SpinVox is a service that converts voice mail into text messages through their Voice Message Conversion System around 2005.  The company is based in Buckinghamshire, Great Britain.  The company raised over $200 million from GLG Partners, Goldman Sachs, Toscafund Asset Management, and Blue Mountain Capital Management over the last couple years.

However the company is now facing litigation from creditors over hundreds of thousands of pounds.  One of SpinVox’s technology partners almost decided to cut them off over an unpaid £100,000 bill.  SpinVox also owes money to several other suppliers who are threatening to sue the company.

SpinVox was founded by Christina Domecq and Daniel Doulton.  One of SpinVox’s suppliers filed three county court claims against the company because they were owed £200,000.

“Existing investors from the last round of funding have made available more funds to allow the company to continue its growth,” stated a SpinVox spokesperson in an interview with paidContent.  It is highly likely that the cash will be used up quickly to take care of existing debt.

[via ThisIsMoney]

Last week, the FBI arrested Sergey Aleynikov, a former VP at Goldman Sachs.  Aleynikov uploaded secret algorithms used by Goldman Sachs that run automated stock and commodities trading.  The data was uploaded to a server in Europe. Shortly after the deed was done, Aleynikov resigned from his $400,000 per year job at Goldman.

Unfortunately the code has leaked on to the Internet and could do some damage to the stock market.  “The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways,” stated U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti. “The copy in Germany is still out there, and we at this time do not know who else has access to it.”

Aleynikov is being held on a $750,000 bail as of right now and he told FBI officials that he only intended to download open source files from the server but ended up downloading more than he had intended.

When Aleynikov posted his resignation, he was intending to join Teza Technologies LLC.  Aleynikov became an employee of Teza on July 2nd  and then was arrested on July 3rd.  Teza stated that they learned about the arrest on July 5th and suspend Aleyniko’s employment without pay pending an investigation.

Goldman uses algorithms and a high frequency trading platform software to buy stock within a few milliseconds of company news being released and then selling a few moments later when other financial companies receive the company news.

At the beginning of June, Aleynikov ran scripts using a bash shell to copy and compress a large amount of source code.  After the compression , he sent it to the servers through a secure server protocol to a server in Germany.  He sent about 32MB in ASCII code about four times.

Aleynikov tried to have his script erase the bash history, but Goldman keeps a backup of everyone’s bash history.  This is how he was caught.  Aleynikov is now waiting for his trial. Perhaps while Sergey is waiting on his trial, he may be thinking of new ballroom dancing moves.

[via Ars Technica/Bloomberg]

One of YouTube’s most critical flaws when the company first started was that the video quality was inferior.  This is where companies such as Joost and Veoh wanted to hit YouTube where it counted.  Both Joost and Veoh had higher quality videos than YouTube, but they lacked in quantity.  Last week Joost decided to focus on video platforms for companies rather than making deals with companies to stream their content.

Now Veoh is reportedly giving up on being a streaming video start-up company.  AllThingsD is reporting that the company is looking for a buyer for a price that is below the $70 million in funding that they have raised over the last four years.  The $30 million Series D round of funding took place back in June 2008.

Some of the previous investors include former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Goldman Sachs.  The company has not been profitable and last year alone they lost about $6 million. Veoh is also facing litigation from Universal Music Group which is accusing them of copyright vilations.

Currently there is no word on who a potential buyer may be, but considering how much traffic Veoh is receiving I would not be surprised if an acquisition takes place in the near future.

AOL co-founder Steve Case has come a long way since his days as running the dial-up giant. Case was started in 2007 as a payment network. Revolution Money is based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Today the company announced a $42 million round of funding. The Series C round was led by Goldman Sachs. Other investors that participated included Steve Case, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, former AOL Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis, former Charles Schwab CEO David Pottruck, and JP Morgan Chairman David Golden.

The company previously raised $50 million Series B in September 2007. Thus far Revolution Money raised $92 million.

The idea behind Revolution Money is to lower credit card charges and other payment transfers. Merchants are charged an 0.5% transaction fee.

“It’s a vote of confidence from the insiders and we were able to bring in this affiliate of Goldman [a new investor],” stated Leonsis. “It’s such a big opportunity and big play. There hasn’t been a new entrant since PayPal, which was about a dozen years ago.”

Revolution Money’s two products are called RevolutionCard and RevolutionMoneyExchange. RevolutionCard is a credit card that charges the 0.5% per transaction which is compared to the 1.5% to 4% fee normally charged to traditional companies.

Revolution MoneyExchange is a P2P payment system that allows users to exchange money for free. MoneyExchange has about 400,000 registered users since the service started.

