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TaskRabbit might have popularized the idea of hiring people looking to make money for menial tasks like dogwalking or grocery shopping, but in an effort to capture a more profitable market, the company is going to begin challenging temp agencies by providing businesses with short-term labor.

The company began targeting businesses as customers for its thousands of employees — or rabbits — across the nation during SXSW in March, when it launched TaskRabbit for business. That announcement allowed companies to hire employees on an hourly basis through the service and hire more than one rabbit at once.

But Thursday’s announcement takes this much further, particularly by handling the paperwork for businesses who want to hire temps, and by providing information like resumes to potential employers, who can pick which ones to hire. This is TaskRabbit’s new goal: to shake up the decades-old temp industry. However, the classic TaskRabbit service for consumers will remain unchanged.

The move makes sense, as charging a business a percentage of a month-long salary will likely be a more profitable and stable form of revenue than taking a percentage of fees paid for a few hours of dog-walking, for instance. Plus, TaskRabbit employees said they’d already discovered businesses were trying to use the service for hiring for temporary administrative positions, so making the option official was a no-brainer.

“The temp industry hasn’t had a lot innovation in a long time, said Victor Echevarria, who heads business development at TaskRabbit. “So we’re moving away from the notion of tasks and moving toward the value of jobs.”

The company has taken in a little less than $40 million in funding, and reported that revenue is five times greater than it was a year ago. TaskRabbit already has 15,000 companies signed up for TaskRabbit for business, and expects more to be joining after this new addition.

This new component will allow TaskRabbits to use a LinkedIn connect feature to pull in their resumes to the site, and they’ll be able to write a cover letter when applying for jobs. Potential employers can input information about the job they’re posting and select the corresponding paperwork (1099 contract employees versus those with W2 forms.) TaskRabbit will then show them the candidates for different positions, corresponding resume information, and then provide the required paperwork.

“The biggest challenge was compliance. Businesses who want to hire temps or even want to hire people full-time, there’s a lot of paperwork and headaches involved in having a compliant workforce,” he said. “A large percentage of the work we put into this was creating a legally complaint solution.”

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• Social 2013: The enterprise strikes back
• Opportunities and risks in the share economy
• The quantified self: hacking the body for better health

SAP HANA (High Performance Analytics Appliance) is the powerful in-memory database technology from German enterprise software powerhouse SAP. Built from the ground up as a platform to tackle real-time analytics for big data volumes, HANA lets organizations analyze business operations based on a large volume and variety of detailed data in real time. SAP has grown the popular big data platform for sports and entertainment, and its own cloud platform for giving businesses the deployment option to run their mission-critical SAP ERP, SAP CRM and SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA.

IBM DB2, HANA and SmartCloud

Global IT powerhouse IBM has announced new SmartCloud capabilities, including DB2 with BLU Acceleration that can result in as much as 25 times faster reporting and analytics, and SmartCloud availability for SAP’s HANA. BLU Acceleration technology from IBM adds innovative dynamic in-memory analytics to DB2 database software on IBM SmartCloud to help companies and governments tackle big data. IBM’s new SmartCloud offering includes a SAP HANA Appliance on IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications, hosted on SmartCloud Enterprise+. In addition, a virtual SAP HANA Appliance is now available on IBM SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE) for early stage development and test.

“Clients are looking to leverage big data and analytics at the speed of business,” said Jim Comfort, general manager of IBM SmartCloud Services. “Today’s news shows how IBM is delivering mission-critical cloud services to provide essential analytics innovations to business users at the point of impact.”

The integrated managed service combining SAP HANA and IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications helps business leaders acquire the information they need to make decisions quickly, drilling down into critical marketing, sales and supply chain insights. Both the physical and virtual SAP HANA Appliances on SmartCloud are offered on a “bring your own license” (BYOL) model; however, a license can be purchased through IBM when working with IBM Global Business Services.

HP and SAP Project Kraken

During the SAP SapphireNow event last week HP and SAP announced advancements to a joint initiative, codenamed “Project Kraken,” to improve business processes and mitigate risks for customers. At the event HP and SAP demonstrated a test system, built from years of HP server technology innovations and optimized with the in-memory SAP HANA database for  SAP Business Suite. The prototype system, optimized with 16 Intel Xeon processor E7 family (codenamed Ivy Bridge-EX) CPUs and 12 terabytes of memory, has been engineered specifically for complex, data-intensive workloads.

