Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Spotify To Be Valued At $4 Billion After Next Funding Round

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:03:32 +0000

Social music service Spotify is preparing to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal that would value the company at as much as about $4 billion according to sources with The New York Times. Goldman Sachs is going to participate in the round with about $100 million from their wallet. Spotify’s total round of funding would be at about $220 million.

Spotify was founded in 2006 and operated for several years in Europe before launching in America last year. Spotify was integrated into Facebook and their growth really shot up. Spotify has about 19.9 million monthly active users.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said that the company may hit $889 million in revenue this year, but they expect to record a loss. This past February, Spotify raised around $100 million in a funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and DST Global.

Ex-Goldman Programmer Sergey Aleynikov May Be Released From Prison

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:26:20 +0000

In July 2009 Sergey Aleynikov was accused of stealing programming algorithms from Goldman Sachs and leaking it on the Internet. Aleynikov had been in prison for the past year at the Ft. Dix federal prison in New Jersey. However the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan had reversed his conviction and entered a judgment of Acquittal. Aleynikov may be heading home soon. Originally Aleynikov was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Aleynikov left Goldman Sachs as a computer programmer in June 2009 to take a job with Teza Technologies. After leaving, he was accused of taking computer source code from Goldman Sach’s high frequency trading program. Goldman SAchs said that this code was so fragile that it could harm financial markets.

Aleynikov is a dual Russian and U.S. citizen. He showed up to court on every occasion and had cooperated with authorities when they showed up to his home before he even had legal counsel. He turned over his personal computers in his home and answered the FBI’s questions. Aleynikov claimed that he was innocent throughout his hearing, but he never denied taking computer code.

Glam Media Plans To IPO In Second Half Of Next Year

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:54:10 +0000

Glam Media is expected to have an IPO in either the third or fourth quarter of 2012. The company is currently talking to bankers such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to lead the IPO. Glam Media is expected to top 206 million unique visitors per month across all of their properties. It is currently a comScore Top 10 U.S. Web Property. Glam is rumored to be valued at $950 million after acquiring Ning for about $200 million. [BusinessInsider]

Thoma Bravo Acquiring Blue Coat Systems For $1.3 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:01:27 +0000

Thoma Bravo is a Chicago-based private equity firm that focuses on software and technology businesses. Some of the companies in their portfolio include Attachmate, Entrust, LANDesk Software, SonicWALL Inc., and Tripwire Inc. Now Thoma Bravo is acquiring Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCSI) for about $1.3 billion.

Stockholders will receive $25.81 per share, which is a premium of 48% over the most recent closing price and 52% of the 20-day trailing average. Blue Coat is Thoma Bravo’s fifth biggest security-technology investment.

Blue Coat was founded in 1996 and makes software that increases web security and makes video applications run faster. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is one of the buyers. Goldman Sachs advised Blue Coat and Jefferies Group advised Thoma Bravo.

[BusinessWeek]

Car Request Servicer Uber Raises $32 Million From Menlo Ventures, Benchmark, Goldman Sachs, and Jeff Bezos

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:04:51 +0000

Uber is a private car service company that has raised $32 million in Series B funding from Menlo Ventures, Goldman Sachs, and Jeff Bezos. Previous investor Benchmark Capital also participated in this round.

Uber was founded by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp. Kalanick previously founded a company called Red Swoosh that he sold to Akamai for $19 million. Garrett Camp is also the founder and CEO of StumbleUpon.

Kalanick made the funding announcement at Le Web on stage. They launched their European operations in Paris today. currently they have 60 cars on the street and they are seeing heavy demand. The company plans on using the funding to expand to two cities per month.

[TechCrunch]

Microsoft and Silver Lake Submitting A Plan To Buy Minority Stake In Yahoo!

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:12:09 +0000

A consortium of investors that are being led by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Silver Lake are submitting a plan to buy a minority stake in Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). TPG Capital is another company that will be making a proposal for Yahoo! Both of these proposals would lead to taking a stake of around 20% of the company.

Yahoo!’s financial advisers Allen & Company and Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) made the end of the business day on Monday as the deadline for minority stake offers according to a source with The New York Times.

After turning down the acquisition offer from Microsoft a couple of years ago, Yahoo! seems to be less interested in selling themselves as a whole. After an investor buys a 20% stake in the company, Yahoo! would then take on debt to finance a stock buyback.

Jerry Yang and David Filo holds roughly a 10% stake in the company. The board may consider a bid for the entire company if it is strong enough and if the terms are appealing enough.

Some of the other investment companies that are reportedly a part of the consortium includes Andreessen Horowitz, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, THL Partners, and Hellman & Friedman.

Yahoo! partner company Alibaba Group of China is discussing a possiblity with the Blackstone Group about making a bid to buy the company as a whole. Yahoo! Inc. currently owns 40% of Alibaba so this would be a way for the Chinese company to get the stake in their company back.

Yelp Files For $100 Million IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:02:55 +0000

Yelp is a local business review website that has filed for a $100 million IPO. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Jefferies are working as the lead underwriters. However the San Francisco based company has not selected an exchange to be traded on. Yelp is using multiple classes of shares for the public offering.

It is believed that Yelp will seek a valuation of between $1 and $2 billion. Like Groupon, the daily deals website that recently went public, Yelp turned down an acquisition offer from Google. Yelp turned down a $500 million offer from Google in 2009.

Yelp reported a $7.6 million net loss for the first 9 months of 2011 on about $58 million in revenue. Yelp also reported an $8.5 million loss on $32 million in revenue during the year earlier.

Yelp raised $56 million in venture capital funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Elevation Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Max Levchin. Yelp founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1% of the company.

[Fortune]

Zynga Raises $1 Billion Line Of Credit and Files Internal Valuation Of $11.15 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:11:57 +0000

Social gaming development company Zynga Inc. has raised a $1 billion line of credit in July from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and several other banks according to a regulatory filing. Zynga did not indicate whether the stock market conditions would affect an IPO. Zynga’s amended S-1 document for the IPO also had disclosed how Zynga valued themselves in the past before the stock market fluctuations. This past March, Zynga indicated that they were worth $11.15 billion. Another third party valuation had indicated that Zynga’s value was less than half at $4.98 billion.

Zynga also corrected an accounting error for its Q1 2011 revenue, which added a $7.5 million increase in Q1 revenue. That brings that company’s Q1 revenue up to $240 million. Zynga also hired 300 more employees in the last two months.

[TC]

Zynga In The Process Of Hiring Bankers To Lead Their IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:45:43 +0000

Social gaming company Zynga Inc. is in talks with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to lead their initial public offering. Goldman is also expected to provide Zynga to provide a credit line of over $1 billion. This funding will be used to help make acquisitions. Zynga has about 242.1 million monthly active users on Facebook. Some of their most popular games include FarmVille, CityVille, and Texas HoldEm Poker.

Zynga Close To Filing IPO [RUMOR]

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 25 May 2011 02:03:19 +0000

Social gaming company Zynga is preparing to file for an IPO according to sources with AllThingsD. A filing with the SEC is expected to happen sometime next week. Based on Zynga’s last round of funding, the company has a valuation of $10 billion. Zynga has about 250 million people actively playing their games every month. Zynga supposedly made about $400 million profit last year on around $850 million in revenue. Today Zynga has about 1,500 full-time employees across 13 offices in 6 countries. Goldman Sachs is believed to be one of the bankers in the Zynga deal. [AllThingsD]