Category: News

A few days ago when hanging out with a friend, I got a chance to play around with HTC One, the newest and shiniest Android phone on the market (of course until it wasn’t when Sony launched its Experia Z.) I was quite impressed by the build quality, the industrial design and the beauty of the device. Despite its supersize — I have normal people’s hands — it did feel like something I would want to buy, especially if I was picking amongst the ever increasing array of Android smartphones.

Maybe, I thought to myself, HTC was going to make a comeback. I mean, these were the guys who jumpstarted the Android smartphone ecosystem in partnership with Google and T-Mobile USA. These were the guys who innovated fast and even came up with their own skin for Android. They pushed the design and speed envelope. They had edgy marketing. They were the first movers and their early sales were red-hot.

And yet, when they spent $300 million on headphones maker Beats by Dre, it became obvious that this company was going to run into a some stormy weather. Of course, it was an idea that didn’t go down well with many of its fans and its investors — HTC eventually sold back half its stake.

This (relatively) tiny Taiwanese company was going to get squeezed by cheaper Android phones on one end and Samsung on the other. In fact, as far back as 2010 we have argued that the real smartphone battle was going to be between Apple and Samsung. And when it comes to hardware, nothing really has changed. It is Apple vs Samsung.

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung now accounts for about 95 percent of the total operating profits of the global Android business. During the first quarter of 2013, Samsung had an operating profit of $5.1 billion, while LG made $100 million and all other vendors (HTC, ZTE, Huawei, Sony and no-name brands) collectively made $100 million in operating (not net) profit.

It is hardly surprising to see that HTC is in trouble. A report in The Verge suggested that HTC’s chief product officer, Kouji Kodera, has left the company. The report also implied that other senior executives are leaving the company. The most recent high-profile bet — the HTC First, which was launched in partnership with Facebook — has been a flop and one wonders if the company really has the wherewithal, both intellectual and financial, to undertake such experiments.

I am not sure if people remember, but Motorola was another company that found itself on a Sysephian quest and eventually found a $12 billion bailout from Google. The trouble with the smaller Android players is that despite all the talk about a PC-like ecosystem of sourcing components and using others to assemble their products, it is fundamentally not true.

Apple has used all the billions in the bank to lock up supplies for processors, memory chips, radios, displays and other such components at favorable prices. It has worked out long term manufacturing arrangements with the likes of Foxconn. It has its own retail outlets. While most of us try and focus on Apple’s hardware and software integration, we forget that it is software, hardware and supply chain integration that allows the company to sell 37.5 million phones in the most recent quarter. It allows the company to make phones that meet the needs of different carriers.

Samsung too is an integration beast. It owns memory chip plants. It makes its own processors. It makes displays and it owns the factories. It has the unique ability to churn out new products faster than anyone else in the consumer electronics business and thus overwhelm the market with dozens of models. Just look at the many flavors on its latest Samsung S4 device and you start to see that this is a game only for big boys.

The only other company with Apple and Samsung-like manufacturing oomph was Nokia. I say was, because they are losing a grip on the phone business. However, their supply chain and manufacturing was legendary. It still is. I have yet to see a badly made Nokia smartphone — I just see smartphones with an OS that makes no sense. I bet if they entered the market with their own flavor of Android — something we suggested in 2010 — they would instantly become number three in the smartphone market, behind Samsung and Apple.

Sadly, smaller players like HTC can’t compete with the manufacturing and marketing capabilities of Samsung. The HTC One, which is an awesome looking device, was hit by manufacturing issues earlier this year. So it needs to rethink its strategies. HTC needs to become comfortable with the idea of being a one or two product company, and hope that it can keep comping up with winning products every single time. Even that is a long shot. The marketing budgets of Samsung and Apple are enough to finance some small nations.

HTC’s story is all too familiar to those who have studied the first mover phenomenon. A story in Economist points out that innovators captured seven percent of their market over time. THey point to various examples like White Castle who invented the idea of fast food burger joint but McDonalds is the big daddy now. Apple and Samsung are going through some of that as well. The lesson here for everyone — even tiny startups — is as Scott Anthony once perfectly said (and I paraphrase him): no one remembers who was leading the race midway through, and everyone remembers who finished first. And in order to finish first, a lot has to go right.

So where do companies like HTC go? And sad as it might be, perhaps nowhere. I am going to do my bit to give them some support — I will buy that HTC One, just because it is actually a great little device. It truly is.

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Square 1 Bank, a banking partner to entrepreneurs and the venture capital community, said on Wednesday that it has provided a loan and revolving line of credit to Advanced Liquid Logic. No financial terms were disclosed. Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, with additional facilities in Grenoble, France, Advanced Liquid Logic is a life science technology company.

PRESS RELEASE

DURHAM, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Square 1 Bank, the premier banking partner to entrepreneurs and the venture capital community, announced today it has provided a term loan and revolving line of credit to new client Advanced Liquid Logic, Inc., a life science technology company providing unique workflow solutions to laboratories and clinics. Proceeds will aid Advanced Liquid Logic in future growth and product development.
Since its founding in 2004, Advanced Liquid Logic has assembled an impressive patent portfolio and today owns or controls over 100 issued patents in Digital Microfluidics technology. In addition, techniques for cost-effectively manufacturing its lab-on-a-chip have been developed and implemented. A strong pipeline of products and partnerships will ensure rapid revenue and profit growth.
“We look forward to building a dynamic and lasting relationship with Advanced Liquid Logic,” said Evan Travis, Assistant Vice President in Square 1’s Southeast Life Sciences practice. “We are very impressed with the company’s product line and the promising opportunities they have in the life science technologies industry.”
President and CEO of Advanced Liquid Logic, Richard West, added, “We are pleased that Square 1 will play an integral part in our plans for the future. It is a privilege to have such a great bank headquartered locally in Durham.”
About Square 1 Bank
Square 1 Bank is a full service commercial bank dedicated exclusively to serving the financial needs of the venture capital community and entrepreneurs in all stages of growth and expansion. Square 1′s expertise, focus and strong capital base provide flexible resources and unmatched support to meet our clients’ needs. The bank offers tailored products and solutions aided by the latest in technological innovations. Square 1 has offices coast to coast in Austin, Boston, Denver, Durham, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, Seattle, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.square1bank.com.
About Advanced Liquid Logic
Advanced Liquid Logic is pioneering the next generation of microfluidics – Digital Microfluidics – with easy-to-use, cost-effective products in newborn screening and genomics sample preparation. Advanced Liquid Logic, a rapidly growing, privately-held company, also has products in development addressing in vitro diagnostics and other markets. The company’s proprietary digital microfluidics technology enables precise and flexible manipulation of micro-droplets using electrical fields. Advanced Liquid Logic is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, with additional facilities in Grenoble, France. For more information please visit www.liquid-logic.com.

