Rustic Canyon

Intrepid Learning Solutions recognized as Top Training Outsourcing Company
 
(Seattle, Washington – July 21, 2008) Intrepid Learning Solutions, a leading provider of learning and performance solutions, has been named by TrainingIndustry.com for a fifth consecutive year to the influential list of “Top 20 Companies in the Training Outsourcing Industry.”
 
TrainingIndustry.com, the market’s leading source of objective information around the learning and training landscape, evaluated data from over 400 companies before determining this year’s Top 20 providers.  According to TrainingIndustry.com, the companies selected this year demonstrate comprehensive abilities and proven records for developing and delivering the highest quality of outsourced training services.
 
The selection process entailed evaluation of 25 corporate competencies and business capabilities to identify those providers best suited for world-class outsourcing engagements.  Among the assessment criteria: 
 

• Experience in managing multi-year training business process outsourcing engagements

• Recognition as a leading outsourcing provider in the training industry

• Demonstrated strategic alignment of training BPO services with client business goals

• Capability to deliver multiple BPO training services

• Talent of corporate leadership and professional staff

• Strength of clients

“Intrepid is recognized for its ability to provide comprehensive managed learning services to its impressive and growing list of clients,” says Doug Harward, Founder and CEO of Training Industry, Inc.  “When we evaluate companies for the Top 20, Intrepid stands out for its incomparable capabilities in learning strategy analysis and consulting; best practices research, application of learning metrics, and alignment of learning initiatives with strategic business performance goals.  The company truly is a premier thought leader in the industry,” continues Harward.     
 
“Intrepid is honored to be on the list for the fifth consecutive year.  We are committed to continuing to find new and innovative solutions to the critical learning and performance challenges that major global organizations face,” Vikesh Mahendroo, President and CEO, Intrepid Learning Solutions. 
 
 
About Intrepid Learning Solutions
Intrepid Learning Solutions is a leading provider of learning and performance consulting, outsourcing, and research services to global companies. With industry-leading expertise in learning management, business process outsourcing, and research, Intrepid delivers transformative business results for its clients. For more information about Intrepid, visit www.IntrepidLS.com 
 

Contact:
Heather Muir
Marketing & Communications Manager
Intrepid Learning Solutions
hmuir@intrepidls.com
206-838-9363 

PERFECT MARKET RAISES $15.6 MILLION IN VENTURE FINANCING FROM TRINITY VENTURES AND RUSTIC CANYON PARTNERS

Company Delivers Service to Expose Web Searchers to High Value Archived Content, Providing More Targeted Impressions to Advertisers and More Revenue to Publishers

PASADENA, CALIF. – JULY 9, 2008 – Perfect Market, Inc., a marketing services firm for publishers that specializes in "lighting up" underutilized content and creating additional revenue from these assets, announced today that it has raised $15.6 million in new venture funding. The financing is from Trinity Ventures, based in Menlo Park, CA and Rustic Canyon Partners of Santa Monica, CA, with additional participation from Square 1 Bank and founding investor Idealab of Pasadena, CA. The new funds will be used for company operations and to further the company’s product development initiatives. Larry Orr of Trinity Ventures and Nate Redmond of Rustic Canyon Partners have joined the company’s board of directors. With their large libraries, content publishers, particularly publishers with an offline presence, have been sitting on a potential goldmine of ad revenue, but have lacked an efficient and meaningful way of driving traffic to and monetizing this underutilized content. Perfect Market has developed a potent blend of technical and economic intelligence to address this problem and provides publishers with a simple way to extract additional value from their existing libraries. By exposing publisher content to a wider audience, Perfect Market’s service brings the web searcher high value, branded content that was difficult or impossible to find previously. “We’re thrilled to have the backing of such well respected partners,” said Julie Schoenfeld,president and CEO of Perfect Market. “All three partners bring a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise – Trinity, who I’ve had the pleasure of partnering with on previous endeavors, has built an extensive portfolio around digital media and Internet services; Rustic Canyon brings a deep experience and understanding of media, both content and distribution; and Idealab with their successful history in the search advertising industry. We’re poised to successfully leverage their combined resources, and their support further validates our business model and approach.” Perfect Market’s end-to-end service delivers and monitors results immediately, yet requires very little from the publisher to get started. Any publisher with a large content library is a potential partner. Most importantly, the service is a no-risk proposition for publishers. The program is structured to enable publishers to utilize the service with no upfront capital outlays or investment of scarce IT resources. Additionally, Perfect Market’s service fully complements existing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) programs.“We’re excited at the opportunity to invest in Perfect Market and work again with Julie Schoenfeld and the talented team she is building,” said Larry Orr, managing director at Trinity Ventures. “The company’s proprietary technology positions it to present publishers with a method to utilize their millions of archived pages, while in turn delivering valuable content to end-users and more targeted impressions to advertisers. Perfect Market offers a very compelling answer to the age of rapidly growing content and declining ad revenue rates.” “Perfect Market has developed an intuitive approach to capitalize on the vast amounts of underutilized – and under-monetized – content that exists throughout the Internet and offline in the content libraries of publishers,” said Nate Redmond, partner at Rustic Canyon. “Their innovations present a tremendous opportunity to publishers looking to leverage their existing content in a way that’s simple to deploy and offers a substantial monetary upside.”

