Serial entrepreneur Angel Gambino has every right to be arrogant—as people with resumes like hers often are—but she’s as down-to-earth and polite as they come.

Sure, a casual question about which local gym she prefers reveals that she’s currently training to be an Olympic soccer-team liaison, the Olympics’ most senior volunteer role and one which oversees every aspect of the team’s participation in the international games, but the answer is delivered in such a gradual, casual manner that it’s hardly bragging. (She’s awaiting confirmation from the Olympic Committee whether she’ll be overseeing the American, English, Italian, Australian, Brazilian, or Argentine men’s team.)

Trust me when I say Gambino’s life is way more interesting than mine and probably yours. She helped develop Gameplay.com, an early gaming site that eventually had 900 employees in nine countries; was instrumental in helping to popularize the social network Bebo, which was sold to AOL Time Warner in 2008 for $850 million; helped oversee the BBC’s expansion into mobile, broadband, and on-demand platforms; and helped launch social and video-on-demand platforms for Viacom channels such as MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central.

Gambino is still a co-owner of Sonico, the third largest social network in Latin America—Gambino describes it as “the Facebook of Latin America before Facebook became the Facebook of Latin America”—as well as Spoonfed Media, a popular website that directs Londoners to upcoming arts and entertainment events.

So what the heck is she doing in Detroit?

Gambino and her partner, Scott Griffin (more on his story later), purchased a massive building on Rosa Parks Blvd. for $270,000 in September, which they plan to turn into retail, restaurants, and space for local startups, the first step in a plan to further revitalize the Corktown area so it attracts not only the suburban visitors that are already coming in droves to eat at the neighboring Slow’s Bar-B-Q, but also to send the message to entrepreneurs around the globe that Detroit is the place to be.

“Detroit is a city of tremendous opportunity—I don’t know any other cities like it in the world,” Griffin says. Responding to the question of why two people as worldly as he and Gambino would choose Detroit as their base of operations, Griffin says, “I wonder why there aren’t more of us here already. I don’t understand why there aren’t a thousand of us here competing for these deals.”

Gambino was actually born in Detroit, though she spent her formative years in the suburbs outside of the city. Even in her youth, she says it was obvious to her that there were a lot of things lacking in Detroit.

“I knew Detroit was famous for sports and music, but not much else,” Gambino says. … Next Page »

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With a kind of candor that speaks of the motivation in the startup and investment communities, angel investor Jerry Neumann talked bluntly Tuesday evening about the companies he backs. “All of my entrepreneurs are irritating,” he said jokingly during a panel discussion at the Digital Media Center event held at Times Square in New York. “They need to be smarter than me, they need to be more driven than me, they need to be people who can go the distance,” he said.

Neumann took the stage with Benjamin Wolin, CEO and co-founder of Everyday Health in New York, and moderator Dennis Kneale, senior media and technology correspondent for FOX Business Network. Wolin and Neumann spoke about the startup and investment scene during the third and final panel of Tuesday’s event, hosted at the Nasdaq Marketsite by Digital Media Center, a New York group formed in late 2011 that brings together investors, digital media startups, and other industry players.

Digital Media Center was formed by Cooley, CTPartners, Deloitte, Nasdaq, and Silicon Valley Bank.

The night kicked off with representatives from Facebook, Samsung, and EMC’s data storage division Isilon Systems discussing trends in social, local, and mobile technology—then continued with a look at the future of digital content through the eyes of Verizon and Heart Television. Wolin and Neumann later engaged in a lively conversation about funding and building up startups in the current clime.

“It’s a lot easier to raise small amounts of capital,” Wolin said, “certainly to get started it’s a lot easier than it was ten years ago.” Everyday Health operates websites for brands such as South Beach Diet.

“It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur,” said Neumann. He has been investing in … Next Page »

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Boston area software and life sciences startups are starting off the new year right with a slew of financing, acquisitions, and partnerships news.

—Marlborough, MA-based Physicians Interactive Holdings received a $17 million pledge from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund to develop Web and mobile apps for connecting physicians and life sciences companies.

—Repeat biotech entrepreneurs Bob Langer and Omid Farokhzad founded a new startup, called Blend Therapeutics, along with Stephen Lippard. Blend is backed by $2.8 million from Flagship Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and NanoDimension, according a FierceBiotech report.

—Last Friday saw a number of financings, some for quirkily named startups: $4 million more for Cambridge-based GrabCAD and $4.5 million for Cambridge-based Krush, $6 million for Boston- and Nashville-based Moontoast, $8.3 million for Linkwell Health, and $4 million for Novogy.

