Connie Loizos
The Atlanta-based, venture-backed cloud service "brokerage" Cloud Sherpas has acquired the advisory and tech consulting firm Navigas. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
San Francisco-based game maker Kabam has acquired Vancouver-based Exploding Barrel Games. Both make free-to-play games for core gamers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
YouSendIt, an 8-year-old, Campbell, Calif.-based file storage and management software company, has acquired two-year-old, San Francisco-based Found Software, maker of a search application that lets users find files, documents and data across their devices and cloud services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
You’d need a crystal ball to know how healthy the IPO market will be in 2013. Still, industry watchers – looking at the 152 active IPOs in the pipeline, versus the 226 IPOs in the pipeline at this time last year -- feel safe in making a few, cautious forecasts.
Billtrust, an 11-year-old outsourced billing company based in Hamilton, N.J., has merged with Best Practice Systems, an Engelwood, Colo.-based billing company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but notably, Billtrust raised a $25 million round from Bain Capital Ventures last November with an eye toward acquiring "one to two" companies per year, as Billtrust CEO Flint Lane told peHUB at the time.
New York-based Templeton Asset Management has announced its Templeton Emerging Markets Group's exit from all investments held in Templeton Strategic Emerging Markets Fund II, established in 2005. The $132.5 million fund generated a net IRR of 34.3 percent, net of all expenses and fees.
The San Francisco-based startup Chartboost has raised a $19 million Series B round of funding led by Sequoia Capital, which was joined by existing investors TransLink Capital and SK Telecom Ventures. Chartboost allows game developers to reach new users through cross-promotion, make money from their games, and collaborate directly with fellow developers. The company had previously raised $2 million in funding, a round that closed in October 2011.
Mobiplex, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company that produces miniature wireless sensors and mobile device apps, has raised a fresh $1.3 million from a group of new and current private investors who have now collectively given the company $4.4 million in financing. The company was founded in late 2010.
Blame it on an innovation stall, or investor boredom, or firms less willing to pay through the nose to access the companies that they view as most promising. Either way, a fall-off in the amount of money being plugged into companies is real, according to Preqin, the private equity data provider.
Duane Morris, a global law firm with more than 700 attorneys, has opened an office in Palo Alto, Calif. Intellectual property litigator Karineh Khachatourian, who joins Duane Morris from K&L Gates, will be managing partner of the new office.