Forbes    11/26/2012 @ 10:01AM

On a sprawling soundstage on the outskirts of Toronto, Kevin Murphy is giving a tour of the alien world he’s helping bring to life. As silver-eyed humanoids stroll silently past, Murphy, the executive producer of the new Syfy channel series “Defiance,” points out terra-formed mountain ranges, gleaming energy weapons, gooey suspended-animation pods. “And this is… ,” Murphy begins, stopping in front of yet another exotic bit of production design. “I don’t know what the hell this is.”

You can’t blame him for getting disoriented. “Defiance,” which makes its debut next April, is an order of magnitude larger and more complex than anything Syfy — or any other basic cable channel — has ever attempted, involving scores of actors and writers, dozens of programmers and no fewer than seven alien languages. If it succeeds, it will also be vastly profitable for the network’s corporate parent, Comcast‘s NBCUniversal.

That’s because “Defiance” isn’t just a TV show. It’s also a massively multiplayer online videogame developed through a joint venture with San Francisco-based Trion Worlds. With their long product cycles and multiple revenue streams, MMOs, as they’re called, can be fantastically lucrative.

The most popular one, World of Warcraft, is estimated to generate more than $1 billion in revenues per year for its owner, Activision Blizzard. Another Activision title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, became the fastest-ever entertainment property to book $1 billion in sales when it was released in 2011, seizing a record previously held by the film “Avatar.”

But playing in this arena isn’t cheap. Trion spent $50 million developing Rift, the hit game it released in 2011. Defiance is an even bigger undertaking, with a budget said to reach $80 million, pushing the cost of the overall project well north of $100 million. “Games with that kind of big budget are not typical,” says Brian Blau, a gaming industry analyst at Gartner. “It’s a big risk. They’ll have to attract a lot of users.”

NBC Universal has wanted a piece of the videogame business for a long time. In 2007 then parent General Electric bought a small stake in Trion through the Peacock Equity Fund, an investment vehicle targeting businesses that had potential affinities with NBC’s entertainment properties.

At the time, Syfy President Dave Howe was looking for ways to move the channel beyond its core business, which, despite boasting high margins, is in some ways not a terribly attractive one. “‘Profitable’ is an interesting word when it comes to scripted drama in cable,” Howe says.

While the network will generate revenues of $734 million in 2012, according to SNL Kagan, contributing to the $8 billion in annual revenues for NBC Universal’s cable networks group, it virtually never makes money on its shows directly. High ratings allow Syfy to charge advertisers and distributors more, but the programs themselves “are loss leaders, for the most part, or a break-even proposition,” says Howe. Even “Warehouse 13,” its highest-rated series, doesn’t make money per se.

Attributes 296 Percent Revenue Growth to Foresight, Innovation in Lead Management

LOS ANGELES, October 19, 2011 – Leads360, the industry leader in lead management software, today announced it ranked 287 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Leads360 grew 296 percent from 2006 to 2010.

Leads360′s President and Chief Executive Officer, Nick Hedges, credits the transformation from a mortgage-specific lead management software provider to the market leader in integrated consumer sales automation and telephony with the company’s impressive revenue growth. Leads360 has an innovative feature set, built for the most demanding consumer-sales organizations that scale from small business to enterprise.

“The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 award and our ranking in the top 300 companies in North America showcases the innovation, software design and investment in customer success that has enabled us to achieve such formidable revenue growth,” said Hedges.  “We recognized early on that many consumer sales organizations looking for CRM solutions really needed a lead management solution to bridge the gap between a sales lead and sales success.”  “Leads360, like all 2011 Technology Fast 500™ companies, have excelled in fostering innovation and channeling it into spectacular growth — against the backdrop of one of the most challenging economies in history,” said Eric Openshaw, vice chairman and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader, Deloitte LLP. “Deloitte recognizes Leads360 for its remarkable accomplishment.”

“We are pleased to honor Leads360 as a 2011 Technology Fast 500 company,” said Mark Jensen, managing partner, technology and venture capital services, Deloitte & Touche LLP. “As one of the fastest growing tech companies in North America, Leads360 has demonstrated excellence in technological innovation, entrepreneurship and rapid growth.” Leads360 was ranked 17th among Los Angeles area technology companies on the list.  The Los Angeles list included notable companies such as Cornerstone OnDemand, Activision Blizzard, ReachLocal, TrueCar, TeleSign andother leading public and private companies.