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Archer Limited, an oilfield services provider based in Hamilton, Bermuda, said on Wednesday that it has agreed to sell its North American Rental and Tubular division to Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. for approximately $244 million. The all-cash transaction is expected to close in June 2013. Archer’s Rental and Tubular division provide equipment and services to exploration and production operators in U.S. land markets and the U.S. Gulf Of Mexico, in addition to both land and offshore markets in Mexico.

PRESS RELEASE

Hamilton, Bermuda (May 22 2013)
Archer Limited today announced that the Company has agreed to sell its North American Rental and Tubular division to an affiliate of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. for approximately $244 million. The all-cash transaction is expected to close in June 2013, and is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Archer will use the majority of the proceeds from the sale to pay down outstanding balances on its credit facilities.
Archer’s Rental and Tubular division provide equipment and services to exploration and production operators across key U.S. land markets and the U.S. Gulf Of Mexico, in addition to both land and offshore markets in Mexico. The division’s two primary offerings are (i) rental equipment, which provides primarily drilling and completion equipment such as drill pipe, heavy weight drill pipe, drill collars, tubular handling tools, pressure control equipment and tubing, and (ii) tubular services, which includes casing and tubing running and tubular handling services. For both offerings, the Company is one of the largest providers in the North American market.
In 2012 Archer’s North American Rental and Tubular Division generated $100 million in revenue and contributed $45 million in earnings before income taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). At the end of December the business had net assets of $244 million and employed approximately 250 employees.
“I am pleased that with Clearlake Capital we have found a new owner for Archer’s North American Rental and Tubular business, who is focused and committed to invest and grow these businesses going forward. The employees and the management team of Archer’s Rental and Tubular division have built an agile organization which has provided high service quality to our customers over the years. I am confident that its employees and management team together with Clearlake will continue to build on that legacy,” said Ronney Coleman, President North America and Executive Vice President of Archer.
“This divestiture will help Archer to focus its efforts in North America on its service and product offering directed towards unconventional resources, while operations in other parts of the world are not impacted by this transaction. It will also help to simplify and further deleverage the company” said Fredrik Halvorsen, CEO and Vice Chairman of Archer.
José E. Feliciano, a founding partner at Clearlake, said: “These businesses are well-positioned to increase their market share and capitalize on continued growth in the North American oil and gas market. They represent a strong platform and we are eager to support their outstanding management team and invest to expand the business.”
Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is a private investment firm focused on special situations and private equity investments such as corporate divestitures, recapitalizations, buyouts, reorganizations, turnarounds and other equity investments. Clearlake seeks to partner with world-class management teams by providing patient, long-term capital and operational expertise to invest in dynamic businesses. Clearlake currently manages approximately $1.4 billion of equity capital, and Clearlake’s founding principals have led over 50 investments totaling more than $3 billion of capital in sectors including business services, communication, consumer products/retail, defense & public safety, energy/power, healthcare, industrials, media, and technology.
Simmons & Company International served as exclusive financial advisor and Andrews Kurth LLP served as legal advisor to Archer in this transaction. Jefferies LLC served as financial advisor and Vinson & Elkins LLP served as legal advisor to Clearlake in this transaction.
This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

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Arrested Development’s return via Netflix is only days away (it will be available on Sunday, May 26th), and fans who have been waiting for years are ready to dive in.

Netflix’s exclusive shows have brought about a new trend of “binge watching” (watching the entire season immediately, as opposed to the traditional one episode per week format), but should we really be doing this to ourselves?

While Arrested Development’s new season will indeed be released all at once, the show’s creator, Mitch Hurwitz, warns that viewers who choose to watch it this way may miss out on some of the fun. In an interview with Wired, he said:

“I think of it more like writing a mini-series than something [for] binge watching… I think that people do sit down and watch it all at once. Personally, I think [that] will be very fatiguing and will lose some of the fun of being able to mull on it. But I think that with the majority of binge watchers, it’s a modified binge watching, just like the majority of novel readers. You know, you don’t read it all at once. But you are in control of when you feel like going back to it… I personally hope people don’t sit and watch it for, you know, 500 minutes or longer.”

Don’t underestimate the years of anticipation leading up to this season. Die hard fans who were outraged by the show’s original cancellation have had to wade through rumor after rumor about the show’s return and a possible movie for a long time. The fact that the show is actually back is still shocking to many. While some may choose to take their time and savor it (leaving some time between episodes), my guess is that many of these fans will want to consume it all as quickly as possible, then of course, consume it over and over again.

That is, if Arrested’s return lives up to expectations and the greatness that made fans fall in love with it oh so long ago. We’ll find out soon enough.

Read Wired’s full interview with Hurwitz here.

At CTIA Wireless, I had a chance to sit down with Sprint vice president of product platforms and services Kevin McGinnis and talk about Boost Mobile’s new digital wallet. It quickly became apparent from our convesation that Sprint has some big ambitions for the new financial services app.

McGinnis said that it will soon offer a similar wallet to customers of its other prepaid brand — Virgin Mobile — and it is considering bringing it to the main Sprint brand as well. Sprint also plans to build on Wallet’s initial batch of services, to create what McGinnis calls “a virtual bank” for its customers.

Today, Boost’s Mobile Wallet can transfer funds between accounts, pay e-bills, wire money to physical locations and, with the help of prepaid Visa card, you can make purchases and withdraw money from ATMs anywhere Visa is accepted. Soon Boost’s wallet will let you scan physical checks, depositing funds directly into your wallet account.

But McGinnis said there are other services in the works. He didn’t provide specific deals, but it’s not hard to imagine features like virtual checking accounts or peer-to-peer payments such as those offered by PayPal, Venmo and now Google and Square.

