its second fund in 2009.
 
Trevi invests across the life science sectors, including devices, drugs and services. According to VentureWire archives, Limited Partners in the first fund were mostly individuals.
 
Mr. Fink said the firm will be able to invest out of the commitments from returning Limited Partners, but declined to say how much the firm raised in commitments, but said it was around just over $100 million the firm raised for its debut fund in 2007.
 
One of the investments from that fund, Applied Genetics Inc. Dermatics, a provider of dermatology drugs and other products, was acquired by Estée Lauder Cos. in September 2009 for an undisclosed amount of cash.
 
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Bling Nation has raised $8 million in funding. Investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, MECK and Camp Ventures.

Bling Nation is teaming up with banks nationwide to act as a payments service provider, going head-to-head against Visa and MasterCard. The company works with banks in local U.S. communities to set up the infrastructure required for its Redi Pay Bling mobile payments service.

Bling Nation offers consumers a better way to buy things with a phone, helps banks set up secure mobile payments, and lets merchants offer on-the-spot reward programs to keep customers returning.
 
The banks give consumers a sticker to put on their cell phones that contain radio frequency identification, RFID, tags with special security features. It is activated the the same way an ATM or debit card is activated.
 
Bling Nation also gives out tag readers to merchants.  When someone comes in contact with a reader, the tag wirelessly activates and performs a digital handshake. The customer then pushes a button on the phone to authorize a purchase. The tag reader verifies the transaction. A text message is sent back to the customer as a confirmation and receipt. A PIN code must be entered on large transactions.
 
Eric O’Brien, a partner at Lightspeed, said the company has looked at mobile and online payments for a while but hadn’t backed anything in physical mobile payments until now because no one had developed a system that worked well for consumers, banks and merchants as well.

The company previously received $5.3 million in funding from Meck. The company was founded in 2007 and has 25 employees. Competitors in this area include Revolution Money and Tempo. The hope is to make inroads into the $60 billion credit card purchasing industry.

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Ian Warmerdam is the director of investments for the Henderson Global Technology Fund (ticker: HFGAX).

Mr. Warmerdam studied technology and business at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland and completed a postgraduate degree in investment from the University of Stirling, Scotland. His hobbies include mountain biking, hiking and windsurfing. Barron's Online recerntly interviewed Mr. Warmerdam.

Mr. Warmerdam says he was able to outperform his peers by examining niches of the stock market that show strong secular growth over time. He does this by seeing how the world is changing and how technology is influencing these changes. The fund picks companies with a sustainable competitive advantage. The fund uses a strong valuation bias that protects them to a certain extent.

The fund also uses some behavioral finance techniques, like the psychology of markets and of participants, which means using a bit of a contrarian strategy at times like avoiding an industry when it is hot and buying into a sector when is depressed.

When asked about what companies Mr. Warmerdam is currently excited about, he mentioned Tencent Holdings, a Chinese Internet company traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange (SEHK 700). The company is a leading instant messaging company in China that has a very loyal and large base of instant messaging users.

Tencent Holdings become a successful social networking company, a kind of Facebook of China, while also being successful at online strategy games.

Mr. Warmerdam also mentioned VistaPrint (VPRT), a company that offers small businesses huge cost savings in marketing and customized print materials like business cards and stationery, offering an 80% to 90% cost savings compared to local copy shops.

When asked about well known companies like Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL), Mr. Warmerdam said:

One of the primary themes of our portfolio construction is Internet advertising. This is a very strong secular group story. In Western markets, according to many surveys, we are now spending 30% or more of our media time online, as opposed to watching television or listening to the radio. In many cases, probably a lot more than that.

And yet Internet advertising, even in the U.S., which is a very mature market, accounts for less than 10% of advertising spent. We very much think that's a gap that is going to close over time, and additionally we are probably going to spend even more time online in the future.

Mr. Warmerdam believes that Google leads in Internet advertising around the world. Mr. Warmerdam also likes Baidu (BIDU),  the Google of China.

Mr. Warmerdam has invested in Apple since he believes the company has created barriers to entry and created a real network effect through the iTunes store and through the applications store.