—Safari Books Online, a joint venture between O’Reilly Media and Pearson Education, acquired Threepress, a Boston area company focused on digital publishing tools. The price tag of the deal wasn’t disclosed.

—Woburn, MA-based LogMeIn (NASDAQ: LOGM), which makes remote access and customer support software, paid $16.5 million to acquire Kansas-based Bold Software, a developer of technology for live-chat systems and click-to-call customer service.

—A cluster of area digital marketing startups inked deals: Newton, MA-based Neolane raised $27 million, Boston-based … Next Page »

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Canaan Partners was fortunate to raise its last big venture fund just before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, and now it has a real reason to be thankful again.

The Menlo Park-based venture firm is announcing today that it has closed on Canaan IX, a new $600 million venture fund. Canaan plans to carry on with business as usual, as it expects to put about two-thirds of the money into tech companies, and one-third into healthcare startups, just like it did with the previous $650 million Canaan fund that closed in December 2007. The firm, founded in 1987, now has about $3.5 billion in capital under management.

Canaan’s new fund couldn’t come at a more critical time, as the venture industry has been in crisis for a couple years. Most venture firms—running low on cash from funds they raised prior to the downturn—are desperately angling for support from the pensions, endowments, and other limited partners that provide the capital that keeps them in business. Limited partners have carefully scrutinizing whether they should keep betting on VCs—who are supposed to take big risks, yet most can’t deliver returns that consistently beat the S&P 500, T-bills, or commodities. An estimated one-third to one-half of venture firms are thought to be slowly going out of business as they have struggled to deliver enough big-ticket IPOs and acquisitions to justify the risks they take.

“We truly do feel lucky,” says Brent Ahrens, a general partner at Canaan. “We’re delighted to have such a great group of LPs who are backing us, this time and historically. We owe it all to them. We are truly thankful to be in position to continue to do what we love to do. But at end of the day, to get there, you gotta produce results.”

Brent Ahrens

Canaan, like most venture firms, doesn’t disclose the actual returns it has generated for its backers, although it has clearly strung together some hits during the tumultuous past few years. Its portfolio saw a big acquisition (Shire’s $750 million takeover of Advanced BioHealing) and a sizable IPO with Active Network (NYSE:[[ticker: ACTV]]) in the past year. A couple of its drug developers, BiPar Sciences and Calixa Therapeutics, were acquired in the past several years. This month, SandForce, a maker of flash-storage devices, was bought by LSI for $370 million.

Canaan has long stuck to a position as a diversified venture fund, which bets on different sectors (tech and biotech) as well as different geographies (U.S., Israel, India). Many venture firms have recently leaned toward technology during the go-go era of Facebook, Groupon, Zynga et al., and away from biotech in a period of tough FDA regulation and fears about healthcare insurance price controls. Scale Venture Partners recently said it is getting out of healthcare investment, Morgenthaler Ventures and ATV are spinning out/pooling their healthcare teams into a separate fund, and Prospect Venture Partners declined to continue with its plan for a new fund. But Ahrens said Canaan has seen good balance to the returns from both its tech and biotech investments, and its LPs like its diversification strategy, which enables it to dial up one sector, and dial down investment in another when it chooses.

Still, Canaan plans to allocate its capital in the next fund as it has previously, with two-thirds going to tech and one-third to healthcare, Ahrens says. Healthcare includes drugs, devices, and health infrastructure or health IT ideas, he says. The breakdown largely reflects the expertise of the people at Canaan, who are mostly sticking around for the 10-year commitment to oversee this newest fund mature. Eric Young, a general partner who co-founded Canaan in 1987, is one exception, as he … Next Page »

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—San Diego’s Active Network (NYSE ACTV), which provides online event registration and related services, acquired Philadelphia-based StarCite for about $51 million in stock and cash. StarCite, which provides Web-based event management services for companies around the world, has about 300 employees. The Active Network said StarCite will become part of its newly launched “Business Solutions” division, which will serve the events industry.

—San Diego-based Accelrys (NASDAQ: ACCL), which provides scientific enterprise research and development software and services, said it’s paying $35 million to acquire VelQuest, a Boston-area developer of systems that support good manufacturing practices for FDA-regulated industries. Accelrys said the VelQuest acquisition would expand its product line to include software used in pharmaceutical quality assurance and quality control.