“The combination of our best technologies—SAP HANA with HP Converged Infrastructure—revolutionizes in-memory computing to redefine the speed at which market leaders will soon operate, to speed transactions to a matter of seconds,” said Bill Veghte, chief operating officer, HP. “With the collaboration of HP and SAP, organizations can consolidate online transaction and analytic processing into one place and perform real-time analytics at never-before-imagined speeds, while competitors continue to move data between multiple environments to access meaningful insights at a far slower pace.”

All his life, he hated brushing his teeth. Getting toothpaste onto a toothbrush can be messy if your fine motor skills are still developing. And, of course, even though you know you’re supposed to replace a toothbrush every three months, who really keeps track of that? So, Houston Diaz decided to invent a solution. And several prototypes later, he designed a toothbrush that has the toothpaste dispenser integrated into the brush itself, allowing himself and others to have a more convenient solution. And when the toothpaste runs out? It’s a natural reminder that it’s time to buy a new brush.

Even though he’s only five years old, that product will one day be on the shelves of your local Bed Bath and Beyond, or Target. And, no, as precocious as this kid is, he is not an entrepreneur, and doesn’t need to raise VC money or write a business plan.

This five-year old is able to be the inventor without also creating a company because of a product innovation company called Quirky. What Quirky does is make invention accessible to anybody — and quite possibly everybody. In the Industrial Era, becoming an “inventor” meant you also had to create an organization that could produce, market, and sell your invention. Thus, it’s been a hard gig to crack. You not only had to be able to come up with great winning ideas, you also had to deal with the complexities of financing, engineering, distribution, recruiting staff, and legal liability — to name just a few. The intensity of the organizational demands narrowed the chances that new solutions would ever actually come to market. And, of course, this slowed innovation and restrained market outcomes.

Quirky has created an innovation engine more suited for the Social Era — in which work and jobs are no longer the same thing, and collaboration happens outside of organizations as much as within it — in three ways:

1. It disaggregates the process of innovation from the innovator’s work itself.
2. It aligns interests and economics so that all parties have a shared interest.
3. It engages community to improve ideas and ultimately co-create the value.

To date, Quirky has allowed 590 inventors to bring their products to market. Anyone can submit an idea, or you can help another idea be improved, or you can collaborate in further design refinement. Over 407,000 community members (growing at a rate of about 1,000 members a day) help create the solution in a variety of ways (from voting on best ideas to iterating or actually prototyping the concept). Organizationally, this means that with 140 people on payroll, less than 1% of the people involved are “inside” the organization in the traditional sense. This is scale in the social era: scale happens not by having more people report to you, but by having people engaged with you. Interests are 100% aligned. Both the inventor and the larger community get compensated for their work.

By working with an extended community, Quirky can bring at least three new consumer products to market each week. And by “market” we mean 188 retail partners. Ben Kaufman, the founder and CEO, says there is no limit to what they can create. “Even cars?” I asked him, curious about how far his vision holds. “Yeah, sure,” he replied. Ben himself is 26 and has been on the Tonight Show to tell the Quirky story. Thus far, Quirky has brought nearly 500 products to market, since 2009 and the level of sophistication and quality continues to grow.

Back to Houston Diaz’s toothbrush. He started this project with help from his dad. When he was done, he uploaded video and watched as votes started to roll in for his “no mess toothbrush. He agitated for more support himself, even calling his dentist and asked his vote. “No one was exempt from his pitch,” says Houston’s mom, Nancy Lublin. (As CEO of Dosomething.org, she’s clearly raising someone who believes in action.) Then Quirky put it “under consideration” — a live debate takes place for vetting ideas, which entrepreneurs are encouraged to attend. Houston and his dad wore matching jackets and ties, and Houston made sure his mohawk was extra spiky. He listened as people debated his idea, and answered questions as they came up. And very shortly (in the next 3-4 weeks), they will put the product into production.

Now you may not want to be an inventor. And maybe your kid doesn’t want to either. But the Quirky business model embodies a set of ideas that every business ought to be considering, in light of the Social Era. Quirky builds on a fundamental truth of the social era: Ideas can come from anywhere, from anyone without first being vetted to see if that person is “allowed” to have that idea. And as we find our way into the Social Era, we’re going to grapple with what it means to be a leader like Ben Kauffman — more like a community organizer than a traditional head honcho. Show me a leader, goes the saying, and I’ll show you a bunch of followers. The challenges of our era don’t require more followers; they require the kind of leadership that encourages the community to build what’s needed so that anyone and quite possibly everyone can exercise initiative.