Sprint doesn’t want to become bank itself — that would put it under the regulatory scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Treasury, which Sprint wants to avoid, McGinnis said. Instead, Sprint is working with Wipit, a mobile payments provider focusing on people without bank accounts and credit cards, to provide the financial services infrastructure.

“From the customer’s point of view, it’s kind of a bank in the sky that is Boost backed,” McGinnis said.

Sprint’s wallet is unique because it focuses on what the financial industry calls the unbanked – households that deal almost entirely in cash. Most other wallet and financial services apps are linked to bank accounts, credit and debit cards. This approach to financial services has had a huge impact in other parts of the world and has made Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom the biggest bank in East Africa.

The U.S. isn’t Kenya, of course, but according to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation study (pdf), 8.2 percent of U.S. households have no bank account whatsoever, while an additional 20.1 percent of U.S. households have a bank account but also make use of alternative financial services such as check cashing and payday loan companies.

Of the major providers, Sprint is in an ideal position to serve those customers. People who rely primarily on cash naturally gravitate towards prepaid mobile phones, and Sprint is one of the most aggressive carriers when it comes to prepaid. It runs three prepaid brands (Boost, Virgin and Assurance Wireless) and offers pay-as-you-go options on its primary Sprint brand as well. At the end of the first quarter it had 16 million customers on prepaid plans.

While Mobile Wallet’s initial focus will be on those unbanked customers, McGinnis said there is a lot of potential for the app for customers who have traditional bank accounts, especially as Sprint and Wipit add new features to the app. That’s one of the reasons McGinnis thinks Mobile Wallet will be a good fit for Sprint’s contract customers.

Sprint already is working with Google on mobile payments, but McGinnis pointed out that Google Wallet is really a point-of-sale transaction technology linking to credit cards or bank accounts. Meanwhile, Sprint’s Wallet is intended to be a replacement for or a supplement to those accounts and payments cards — just without the actual bank.

“There’s nothing broken with plastic in retail today,” McGinnis said. Sprint, he added, just wants to make that plastic available to more people.

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If you write anything on the internet — or for that matter, read anything on the internet — you’ve undoubtedly experienced comment trolls, flame-wars and plenty of other bad behavior. Some blogs and news sites have tried either handing over their comments to Facebook or not having comments altogether as a way of preventing this kind of activity, but one site called Climate Desk took a different approach: they tracked down and interviewed their most persistent troll, and in the process revealed him to be a fairly normal human being.

As the Columbia Journalism Review describes in a post on the project, Climate Desk not only found and interviewed their comment troll — a 57-year-old insurance executive named Hoyt Connell — as part of a video series called “The Secret Life of Trolls,” but also profiled a scientist who spends much of her time engaging with trolls on the topic of climate change. In the final instalment, the scientist and the troll met each other via Google Hangout.

The CJR post criticizes the Climate Desk series because “it doesn’t shine as much light under the bridge as it could have,” since it doesn’t go into detail about why Connell latched onto climate change as a topic, or what drives him to comment so aggressively (fittingly enough, Connell comments on the CJR post himself to try and clear some of this up). But what impressed me was how normal this mega-troll seemed once he was interviewed.

Comment trolls are people too

I found the same thing — and I think others did too — when Gawker Media outed a notorious Reddit troll named Violentacrez last year, after attention was drawn to several offensive sub-Reddits he created. Although clearly much of his behavior on the site crossed a line, the interview showed him to be a more-or-less normal, and in some ways even sympathetic (or possibly just pathetic) character. Not that this justified his conduct, but it helped to explain some of it.

We’ve written before about how the value of comments transcends the occasional troll, and how the best way to maintain a civil dialogue is to engage with readers directly, a point blogging pioneer Anil Dash also made in a post a couple of years ago. And writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic have shown that commenters can be much more than just a noisy distraction — in some cases, they can actually become collaborators. The Climate Desk series is a good reminder that trolls are people too.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr / Jeremy King

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Starting today, the Nokia Lumia 521 is available at the third-largest carrier in the US. And you better sit down for what follows next. T-Mobile offers the entry-level Windows Phone 8 handset at a very attractive price-point — $149.99 when purchased outright or $29.99 down coupled with $5 monthly installments over the course of two years.

What do you get for the money? The Lumia 521 packs a 4.0-inch IPS display with a resolution of 480 by 800, which can be operated using gloves. Power comes from a 1.0 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor backed by 512 MB of RAM and a 1,430 mAh removable battery.

The Lumia 521 ships with 8 GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot which can extend the capacity by a further 64 GB (72 GB total). The smartphone only comes with a back-facing camera — a 5 MP shooter capable of 720p video recording. Video chat fans might want to look elsewhere.

Other noteworthy specs include: HSPA+ network support, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. The Lumia 521 comes in at 124 x 64 x 9.9 mm and 124.5 grams.

Similar to its other Windows Phone 8 handsets, the Lumia 521 features Nokia’s exclusive app collection. It includes the HERE suite (HERE City Lens, HERE Drive Beta, HERE Maps and HERE Transit), Man of Steel, Zinio, Nokia Music, Burton and MICHELIN Travel among others.

The Lumia 521 is an attractive choice for T-Mobile customers looking to grab an affordable smartphone. Only the one year-old BlackBerry Curve 9315 gets close in terms of price — $168 outright or $7 per month over the course of two years. Which one would you choose?

M2fx said on Wednesday that it has raised $3 million in funding. Linnaeus Capital Partner B.V., an existing investor, led the round. The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s worldwide sales and expand its customer base. Headquartered in the U.K. with global sales facilities, m2fx is a fiber optic cable producer.