—San Diego’s Entropic Communications (NASDAQ: ENTR), which specializes in Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) technology used in home entertainment systems, said it wants to purchase certain assets of Trident Microsystems’ set-top box and system-on-a-chip business. Entropic submitted its $55 million offer as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization that Sunnyvale, CA-based Trident filed last Wednesday. The bankruptcy court in Delaware must approve the Entropic offer, which could happen by the end of March if no other bidders step forward.

—Qualcomm Chairman and CEO Paul Jacobs is set to deliver the opening keynote address tomorrow morning at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Jacobs is expected to talk about Qualcomm’s vision for mobile computing as smart phones and tablets increasingly become a mainstay tool for consumer media and entertainment. The three-day show also will serve as a global stage for Sony Electronics, the San Diego-based arm of Sony’s U.S. business. San Diego’s Razer, Entropic Communications, Leap Wireless, Independa, Skin-It, and Marchon 3D, also are displaying products at the show.

—I profiled San Diego-based Verimatrix, a venture-backed company that develops encryption software and related security technologies for pay-TV networks. Verimatrix CEO Tom Munro told me the company has been successful in creating piracy protection software for Internet-Protocol Television (IPTV), and today more than half of the company’s business is in so-called unmanaged networks, such as Netflix, which provides streaming video “Over the Top” (OTT) of a cable- or satellite-based broadband Internet platform.

—The 2011 executive compensation survey showed a 3.7 percent increase nationwide in tech sector CEO pay over 2010. The annual CompStudy survey produced by executive search firm J. Robert Scott and law firm WilmerHale in collaboration with Noam Wasserman, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. The study found that non-founder technology CEOs brought in average base salaries of $242,000 in 2011, up from $233,000 in 2010.

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What is the future of electronic books and digital publishing in Boston? We might be getting a glimpse of it today.

The news is that Safari Books Online, a joint venture between O’Reilly Media and Pearson Education, is acquiring Threepress, a Boston-area software and consulting shop specializing in tools for digital publishing. Terms of the deal haven’t been announced, but it’s probably fairly modest in size.

What makes it interesting is that it’s a story of homegrown, bootstrapped talent in a burgeoning field—e-book reading and publishing—that has finally come of age.

Safari (not to be confused with the Apple browser) provides an on-demand digital library of thousands of books and videos on software, IT, professional development, and other techie and business topics. The 10-year-old company, which has just under 100 employees, is headquartered in Sebastopol, CA. But it started in Boston, and some of its leadership team, including CEO Andrew Savikas, is based here.

As part of the Threepress acquisition, Safari is planning to move into a new office space in Boston that will have about 10 employees. “We are looking at space with room to grow,” says Savikas, an O’Reilly Media veteran. “I expect we’ll be hiring in Boston, especially on the technology side.”

Threepress is a profitable, four-person tech shop founded by Web developer Liza Daly in 2008. Daly previously worked at Digitas and iFactory, and she originally started Threepress to do consulting and build tools for academic publishers and websites. As is often the case for startups, she found an unexpected niche. [Disclosure: Daly is married to Dan Schmidt, my longtime Honest Bob bandmate.]

Daly entered the e-book world by writing Bookworm, an open-source, browser-based reading system for e-books using the EPUB format. At first, she saw books as just part of the content of academic websites. But her work got the attention of Savikas at O’Reilly Media, which decided to host Bookworm on its site in 2009. That year Savikas also recruited Daly to speak at a big … Next Page »

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Since it was founded in 2000, San Diego-based Verimatrix has raised about $50 million in institutional venture funding and spent untold hours of software programming to address a relatively simple problem nagging the pay-TV industry for more than a decade. As Verimatrix CEO Tom Munro puts it, “We keep people from watching television without paying for it.”

These days, however, the security issues confronting Verimatrix and the pay-TV industry have only become more complex.

Munro estimates there are 110 million consumers in the United States who pay to watch television provided by cable, satellite, and other TV service providers (with an estimated market penetration of 90-plus percent). At the same time, the number of U.S. consumers who are watching TV online, using Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, and other Internet video services has exploded—with the fast-rising total estimated at somewhere between 40 million and 70 million, according to consultant Bill Rosenblatt of New York’s Giant Steps Media Technology Strategies.

Meanwhile, cable TV operators like Time Warner, Comcast, and Cox Communications are moving to offer their subscribers “Everywhere TV” that allows them to watch any digital video content on any device. And of course, electronic device-makers have been busy developing an estimated 1 million different types of gadgets that consumers can use to watch digital content anywhere.