In the tech area, Mr. Warmerdam is avoiding the commodity areas and underweighting semiconductors, PC manufacturers and the components market.

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TechCrunch and VaterNews both announced that StyleCaster has raised $4 million in Series A round of financing from investor Dan Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans.
 
According to TechCrunch, StyleCaster is a platform that hopes to be the future of online fashion. The site features style tips optimized for each individual, news and content on the latest fashion trends, a niche social network based around style, and a large online retail catalog of brand-name clothing.
 
VatorNews says that the fashion site is built upon three fundamentals: Content, Shopping, and Community. Viewers who log-in are able to see the community aspect of the website immediately, which includes fashion experts and fashion lovers, the site hopes users will connect, swapping ideas for their favorite outfit.
 
The funding will be used to invest in content creation, web-based and mobile applications, and its advertising network.

From a Press Release, Stylecaster wrote:

StyleCaster offers both consumers and advertisers something that has to this point not existed - fashion and lifestyle content intelligently delivered based on each visitor's taste and style. The site, and technology, have the potential to revolutionize the e-commerce and content delivery experience," said Dan Gilbert, chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, Inc. and investor behind many successful new media ventures.

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TechCrunch has reported that High Gear Media has secured $5.5 million in Series B funding led by DAG Ventures with Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. The company raised $6.5 million in Series A funding in November 2007 from Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. This brings the total capital rasied to $12 million.
 
The network’s sites aggregate automotive content from around the web and syndicate content to other automotive websites and news sites such as Yahoo! Autos, The San Francisco Chronicle and Glam Media, among others.
 
High Gear Media owns and operates a network of 38 automotive websites, including TheCarConnection.com, GreenCarReports.com, AllCarsElectric.com and AllAboutPrius.com. The websites integrate video, photos and social media features using Twitter and Facebook, making it easy for users to access relevant and rich automotive content in one place.

High Gear Media will use the funds expand its media network and acquire other media properties. The media network seems produce its content at a low burn rate, according to Vator News.
 
The company offers the struggling auto-industry targeted advertising for potential buyers. HGM says it’s seen traffic and revenue grow substantially in the first half of 2009 and expects to be profitable with this round of funding.

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InformationWeek and TechCrunch reported that Swedish tech company Global Gaming Factory X has reached an agreement to acquire controversial file sharing company The Pirate Bay for about $7.7 million (60 million Swedish crowns).
 
Global Gaming Factory has also entered into an agreement to acquire the shares in Peerialism, a software technology company that develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new P2P technology.
 
Global Gaming said it would introduce legitimate business models to Pirate Bay's Web site, which had become a haven for illegal file sharing. Pirate Bay's Swedish founders in April 2009 were ordered jailed for one year and fined $3.6 million.
 
The deal could see The Pirate Bay evolve in a manner similar to that followed by Napster. A nexus for illegal peer-to-peer swapping several years ago, Napster was acquired by a string of legitimate vendors that instituted pay-to-play business models on the site.

The transaction is scheduled to be closed in August 2009.

Below is a statement from Global Gaming from their Press Release:

The listed software company, Global Gaming Factory X AB (publ) (GGF) acquires The Pirate Bay website, http://www.thepiratebay.org, one of the 100 most visited websites in the world and the technology company Peerialism, that has developed next generation file-sharing technology. Following the completion of the acquisitions, GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners.

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Red Mango Inc. has raised $1.2 million out of $8M according to The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch based on a regulatory filing that shows the company has secured $1.2 million of a round targeting $8 million.
 
Red Mango has previously raised around $12 million from CIC Partners and Stone Canyon Venture Partners. Red Mango's President and CEO, Daniel Kim, is a veteran of Southern California's technology startup industry, having served at such companies as Stamps.com, Lightcross, Kotura, and others as reported by socalTECH.com, which also added that Mr. Kim was also an investment banker at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and has experience in the retail space with J. Crew, and P.F. Chang's, among other.

Mr. Kim has said that the company may not need $8 million, but that was the number that the Board came up with. Red Mango was founded in 2002 in South Korea and opened its first U.S. store in July 2007 in Los Angeles. The company has since grown the operation to 54 stores. Mr. Kim said the company will expand to 70 stores by the end of the year and will add 100 more in 2010.
 
