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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

  • Quattrone Predicts VC Shrinkage, ViaSat CEO Says Bandwidth Was Key to Internet Satellite, UCSD Scientists Win Google Grant, & More San Diego BizTech News

    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    With online video consuming more and more bandwidth, ViaSat’s decision to design its own high-capacity satellite for Internet service is looking more and more prescient. We’re beaming that and the rest of the news to you now, so take off your foil hats and tune in.

    —Frank Quattrone, a former investment banker and controversial figure following the dot-com boom, told a San Diego Venture Group gathering that the financial industry has grown too large, too over-extended, and strayed too far from its traditional focus on lending, trading, and principal activities. Quattrone spoke nostalgically about the tech IPOs he handled before Netscape’s 1995 IPO, which he also handled. That transaction, triggered a casino mentality of ever-bigger deals, he said.

    —Merger rumors about San Diego’s Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP) are resurgent, following a Wall Street Journal report last week that Leap has hired investment bankers to advise the company on its strategic options. Leap, which provides flat-rate phone service through its Cricket operating company, has previously explored merger opportunities, primarily with Dallas-based MetroPCS. In a report Saturday, the San Diego Union-Tribune cast doubt on the latest speculation, citing a JP Morgan Chase analyst.

    —Plans by Carlsbad, CA-based ViaSat (NASDAQ: VSAT) to launch its own satellite to provide high-capacity Internet service were helped significantly by the company’s $568-million acquisition of …Next Page »

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  • Fallbrook Technologies Spinoff Viryd Raises Another $5M for Wind Power Innovation

    Viryd Technologies logo
    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    Viryd Technologies, a wind turbine technology startup spun out last May by San Diego’s Fallbrook Technologies, has secured a $5 million investment that includes a Chinese maker of automotive components.

    Viryd was founded near Austin, TX, to integrated Fallbrook’s proprietary transmission technology in power-generating wind turbines for the renewable energy. Unlike a conventional transmission, which uses a set of gears with specific fixed-speed ratios, Fallbrook’s continuously variable transmission uses a planetary mechanism that “shifts” seamlessly as a drive train accelerates and decelerates.

    Fallbrook CEO William Klehm tells me that Viryd shares many of the true-believer angel investors who invested $25 million in Fallbrook after it was founded in 1998, and who joined in the $29.4 million raised last year in Fallbrook’s first round of venture funding. Neither Viryd nor Fallbrook has identified its individual investors, although Klehm has previously disclosed that Fallbrook’s angels include Gary Jacobs, son of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, and Gary Weiss, whose Weiss Group provides consulting and executive search services.

    Viryd is announcing today it has raised another $5 million from its existing investors and China’s Ningbo Shentong Auto Decorations. Shentong also will name a representative to Viryd’s board of directors. The Texas company raised $5M from  individual investors last year. Viryd and Shentong Group plan to form a joint venture to manufacture wind turbines for markets worldwide, and especially in Asia and China, where the market for renewable energy is just emerging.

    Viryd says the design of its drive train enables the rotors of a wind turbine to rotate more efficiently at any wind speed. Its design also allows for the use of an inexpensive generator that can be connected directly to the utility grid without power electronics and inverters, according to the company. Fallbrook, meanwhile, continues to develop its NuVinci continuously variable transmission for the automotive market, saying its transmission without gears operates more efficiently and at lower cost than conventional transmissions.

    Viryd’s deal with Ninbo Shentong Auto could bear implications for Fallbrook as well. Based in Yuyao City in mainland China, the company’s customers include Shanghai General Motors, Shanghai Volkswagen, FAW-Volkswagen, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen AutoMobile (DPCA) and Beijing Mercedes-Benz (Daimler Chrysler).

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  • Verdezyne Identifies First Product

    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    When I profiled Verdezyne in November, the Carlsbad, CA-based startup didn’t want to disclose the first feedstock chemical it is aiming to displace by using genetically engineered yeast in a fermentation tank instead of a petrochemical refinery. Today Verdezyne is announcing it can use its proprietary sustainable processes to make adipic acid, a primary ingredient needed to make nylon. Verdezyne’s Damien Perriman tells me the process Verdezyne demonstrated in its lab could reduce the production costs of adipic acid by 20 percent or more. He estimates the global market for adipic acid at close to $5.2 billion a year. The announcement comes just in time for the Bio-Based Chemicals Summit that begins today at the Westin San Diego.

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