Today, a few smart people see this as “the future.” Even smarter ones see it as “the present.” Which one are you?

Cartels are still a major problem in Mexico. One particular group has even taken up torching one prominent farming state.

The AP reports that the Knights Templar cartel is terrorizing the Western Mexican state of Michoacan by burning pretty much everything in sight. The group has so far targeted lumber yards, packing plants and even passenger buses in their reign of terror.

Like most organized crime units, this particular cartel is offering to spare farmers if they pay protection money. Some are resisting while others are pleading with the government to help. One such farmer, Alejandro Ayala, sought help from the government and was promptly killed by the cartel for his actions.

The government responded shortly thereafter by sending troops to the region, but it seems to have not helped matters all that much. In response, local farmers have set up vigilante groups to fight the cartels on their own. This has not worked out so well for them as the Mexican government is now arresting members of these vigilante groups as well.

The current conflict has impacted the supply of limes and other produce in the region. Mexico has even resorted to importing limes from Brazil to make up for the shortfall in supply.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for the current conflict. Government forces, cartels and the vigilante forces will continue to fight until only one is left standing. Thus the cycle of violence will continue while innocents are continually caught in the crossfire.

Apple and the Department of Justice are set to spar in a closely watched price-fixing trial set for early June but, increasingly, attention in the case is turning to a third party — Amazon. In pre-trial filings, Apple is trying to expose redacted evidence that the company claims will “embarrass” Amazon and show that the retailer engaged in the same activities for which Apple is now on trial.

The claims are set out, in part, in a letter last week from Apple’s law firm that urges US District Judge Denise Cote to reveal information about its pricing as well as “internal discussions about the inferiority” of its Kindle e-reader compared to the iPad. Apple also says the redacted information will help expose the “fiction” that Amazon was “forced” to adopt a new pricing system as a result of a 2010 arrangement between Apple and five big publishers.

This arrangement — known as “agency pricing” — resulted in publishers requiring retailers to sell ebooks on a commission basis, in which publishers could set the price. This led the Department of Justice, state governments and class action lawyers to sue Apple and the publishers; the latter settled the cases and agreed to pay out millions but Apple is holding its ground.

Apple argues that the Department of Justice is wrong to portray Amazon as a victim, along with consumers, of a conspiracy to raise prices. Instead, the company claims that Amazon was contemplating agency pricing too and was pleasantly surprised when the publishers took it up on their own. Apple is also using colorful emails obtained from Amazon executives to make its point:

 ”I guess what we never figured in was the idea that five publishers would band together and insist on receiving worse terms,” the email said. “And then Amzn would be ‘cornered’ into accepting them.”

“Hysterical, isn’t it?” the Amazon executive replied. “Jedi Mind Tricks here in Seattle.”

The email exchange was reported by Reuters legal reporter, Alison Frankel, whose recent analysis portrayed Amazon as the “elephant in the (court)room.” Her report adds that Judge Cote stated that she doesn’t want the trial “distorted by a larger battle between two commercial giants.”

What do others think? Apple’s view is likely to find support in at least some quarters. The publishing community continues to fume about Amazon’s enormous clout in the book business. Meanwhile, some copyright lawyers have joked to me in the past that Amazon should send US Attorney General Eric Holder a holiday card for suing Apple and the publishers.

Amazon will get to offers it own views directly; its executives, along with publishing executives, will be among the witnesses testifying on behalf of the Department of Justice.

For now, Judge Cote has decided that the evidence Apple is seeking will remain redacted. But the issue will not doubt arise again if the trial, scheduled to begin on June 3, goes ahead as planned. There is a pre-trial conference planned for later this Thursday — we’ll let you know if any new twists emerge.

Here’s the letter from Apple’s law firm:

Amazon to Disclose (Request)

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Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Wednesday night to promote his new book, and the two provided the usual amicable but combative sparring we expect from any O’Reilly-Stewart meeting.

The two wound up talking Fox News, the DOJ’s crackdown on journalists, the IRS scandal, and more. Check out both parts of the extended interview below:

Neocore Games is one of those indie developers that are working on a title for a few years, release it, get praised for it and then get back to work for their next game. The Hungarian studio does not talk too much of its accomplishments, instead it lets players enjoy and spread the word on its products.

This is probably one of the … (read more)

AT&T has announced that they will be offering an “Aurora Red” version of the Samsung Galaxy S 4 starting on June 14. If you can’t wait until then to make your purchase, you’re in luck because pre-orders start tomorrow, May 24. The phone will cost $199.99 with a new two-year contract, the same price as the already available “White Frost” and “Black Mist” colors currently offered by the carrier. Anyone in love with this new color? Let us know below!