About Deloitte’s 2011 Technology Fast 500™

Technology Fast 500, which was conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP, provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies – both public and private – in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2006 to 2010.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company’s operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD or CD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD or CD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of five years, and be headquartered within North America.

About Leads360

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., Leads360 develops software as a service (SaaS) solutions for managing sales leads.  Distinguished by its focus on solutions that address the unique needs of businesses who sell to consumers, Leads360 is recognized as a market and technology leader, managing more than 40 million leads for more than 10,000 clients, and fully integrated with more than 1,400 lead sources and third party technology providers.  With a suite of solutions scaled for small to enterprise organizations, the company offers the industry’s most comprehensive and configurable sales management platform.

Leads360 enables companies to distribute, track, analyze, and convert sales leads using a customizable lead management workflow and integrated on-demand telephony software.  Professional services, including training and process consulting, are also offered to deliver a highly effective solution for converting sales leads.  Businesses look to Leads360 for solutions that allow them to maximize their investment in leads generated online and from traditional sources, and ultimately generate sales and grow revenue.  For more information, visit www.leads360.com.

For more information, visit www.leads360.com.

Follow Leads360 on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Leads360.

With $32 million in Series D funds, Transonic Combustion Inc. is heading down the long road to getting a new technology into a mass-produced car. The Camarillo, Calif.-based company has developed a fuel injection system that can either decrease a gas-engine-powered car’s emissions, or help burn fuel more efficiently. Both applications are being spurred by recent legislation. In California and Europe new emissions rules were passed, and on the federal level in the U.S. and in Europe, fuel economy standards are being stiffened.”We have a fairly efficient, straightforward technology to meet the legislation [requirements],” said Wolfgang Bullmer, chief executive of the company.

The company raised its capital from existing investors Venrock, Khosla Ventures , Rustic Canyon Partners and Saints Capital. The funding came in tranches and closed about two weeks ago, said Mr. Bullmer. Existing investors gave funding to the company in order to keep product development going and to not distract it with fundraising and due-diligence from outside investors, said the CEO.

“You have to design the product into the engine, or you have to design the engine together with the fuel injection system. That’s one of the reasons we are on such a long-term timeline,” said Mr. Bullmer.

This timeline has shifted over the years. The company’s previous management team referred to a near-term 100-mile-per-gallon car enabled by Transonic’s technology, according to news reports from a few years ago. Mr. Bullmer said that he expects his technology could be commercialized by the end of 2015. Transonic was founded in 2006.

“Leadership changed and some statements changed,” said Mr. Bullmer, who had joined in 2010, when asked why the original projections were different from the new ones. The earlier promises not coming to fruition “affected the financing but not the extent that the company would close,” said Mr. Bullmer. He declined to discuss the issue further.
Now, said the CEO, the company, which has 37 employees and is hiring, is making solid progress. It’s working with several automakers on testing its fuel injection system in test engines in the automakers’ labs, said Mr. Bullmer. He said that the details are protected under non-disclosure agreements, and that customers don’t want to have their names be made public.

Interest picked up as new regulation was passed, said Mr. Bullmer. He said it’s hard to discuss the costs of using its fuel injection system versus the standard one, because a lot depends on how the engine is designed. “It’s in the ballpark, so that customers are interested,” said Mr. Bullmer.

The company still has more to prove, and its technology competes with alternatives that help car companies meet emissions and fuel economy standard.

http://www.tscombustion.com/

Dollar Shave Club, the startup offering a subscription razor service that costs as little as $1 per month (plus shipping), has raised $9.8 million in Series A funding. RCP participated in this round.

Co-founder and CEO Michael Dubin said the new round, which was led by Venrock, will allow the company to develop “the next iteration of Dollar Shave Club” and “to really grow into the lifestyle service” that he wants it to be. He declined to offer too many details on that front — it sounds like Dollar Shave Club has some big product news coming in the near future, and he didn’t want to give too much away ahead of time. However, he did say the funding has already helped the company build some important backend tech tools, like “really basic metrics.”

When the startup announced its emergence from the Science, Inc. incubator and its initial funding back in March (a $1 million round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Forerunner Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, Felicis Ventures, White Star Capital, and others), Dubin told me his goal was to create “one of the first online-only power brands” in personal grooming. He also said he wanted to develop a strong relationship with members, for example by incorporating their feedback as the company moves into new product areas like shaving cream.