PRESS RELEASE

New York and London, 22 May 2013 –m2fx, the inventors and producers of the world-leading range of patentedMiniflex™ fiber cables today announced a new US$3m (£2m) funding round, led by existing investorLinnaeus Capital Partner B.V.. The new investment will be used to accelerate the company’s worldwide sales and further expand its customer base, particularly in the Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) market.
The growing global rollout of FTTP networks to deliver high speed broadband to consumers and businesses is providing unparalleled opportunities for m2fx. Its innovative Miniflex range of fiber cable, microduct and protection tube products are ideal for the last 200 feet of fiber installations, dramatically reducing installation time and costs through patented pushable technology. This delivers installation savings of up to 50% in developed markets, enabling operators to deploy networks more cost-effectively than through traditional methods.
“Our technology delivers competitive advantage to organizations where it matters – bringing down the cost of installing vital fiber optic networks through our tough, light, ultra flexible design,” said Joe Byrne, CFO, m2fx. “This additional investment from Linnaeus Capital demonstrates its commitment to m2fx and belief in our strengths. We can now expand our sales efforts across the globe and provide the benefits of our Miniflex products to companies across even more countries and markets.”
m2fx recently announced that it has been used in over 25,000 FTTP installations around the world, a figure that is growing at 1,500 every month. It has manufactured over 67 million feet (20 million meters) of duct and Miniflex cable at its state of the art UK manufacturing facility. m2fx’s end customer list includes over 25% of all telecoms operators within the 52 countries where its products are sold, including both AT&T and BT.
“At Linnaeus we focus on companies with unique technology, high growth potential and experienced management teams,” said Anita Hamilton, Managing Partner of Linnaeus Capital Partners B.V.. “m2fx meets all these criteria, and since our initial investment in 2010 we’ve seen the company and its market expand. This new funding round will enable it to accelerate growth and help achieve its enormous potential.”

As well as broadband telecoms, m2fx also has a substantial presence in the data center, automotive and high technology aerospace/defense markets. It was recently selected for the European Space Agency’s ExoMars 2018 mission, where it will protect fiber optic components within the MOMA instrument. Part of the payload of the ExoMars rover, this will analyze samples on the Martian surface, investigating the possibility of life on the planet.
“The need for ultra fast information is driving global demand for fiber optic networks across a wide range of industries,” said Tom Carpenter, CEO, m2fx. “We are already widely recognized for the benefits that our Miniflex products deliver and this new funding will enable us to take the company to the next level, exploiting this significant and growing market opportunity.”
-ends-
About m2fx
m2fx makes hard plastic flexible through its patented grooved design and process, protecting optical fiber in the last 200 feet of an install. Best known for its innovative Miniflex™ protection tube, cable and microduct products, m2fx specializes in tough yet flexible FTTX cable/microduct routing products that are designed to protect fiber yet still be light and ultra flexible to enable fast and efficient installation in the field. Its patented pushable technology dramatically reduces the time and cost of installations by removing the need for specialist equipment and skills, leading to typical savings of 50% compared to traditional methods.
Headquartered in the UK and with global sales operations, m2fx has already manufactured over 20 million meters (67 million feet) of duct and Miniflex cable at its state of the art UK production facility. m2fx products are deployed in telecoms networks, data centers, cars and aircraft in 52 countries across the world.

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Zentila said on Wednesday that it has closed $2.1 million in a Series A financing round. The lead investor was Vocap Ventures. Based in Winter Garden, Florida, Zentila is an online meeting planning platform.

PRESS RELEASE

ORLANDO, Fla. — Zentila, the first online sourcing, booking and tracking solution for meetings and conventions, today announced the closing of a $2.1 million Series A investment led by Florida-based Vocap Ventures.
“Zentila excited us as an investment for a variety of reasons,” said Vinny Olmstead, managing director of Vocap Ventures. “The technology is disruptive in that it automates and simplifies a fairly complex process. This has enabled the company to enter a fragmented market with a clever solution that has the potential to capture a significant portion of a multi-billion dollar industry.”
Founded in 2011 by hospitality industry veteran Mike Mason, Zentila provides meeting planning solutions for companies and individuals through a free-to-use, highly intuitive strategic meetings management solution. Since November, the company’s 1,500 corporate users have sent meeting requests with an estimated value exceeding $4 million. Hotels are enjoying close rates more than five times the industry’s average, making Zentila one of the most efficient RFP channels in the market today. Zentila was also recently chosen by Northstar Travel Group, the world’s leading business-to-business media company serving the travel and meetings industry, to offer its dynamic sourcing and booking platform on Northstar’sSuccessful Meetings andMeetings and Conventions online facility search.
“While we were approached by a number of venture capital firms, we opted to move forward with strategic investors who have deep experience in both the technology and hospitality spaces,” said Mason. “This new round of funding will enable us to further advance our offerings and continue to build market share.”
Other investors include Arsenal Venture Partners and venVelo, both of Winter Park, Fla., and Matt Avril, former hotel group president at Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Avril will also join Zentila’s Board of Directors.
“Un-bookable leads, or ‘RFP Spam,’ contributes to unproductive time for hotel sales forces globally,” said Avril. “ Zentila represents an ideal solution by helping hotels sell effectively while improving the experience and efficiency for meeting planners.”
“Zentila’s experienced management team is passionate about the meetings industry, and I share their enthusiasm for providing this new solution.” Avril said. “I am delighted to be a part of this dynamic group working to effect change in this critical way.”

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Oliver Burton is a 10-year-old boy who has been diagnosed with cancer for the third time. He’s dying, and doesn’t have much time left. His final wish was to meet Queen Elizabeth II, which turned out to be impossible, so Dame Helen Mirren stepped in to grant him his wish.

The Daily Mail reports that Mirren, who is currently playing the queen in a stage show, met with Burton in full costume and makeup recently. She had tea with him and then knighted him as Sir Oliver Burton. He even got to play with her two corgis.

It’s unfortunate that Burton didn’t get to meet the real queen, but he reportedly didn’t know the difference. To him, Mirren was the real deal, and he was thrilled to meet her. Burton’s parents were even happier saying that Mirren “stayed in character for the whole thing. Oliver thought she was the real queen, and well, that’s good enough for us.”

Unfortunately, Burton may just have weeks or months to live as his latest bout with cancer has been deemed incurable by doctors. That being said, he has come through two previous bouts where doctors said he had hours to live. He may pull through yet again.

Even if the worst comes to pass, Burton’s parents are determined to fill what may be his final weeks with wonderful memories. It’s gonna be hard to top meeting the “queen,” but his parents have some ideas.