Source: AT&T Official Blog

Come comment on this article: AT&T to offer Samsung Galaxy S 4 in new “Aurora Red” color starting June 14, pre-orders start tomorrow

On Thursday, following user demand, Mailbox released an update for its iOS mail app that introduces support for iPads. The service, which delivers more than 100 million messages each day, was previously available as an iPhone-only affair.

Mailbox boasts a better organized and easier to manage inbox, allowing its users to take advantage of swipe gestures to archive or trash messages. Similar to alarm clocks, the app also offers the option to snooze emails in order to receive them at a later date in the inbox.

Mailbox is designed as an alternative to the default iOS Mail app, however it falls short in supporting multiple types of accounts and providers (like Exchange, Outlook.com, POP or Yahoo). Gmail is the only option currently available, but other “email platforms” will arrive “soon”.

In mid-March, Mailbox was acquired by Dropbox with the promise to make the service “even better and getting it into as many people’s hands as possible”. One of the first steps should be supporting Outlook.com and Yahoo, two of the largest email providers today.

Mailbox is available to download from Apple’s App Store.

Photo Credit: 2jenn/Shutterstock

Element Power Holdings, a renewable energy developer, said on Thursday that it has named Michael Reynolds chairman of its board of directors. Reynolds replaces interim Chairman Joe Slamm. Element Power Holdings, which has main offices in London, Madrid and Portland, Oregon, is a portfolio company of Hudson Clean Energy Partners.

PRESS RELEASE

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Element Power Holdings announced today that Michael Reynolds, energy-industry veteran, has been named non-Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Element Power Holdings. Reynolds replaces interim Chairman Joe Slamm, who as a Co-Founding Partner of Hudson Clean Energy Partners, Element’s principal investor, will remain on Element’s board and continue in his role as Partner at Hudson.
“Michael Reynolds is one of the most experienced senior executives in the wider energy and renewable energy industry, and I am delighted that he and Element Power have come together now as the company moves into this next phase of growth,” said Neil Auerbach, Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Hudson Clean Energy Partners. “Michael’s acceptance of the Chairmanship as his next endeavour is a firm testament to our collective vision, and we value his leadership and guidance as the company continues to grow.”
Having held senior executive and chairman roles at a number of leading energy companies over his forty-year career, including positions at Carron Energy, Finavera Renewables, Endesa S.A., Sithe Energies/Vivendi, National Power, and his most recent role as Global Advisor on Energy and Renewables for Barclays Capital, Reynolds is ideally placed to steer Element forward.
Of his new role, Michael Reynolds said, “I relish the prospect of working closely with Mike O’Neill and Ty Daul, the CEOs of Element’s European and Americas respective entities, along with an outstanding team of professionals that have built Element Power into a leading global IPP; and one to which I hope to further contribute.”
“Mike and Ty have achieved remarkable success in the clean energy space — and together with Mike Reynolds they will form a leadership team that’s unparalleled in the industry,” said John Cavalier, Co-Managing Partner of Hudson Clean Energy Partners. “We look forward to supporting them as they lead Element toward continued success.”
ABOUT ELEMENT POWER
Element Power is a global renewable energy developer that develops, acquires, builds, owns and operates a portfolio of wind and solar power generation facilities worldwide. Element is present in 16 countries with over 9,000MW of solar and wind projects. Element Power is owned by Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a global private equity firm dedicated solely to investing in renewable power, alternative fuels, energy efficiency and storage.
The company’s main offices are in London, Madrid, Portland (Oregon), with operating bases on the East Coast (US) as well as Ireland, Poland, Sweden and Finland.
ABOUT HUDSON CLEAN ENERGY PARTNERS
Hudson Clean Energy Partners is a leading private equity firm based in Teaneck, NJ that makes privately negotiated investments in the dynamic and high-growth clean energy industry.
Global in scope, Hudson is dedicated to investing exclusively in renewable power, alternative fuels and energy smart technologies in sectors that include wind and solar energy, biofuels, biomass, geothermal energy, energy efficiency and storage. Hudson typically invests in high-growth, asset-based, capital-intensive segments of the clean energy value chain with minimal technology development risk, primarily in control and shared-control positions.