About Perfect Market, Inc.
Perfect Market, Inc. is a marketing services company that helps online publishers monetize their large libraries of archived content with little or no risk to the publisher. The company applies proprietary processes to this problem, including cutting edge economics, natural language and machine learning algorithms. The Perfect Market solution fully complements existing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) programs by delivering underutilized web archives to end-users and advertisers. By bringing to light valuable content that might not otherwise be found, Perfect Market improves the search experience for end-users, provides targeted impressions to advertisers and brings new revenue to the publisher's bottom line. Lead investors include Idealab, Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon and Square 1 Bank. Perfect Market, a network company of Idealab, builds on Idealab’s achievements in the search industry such as its creation of the paid search model through Overture Services, acquired by Yahoo! in 2003. Perfect Market, Inc. is based in Pasadena, CA. Additional information may be found at www.perfectmarket.com.

About Trinity Ventures
Trinity Ventures, a 21 year veteran in the venture business with more than $1 billion under management, partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build great companies. Trinity Ventures focuses on early-stage technology investment opportunities with a particular emphasis on the Digital Media, Internet Services, Mobility, Security and Software markets. Trinity has invested in well over 100 ventures, including such leading companies as Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN), Blue Nile (NASDAQ: NILE), Crescendo Communications (acquired by Cisco: CSCO), Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems: SUNW), Illustra (acquired by Informix, now part of International Business Machines: IBM), LoopNet (NASDAQ: LOOP), PhotoBucket (acquired by News Corporation: NWS), Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai Technologies: AKAM), Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), and Sygate Technologies (acquired by Symantec: SYMC).

About Rustic Canyon
Rustic Canyon Partners invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are turning ideas into transformational companies. The investment team works collaboratively, drawing on a diverse set of experiences as successful entrepreneurs, managers, and strategic and financial advisors. With over $800 million in funds under management, Rustic Canyon is one of the largest venture capital firms based in Southern California.

About Idealab
Idealab's mission is to create and operate pioneering technology companies. Founded in 1996 by entrepreneur Bill Gross, Idealab provides a broad range of operational support to its companies, allowing the operating company management teams to focus on getting to market quickly and cost effectively and to take advantage of the serial start-up experience of the Idealab team. Bill Gross and Idealab have founded companies such as eSolar, Inc., Energy Innovations, Overture Services, Inc., CitySearch, Picasa and Internet Brands. Current operating companies are providing innovative technology solutions in industries such as software, search, robotics, 3D printing and alternative energy fields. Additional information may be found at www.idealab.com.

Perfect Market is a trademark of Perfect Market, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2008 All rights reserved.