Verimatrix fits into this industry maelstrom by developing encryption software and related security technologies for pay-TV networks. In some respects, Verimatrix’ task has gotten easier as ever-increasing bandwidth has enabled the industry to move increasingly to a “pure digital” format, and away from more specialized electronic devices, such as Blu-Ray players. Riding this trend, the company has been successful in creating piracy protection software for Internet-Protocol Television (IPTV), and today more than half of the company’s business is in so-called unmanaged networks, such as Netflix, which provides streaming video “Over the Top” (OTT) of a cable- or satellite-based broadband Internet platform.

“The nice thing about our solution is that it’s based on software, and not on a hardware, card-reader type of security technology,” Munro says. He describes Verimatrix as … Next Page »

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Boston-based Skyword is moving up in the world. The startup, which makes a software platform for brands to create Web content, said today it has closed $6 million in financing from Cox Media Group.

The company says it helps publishers—which is marketing-speak for retail and industry brands, as well as media companies—create online content “for a search and social driven world.” In other words, Skyword farms out marketing content to writers with experience in everything from medicine to investing to parenting, and tries to make the content discoverable by consumers via search engines and social networks. (Depending on whom you talk to, this is either one of the savviest or most annoying ideas ever. Or possibly both, if you view marketing as a necessary evil.)

Skyword is led by founder and CEO Tom Gerace. The company started up about a year ago, out of the news and social-networking site Gather (which still exists). Skyword’s customers include Procter & Gamble, Everyday Health, and ImpreMedia.

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San Diego-based VMIX has been revising its strategy, which was originally focused on providing a technology platform that enables TV stations and other media companies to stream online video. Earlier this year, VMIX began rolling out technology that allowed consumers to use the company’s video streaming technology on social media sites like Facebook.

Now the six-year-old startup is launching Givit, a new consumer-oriented business that makes it easy for users to share video privately. In contrast to posting a video on Facebook, where just about anyone can see it, Givit users can selectively send a private video link to designated friends and family.

After introducing a beta version of Givit last month, VMIX says today that users can download the Givit app for use on the iPhone and iPad. The technology was previously available as an app for Windows or Mac OS-based laptops and desktop PCs.

Basic Givit service is free; service that provides additional video storage capacity is available as a subscription. While there are plenty of competitors that already enable consumers to share videos online, VMIX says Givit is the only video-sharing service designed to restrict the people who can watch a video.

“One of our big value propositions is private video,” VMIX CEO Greg Kostello told me earlier this week. “There already are a number of ways to share video publicly through Facebook. But everyone who sees it is not necessarily a friend. They just friended me.”

In a statement from the company today, Kostello says, “Smartphones are now the camera of choice for recording everyday moments, but sharing mobile video is often a frustrating process. Givit makes it easy-and most importantly, by default we share securely and privately, rather than broadcasting your personal content across public social networks.”

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San Diego-based Legend3D, a private digital media and visual effects company, says it has closed on a $19 million Series E preferred stock offering.

The company, which ranks as the largest studio providing 3D conversion services in the United States, says proceeds from the offering will be used to further research and development, and to help Legend3D finance some post-production 3D film conversions through partnerships with major Hollywood studios—a new business initiative. While major Hollywood studios are excited about the trend in 3D filmmaking, they have trouble justifying the expense of converting existing motion pictures from 2D into 3D, according to Barry Sandrew, Legend 3D’s founder and chief operating officer.

Legend3D says its latest round of financing was led by Northwater Capital Management, an investment firm based in Toronto, New York, and Chicago that makes strategic investments in intellectual property. Legend3D was founded just over a decade ago with $6 million in venture funding from what is now Boston’s PAR Investment Partners, which also joined the latest round with another early venture investor, Augustus Ventures Limited.

By forming partnerships to finance new film conversion projects, Sandrew says Legend3D would share in revenue generated by 3D remakes of tried-and-true motion pictures. As an example, Legend3D screened a 4-minute preview of a 3D conversion of the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun” in September at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam. The segment consisted mostly of Top Gun’s “danger … Next Page »

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Beware of CEOs who dress like their company logo. Beware of Jason Baptiste.

Just kidding. Baptiste is one of the most intensely likable startup founders around (emphasis on intense). His company, New York-based OnSwipe, is trying to take the tablet publishing world by storm. And not just with its aggressively stylish magenta-and-black color scheme.