Mr. Kim said as the number of stores grows, there’s a greater need for marketing and franchisee support. As of March 2009, a study of 13 Red Mango stores showed an average annual income of $500,000 with the most successful grossing $800,000.
 
Red Mango’s largest competitor is Los Angeles-based Pinkberry Inc., which announced in April a $9 million round of funding and plans to expand in the Middle East as part of a 35 store expansion in nine countries. Pinkberry has raised at least $36.5 million from investors including venture capital firm Maveron.
 
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For the faithful, predestination is a mystery. In Christian theology, predestination refers to God's eternal decree appointing humans to their ultimate end after death.

In the book, Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine, the author, Peter J. Thuesen,  explores the issue of divine sovereignty vs. human free will. Predestination, the idea that God has chosen one own's eternal destiny is one of the most fascinating and controversial doctrines in Christianity.

Almost anyone growing up in a Christian household will have been exposed to the concept, and wonder if they are predestined.

Marc Arkin reviews the book in the Wall Street Journal. He writes:

For the faithful, predestination is the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a mystery that both awes and fascinates. John Calvin, the Reformation theologian whose name is most closely associated with the doctrine, warned that "if anyone with carefree assurance breaks into this place, he will not succeed in satisfying his curiosity and he will enter a labyrinth from which he can find no exit."

Predestination has provided plenty of conflict. It is a key mystery of the faith. It's a mystery that has resisted definitive church settlement for almost two thousand years because it embodies a seeming contradiction between Saint Paul's emphasis on unfettered divine will and the idea that sinners should repent and answer the Gospels' call to faith, says Mr. Arkin in reviewing the book.

The writer of the book, Mr. Thuesen, follows the career of predestination in American Christianity from New England Puritanism to the present, situating the American experience in the broader context of Western Christianity.

Mr. Arkins says that Mr. Thusen's thesis is that predestination provides the golden thread that runs through the history of American churches, even when, as with Mormons and Christian Scientists, new denominations rejected predestination altogether. One of the most striking aspects of Mr. Thuesen's narrative is the depth of animosity between people of faith on opposing sides of the controversies.

In his review of the book, Mr. Arkin ends by writing:

The great virtue of the book is that, without taking sides among the combatants, Mr. Thuesen manages to capture the significance of their enterprise. It is nothing less than an unflinching commitment to living always mindful of the eye of eternity. Ultimately Mr. Thuesen mourns the decline of mystery in modern life; "Predestination" pays noble tribute to that sense of awe before the divine that theology captures only through a glass darkly.

Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine
By Peter J. Thuesen
Oxford, 307 pages, $29.95

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Click here to download:

Koenigs_Case_Study_House_No._2.zip (218 KB)

The famous Stahl House celebrates its 50th birthday and opens for public tours on June 28, 2009, as written by the Los Angeles Times. The house has appeared in more than 1,200 newspaper and magazine articles, journals and books, movies, TV shows and commercials. Most people have most likely seen the house and recognize it wondering where it is located and who owns it.
 
Case Study House No. 22 is a glass-and-steel pavilion perched in the Hollywood Hills, which gained notoriety after being photographed as the house in Julius Shulman's famed 1960 photo of two pretty girls suspended in time, floating above the twinkling lights of Los Angeles.
 
As writer Barbara Thornbur of the Los Angeles Times writes:

Three sides of the home were made of plate glass -- the largest available at the time -- that made for fabulous views. But the windows were not the tempered safety glass used today, and they could shatter into a thousand jagged pieces if anyone were to walk -- or roller skate -- into one accidentally.

The radiant-heated concrete floors were sleek, but they were hard and unforgiving for toddlers who fell a lot. Then there was the cantilevered living room that extended 10 feet over the hill -- so dramatic, but just how did one wash all those windows or put up Christmas lights under the eaves?