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WibiData said on Thursday that it has raised $15 million in a Series B funding round. The lead investor was Canaan Partners. Existing investors NEA and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt also participated in the round. Also, Canaan Partners’ Ross Fubini has joined the WibiData board while NEA Partner Jon Sakoda will continue to serve on the board. Based in San Francisco, Calif., WibiData is a provider of data applications.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–WibiData, a pioneer developing and servicing Big Data Applications, announced today it has raised $15 million in a Series B funding round led by Canaan Partners with participation from existing investors like NEA and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. This investment demonstrates a shift in the Big Data ecosystem toward applications that deliver direct value to businesses. In connection with this investment, Canaan Partners’ Ross Fubini has joined the WibiData board. NEA Partner Jon Sakoda will continue to serve on the board.
With WibiData, organizations across industries can deliver personalized user experiences that evolve based on the data collected. Deploying WibiData’s Big Data Applications enables companies to create better, real-time application experiences without the vast engineering resources required at companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix.
“Big Data Applications are transformative, mission critical solutions that companies across industries must deploy in order to stay competitive,” said Christophe Bisciglia, Founder and CEO of WibiData. “Customers and investors agree that WibiData’s talented team can deliver on the promise of Big Data Applications. This capital will allow us to keep hiring exceptional talent, build disruptive technology and help organizations enhance the user experience.”
Canaan Partners’ Ross Fubini is poised to bring leadership and product expertise to WibiData with his experience as a successful entrepreneur and investor. “Christophe and the team have been at the vanguard of the Hadoop movement, providing unparalleled insight into the resources involved deploying Hadoop across Fortune 500 companies,” Fubini said. “WibiData’s Big Data Applications will be essential in delivering on the promise that Big Data offers enterprises.”
WibiData applications are based on the open source Kiji Project, which drastically reduces Big Data Application development and deployment cycles. Because business needs vary in the types of data integration, analysis and predictive modeling required, WibiData is building suites of application solutions for vertical industries. For example, a retail Big Data Application suite allows organizations to personalize content, improve search relevance, deliver targeted recommendations and integrate anomaly detection across web properties, mobile devices and in store.
Early adopters of Big Data Applications like Opower, a SaaS company and WibiData customer, are already realizing the benefits of acting on data in real time.
“WibiData’s technology allows us to create a rich user experience and personalized platform that better serves energy consumers,” said Drew Hylbert, VP Technology and Infrastructure at Opower. “WibiData has saved us considerable time and effort building and deploying applications that empower people to make smarter decisions about their energy use.”
About WibiData
Founded by Christophe Bisciglia, previous founder of Cloudera, and Aaron Kimball, creator of Apache Sqoop, WibiData helps enterprises use data to create better application experiences. Organizations, including Opower, Mobile Posse and Atlassian, can move beyond BI and ETL to power dynamic customer interactions with scalable, real-time, data-driven models. Built on top of Apache Hadoop and HBase, WibiData’s Big Data Application Server bridges the gap between models that data scientists create and the front-end applications customers use. To learn more, visit www.wibidata.com
About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With more than $13 billion in committed capital, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm’s long track record includes more than 175 portfolio company IPOs and more than 290 acquisitions. In the U.S., NEA has offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; Menlo Park, California; and New York City. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing), Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit www.nea.com.
About Canaan Partners
Canaan Partners invests in entrepreneurs and works alongside them to turn visionary ideas into valuable companies. Since 1987, the firm has catalyzed the growth of disruptive technology startups and healthcare companies revolutionizing the practice of medicine. With $3.4 billion under management and more than 94 acquisitions and 54 IPOs to date, Canaan has funded companies such as Acme Packet, Associated Content (acquired by Yahoo), CommerceOne, DoubleClick (acquired by Google), ID Analytics (acquired by LifeLock), SandForce (acquired by LSI), SuccessFactors (acquired by SAP) and Virsto Software (acquired by VMware). Current technology investments include Blurb, Kabam, Lending Club, Performance Marketing Brands, SOASTA, Tremor Video and Zoosk in the U.S. Canaan maintains a presence in the global innovation hubs of Silicon Valley, New York City, India and Israel. For more information visit www.canaan.com.

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It’s been a tough month for the Obama administration. With house Republicans still attempting to turn the Benghazi attacks into a full-fledged scandal, two real scandals have popped up in recent weeks. One involves the IRS targeting new tax-exempt groups aligned politically with the Tea Party movement for extra scrutiny. The other involves the Justice Department seizing months of phone records from Associated Press reporters as part of an investigation into internal leaks. Now, the massive tornado that hit Oklahoma this week has resulted in billions of dollars worth of damage, though the death toll from the storm is not as high as previously feared.