[Image: Angela George]

Flagship Ventures has named Stephane Bancel as a senior partner. Bancel will also serve as president and CEO of Moderna Therapeutics, a Flagship VentureLabs – founded company. Flagship Ventures, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., is a venture capital firm that focuses on health, therapeutics and sustainability.

PRESS RELEASE

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Flagship Ventures, a leading venture capital and venture creation firm focused on healthcare and sustainability, today announced the appointment of Stephane Bancel as a Senior Partner. In this role, Mr. Bancel will provide strategic counsel and support to portfolio companies.
In addition to working closely with companies in the Flagship portfolio, Mr. Bancel also serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Moderna Therapeutics, a Flagship VentureLabs™ – founded company. Moderna is pioneering messenger RNA therapeutics™, an entirely new in vivo drug modality that produces human proteins or antibodies inside the patient, within the patient’s cells. This allows the in vivo expression of virtually any therapeutic protein for intracellular or systemic action. He is also Executive Chairman of the board for BG Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGMD), a Flagship portfolio company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel, biomarker-based diagnostics to improve patient outcomes and contain healthcare costs.
“Stephane brings with him a wealth of management experience and expertise in the development and commercialization of medical diagnostic tools and technologies as well as expertise in the pharmaceuticals industry,” said Noubar Afeyan , Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Flagship Ventures. Under Mr. Bancel’s leadership, Moderna has entered into one of the largest preclinical biotech-pharma deals in the industry’s 35 year history with AstraZeneca. The recently announced partnership agreement involves up to 40 options to drug products and $420M in up front and technology milestone payments. Dr. Afeyan added, “having worked together with Stephane for over three years now at BG Medicine and Moderna, I look forward to seeing his commercial mindset and strategic insights applied more broadly to Flagship’s investment strategy as well as to the growth and success of our portfolio companies.”
Mr. Bancel said “What attracted me to Flagship Ventures was the team’s depth of experience and knowledge in the life sciences industry, as well as the firm’s unique philosophy and approach to realizing entrepreneurial innovation.” He continued, “I look forward to building on Flagship’s growing reputation as one of the preeminent innovators in the life sciences ecosystem.”
Prior to joining Flagship, Mr. Bancel served as Chief Executive Officer of bioMerieux (NYSE Euronext: BIM.PA), a world leader in the diagnostics industry. During his five years leading the company, he accelerated the sales growth rate, enhanced its position as a global leader in clinical microbiology and re-accelerated its immunoassay franchise by focusing on high medical value biomarkers. Under his leadership, the company’s market capitalization nearly doubled despite the broader economic downturn.
Previously, Mr. Bancel was Managing Director of Eli Lilly in Belgium and Executive Director of Global Manufacturing Strategy and Supply Chain at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis. He earned a Master of Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris, a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2009, Mr. Bancel was elected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He was elected Best CEO for Investor Relations in France in 2009 and was ranked #1 CEO in the Biotechnology sector according to the 2011 Thomson Reuters Pan European EXTEL Study.
About Flagship Ventures
Realizing entrepreneurial innovation is the mission of Flagship Ventures. The firm operates through two synergistic units: VentureLabs™ which invents and launches transformative companies, and Venture Capital, which finances and develops innovative, early-stage companies. Founded in 2000, and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Flagship Ventures manages over $900 million in capital. The Flagship team is active in three principal business sectors: therapeutics, health technologies and sustainability/clean technology. Past successful Flagship portfolio companies include: Accuri Cytometers (acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Company), Adnexus (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), Hypnion (acquired by Eli Lilly), AVEO (NASDAQ: AVEO), BG Medicine (NASDAQ: BGMD), Tetraphase (NASDAQ: TTPH), Receptos (NASDAQ: RCPT) and Morphotek (acquired by Eisai). Additional notable portfolio companies include: AeroDesigns, Affinnova, Agios, BIND Therapeutics, Joule Unlimited, Quanterix, and Moderna Therapeutics. For more information, please visit www.flagshipventures.com.

 

 

 

 

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While OpenStack is once again in the spotlight following Dell’s exit from public cloud, in the background, more venture bets are being placed on OpenStack. The latest is a new $10 million, Series B round for Cloudscaling. The company provides an OpenStack-powered cloud infrastructure system. The funding comes from Trinity Ventures and two new big name tech investors: network equipment maker Juniper Networks (through its Junos Innovation fund), and storage specialist Seagate.

“This financing round caps a tremendous year of momentum for the company,” said Michael Grant, CEO of Cloudscaling. “That momentum affirms the voice of the market, clearly stating that customers want more than OpenStack. They want an on-premise, OpenStack-based private or public cloud turnkey system solution that delivers architectural and behavioral fidelity with major public clouds like Amazon Web Services. Our Open Cloud System product delivers on that need to enable hybrid cloud application deployments that span private and public cloud services.”

In 2013 Cloudscaling has secured key customer wins with LivingSocial, EVault, Ubisoft and DataFort, launched a channel partner program, and announced support for OpenStack Grizzly in the third generation of its OCS technology, Open Cloud System 2.5.

Partnership With Juniper

When Cloudscaling announced Open Cloud System 2.5 in April, it was also the first step of its partnership with Juniper through the integration of Juniper’s virtual network control (VNC) technology, JunosV Contrail, into Open Cloud System (OCS). OCS is a turnkey, OpenStack-powered cloud infrastructure system for enterprises, SaaS providers and cloud service providers. Juniper liked what they saw.

“Juniper Networks and Cloudscaling share a vision of how cloud infrastructure should be built and operated to support a new generation of cloud-aware workloads,” said Jeff Lipton, VP of venture and strategic investments at Juniper.  “Collaborating to integrate our technology into OCS was just the first step. We are excited to continue our work with Cloudscaling and support the company as a strategic investor.”

Cloudscaling and Juniper plan to continue delivering innovative, joint networking solutions that are open and standards-based to support elastic cloud services and a new generation of enterprise workloads.

Cloudscaling also joined the Seagate Cloud Builder Alliance Partner program in April. Seagate liked what it saw.

“Seagate and Cloudscaling are working together on innovative solutions of jointly-optimized cloud systems supported by Seagate products,” said Rocky Pimentel, EVP and chief sales and marketing officer, Seagate. “We are pleased to deepen our relationship with them as an equity investor and be part of a collaborative effort to define and promote open source standards for cloud computing.”