[via WSJ]

Apparently SAP, Goldman Sachs, Bessemer Venture Partners, and McGraw Hill believe that relationships DO matter.  Or at least back in June they did.  The four companies invested $22.7 million on top of the $53 million LinkedIn received this past June.  The total $75.7 million Series D investment is based on a $1 billion valuation.   

To date, LinkedIn has raised over $100 million for their professional social network service.  LinkedIn has about 370 employees and their revenues are growing 100% per year.  LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye informed TechCrunch that the company has been profitable since 2006.  

LinkedIn has about 30 million registered users.  LinkedIn receives over 4 million uniques per month.  The previous investors of the $53 million were Bain Capital Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Veoh is a video sharing website based in San Diego, Calif.  Michael Eisner, former Disney chairman is on the Board of Veoh.  Eisner was one of the investors in Veoh’s $12.5 million in second round funding in April 2006.  Eisner also participated in the $25 million Series C round of funding in August 2007 as well.  And today Veoh raised $30 million in funding from Intel Capital, Adobe Systems, Shelter Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Goldman Sachs, The Tornate Company, Time Warner, and several other investors.

Veoh has two viewing options for their site.  The first option is to allow users to stream videos from the web, but they provide full episodes of television shows giving them the leg-up on YouTube.  The second option is to watch high quality videos using VeohTV through p2p technology.  Like YouTube, Veoh compresses video using Adobe Flash.

Veoh claims that they receive 28 million unique visitors who spend 100 minutes per month on their site on average.  Veoh isn’t that far behind DailyMotion and Metacafe in terms of traffic.

Information Source:
[1] TechCrunch: Veoh Raises Another $30 Million From Intel Capital, Adobe, and Gordon Crawford by Erick Schonfeld

Demand Media Inc. is a Santa Monica, Calif. based company that was founded by Richard Rosenblatt. Roseblatt was the former President of Intermix Media, parent company of MySpace. News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media became the part company of MySpace when they acquired Intermix.

The company has raised a 3rd round of funding at $100 million by investment banking company, Goldman-Sachs. The previous investors include 3i Group, Generation Partners, Oak Investment Partners, and Spectrum Equity Partners [Source: alarm:clock]. Demand Media has raised a total of $320 million as of now.

So what does Demand Media actually do?

(more…)

iCrossing is a digital marketing company founded in 1998. The company has raised $62 million in a fifth round of investment that brings their total round of funding to $110 million. The $62 million investment was received from Goldman-Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and several other investors.

“iCrossing is at the forefront of developing search and social media strategies that engages not alienates users,” stated Richard Rosenblatt, the chairman of iCrossing. “The market is responding and iCrossing has seized a leadership position in the digital space. With CEO Jeff Herzog’s vision for the future, there are sure to be even bigger things to come^.”

What does iCrossing actually do? An example of their work includes developing a solution to make PR Newswire mobile. PR Newswire is a press release website. Essentially, this would benefit journalists all over the world. Other major clients include Coca-Cola, Colgate, GM, Office Depot, and Travelocity.

Investors in iCrossing include:
1.) Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS): Goldman Sachs is a global investment and securities firm based in New York. Goldman Sachs focuses on investment banking, asset management, and trading and principal investments. Some of Goldman Sachs’ case studies are available at: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/insight/case_studies/.
2.) Oak Investment Partners: is a venture capital firm with $8.4 billion in committed capital. Some of the consumer Internet investments that Oak participated in includes aQuantive (acquired by Microsoft for $6 billion), Connexus Corporation, Fastclick, Inc. (acquired by ValueClick), and Shop.com
3.) RRE Ventures: RRE is a venture capital firm that manages $850 million in assets. Some of the companies that RRE has invested in includes WeddingChannel.com, Stockback (acquired by Vesdia), SmarterKids.com, Pinnacor (acquired by MarketWatch), and eMachines.
4.) StarVest Partners L.P.: is a private equity company that has $150 million in assets. Companies that StarVest invested in include Tibersoft Corporation, Newgistics Inc., NetSuite Inc., Connected Corporation (acquired by Iron Mountain Inc.), and Insurance.com

References:
[1] iCrossing press release: Goldman Sachs and Oak Investment Partners Lead Investment in Digital Marketing Leader iCrossing

For further details, refer to iCrossing’s website: www.icrossing.com

TheMarkets.com is a website that reports financial resources and estimations to institutional investors.  Today the company announced that it has “completed a $30 million Series S Rights Offering to its existing broker-owners^[1].”

“This investment is a tangible validation of our business model to provide value-added content and workflow solutions to the buy-side,” stated David Eisner, the CEO and President of TheMarkets.com. “Together with our already strong cash flow and balance sheet, this round of financing will propel our growth in the coming years. The funding will enable us to pursue strategic investments and acquisitions, as we continue to expand globally by leveraging our existing distribution platform and our unique relationships with the sell-side to introduce new products and services requested by our clients.”