Regarding the famous Shulman photo of two pretty girls taken on the evening of May 9, 1960. The two women are Cynthia Tindle and Ann Lightbody. There were not the owners, but merely students recruited to be models. The furnishings were staged for the shoot, supplied by furniture firm Van Keppel-Green. The family wished they could’ve kept the furniture, but it was all part of the editor of Art & Architecture Magazine’s Case Study House program to promote modernism.
 
The Case Study House Program begun in 1945 and it aimed to introduce the middle class to the beauty of modernism: simplicity of form, natural light, a seamless connection between inside and out.
 
The house was the dream of Buck Stahl, a former professional football player, and a purchasing agent for Hughes Aircraft. He bought the lot where the house was built for $13,500, which was a lot of money at the time as a three bedroom house could’ve been bought for that price.
 
Mr. Stahl spent two years collecting broken-up concrete from construction sites and hauling it to the lot. He dedicated most weekends to building the retaining walls for what would be the front and back of the house.

Architect Koenig was hired in 1957 and construction didn't begin until September 1959. The house was finished in May 1960. The two-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot house cost $34,000 to build with the pool adding $3,651 more.
 
Barbara Thornbur of the Los Angeles Times writes:

One thing seems certain: Koenig was the right architect at the right time. Others had turned down the project. The jagged-edged hillside lot was problematic, and Buck Stahl insisted on a 270-degree uninterrupted view. He also had Champagne tastes and a beer budget, the children say.

The family says that Koenig honed Buck Stahl's ideas into a masterpiece. One of Koenig's innovations was to use the largest possible sheets of glass available at the time for residential construction, reducing the presence of framing elements so that the house seems to float, Smith says.
 
In the end, as Ms. Thornbur of the Los Angeles Times writes, Buck, Carlotta and their children got their home -- a modern dream house that lives on for them, as well as for other Angelenos for whom Shulman's photo represents the halcyon days of mid-20th century
 
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In the Los Angeles Times, Marc Weingarten reviews Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg Milner. Mr. Weingarten calls the book an exhaustive, technically precise and fascinating book.

The book explores the evolution of sound. Mr. Milner covers the analog days of Thomas Edison up through the present day of digital recordings, and the quest for sonic perfection. The book discusses the debate between an authentic reproduction and the manipulation of sound.

In the book, Mr. Milner begins with the first phonograph when Mr. Edison told his listeners that the phonograph was guaranteed to "hear" as sensitively as the human ear. Mr. Edison was successful with the phonograph for 20 years before a German immigrant, Emil Berliner, introduced the Gramophone, which used an electrically recorded disc that rested on a turntable.

Those loyal to Mr. Edison could not see how a microphone could capture sound like nature intended. This is when music was transformed into something that could be manipulated, edited, and transformed. Mr. Milner explains how microphone technology was perfected at Bell Telephone Labs in the early 1920s as an experiment in improving telephone transmission.

Bell Labs became the most important early developer of recording technology in the world, helped by the classical maestro named Leopold Stokowski, who became the world's great recruiter of microphone recording. Mr. Stokowski produced the first commercial electrically recorded performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1925, and cooperated with Bell Labs in separating the high and low frequencies into two separate channels, creating the first Stereophonic sound.

Valdemar Poulsen, a Dutch medical school dropout and telephone company employee, one day screamed into a transmitter attached to a wire strung between two walls in his office. He discovered the principles that led to magnetic recording tape.

Mr. Weingarten from the Los Angeles Times writes:

"Magnetic recording taught music how to lie," writes Milner, and indeed it was a super-charger for every subsequent development in recording technology, which is in fact the history of aural manipulation.

Mr. Milner discusses how recording reached its zenith in the first half of the book, but the second half of the book discusses the decline and fall of digital recording.

Mr. Weingarten end his review of the book by writing:

Milner tends to treat digital technology as a death knell for all that is good and righteous about recorded music, but perhaps the seeds of the record industry's decline were sown in its early resistance to this new format.

As online downloading colonizes the market, one can only wonder if the industry that spawned Stokowski and Les Paul will soon go the way of Emil Berliner's Gramophone.

Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg Milner
Faber & Faber, 416 pages, $35

Listen to an interview of Greg Milner on Talk Of The Nation on NPR. Read a book review by Norman Lebrecht from The Wall Street Journal.

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