Cloudscaling and Seagate are focused on the development of optimized storage solutions for OpenStack-powered cloud infrastructure.

Seagate and Juniper join Trinity Ventures, which so far seems happy with Cloudscale’s prospects. “Cloudscaling has executed on a vision of elastic cloud infrastructure as a turnkey solution that many agree with but few have delivered,” said Dan Scholnick, general partner, Trinity Ventures. “The team has gained new customers and partners at an accelerating pace, highlighting their success at tapping an emerging, growing need among enterprise, SaaS and service provider segments.”

Microsoft certainly seems to be ramping up the help for its new operating system at the moment. First it uploaded a “Get to know Windows 8” video to YouTube, and late yesterday it published a “Windows 8 End User Training Brochure” in its Download Center.

Unlike the video, the 36-page PDF guide is definitely new (there’s a screenshot from April 2013) and will prove a godsend for anyone struggling to get to grips with Windows 8 or Surface. Each of the multi-colored pages clearly and concisely explains how to use a particular element of the operating system, with the aid of large, friendly illustrations.

There are pages on exploring the Start screen, rearranging apps and creating groups, information on the Charms, and changing settings for apps and your PC, and even cheat sheets for touch and mouse control, and keyboard shortcuts.

According to the information on the download page:

Windows has been reimagined to be all about you and your style of working. Put what matters most right on your Start screen, and get instant access to your people, apps, sites, and more, so you can spend less time searching and more time doing. No matter what you want to do, you can get it done quickly in Windows 8. Whether you’re collaborating on a large project, preparing for an upcoming conference, or traveling for work, you can use touch, mouse, and keyboard together–seamlessly–to do what you want, the way you want. This brochure will show you how to get around, navigate, manage apps, and personalize in Windows 8.

The timing of the release is odd — Windows 8 has been out for seven months now — but still, better late than never…

Apple has updated an earlier lawsuit filed against Samsung with claims that the Galaxy S4 and its Google Now feature violate two Apple patents covering functions of its own virtual personal assistant, Siri. Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents relayed news of the updated complaint on Wednesday, and he noted that two of the patents — U.S. Patent 8,086,604, and U.S. Patent 6,846,959 — cover technologies related to Siri. Both filings describe a “universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system.” Apple also added three more patents to its earlier complaint that are not related to Siri, according to the report.

Urturn, a social platform, said on Wednesday that it has completed Series A funding of $13.4 million. The fundraising round included a $10.7 million investment by Balderton Capital, a European venture capital firm, and a $2.7 million investment from the private equity division of Debiopharm Group, a Swiss-based global pharmaceutical company. And as part of the agreement, Balderton’s founding partner Barry Maloney will join Urturn’s board.

PRESS RELEASE

Urturn, the social platform for self-expression, has today announced the completion of a $13.4 million fundraising round including a $10.7m investment by Balderton Capital, the leading European venture capital firm. In addition, Urturn is announcing the launch of its mobile app. By making Urturn more readily accessible to its users, the mobile app will enable people to spontaneously connect in rich and playful ways.
By simply flicking through Urturn’s range of ready-made templates and choosing an Expression to suit their mood, users can instantly express themselves in an ever-growing variety of ways – from personalising images with doodles, captions or music clips to creating collages or inviting the community to cast votes on sets of pictures. Whether Expressions are shared on Urturn or on other social media platforms and websites, the innovative ‘Your Turn’ button enables users to share new interpretations of other people’s posts and join in with movements spreading across the web.
With the launch of the Urturn mobile app, users will be able to spontaneously capture moments of inspiration on-the-fly. The beautiful app is a powerful way for turning experiences into expressions – users simply select the style, inject an image and instantly personalise it in rich and creative ways. Urturn is fully integrated – so media can be taken from your Facebook, Instagram or even Vimeo feeds and incorporated into any one of the ready-made Expressions.
“While existing social platforms have focused on connecting people and all provide finite ways for interacting online, we’ve focused on how people interact – providing an ever-growing variety of rich and playful ways for our users to express themselves. Born out of the acknowledgement that users want to be more expressive, Urturn is the next natural step for social media,” comments Stelio Tzonis, CEO at Urturn. “We believe our mobile app will make Urturn more accessible and enable people to share Expressions more spontaneously.”
The Series A fundraising includes a $10.7m investment by Balderton Capital, whose past investments include Bebo, Lovefilm, Betfair, wooga and Friend.ly. It comes at a time of increased speculation around waning interest in Facebook among teens and growing interest in social platforms that support more creative ways for users to interact. The private equity arm of Debiopharm Group invested the remaining $2.7m. As part of the agreement, Balderton’s founding partner Barry Maloney will join Urturn’s board.
“When we first met the team behind Urturn, we could see that their idea would transform the way people around the world express themselves through social media and we wanted to be involved,” comments Barry Maloney , founding partner at Balderton Capital. “Using Urturn’s Expressions, users can enjoy sharing unique content in the fastest, clearest and most engaging ways yet. We are excited to watch the progress and continued word-of-mouth endorsements that have earned Stelio and his team the support of many loyal users already.”
The platform has already received significant interest from the music industry, with artists rapidly recognising that it provides fun new ways to connect with their fans. Artists that have already signed up to the platform include Rita Ora , David Bowie , One Direction, Green Day, Union J, Ellie Goulding , The Gossip, Carly Rae Jepsen and Kendrick Lamar .
Urturn also has plans to open up the platform to the community – with an API which gives enthusiasts the opportunity to create their own Expressions, templates that can then be adopted by friends, followers and fans. It is the first time a social platform has let the community shape how they communicate and express themselves online.
“We’re honoured to have the support of Balderton Capital,” continues Stelio Tzonis. “As well as being one of the preeminent VCs in Europe, they have a great track record in taking European start-ups to the US.”
Key features include:
Urturn’s ever-growing library of Expressions – ready-made templates that can be instantly personalised in all kinds of ways. Examples include Bubbles, Pix, Tags, Magnifier, Versus, Doodle and Music Postcard
The ‘Your Turn’ button is totally unique – there is no other platform that lets you take inspiration or join in with online movements in such a rich and interactive way.
Using Urturn’s Bookmarklet, you can grab images from across the web and instantly turn them into expressions. Share your feelings or ask the community for their opinion using the ‘Love it/Leave it’ and ‘Versus’ expressions.
Urturn’s API (which is currently in private beta) will enable enthusiasts to create all sorts of new ways for users to interact and express themselves
Urturn is fully integrated – so media can be taken from your Facebook, Instagram or Youtube feeds and incorporated into any one of the ready-made Expressions.
About Urturn
Urturn (http://www.urturn.com) is a fast and playful way to share your unique view of the world with friends, followers and celebrities. Available on the web or as a mobile app, it comes with an ever-growing range of Expressions – ready-made templates let you spontaneously express yourself in fun and creative new ways. Its Your Turn’ button also lets you take inspiration or interact with other people’s posts like never before. Whether browsing the web or shooting images with your mobile phone, anyone can rapidly post an expression and achieve instant greatness! The company was launched in January 2013 by brothers Alexandre and Stelio Tzonis, Mathieu Fivaz and Vincent Borel . It employs 25 people in Lausanne, London and Silicon Valley.
About Balderton Capital
Balderton Capital is one of the largest venture capital firms in Europe, committed to finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies. Based in London, the firm manages $1.9 billion in committed venture capital. Since 2000, Balderton has invested in over 100 companies, principally in numerous European countries but also in the US and Asia. Notable investments include YOOX Group (the online retailer of leading fashion brands, listed in December 2009), LOVEFiLM (the home entertainment subscription service sold to Amazon in January 2011), Betfair (the online betting exchange floated in London in October 2010), Bebo (sold to AOL for $850m), and MySQL (sold to Sun for $1 billion). For more information, visit: http://www.balderton.com.

