Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Legg Mason

Square Expected To Be Put At A $4 Billion Valuation

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:46:56 +0000

Square is preparing to raise another round of funding that would put them at a $4 billion valuation according to sources with AllThingsD. This would quadruple Square’s valuation since 10 months ago when they raised $100 million, putting them at a $1 billion valuation. Square was founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and the service focuses on accepting credit card payments through smartphones and tablets.

The rumors about Square raising a new round of funding started when Owen Thomas noticed Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Square COO Keith Rabois were in Boston and Baltimore where many institutional investors are based. Thomas called Legg Mason and they confirmed that they were looking into Square.

Square raised a total of $137 million in funding from KPCB, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Visa, and Richard Branson. Square is processing $4 billion in annual transactions as of last month and they charge 2.75% per swiped transaction and 3.5% plus 15 cents per keyed-in transaction.

Rumor: Ning Being Shopped Around For $150 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:09:50 +0000

Ning has recently been shopping around themselves for roughly $150 million according to sources with AllThingsD. Ning, co-founded by Marc Andreessen, gave a pitch to Google, Groupon, and several private equity companies.

The sale would be a break-even for investors. Venture capitalists have put in about $120 million into Ning since the company was founded in 2004. Investors in Ning include Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Legg Mason, Allen & Company, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Rumor has it that AOL, Demand Media, and GoDaddy approached Ning with interest in an acquisition. The companies are interested in Ning’s technology, which has the ability to create custom social networks. Ning had 400% year-on-year revenue growth. They went from 17,000 to more than 100,000 subscribers with about 60 million monthly active users.

Zillow Files For $51.75 Million IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:09:07 +0000

Real estate search engine company Zillow.com has filed an S-1, which means that the company is going public on the stock market. Zillow is aiming to raise $51.75 million. Currently this is a placeholder amount and is subject to change.

Citigroup, Allen & Company, ThinkEquity, Needham & Company, and First Washington Corporation are underwriters in the IPO. Zillow received about 19 million unique visitors in March and they are currently listing about 100 million U.S. homes. Zillow hit $10.6 million in revenues in 2008, $17.5 million in 2009, and $30.5 million in 2010. However income has been at a loss over the last 3 years.

In March 2011 Zillow was used over 8 million times on a mobile device. Over 1.4 million homes are viewed on mobile devices per day. Zillow is expecting the revenue growth rate to decline due to the maturation of their business. The costs are also expected to rise as they continue to invest in product development, marketing, and partnerships. Zillow raised about $87 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, PAR Capital Management, and Legg Mason.

[TechCrunch]

Ning Hits 850,000 Registered Social Networks

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:10:02 +0000

Athena von Oech announced today that Ning has hit 850,000 registered social networks. Ning is a service that allows users to create social networks on-the-fly. The service is free for basic social networks, but premium social networks are charged. Ning was founded by Netscape founder Marc Andreesen and Gina Bianchini. Ning has over $104 million in funding and is valuated at about $500 million based on their investments. Legg Mason, Allen & Company, and Andreesen are the primary investors in the company.

“We just passed 850,000 social networks on Ning and we couldn’t be more excited,” stated Oech. “We love checking out the new and interesting social networks popping up – at the rate of over 3,000 each day, and about 100,000 in the past month alone. Wow!”

Ning plans on launching new features next week including improvements to chat and redesigned media players. Below is a video demo of the new features:

Find more videos like this on Ning Network Creators

Microsoft, News Corp., AOL, Google, and Legg Mason All Want A Piece of Yahoo!

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:52:46 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. has become the apple of every company’s eye. Microsoft, News Corp., AOL, Google, and Legg Mason are all interested in a deal with Yahoo!

AOL, subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX)
Time Warner’s AOL LLC is looking to repurchase some of Yahoo!’s shares above Microsoft’s offer of $31 per share and essentially AOL would be folded into Yahoo! The deal would make AOL valued at $10 billion and the dial-up access business wouldn’t be included.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and News Corporation (NYSE:NWS.A)
Microsoft and News Corp. are planning to launch a joint bid together to buy Yahoo! While this partnership is not official yet, a Wall Street Journal source confirms that discussions are serious. If acquired, this would combine some of the Internet’s hottest properties such as Live.com, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, and MySpace.com. Yahoo! confirmed 3 days ago that they are interested in an acquisition if the deal is higher than what Microsoft had to offer.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Yahoo! is launching a new advertising platform called AMP! but wants Google to be part of the action. Yahoo! is talking to Google about outsourcing ad search sales to them. This deal was made official yesterday in the form of a short-term test. Google would handle a limited percentage of Yahoo!’s web search queries. This test will be used to determine the feasibility of a longer term search-ad outsourcing agreement. It is in Google’s interest to work out this deal in the longer run to make Yahoo! less susceptible for a Microsoft acquisition.

Legg Mason Inc. (NYSE:LM)
Asset Management company, Legg Mason owns a large percentage of Yahoo! As a shareholder, it is in Legg Mason’s interest to capitalize as much as possible from any potential deal. CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer wrote a letter telling Yahoo! that if they do not respond, then he’ll work directly with the shareholders. Legg Mason is only ready to support Yahoo!’s independence if the bid remains to be as low as it is now.

What happens to Yahoo! is anyone’s guess. Nobody said that running the #1 Internet property was easy.

Information Source:
[1] Wall Street Journal: News Corp., AOL Pursue Yahoo Deals by Matthew Karnitschnig, Kevin J. Delaney, and Merissa Marr