Press Contact:
Claire Barton
Nadel Phelan, Inc.
831-440-2406
claire@nadelphelan.com

Pasadena-based Perfect Market, which operates a marketing service for
publishers, said today that it has raised $15.6M in a new venture capital
round. The round came from Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners,
with participation from Square 1 Bank and Idealab. According to Perfect
Market, the new funding will go towards company operations and for the
company's product development initiatives. Larry Orr of Trinity and Nate
Redmond of Rustic Canyon Partners have joined the company's board along
with the funding. Perfect Market said it will focus on helping publisher
create additional revenue from underutilized content.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Southern California: The New Detroit?
Story by Tom Taulli

Recently, the CEO of GM (NYSE: GM), Rick Wagoner, extolled the importance of electric cars. It does seem like a no-brainer, especially in light of environmental concerns and the soaring price of crude. In fact, the mega car company is exploring many alternatives, such as fuel cells, ethanol, hybrids and so on.

Of course, it’s all good news for a variety of companies in southern California, which are developing next generation car technologies. “Southern California is the home to a myriad of design studios for all the major car companies,” said Andre Peschong, who is a principal at Bridgewater Capital. “There is a talent pool of engineers, CAD design specialists and let’s face it, a car culture.”

Capital Comes to Socal

So, it should be no surprise that there is an influx of capital into the region, looking for big returns.

For example, Phoenix MC – which is based in Ontario – raised funding in March (the amount was not disclosed). The investors included Al Yousuf LLC, a Dubai-based diversified commercial company and The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), which is a major power company.

Since 2001, Phoenix has been developing battery-electric, freeway-speed vehicles. And the cars are expected to hit the road next year.

“We have the advantages of being nimble and quick,” said Daniel Elliott, the CEO of Phoenix. “Although, we went with strategic investors because of the added value they can bring as well as their long-term perspective.”

Some of the other alternative vehicle makers include: Miles Electrical Vehicles (Santa Monica), Venture Vehicles (Los Angeles) and Aptera Motors (Carlsbad).

Cutting-Edge Innovations

Socal also has a myriad of auto technology providers. Just look at Transonic Combustion, which is based in Camarillo. Over the years, the company has been working hard to develop an advanced fuel-injection system so as to greatly increase fuel efficiency. The platform can operate on gasoline, diesel and bio-renewables.

“We are looking for leapfrogging technologies not incremental steps,” said Ford Tamer, an operating partner at Khosla Ventures, which recently invested in Transonic. “We think there are opportunities in revamping the old ways of doing things.”

Another interesting company is Fallbrook Technologies, which is based in San Diego. In the research mode, the company is building an advanced transmission systems. In fact, the system has more than 200 patents and pending applications worldwide.

The Big Pay Off

Despite all the activity in the alternative auto space, there are still some concerns. After all, many of the technologies are experimental. Moreover, it will take time for them to get traction.

But the long-term certainly holds lots of promise. “We are in the early days of the market,” said John Babcock, who is a venture capitalist at Rustic Canyon. “Even if oil drops, there will still be opportunity because of the regulatory pressure. We are looking at very large markets.”

(Photo credit: Benjamin F. Kuo)

posted on Monday, May 5, 2008

http://www.socaltech.com/southern_california_the_new_detroit/s-0015119.html

By JAMES FLANIGAN

Published: April 17, 2008

WITH all the grim earnings news from corporations and banks lately, not to mention the continuing credit squeeze and widespread talk of recession, it would seem that most small companies, too, would be having a hard time finding financing.

Byron Roth, chairman of Roth Capital Partners, raises money for small companies seeking to expand.
But that was not the case at a recent conference in Southern California, where 1,000 investment professionals came from all parts of the United States to hear and talk to 330 aspiring companies — 50 of them from China. Many of the companies sought by investors were developing environmental, clean energy, cellphone, water treatment and biomedical technologies.

The economic gloom actually encouraged the crowd, said Byron Roth, chairman of Roth Capital Partners, the Newport Beach, Calif., investment bank that was the host of the conference. These days, Mr. Roth said, “established large companies may not offer earnings growth but we can show investment managers fast-growing small companies that few people in broader markets know about.”

In addition, he said, investors with capital have less competition for choice properties “because large investment banks and hedge funds are affected by the financial crisis and forced to hold back.” Most companies at the Roth conference, in February, are publicly traded on Nasdaq and related over-the-counter markets.