It’s enough to make someone want to get away for a while, and that’s exactly what First Lady Michelle Obama is rumored to be doing.

According to a report in the Boston Globe, the Obamas and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, are looking to vacation this summer in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Michelle Obama and the girls will reportedly stay on the island for an “extended period” with the President joining them on “occasional weekends” throughout the summer, and two weeks in August.

The Globe report states that, in the past, the first family has vacationed at a farm on the island that has now been bought for almost $22 million. The Obamas are now rumored to be looking at a house in a secluded part of the island called Farm Neck as their summer vacation destination.

Redstar Ventures said on Thursday that Gina Ashe is joining Redstar to lead its newest startup as CEO. In her new role, Ashe will direct the development of the yet to be revealed operating company. Prior to joining Redstar Ventures, Ashe was CEO and founder of Krush, a consumer platform for action and outdoor sports brands. Redstar Ventures is a “venture foundry” based in Boston.

PRESS RELEASE

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwired – May 23, 2013) – Redstar Ventures, the Boston-based venture foundry, today announced that prominent serial entrepreneur Gina Ashe is joining Redstar to lead its newest startup as CEO. Ashe joins veteran entrepreneurs Bill Wittenberg and Andrew Lau on Redstar’s leadership team, and will spearhead the development of the yet to be revealed operating company, which has been in testing and operation for the past year.
The startup offers a new retail and product distribution model for consumer goods, developed within Redstar’s underemployment theme — one of several markets identified by Redstar Ventures where opportunity exists to create new products and services. The social marketing platform helps brands gain loyal customer followings, and simultaneously equips entrepreneurial young people with resume-building skills to brand, market, and sell products that they are passionate about — making them stronger candidates when they enter the workforce.
“Because Redstar Ventures has been testing the business model for a year, we’ve done the major legwork refining the thesis — essentially ‘derisking’ to a degree for the CEO,” said Matt Beecher, co-founder and managing director, Redstar Ventures. “Instead of being mired in that process, Gina can hit the ground running and play to her strengths to rapidly scale the business.”
Prior to joining Redstar Ventures, Ashe was CEO and founder of Krush, a consumer platform for action and outdoor sports brands to preview their upcoming collections to targeted focus groups of young, social consumers. With Krush, she created a new retail model to provide brands with predictive data and initial pre-orders. Previously Ashe founded Sermo, a healthcare hub for doctors to share questions and insight, and held marketing and finance roles across a number of consumer and healthcare companies.
“So many startups are neither addressing problems worth solving, nor kicking the tires on their models to make it worth anyone’s time. Redstar offered me the chance to lead a startup with an existing track record of success and a critical mass of talent in the partners and the team — it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” says Ashe. “Redstar’s approach excites me because it channels the talents and energy of entrepreneurs into scalable, sustainable companies, and this is where I see venture capital headed.”
About Redstar Ventures:
Redstar Ventures is neither an incubator, nor a venture capital firm. We are a “venture foundry” that takes a top-down approach to building companies. Our model is based on identifying significant trends and growing markets, then developing potential products and services for those markets. From there, we find the right staff, partnerships, and sources of investment to launch the enterprise. We were founded in 2012 by ATG co-founders, Jeet Singh and Joe Chung, and Matt Beecher of SCS Financial, and are grounded in the belief that channeling an entrepreneur’s creativity and energy towards fields where fundability, growth, and exit potential are high increases their chances of success.

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Reputation Institute said on Thursday that it has accepted a minority equity investment from Catalyst Investors. No financial terms were disclosed. Also, Jonathan Ewert has been named Reputation Institute’s CEO. Reputation Institute, which has headquarters in both New York City and Copenhagen, Denmark, is a global corporate reputation measurement and management firm.

PRESS RELEASE

New York, NY and Copenhagen, DK – May 23, 2013 – Reputation Institute, the leading global corporate reputation measurement and management firm, with a presence in more than 30 countries, has accepted a minority equity investment from Catalyst Investors, a New York based growth equity firm. Reputation Institute is known for creating RepTrak™, the global standard for reputation measurement, and for conducting the annual Global RepTrak™ study, the largest empirical analysis of corporate reputations in the world. Jonathan Ewert, a 25 year veteran of the sector, has been named Reputation Institute’s CEO. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Partnering with Catalyst Investors will enable us to facilitate our transition from an entrepreneurial company to a global advisory firm building on our long-standing relationships with many of the world’s largest companies,” says Dr. Charles Fombrun, Chairman of Reputation Institute. “We are excited to have found partners who understand and share our vision for the long-term growth of the company.”