OnSwipe makes a software platform for publishers to display their content and ads on tablet Web browsers, starting with the iPad. If that sounds a bit similar to Google Currents, the mobile publishing app that the Web search giant unveiled last week, well, Baptiste doesn’t seem too worried about the competition. In response to an article saying that “Google Currents might be OnSwipe’s nightmare,” Baptiste tweeted: “I fear Currents like Twitter feared Buzz and YouTube feared Video.” (OK, he doesn’t lack for confidence.)

We caught up with Baptiste earlier this month in Boston, where he spoke about the deeper ideas behind OnSwipe at Xconomy’s “6×6: Six Cities, Six Big Tech Ideas” conference (you can see photos here—Baptiste represented New York with flair). He also shared some broader views on the future of Web content and advertising, and argued for OnSwipe’s vision of browsing via tablets and touchscreens.

“Instead of a world with ugly text-like ads, we’re going to see a world with beautiful full-page, magazine-like advertising that will finally fill the gap” in the $50 billion in ad spending that’s expected to move from print to digital media, Baptiste said after his talk.

In a short video interview produced by my colleague Lilly O’Flaherty, Baptiste talked a little more about OnSwipe’s specific goals and challenges. You should check out the video below, but here are three highlights to whet your appetite:

1. “The tablet is the TV of this generation.”

2. “It’s not going to be 300 channels or 3,000 channels, it’s going to be millions of channels.”

3. “If Google gained its distribution by powering search, OnSwipe wants to gain distribution by powering [tablet browsing] experiences.”

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Investment bankers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists gathered Tuesday morning at the New York offices of accounting and consulting firm Deloitte near Bowling Green to listen to a panel discuss the financing outlook for technology startups in 2012. The event was the first to be presented by the Digital Media Center, a new group formed by Cooley, CTPartners, Deloitte, Nasdaq, and Silicon Valley Bank to bring together New York startups in the digital media sector with investors and other industry players.

Moderated by Dennis Kneale, senior media and technology correspondent for Fox Business Network, Tuesday’s panel spoke with cautious optimism about the sustainability of the funding scene as the New Year approaches. Kneale stirred up the discussion with questions about the value heaped on technology companies given the hype and scrutiny faced by the likes of  Groupon, Zynga, and Facebook.

Panelist John Lambros, managing director with investment banking firm GCA Savvian, took a positive stance regarding growth equity investments in 2012, though he tempered his enthusiasm. “It’s going to be good, not great,” he said. “I think the market is going to continue to support the growth in the digital media sector.” Fellow panelist Jonathan Sherry, co-founder of CB Insights, which provides information on venture capital and angel investor-backed startups, said venture capitalists are not raising funds at the same rate prior to the most recent run-up.

Sherry also said there were some unfounded concerns about investments made at the seed stage that drive up the number of deals numbers. “People are speculating whether or not this is a bubble,” he said. “It’s not too much to be concerned about. Seed deals may comprise 5-15 percent overall deal volume in a given quarter.” He said the dollar amount of such seed deals, however, represents 1-5 percent of the market. “Even if all these deals failed it would hardly make a dent in the financing market,” Sherry said. “The bubble talk is a little bit overhyped.”

Panelist Michael Jenkins, a vice president with Goldman Sachs, also had a positive … Next Page »

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There were some interesting portents of things to come in San Diego’s emerging cleantech sector last week. Here is our Monday morning roundup of the news you need to know.

—Battelle’s Bhima Vijayendran told me he’s on the lookout for new business opportunities with local San Diego companies, as both an R&D partner and as a potential investor. As the world’s largest non-profit technical services and R&D company, Battelle’s business is focused primarily on national security, life sciences, and energy. Vijayendran said he moved to San Diego a year ago because he is particularly interested in sustainable chemicals like soy-based plasticizers that use biotechnology to produce high-value chemicals from renewable raw materials—eliminating the need for petroleum-based chemicals.

—QuickPlay Media CEO Wayne Purboo briefed reporters and analysts on the Toronto-based startup’s purchase of the San Diego-based network operations center from Qualcomm, which built the center for its unsuccessful Flo TV business. Purboo said, “We are building a cloud-based, IP video head-end to manage and support video delivered across multiple devices.” With Qualcomm’s center, Purboo says QuickPlay can provide its premium-quality infrastructure for customers like AT&T, enabling them to transmitting Internet video at a lower cost than they might face if they tried to build their own network.

—Based on a series of tests conducted with independent experts, San Diego’s Achates Power said its “opposed-piston” engine shows a 20 percent reduction in diesel fuel consumption when compared to Ford’s state-of-the-art Power Stroke diesel engine. Achates Power has designed its prototype two-stroke internal combustion engine to be smaller, lighter, and more efficient that a conventional heavy-duty diesel engine with separate, in-line cylinders.