Asked yesterday about his vision for the company moving forward, Dubin said, “The goal of Dollar Shave Club is making guys’ lives better primarily by making shaving better and having a lot of fun while doing it.”
On the fun side, the startup is probably best-known for its goofy video “Our Blades are F***Ing Great” (embedded above, in case you’ve forgotten), which is currently clocking more than 7 million views on YouTube and still makes me laugh whenever I watch it. When I complimented Dubin (who stars in the video) on its popularity, he said it’s been “a really great asset for us.” One downside, however, he’s occasionally recognized as at bars and elsewhere — he recalled being asked if he was “the guy from the Dollar Shave Club video” and responding, “I hate that guy!”

Old Glory 2012, the latest promotional effort from the company doesn’t feature Dubin. Instead, it offers tongue-in-cheek portraits of past presidents, asking visitors to vote on “Who Will Shave Our Great Nation?”

In the months since Dollar Shave Club first made its big splash, even more startups have launched offering a wide range of subscription services (most memorably, perhaps, for sex toys). Dubin said too many other companies are primarily interested in the subscription model because of the recurring revenue, without really thinking through the problem that they’re solving for users.

“I think that for companies to employ a frequently recurring shipment model, they’re going to have to dig a little bit deeper and solve a deeper problem,” he said.

Dubin added that he actually dislikes calling his company a subscription service — obviously, it’s offering a subscription, but he prefers to think of it as “membership commerce”: “Membership, as a word, suggests that you’re on the inside looking out. Subscription [suggests] you’re on the outside looking in.”

In addition to announcing funding, the service is expanding beyond the United States today by launching in Canada.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/dollar-shave-club-funding/

Meteor Entertainment, the publisher of the highly anticipated free-to-play online multiplayer mech combat game Hawken, has raised $18 million in a second round of funding.

The new investors show that Meteor continues to gain support from the financial community for its potentially disruptive game from Pasadena, Calif.-based Adhesive Games. Hawken is a high-end console-like game with cool 3D graphics and a Call of Duty style approach to giant mech combat.

In addition to existing backers FirstMark Capital and Benchmark Capital, new investors in this round include Rustic Canyon Ventures and Chinese mobile entertainment company KongZhong, which plans to publish Hawken in China. The goal is to create a billion-dollar free-to-play gaming company.

“We are doubling down with the launch of Hawken and we have put another title into product,” said Mark Long, chief executive of Seattle-based Meteor Entertainment, said in an interview with GamesBeat. “We are also gathering a war chest to acquire another title that could be on the same quality level as Hawken.”

To date, Meteor has now raised $28.5 million in two rounds of funding. The new money is an endorsement for free-to-play games, and digital publishing of art house style games.

“It’s clear from this investment that we do not believe the game industry as an investment category is going down,” said Nate Redmond, managing partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures, in an interview with GamesBeat. “From watching disruption in multiple industries and seeing it come to games, that is appealing to me as an investor and a gamer. We see how quickly it is happening. The incumbents see it, but they can’t change quickly enough to capture it.”

Rustic Canyon has also invested in Trion Worlds, a publisher of massively multiplayer online games. After watching that part of the industry evolve, Redmond believes that taking hundreds of employees to build large games is not the only way to publish hit games. He thinks that taking smaller teams and publishing them directly on the web has a lot of potential.

“It doesn’t take a $50 million or $100 million budget to do this,” Redmond (pictured right) said. “You can now invest more heavily after the game launches and you see how it is a success and the game mechanics are working properly. We look at a lot of possible game investments. It continues to be one of the most interesting sectors of digital media. This is the first important one that we’ve seen in the last few years. It comes down to whether they have built great game play. The core mechanics are pretty amazing. The team is very technical, and they really understood their engine and how to squeeze performance out of it.”

“A year ago, we didn’t even know if this was going to work,” Long said. “Trying to run dedicated servers on an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon’s data center outsourcing service) was something nobody had tried before. Early on, we tested it to see if it would work. As we move into it, it works better than we could have hoped for” as it can handle 10,000 players in simultaneous gaming without any hiccups. The latency, or delays in interaction, is so low that the service quality is good in beta testing, Long said. That saves a lot of money on data center costs, he said.

Because the technology worked so well, Long decided to get more games in production. It also looks like Hawken will reach a lot of new territories relatively quickly. Those developments led to the new round.