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Personalized reading app Zite is updating its iOS app Wednesday with a few Google Reader-inspired features and some algorithm changes designed to surface more obscure content. Zite also announced seven new publishing partners — including GigaOM — bringing the total number of publishers it works with to 24.

Zite outlined the changes in a blog post. CEO Mark Johnson has been pretty vocal about how he doesn’t think Zite should be like Google Reader, and told me the new features Zite has added to its iOS app are those that “enhance the user experience both for Google Reader users and the reading population in general.” Articles will now “gray out” after they’ve been read, users will be able to save sources as favorites and Zite’s algorithm will pay more attention to obscure content:

“One of the biggest problems with Google Reader is that RSS feeds which publish many stories per day tend to dominate your feed, so the obscure blog you found a few years ago that publishes every three months can be drowned out in the noise. Zite’s algorithm will more aggressively highlight rare content, so feel free to ‘like’ publishers that you enjoy, no matter how popular or rare.”

An Android update is coming soon.

Zite’s also added seven new publishers to its publisher program, bringing the total number of publishers it works with to 24. The new publishers are GigaOM, Atlantic Media (with The Atlantic and Quartz), Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, Say Media (Remodelista and ReadWrite) and Serious Eats, and they join existing publishers like CNN (Zite’s parent company), the Huffington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. Zite publisher partners share their “best-of” content in their own sections of Zite’s app, and can run their own ads against their content.

“We are also starting to look at ways to monetize publisher content,” Johnson said. That’s something Zite’s competitors are already doing: The New York Times makes content available to paying subscribers through Flipboard, and the Wall Street Journal has a similar arrangement with Pulse.

Here’s a video of Johnson speaking about the future of content personalization at paidContent 2013:

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Let me tell you a little secret about the way online journalism works: Most news sites, GigaOM included, have a repertoire of just a few types of stories. There’s the short news story, the long thought piece, and the hands-on review, complete with a video featuring lots of close-ups. Attempts to tell stories in new ways are rare – that’s why I was pretty excited when I first heard about Soo Meta, back when it was still in private alpha last October.

Soo Meta is the latest product of the Budapest-based online video startup Dragontape, which has also developed a video curation app called Dragontape. After months of testing, the company is now ready to unveil Soo Meta as a new platform for online video storytelling.

Here’s how Soo Meta works: The platform offers content producers and curators an easy way to mix videos with still images, text, links, music, polls and even RSS feeds. The results look like video slideshows, and can range from simple annotations to complex remixes. Take a look below for an example:

There are a few things that I find especially intriguing about Soo Meta: Each story doesn’t just consist of a video, but also a Storify-like story line. Users can either click play to watch the video, or scroll down and browse through the quotes, photos and other elements that make up the story.

The other interesting aspect about Soo Meta is how easy it is to gather media for your video stories. There is a bookmarklet that lets you grab images, videos and quotes from any website. Alternatively, users can manually add Urls to the content they want to use, or even upload their own images to the service. These different elements can then be organized on a timeline, mixed together and annotated.

Playing with Soo Meta is definitely fun, but I also found it challenging to actually decide on the stories I wanted to tell. Thinking out of the box ain’t easy. Still, I could see this become a great tool for online journalists who want to use video in novel ways, or even just annotate third-party videos and put them into context. Even a Storify-like approach of curation of third-party quotes could work great. For example, why not mix highlights of Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal with quotes from journalists who covered the event?

I could also see annotated and visualized podcasts being a big use case, but the makers of Soo Meta have another idea in mind: The company is betting that a combination of online video and polls will bring in whole new audiences. Dragontape co-founder and CEO Tamás Szakál told me that the inspiration for this feature came from teachers using the service. “For them its a really cool way to give more engaging assignments to students,” Szakál said.

He added that it would also be great for bloggers to engage with their audience, and get measurable feedback through analytics. For this, Szakál argued, people will pay. Soo Meta’s freemium model offers advanced polling features and analytics for a monthly fee. Paying users will also get an option to edit stories collaboratively, and share them privately within groups or companies.

So what’s next for Soo Meta? Szakál said that his team of three wants to improve the mobile experience, and strike partnerships to integrate the platform with tools and sites for educators and others. A WordPress plugin is already available, and a full-blown mobile editor is already in the pipeline as well.

An integration into smart TVs is also a possibility. But for now, the company wants to concentrate on perfecting the tools for creators to get people to use it – and hopefully inspire new types of stories. “The goal is of course to make Soo Meta the platform for digital storytelling that makes it a lot easier and faster for teachers, bloggers and journalists to create more engaging experiences,” said Szakál.