“What I like about these conferences is that I find small, growing companies before everybody else does,” said Joseph C. McNay, who attended the Roth conference. Mr. McNay is chief investment officer and managing principal of Essex Investment Management, a firm based in Boston that handles $2.4 billion in investments for institutional and private family funds.

The crowds and enthusiasm were similar at the Montgomery & Company Technology Conference in March in Santa Monica, Calif., which attracted more than 500 investors and 160 companies. Most companies at the Montgomery conference were privately held and worked mainly in the fields of social networking games and communications services for mobile communications devices.

“The sentiment was very optimistic,” said James W. Montgomery, the chairman of the firm, which has been raising money for small companies in media, communications and health care for 20 years. “There is plenty of capital around because venture capital hasn’t been in a bubble mode in recent years like real estate and debt markets.”

It is also a good time for mobile phone companies “because the infrastructure of the Internet has been built out,” Mr. Montgomery added. “So companies selling entertainment and services for phones can innovate on the Internet.”

To be sure, financing for small companies is less generous and flamboyant than it was a few years ago, said Kenneth Kalb, a serial entrepreneur who has just started Analog Analytics, a company that he presented at the Montgomery conference. In recent years, the venture investment climate became overheated, Mr. Kalb said.

“Private equity firms and venture capitalists would pour money into Internet solutions, investing more than $100 million and looking to earn 5 to 10 times their money in three to five years,” he said. “Now, it has returned to a business with more reasonable valuations. Small amounts of capital are invested but capable of earning a return in two to three years.”

Fortunately, Internet services do not need a lot of capital to get going, he added. “My investor group and I started the company for $1 million,” said Mr. Kalb, who has founded and led two other companies in the last decade, selling the latest one last year. Analog Analytics uses database software to pinpoint for advertisers specifically who is seeing and reacting to their ads in newspapers, television and billboards.

Thomas Unterman, managing partner of Rustic Canyon Partners, a venture capital investment firm, agrees that the days are “long gone when investors looked for returns of 10 times their money in three years.” But there are hotly favored fields today. “Anything clean or green technology, like solar energy, will attract funding immediately,” Mr. Unterman said.

Twenty-five “green track” companies presented at the Roth conference, including Basin Water Inc., a company that converts contaminated groundwater to drinking water and maintains water systems for municipalities and private companies. Based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., the company, which had $18 million in revenue last year, is expanding operations across the United States, said Michael Stark, president and chief executive. “I presented at the Roth conference to keep up awareness of our company in the investment community, not to raise capital,” Mr. Stark said.

California has no monopoly on entrepreneurial companies, Mr. McNay of Essex Investment said. “These days, good small companies crop up in Boston and Chicago, Austin, Tex., and many other places,” he said. “But California does have more of them.”

Mr. McNay particularly liked the array of Chinese companies that Roth Capital brought to the conference. Those companies included China BAK Battery, a firm from Shenzhen, China, that makes lithium-ion batteries, and Sutor Technology Group, a Changshu company that makes steel finishing products for use in electrical appliances.

“Today’s China companies are just like the small entrepreneurial outfits with a lot of promise that we helped bring along in the early 1990s,” Mr. Roth said.

He reported that at least 10 acquisition or special financing transactions were initiated during the four-day conference. And possibly more long-term business was initiated because several “blank check” special purpose acquisition companies attended, Mr. Roth said.

Those companies, known as SPACs, raise money for the purpose of acquiring and then operating an existing company. One example is the Heckmann Corporation of Palm Desert, Calif., which was formed last November with $450 million of capital raised by two underwriters, Credit Suisse and Roth Capital.

Richard Heckmann is chief executive of the new company, which will spend $1.7 million organizing itself and researching which companies to acquire and operate. His board includes former Vice President Dan Quayle; Alfred E. Osborne Jr., senior associate dean at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Lou Holtz, a former football coach and television analyst.

Mr. Heckmann founded, built up and sold four companies over the last four decades, including U.S. Filter, a water treatment firm now owned by Siemens, and K2, a sporting goods company he sold last year to the Jarden Corporation. “I saw this bubble bursting years ago,” Mr. Heckmann said in an interview. “Private equity funds, swelled by debt, were buying companies in sporting goods and every other field, bidding up prices for no good reason.”