“All indications are that Hawken is going to be a hit,” he said. “How well it monetizes is an open question. But we are confident Hawken will go out strongly.”

Meteor was founded earlier this year and it has fewer than 50 employees. Rivals include Infinite Game Publishing, a Canadian firm that is launching an online game, MechWarrior Online, that focuses on multiplayer mech combat. Long is encouraged that MechWarrior Online is monetizing well in beta testing and he is confident that mech fans will embrace both games.

Long said that the company is focused on a transmedia approach to publishing and it will work on one to two games at a time.

Long previous worked as head of Zombie Studios and he has spent more than 20 years developing games. He knew Mitch Lasky, general partner at Benchmark, who believes that free-to-play online games will steal an $8 billion to $10 billion chunk of the hardcore game market away from console titles and disk-based retail PC games.

“Our management team is full of gamers and we believe there is an opportunity to disrupt online gaming in China,” said Jay Chang, chief financial officer at Kong Zhong, in an interview with GamesBeat.

His company launched the Chinese version of Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks online tank combat game in China. And it has also taken out a license to publish a version of Hawken in the Chinese market, probably in 2013. Long said he believes Kong Zhong could become one of the top three online game publishers in China in the next couple of years.

“We think Hawken has the potential to be even bigger than World of Tanks,” Chang said. “The Chinese market is maturing and there are a lot of users for free-to-play games.”

Benchmark and FirstMark are the same investors who backed the highly successful Riot Games, maker of League of Legends, a downloadable web game that was so popular that China’s Tencent bought Riot for more than $400 million last year. At the time, Riot had just a million users, but the company was valuable because of its fast growth — it has 70 million registered players and 32 million monthly active users — and the hardcore gamers were willing to spend real money for virtual goods in the free-to-play title.

Hawken is being developed by Adhesive Games, a small team in Alhambra, Calif., and it will be published by its parent company, Meteor Entertainment.

Hawken is scheduled to launch on Dec. 12, or 12/12/12. The title drew a lot of attention last year because the team posted cool game play videos on YouTube that collectively garnered more than 1.9 million views. Khang Le, chief executive of Adhesive Games, told us in an interview that the game is akin to Call of Duty multiplayer combat, but for mechs. After Lasky saw the YouTube video, he became obsessed with finding the Hawken team and he eventually succeeded in getting a meeting with them.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/29/hawken-publisher-meteor-entertainment-raises-18m-as-big-launch-draws-near/#4wwDUvVhtj37b0iL.99

FoodLink, the buying platform that connects fresh food retailers and wholesalers to a network of over 2,000 supplier companies, announced a definitive agreement to acquire TRUETRAC, a leading provider of mobile traceability solutions to growers, harvesters, packers and shippers of fresh produce.

The combined company will be the food industry’s first integrated network for the Produce Traceability Initiative that links crop planning, harvesting, packing, order management, shipping, receiving and individual item tracking from the field to the supermarket checkout line.

“Today, produce traceability enters the mainstream,” Eric Peters, chief executive officer of Los Gatos, CA-based FoodLink, said in an Oct. 19 press release. “The combination of FoodLink and TRUETRAC signals the emergence of a standard platform that brings exceptional value to the ‘first mile’ of food production and lets retailers leverage a single network to manage their fresh food buying processes, supply chain operations and overall food-safety and traceability program.”

Field-to-consumer solution

With the acquisition of TRUETRAC, FoodLink becomes the first fresh produce industry solution that directly connects the critical “first mile” information in the field, such as product harvest date, temperature and lot number, with sales order information between supplier companies and retail buyers.

The combination, managed across a single integrated network, aligns many different industry functions, systems and participants from the field to the consumer. The integrated solution also accelerates the flow of information from farm to store, and enables retailers and wholesalers to source the safest, highest-quality products while reducing waste and inefficiencies across the entire supply chain.

For growers and shippers, FoodLink can now offer TRUETRAC’s mobile platform to print and apply PTI-compliant labels to every packed case of produce. That information can be instantly associated with specific retail orders and delivery details over the FoodLink network.

“By joining with FoodLink, we are combining two great teams and also realizing TRUETRAC’s long-held vision of a simple, smart and connected PTI solution that can be rapidly adopted by all fresh produce suppliers,” Ray Connelly, CEO of TRUETRAC, which is based in Salinas, CA, added in the press release. “When you link the critical ‘first mile’ of harvest operations with the essential ‘second mile’ sales processes, and then bring product visibility all the way to the retail buyer and consumer, you’re solving one of the biggest challenges in this industry.”