—San Diego’s BillMyParents raised $2.5 million in a planned $10 million round of equity and rights to acquire securities. The Web-based startup’s primary product is a prepaid (and reloadable) MasterCard for teens that offers a range of parental controls. Michael R. McCoy was named as chairman and CEO last month.

—Ortiva Wireless raised $2 million in debt, rights, and securities that consist of promissory notes convertible into preferred stock. The San Diego startup, which develops wireless video optimization and streaming hardware and software for wireless operators, has not disclosed other information about the financing.

—San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) said it posted record revenue of $15 billion in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 25, along with record earnings and record volumes of its wireless chipsets. Looking forward, Qualcomm said it expects to ship chips for 900 million CDMA-based devices—a 16 percent year-over-year increase. Qualcomm said it also has a little over $20 billion in available cash, with $5.7 billion of that banked in the U.S. A Seeking Alpha transcript of the company’s conference call with analysts is here. ThinkEquity analyst Mark McKechnie told San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Mike Freeman he sees the continuing growth as a good confirmation that Qualcomm is benefitting on the chip side from the Apple iPhone 4S. McKechnie says Qualcomm is providing two chips for the iPhone 4S; the company previously was a supplier for only one other Apple phone—the iPhone 4—but only on Verizon’s network.

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Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is notoriously tight-lipped about the details of its day-to-day business, telling the press and analysts only what it wants them to know. Ever try to find out how many books they’re selling? How quickly certain types of merchandise is moving? Tough luck.

But when it comes to the Seattle e-commerce pioneer’s ambitions to enter the tablet computer market, there’s plenty of chit-chat.

Most of it has leaked out around the edges, although CEO and founder Jeff Bezos definitely added fuel to the fire when, in a rare interview, he told Consumer Reports to “stay tuned” for news about a tablet, and went on to talk about how any such device would be different from the Kindle e-reader.

There’s been more—lots more. To keep track of it all, I’ve used Storify to build this timeline of significant reports about Amazon’s plans for a new tablet device. If the tablet debuts sometime soon, as expected, it will give Amazon time to sell it hard this Christmas shopping season.

I’ll add more stories as they emerge, right up until we see the little guys roaming in the wild. And please let me know if I missed any big entries (there’s a curious lull between Sept. 2010 and this February, for instance.)

You can also find the timeline over at the main Storify site.

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In addition to announcing the launch of its new tablets yesterday in Berlin, Sony (NYSE: SNE) said it’s combining its Qriocity on-demand music and video services with the PlayStation Network under a new brand, the Sony Entertainment Network. The announcement underscores the importance Sony is placing on its online content—and how the company has endeavored to make it easier for its tablet users to find their entertainment in one place.

In a post this morning, PaidContent blogger Ingrid Lunden says an added bonus is that it erases the unfavorable connotations conjured by the network security breach earlier this year that allowed hackers to pillage 24.6 million user accounts from the San Diego-based data centers for the PlayStation Network and Qriocity. (One part that doesn’t quite fit Lunden’s thesis is that Qriocity and the PlayStation were both part of Sony Online Entertainment, a brand that isn’t that different from the new Sony Entertainment Network.)

In its own blog entry, Sony casts its new Sony Entertainment Network as “the ultimate digital destination,” accessible from users’ PlayStation Network accounts. As part of the change, Sony says, “Qriocity services will be realigned under Sony Entertainment Network. As a consequence, Video on Demand powered by Qriocity will now be called Video Unlimited, and Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity will become Music Unlimited.

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[Updated 8/31/11, 3:30 pm. See below.]The new 9.4-inch Tablet S that Sony is introducing today includes many features that the consumer electronics giant hopes will be compelling for users, including access to Sony’s network of PlayStation video games, music, movies, and other entertainment services. The Android-based tablet also can “throw” steaming video or music to Sony’s Bravia HDTV and other devices certified by the Digital Living Network Alliance.

But it’s the catalog of free apps that are available when the tablet is idling or recharging that has San Diego-based Chumby Industries CEO Derrick Oien contemplating a vista of new opportunities.

As we’ve recounted previously, Chumby began in 2006 with an electronic device that’s partly an Internet-enabled clock radio, Web terminal, and streaming video and music player, and part soft stuffed toy. Yet the company really was conceived as a software services company, a strategy that began to blossom early last year when Sony unveiled the Dash, an Internet-enabled device akin to the Chumby “Classic,” which Sony created with its own hardware and design, and software licensed from Chumby.