But now, in the downturn, he sees a new picture. “Companies can’t raise debt so there are opportunities for equity investment,” Mr. Heckmann said.

Stop…Hammertime

So Dancejam.com recently launched and I must say i am impressed. If you are just hearing about Dancejam in this post let me catch you up a bit; Dancejam is MC Hammer’s (yes that MC Hammer) new web initiative. In short it is a video sharing site for dancers. There has been a fair amount of buzz about this site over the past few months, mostly just individuals like my trying to figure out exactly what the site is about. The initial splash screen that was up had a video of Lil Mama endorsing the site along with snippets of some user videos from the sites private Beta release, to the point but still somewhat vague and still left me wondering what to really expect. 

With Dancejam being fully launched now you can go over and see for yourself how the site is categorized. The IA (Information Architecture) on the site is quite intuitive with the content being structured and categorized by dances (breakdance, chicken noodle soup, locking, ect), battles (like Josh vs. Tyblack), people, and videos. I must say the battles are the most intriguing and engaging for me. With the latest dances spreading like a bad rash these days I don’t doubt this site will become popular among teenagers and true dancers. The only thing missing thus far on this site is the very thing that is terribly crucial in my opinion: the ability to embed video from the site. Yes they have sharing features in the form of a unique URL and also using Facebook but that is the extent, atleast for now. Overall it is a good look on Hammer’s part and a smooth way to parlay his status as a dancer into a UGV(user generated video)-social network online.

You Got Served… Digitally

We discussed DanceJam, MC Hammer’s new online dance community, in episode 30 of our podcast.

 Well, the beta version of DanceJam is officially open, and users can start publishing videos of their killer moves.

 DanceJam, which self-promotes as the “largest dance floor on the planet,” allows users to seek out and learn a specific dance, share their own videos and even engage in online dance battles. Now you can make a fool of yourself to a much wider audience than just your parakeet and life-sized cutout of John Wayne.

 While DanceJam is certainly aimed at the hip-hop dance crowd, this seems to be the first major dance community geared toward learning and sharing. This is another example of a site and concept to which arts organizations should be paying close attention.

 Yes, DanceJam cost millions of dollars to design and develop, but there are affordable ways for arts organizations to collaborate, share and educate. For instance, a dance organization could offer tap lessons as an online series through YouTube and link to the videos from their Web site. Or a literary organization could offer online poetry slams and ask visitors to pick the winners, who could then be featured artists in a spotlight section of the organization’s Web site. Just some thoughts…

 The point is that arts organizations should continually be reviewing the online practices of for-profit ventures and creatively copying whenever possible.

MC Hammer And Friends Unveil Dance-Themed Social Network



Dancejam DanceJam, the brainchild of MC Hammer and a venture capitalist partner, promises a new place for dancers and dance fans to upload footage of their best moves and learn new steps from experts including Hammer himself.

Hammer (the "MC" is optional now) impressed me with his explanation of how the site would work back in November.  People are already uploading videos, and several battles have broken out between dancers using the site vying to prove that their moves are superior to those of their opponent. 

For more on DanceJam, check out our exclusive preview of the service (let it never be said that I have not chilled with MC Hammer).

Can Touch This: DanceJam Opens To The Public

YouTube for dance videos DanceJam has launched into open beta today after several months of private testing.DanceJam offers dance battles where users dance off against each other, with viewers voting on the best video. DanceJam also offers general dance videos, including locally uploaded content and videos from external sites such YouTube.

DanceJam was founded by M.C. Hammer, and Geoffrey Arone and Anthony Young from Flock. The company has taken $4.5 million in funding over two rounds, with investors including Ron Conway, Alex Algard, Michael Tanne, Geoff Ralston, Alex Welch, Ariel Poler, Rustic Canyon Partners, Softbank Capital and Michael Arrington.

You can see an example of a “Dance Jam” here.

Disclosure: Michael (as noted in the post) is an investor, I’m not.

Duncan Riley