With more than $10 billion in annual commerce and more than 2,000 fresh food suppliers, brokers and transportation carriers on its network, FoodLink is a leading platform for produce buying.

The acquisition of TRUETRAC will enable customers to access online traceability data, comply with PTI requirements, and gain insight into the product on their shelves and feedback from their shoppers.

For suppliers, the new FoodLink suite of products now includes a low-cost mobile PTI solution for case-level packing and shipping that can scale to growers of any size, as well as modules for crop planning, harvesting and item-level tracking. FoodLink suppliers can easily add any TRUETRAC product to their annual subscription plan.

Among FoodLink’s retail customers are industry leaders such as Ahold USA, Associated Wholesale Grocers, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Unified Grocers, Topco & Associates and Supervalu, as well as major regional grocers such as Giant Eagle, K-VA-T Food Stores, Price Chopper Supermarkets, Roundy’s Supermarkets and United Supermarkets.

TRUETRAC customers include leading suppliers in the industry such as Del Monte, Duda Farm Fresh Foods, Pandol Bros., Kirschenman Enterprises, Growers Express, Mann Packing and Tanimura & Antle.

FoodLink and TRUETRAC will be exhibiting at the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit Convention (booth Nos. 2879 and 3287) Oct. 26-28 in Anaheim, CA. At the conference, Mr. Peters of FoodLink will present an educational session on “Selling Produce in an Era of Unprecedented Opportunity and Challenge,” Oct. 26 at 8:45 a.m.

For more information, visit www.freshsummit.com.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 15, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — UrbanSitter, an online service for parents and sitters to connect through people they know, today announced it has closed a $6 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Canaan Partners with participation from existing investors First Round Capital, Menlo Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners and several angels. The additional funding will be used to accelerate product development, advance the company’s mobile efforts and further expansion into new markets.

“We see incredible promise in UrbanSitter’s differentiated social model and exceptionally talented team,” said John Balen, General Partner, Canaan Partners. “As the first and only babysitting service that intuitively mirrors how parents find trusted sitters offline, we think that the company is capitalizing on an enormous market opportunity and look forward to participating in their continued growth and product advancement.”

This new round of funding comes on the heels of a year of explosive growth for UrbanSitter. Since launching in San Francisco in Sept. 2011, the company has acquired more than 22k members and is increasing the number of sitter bookings at an average rate of 35 percent per month. The service has expanded to a dozen cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Denver. The company also recently launched an iOS app that enables parents to search and book sitters on the go.

“This has been a highly successful inaugural year for UrbanSitter,” said Lynn Perkins, co-founder, UrbanSitter. “The distinct need in the marketplace, the ease of our interface and the high repeat rates from our users combined to create a growth trajectory that we are extremely proud of. We’re thrilled by the vote of confidence from Canaan Partners and our existing investors.”

UrbanSitter makes booking a trusted sitter as easy as booking dinner reservations. Parents sign up at UrbanSitter.com or via the mobile app for iOS devices and can instantly view sitters known through friends or affiliations–including schools, sports teams and parent groups–and can view each sitter’s availability in order to select a sitter for a specific date and time, or plan an outing when they know their favorite sitter is available. Jobs or interviews can be booked in minutes and parents can contribute written reviews, ratings and Facebook “Likes” to sitter profiles.

John Balen of Canaan Partners also joins the company’s board of directors.

For more information, or to sign up, please visit: www.urbansitter.com .

About UrbanSitter

An online service for parents and sitters to connect through people they know, UrbanSitter makes booking a trusted babysitter as easy as booking dinner reservations. The site enables parents to search, book and review trusted sitters within minutes.

Headquartered in San Francisco, UrbanSitter was founded by a group of Internet veterans who wanted to use technology to power a faster, more personal babysitting service. The company is backed by Canaan Partners, First Round Capital, Rustic Canyon Partners, Menlo Ventures and several angel investors. For more information or to sign up, visit www.urbansitter.com .

See the official press releases here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/urbansitter-secures-6-million-in-series-a-round-led-by-canaan-partners-2012-10-15

See the full TechCruch coverage here: http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/15/topfloor-science-funding-launch-social-shopping-video/