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Who sells your products or services? This may seem like a silly question, the answer being of course, the sales & marketing team. But increasingly, the most important person selling what you’re offering is — your customer.

More specifically, your customer advocates. And, as buyers increasingly expect to learn about products and services from their peers who are using them, companies are getting more creative at putting their happy customers in front of those buyers. The forms that this kind of community marketing can take are varied, and might include straightforward references and referrals, customer blogging or video (an area of exceptional creativity), participating in communities, associations or consortiums, speaking at industry events…it’s a growing list.

One predictable result of this activity has been increasing demand from marketing and sales leaders to find more such advocates to showcase, in some cases creating a “beast that needs to be fed” similar to what you see in traditional media channels — like sports or the entertainment industry — that experience rapid growth in popularity.

So the question becomes: in order to keep the advocate pipeline filled, should you incent customers with rewards, discounts, even payments of some sort? My strong suggestion — based on actual experiences from companies who are not incenting customers to advocate — is to avoid this slippery slope. It’s not good for them, or for your business.

So then, how do you make this happen? How do you create the conditions that generate not only happy customers, but true customer advocates? Here are some key elements for creating an overarching value proposition that fosters customer advocates and preserves the integrity of their advocacy:

Deliver what you promise and promptly fix what goes wrong. The obvious starting point, which everyone knows, but many firms lose sight of this over time. Marketing that’s based on customer advocacy and influence must keep this basic truth front and center. These frontline actions are what underlie any genuine enthusiasm from a customer. You can’t create or enlist a customer advocate or build a customer-based sales force without the solid foundation of an ongoing, responsive delivery and service relationship.

Know your customers’ problems. “The most important thing you can bring to a dialogue with me is knowing my problems,” says Patty Morrison, CIO of Cardinal Health. “And it’s really not that hard.” She suggests that reference program managers invest in, or otherwise get access to, their firm’s market research about key-customer references. “If you want to develop a customer as a reference, know everything you can about them. And then know everything you can about your important prospects too.”

Put your customer references together with their peers. Your firm is in a great position to connect your customers to their peers — other executives and managers like themselves who deal with similar issues. And those connections are highly valued. But where do you find them? Among your other customers, of course. Find ways to bring them together — live events, in teleconferences, on the Internet — so that they can exchange ideas and learn from each other.

Market and sell your customers. Tout your customers’ achievements as much, if not more than, your own in that white paper or case study. Remember, that (and not a bunch of information about how wonderful your firm and its offerings are) is what prospects care about.

Provide your customer references with opportunities for growth. Often your most dynamic customer references are eager for personal and professional development. Provide these in the form of speaking opportunities, interviews with the media, and the like, where customers can demonstrate thought leadership.

Remember, you have leverage. If your firm is a smaller supplier or brand new, your customers want to help you. “Helping my smaller vendors grow and get established is in my interest,” notes Morrison. “So I’m willing to do what I can to help you grow your customer base. On the other hand, if you’re larger and better established, you can help me reward my team by letting them go to conferences and present papers. It’s great career development for them.”

Tie referencing to performance. For larger relationship accounts, some reference programs try inserting an agreement to provide references up front in the customer’s contract — a major and obvious turnoff. Yet many companies persist in doing this, or trying to. A better, value-based approach is to initiate a quarterly review process to, first, review performance metrics; next, identify how your solutions are benefiting the customer and document it; then (and only then), when you and the customer are feeling good about the relationship, turn to talking about your prospects faciging similar issues. Almost always, the customer will be ready to share contact lists and talk to prospects on your behalf.

Align your PR messaging with your customer’s. “If you want a customer to publicly reference for you,” notes Morrison, “you need to understand what message their PR is trying to get out to the world about their company. And then ask, how might our message tie into theirs?” When she was CIO at Motorola, for example, the firm wanted to talk about things like mobility, devices, and public safety. So, if you’re doing business with Motorola, how can you tie your messaging to theirs? “If my PR person comes into my office with you and you both say, ‘Here’s the message we think benefits our companies together,’ then I see a win-win.”

Offer other customer-engagement possibilities. This is particularly important for your higher-level key customers, who may very well want to provide input into product or solutions development, or even your strategic direction. Offer such customers positions on your advisory boards or executive forums. Or they may want to engage with your other customers or other peers in community efforts.

Succeed. Finally, remember that a customer who’s taken the risk of putting her eggs in your basket wants you to succeed for obvious reasons — if yours is a small company, you’re more likely to survive. If you’re a large firm, you’re more likely to invest research and product development dollars improving the solutions you’re providing. And that’s true even if your customer is a large or even marquee customer. Don’t be intimidated about asking for appropriate reference support.

Getting customers to advocate for you is a lot different from getting them to buy your products and services. It should come as no surprise that it requires a new value proposition. Once you embrace this, you’ll find that customers can help you grow your business in remarkable ways.

After reports emerged that Seattle Seahawks backup quarterback Josh Portis has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, news comes that he has now been waived.

The report comes from John Boyle at the Everett Herald:

The #Seahawks have waived QB Josh Portis, who earlier this month was arrested on suspicion of DUI.

— John Boyle (@johnpboyle) May 21, 2013

Reports claimed that Portis had been arrested on May 5th after being stopped for speeding. Portis reportedly smelled of alcohol, and later blood tests confirmed that his BAC was .092, just a bit higher than the legal limit of .08. He’s scheduled to appear in court on May 28th.

In a tweet, Portis’ agent JR Rickert insisted that his client had not been arrested, but that tweet has since been deleted. Police reports indicate that Portis’ passenger named-dropped the Seahawks during the stop:

“Portis asked me if I knew who he was and I stated yes,” wrote the arresting officer in the report. “(The passenger) exited the vehicle and began to cry. (The passenger) stated I was arresting a Seahawk, and I was going to ruin him. … (The passenger) shouted at me and stated she couldn’t believe that I was from Seattle, and was arresting a Seahawk.”

Portis was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2011. In August of that year Portis played in a preseason game against the Chargers. He’s never actually played in a regular season game. Last year, Portis was cut by the Seahawks and later resigned. Before his recent waiver, Portis sat behind Russell Wilson and Brady Quinn on the depth chart.