“Reputation Institute has created a unique, proprietary platform business with enormous growth potential,” says Tyler Newton, Partner with Catalyst Investors. “In today’s marketplace, corporate reputation has become both a source of competitive advantage and a top business priority for senior executives. Reputation Institute is the global leader helping companies manage their stakeholder relationships and drive performance improvements.”

Reputation Institute has experienced an average annual organic growth rate of 43 percent over the past ten years, and intends to accelerate its growth by bringing Jonathan Ewert into the newly-created role of Chief Executive Officer. Ewert brings 25 years of experience growing global service companies and will provide seasoned leadership to an executive team led by Nicolas Georges Trad and Kasper Ulf Nielsen, co-founders of the company’s advisory business.

Reputation Institute founders Charles Fombrun and Cees van Riel will remain as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the company, respectively.

About Reputation Institute
Reputation Institute is the world leader in corporate reputation advisory services. From strategic reputation management to stakeholder perception analysis, we enable leading companies to gain competitive advantage, minimize reputation risk, and achieve success in the Reputation Economy. Founded in 1997 by Dr. Charles Fombrun and Dr. Cees van Riel, Reputation Institute is the creator of the RepTrak™ reputation analysis model and publisher of the annual Global RepTrak™ 100 – the world’s largest corporate reputation study. Businesses and executives can discover the latest reputation management best practices through our Knowledge Center’s published research, learning programs and conferences. Today, Reputation Institute operates in more than 30 countries delivering insights and advice to a large segment of the top 2000 companies worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.reputationinstitute.com.

About Catalyst Investors
New York-based Catalyst Investors is a growth equity firm focused on technology-enabled services including cloud computing, wireless infrastructure and digital media. Catalyst was founded in 2000 and is investing its third fund. A proactive investor, the firm draws on its extensive industry expertise to work in true partnership with management to build long-term value. Past and present Catalyst portfolio companies include Aloha Partners – acquired by AT&T; Denali Spectrum – acquired by Leap Wireless; InSite Wireless Group; Latisys; MessageLabs – acquired by Symantec; MediaMath; MINDBODY; Nine Systems – acquired by Akamai Technologies ; WeddingWire; and Xplornet. For more information, visit http://www.catalystinvestors.com.

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A look at one of the power rooms inside the ViaWest Lone Mountain data center, a Tier IV in Las Vegas. ViaWest will build a similar Tier IV facility in Minneapolis. (Photo: ViaWest)

Minnesota has a chilly climate, but the data center industry is warming to its charms. Colocation provider ViaWest is going to build a Tier IV data center in Minneapolis, a market that has been heating up as of late. ViaWest evaluated several key markets before acquiring 28 acres of land, existing buildings and infrastructure in a Minneapolis suburb. The company expects to start construction of its 150,000 square foot facility in time to start accepting customers by the first quarter of 2014.

ViaWest said the expansion is a response to a strong appetite for its services. “Demand within our hybrid niche has continued to increase, and we have identified the Minneapolis region as a market in which our local approach to meeting customer needs with tailored solutions will be well-served,” said Nancy Phillips, President and CEO, ViaWest. “Following the ViaWest blueprint, we plan to plant our flag in Minnesota, become a part of the community by hiring local technology talent and elevate business growth throughout the region.”

ViaWest built out the first multi-tenant tier IV facility, in Las Vegas. Achieving Tier IV design certification in Minneapolis will look good to the region’s healthcare, financial and government sectors in particular.

Lots of Recent Activity in Minneapolis Market

There’s been a lot of activity in Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs as of late – it’s a key emerging market. Cologix is growing there, purchased the Minnesota Gateway located in the carrier hotel at 511 11th Avenue South. It gave the company 20,000 square feet in the most connected building in Minnesota. The 511 Building is a 270,000 square foot building adjacent to the Metrodome. DataBank acquired VeriSpace back in March, expanding beyond its primary Dallas footprint. Compass Datacenters received a 50% property tax abatement for a planned 89,000 square foot facility in Shakopee, Minn., and Digital Realty Trust acquired a fully leased facility in Eagan, Minn. in April as a sale-leaseback.