By this time last year, when Oien stepped in as Chumby CEO, the company had more than 1,500 Internet apps in its portfolio, and was working to expand its partnerships with Best Buy and other consumer electronics companies. Last month, the company revealed that its apps would be available on set-top boxes from Pace, the U.K.-based developer of digital TV technologies.

When I talked with Oien this morning, he said Chumby has had a lot of discussions with Sony about its “dark screen” strategy, which basically enables an Internet-connected clock, digital picture frame, and other apps to appear on the display screen of an idle device. “Chumby is really like a music player,” Oien says. “But instead of playing music we play apps, like your Twitter feed, news, and sports.”

[Updated to clarify chumby is pre-loaded just on Tablet S] Placing Sony’s Tablet S into a specialized charging cradle, which Sony sells separately, automatically converts the tablet’s display into a digital photo frame or clock. Oien says users also can access more than 1,500 other Chumby apps by registering  for a free Chumby account. “Every single Sony tablet now shipping will have our software baked into their device,” Oien says. (A chumby spokeswoman clarified that chumby’s software is pre-loaded only on the Tablet S set for launch in September, and not Tablet P, the clamshell-style tablet that Sony is planning for later release.)

While Chumby was always a software services company, the new strategy has really come into focus over the past year or so. The company, which has raised … Next Page »

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It looks like New England’s tech and life sciences firms are working to ink financing, collaboration, and acquisition deals before the holiday weekend hits.

—Digital media and video-hosting firm Brightcove filed paperwork with the SEC indicating its hopes to raise $50 million in an initial public offering. Morgan Stanley and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company will serve as joint book-running managers for the deal for Brightcove, which is based in Cambridge, MA, but is planning a move to Boston.

—Verizon Communications said it acquired Burlington, MA-based CloudSwitch, whose technology creates a temporary work space on a cloud service for companies to run virtualized applications as if they were still running on their home infrastructure. CloudSwitch—which has raised $15 million from investors like Atlas Venture, Matrix Partners, and Commonwealth Capital Ventures—will be rolled into Verizon’s Terremark IT services division, working in enterprise cloud services. The CloudSwitch Burlington office will remain and even expand, the companies said.

—Buzzient, a Boston-based maker of analytics software enabling companies to use social media to track customer sentiment, raised $1.1 million in equity funding. The deal was led by Buzzient CEO Timothy Bernard Jones’ seed fund, TBJ Investments, and included Buzzient board members John Luongo and Ann Fudge, and serial entrepreneurs Allen Graber (of Atlanta) and Ralf Faber (Boston). The money will go to new hires in development, sales, and marketing.

—Norwood, MA-based early stage investment fund Advancit Capital raised $3.2 million. The newly formed firm is co-founded by Shari Redstone, daughter of CBS and Viacom director and National Amusements president Sumner Redstone, and will focus on investments in media, entertainment, and tech startups.

—Adimab, a Lebanon, NH-based developer of human antibody discovery technology, signed collaboration deals with Biogen Idec and Novo Nordisk. Each firm will use the Adimab technology to identify human antibodies against two targets of their choosing. Neither deal terms nor specific targets were disclosed, but Adimab will receive upfront payments and preclinical milestones, and could be eligible for clinical development milestones and sales royalties if the antibodies discovered are commercialized.

—EMD Millipore, the Billerica, MA-based subsidiary of Merck KGaA, has agreed to acquire Seattle-based Amnis for an undisclosed sum, in a deal expected to close fourth quarter of this year.

—Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics, a maker of medical devices targeting obesity and diabetes, raised $80 million in Australian dollars ($85 million USD) in an initial public offering in the country, according to a report from The Australian. It had initially targeted an Australian IPO worth between $85 million and $102 million in U.S. dollars.

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Brightcove, a Cambridge, MA-based digital media and video hosting firm that’s planning a move to Boston, revealed in an SEC filing today that it’s aiming to bring in about $50 million in an initial public offering. The company said that Morgan Stanley and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company will serve as joint book-running managers for the deal. Brightcove raised $12 million in Series D funding in April 2010. It reported a net loss of $9.7 million on revenue of $28.4 million for the first six months of 2011.

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We saw a potpourri of tech news in San Diego last week, which included funding for an emerging cleantech startup, new technology from Tealium, and an acquisition by Qualcomm. Our briefing begins now.