Who owns TheMarkets.com?  The company was formed in 2000 by eleven of the top investment banks: Banc of America Securities, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank.  The site also offers information regarding company financial filings and pending equity deals straight from the source.  TheMarkets.com is based in New York and also has offices in London.

TheMarkets.com serves over 1500 firms in 43 countries.  “TheMarkets.com has a proven management team and a sound business model,” stated Mark Steinert, a new Board Member of and also a Global Head of Research at UBS. “We view the Company as an ideal vehicle through which to develop new tools for the buy-side that uniquely leverage our services, and we were delighted to be a significant investor in the round.”

[1] TheMarkets.com Press release: TheMarkets.com Closes $30 Million to Fund Strategic Growth Plans

References:
[2] PaidContent: Online Financial Researcher TheMarkets.com Closes $30 Million Investment

[Edit - Jingle has raised a total of $61.4 million, not $56.4 million. I missed a $5 million funding round they had in December.]

Jingle Networks has received a $30 million investment led by Goldman Sachs and Hearst Corporation. Jingle operates FREE411.COM, a service that provides free ad-supported telephone directory assistance.

This is the company’s fourth funding round. Jingle raised $400,000 when they started out, $5 million in December, and $26 million in April. So to date, Jingle has raised $61.4 million.

I would guess that investors own roughly 1/3 of Jingle. Therefore, Jingle’s valuation is possibly around $184 million. Not bad for such a young company.

FREE411 works like any other directory assistance service. You call 1-800-FREE-411 and are answered by an automated service that asks you a few questions about the business number you are looking for. And while you wait for the number, sponsored ads related to your listing are played. If the automated service is unable to help you, live operators are also available.

I think Jingle has a great thing going for it. Directory assistance services cost a lot. Sprint charged me something like $3.00 to use their assistance service last week which was ridiculous! I don’t mind having to listen to a few ads to save $3.00.

It’s projected that Americans use directory assistance services 6 billion times a year. Therefore, FREE411.COM has huge potential for growth. According to Jingle, its service handled 13 million calls in September. That’s a sizeable number. If Jingle keeps growing and capturing segments of the traditional directory assistance market, I can easily see it become a billion dollar company.

Mountain View, CA based eHealth Inc. had spent $50 million in development costs to form an application that sells health insurance online. This week eHealth Inc. is hoping to raise $47.1 million through its upcoming IPO. The basis of eHealth Inc.’s business is to solve the everday problem of choosing the right medical coverage. As of right now, most individuals, families, and small-to-mid sized businesses go through agents that take in excessive commission fees to help them choose medical insurance.

Thus far, eHealth Inc. had sold health insurance to over 325,000 customers through its website. eHealth Inc. has over 5,000 health insurance products and 150 insurance companies in its database including services provided by Aetna and UnitedHealth. The market eHealth is aiming to tap includes the 17 million Americans that buy their own medical insurance and opposing plans selected by their employers. This is an estimated $658 billion market.

To help serve the 46 million Americans that are not health insured, eHealth Inc. provides rate quoting, plan comparisons, and provides communication services between insurers and potential customers. Through such services, eHealth enables uninsured consumers to discover affordable rates.

To make money, eHealth Inc. is acting essentially as a broker and takes commission fees from the insurance providers. In 2001, eHealth’s revenues were $9.3 million compared to 2005’s $41.8 million, an increase by nearly 450% in 4 years.

In the IPO, eHealth Inc. is planning on selling 5 million shares @ $10-$12 per share. eHealth Inc.’s symbol will be traded under the stock symbol “EHTH” through NASDAQ. At that current share, the estimated market cap is at $271 million. According to the NASDAQ website, eHealth is expected to go public on October 12.

Acme Packet Inc. is a Burlington, MA company that provides internet security for numerous clients that output video, VoIP, and other multimedia services. Acme Packet has a strong prescence all over the world and has partnerships with some of the biggest names in telecommunication services such as D-Link, Cisco, and NEC. Microsoft is also an Acme Packet partner. Although Cisco Systems Inc. is a partner, they are also competition for network equipment against Acme.

According to Acme Packet’s press releases, Acme Packet filed a registration statement with the SEC proposing an IPO on June 2, 2006, but is planning to go public this week. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) is acting as the book-runner and Credit Suisse Group’s Securities (VTX: CSGN) division is acting as the joint lead manager and J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. is co-managing the IPO. ThinkEquity Partners LLC are also serving as underwriters.

Acme is planning to sell 8 million shares with a price opening of between $6.50 and $7.50 per share. Acme’s stock symbol will be “AKPT” through NASDAQ. Acme is hoping to raise $60 million. Between January and June of this year, Acme Packet has reported revenues of $38.1 million which is up from $16.7 million from the year before in the same period.