LOYAL3 said on Thursday that it has raised $18 million in Series C financing. The lead investor was DNS-L3, LLC, an entity controlled by the business interests of Michael Pucker and Gigi Pritzker Pucker. Also participating in the round were existing investors Chris Kelly, Facebook‘s former chief privacy officer and Barry Schneider, chairman and CEO of LOYAL3. Based in San Francisco, Calif., LOYAL3 offers fee-free investing on Facebook and the web.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwired – May 23, 2013) – LOYAL3®, the fee-free investing company, has raised $18 million in Series C financing. DNS-L3, LLC, an entity controlled by business interests of Michael Pucker and Gigi Pritzker Pucker, led the Series C round. Additional investors in the round include existing investors Chris Kelly, former Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook, and Barry Schneider, Chairman & CEO of LOYAL3.
“We are pleased that Michael and Gigi Pritzker Pucker have invested in our vision to democratize the capital markets, making stock ownership possible for millions of people. Given their deep and long-standing expertise with world-class brands, they are an ideal partner,” said Barry Schneider, Chairman and CEO of LOYAL3. “We provide an opportunity for people to buy stock in their favorite brands, including the fifty most popular companies on Facebook, as easily as buying products on the web.”
“We are excited to partner with the existing investors and management team of LOYAL3, a company that is transforming both the capital markets, as well as the marketing and promotional worlds,” Michael Pucker said. “LOYAL3′s ability to offer people fee-free investing and to ‘own what you love™,’ while providing companies with a powerful acquisition, engagement and loyalty currency, is a game-changer and something we want to be a part of,” he added.
ABOUT LOYAL3
LOYAL3 is democratizing the capital markets by offering fee-free investing on Facebook and the web. By making stock ownership easy and affordable, we are dedicated to opening up market access to tens of millions of people.
We enable people to buy stock in their favorite companies in 3 easy steps on Facebook or the web, as easily as buying a product online. People can invest as little as $10 and they pay no fees to buy or sell stock.
The platform currently enables people to invest in some of the most popular brands on Facebook, including Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Brands, Facebook, Google and Starbucks.
The company also offers an IPO product, called a Social IPO™, that opens up IPO access to everyday people on a first-come, first-serve basis, making IPO stock available at the same price, and at the same time, as institutions.
For more information: Andrea Firpo 415.981.0700. www.loyal3.com

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We wrote here yesterday on how Turkish hard currency bonds have been given the nod to join some Barclays global indices as a result of the country’s elevation to investment grade. Turkish dollar bonds will also move to the Investment grade sub-index of JPMorgan’s flagship EMBI Global on June 28.

Local lira debt meanwhile will enter JPM’s GBI-EM Global Diversified IG 15 percent Cap Index —  the top-tier of the bank’s GBI-EM index. But the big prize, an invitation into Citi’s mega World Government Bond Index, is still some way off. Requiring a still higher credit rating, WGBI membership is an honour that has been accorded to only four emerging markets so far.

Still, the Turkish Treasury is not complaining.  Even before last week’s upgrade to investment grade by Moody’s, it was borrowing from the lira bond market at record cheap levels of around 5 percent for two-year cash. Ten-year yields are down half a percentage point this year. One reason of course is the gush of liquidity from Western central banks. But most funds (at least those who were allowed to do so) had not waited for the Moody’s signal before buying Turkish bonds. So the bond market was already trading Turkey as investment grade.

RBS analysts reckon that by end-April, Turkey had raised 40 percent of this year’s 152 billion-lira borrowing plan, while the average bid-cover ratio at bond auctions this year has been 3.2, compared to 2.5 in 2012. They write:

We anticipate demand to strengthen further following the recent rating upgrade by Moody’s to the investment grade level, providing Turkey with a whole new investor base.

Whether the influx of foreigners is such a good thing can be debated — non-residents now own almost a quarter of the Istanbul bond market, from less than 10 percent in 2009, RBS notes. That leaves Turkey more reliant on foreign money of the speculative, yield-seeking variety. The positive is that lower yields make the treasury bond market less attractive to local banks, which hopefully pushes them into the business of lending to the private sector– the place they really should be.  Turkish banks now own 49 percent of the government bond market,  a sharp fall from 57 percent just a year back, RBS says:

We anticipate (Turkish t-bill) holdings to decline further, as banks allocate funds away from relatively low yielding government bonds and instead lend to the real economy at higher rates.

So investment grade may bring in hot money but if it drives yields down further, that will be good news for the economy — if more foreigners move to higher-yielding longer-tenor bonds, and second, if it weans Turkish banks off their T-bill habit.