—CMEA Capital’s Sumeet Jain offered his perspective on what’s missing, besides capital, from the tech sector of San Diego’s innovation community. Jain, who focuses on deals in software, consumer Internet, digital media, and mobile, says it would help if there were a better way to curate San Diego’s tech companies and entrepreneurs, because, as he put it, “screening companies is not a good use of my time.”

—The IPO window appears to be re-opening to pre-recession levels, with 140 companies nationwide registered for an initial public offering during the three months that ended June 30, according to the latest the “Ernst & Young U.S. IPO Pipeline Report.” In San Diego, the Active Network successfully raised a total of $190 million in its May 24 IPO. Meanwhile Ambit Biosciences withdrew its IPO on June 7 and Fallbrook Technologies withdrew its IPO registration on April 29. The IPOs for two other San Diego companies are pending: semiconductor design company Peregrine Semiconductor and a drug developer, IASO Pharmaceuticals.

—San Diego-based Wildcat Discovery Technologies, a five-year-old cleantech startup, has emerged after raising $7.5 million through a combination of equity, convertible debt, and securities. Wildcat is using high-throughput screening technologies to identify and develop new materials for batteries, hydrogen storage, gas separation, carbon capture, and in other technologies and processes.

—San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) acquired certain assets related to gesture recognition technology from Sunnyvale, CA-based GestureTek. The move suggests Qualcomm could be moving to develop technology to compete with Microsoft Kinect, computer vision technology developed for the Xbox 360 video game console. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

—San Diego-based Tealium rolled out TealiumiQ, its technology that enables corporate marketing departments to easily manage JavaScript-based tags on their web pages, using a universal tag management system.

—The National Science Foundation unveiled its plans to put $5 million a year into the I-Corps, or Innovation Corps, a program that’s intended to university scientists and engineers build startups around their technologies. As Wade reported, the centerpiece of the NSF program is a $50,000 cash award for 25 teams each quarter and a nine-week crash course in technology entrepreneurship. The program is now accepting proposals and will name its first batch of 25 awardees on September 30.

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As we saw in the venture activity surveys that came in last week, the capital deployed by VC firms in startups developing innovative technologies has been returning to pre-recession levels in key technology hubs throughout the United States.

In San Diego, however, venture funding has taken a decided turn for the life sciences. Of the 29 startups that got a total of $198.2 million in San Diego during the second quarter, all but five of the deals were life sciences deals, according to the MoneyTree Report. At least $193.1 million, or more than 97 percent, went into San Diego life sciences deals during the recent quarter. But it’s not that the life sciences startups have been claiming more than their share of VC dollars—it’s that they account for a proportionally larger slice of an ever-shrinking pie. Even a moving average that smooths quarter-to-quarter fluctuations reveals that overall venture funding levels in San Diego have plunged by roughly half over the past three years.

So the timing could not have been much better when I got an opportunity to sit down with Sumeet Jain, a principal at the San Francisco venture firm CMEA Capital, where he focuses on deals in software, consumer Internet, digital media, and mobile. Jain, who visits San Diego about once a quarter, says he met recently with leaders of San Diego’s innovation community “to see what can we do to facilitate the capital flow in this region.”

Sumeet Jain

CMEA Capital has considerable resources. The firm has total invested capital of more than $1.2 billion, and specializes in deals in three general sectors of innovation: life sciences, information technology, and energy and materials. In the Bay Area, CMEA deals include San Mateo, CA-based CafePress, Bayhill Therapeutics in Palo Alto, and CNano, which is based in San Francisco and Beijing, China. In San Diego, CMEA has invested in Kalypsys and Intellikine, a couple of San Diego’s most-prominent life sciences startups; materials innovator Wildcat Discovery Technologies; and Entropic Communications, (NASDAQ: ENTR), a semiconductor design company that specializes in cable set-top boxes and related home entertainment technologies.

“We’ll look anywhere for deals, and Southern California is relatively less harvested,” Jain says. “Unfortunately, a lot of the venture firms that have been active in Southern California are no longer active down here.”

So what’s missing with the innovation community in San Diego?

“One of the things you need for innovation to thrive is a good path for failure to survive,” Jain says. In contrast to San Diego, the Bay Area has what he calls “a very liquid environment if you fail.” It’s largely due to what Jain calls the Bay Area’s “startup infrastructure,” a bigger and more concentrated community of entrepreneurs, startup CEOs, and VC partners who have worked together before and are willing to come together again, even if a previous collaboration cratered.

Another contrast he sees is in the way startups get … Next Page »

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