Mediaboss Marketing

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

GTCR, a leading Chicago-based private equity firm, announced today it will invest in Zayo Group, LLC ("Zayo") to finance its pending acquisition of AboveNet, Inc. (NYSE: ABVT; "AboveNet") for $84.00 per share of AboveNet common stock and a total transaction value of $2.2 billion. As part of the transaction, GTCR will partner with Chief Executive Officer Dan Caruso and other senior executives from Zayo. Mr. Caruso and his team founded Zayo in 2006 and have built a leading bandwidth infrastructure provider with an excellent value creation track record.

AboveNet is a leading pure-play provider of fiber infrastructure services to enterprise and carrier customers in the United States and Europe. The AboveNet and Zayo business models are closely aligned with a disciplined focus on high bandwidth fiber-based communications services. The combination will create value for customers, employees and investors with a fiber network spanning 60,000 route miles.

GTCR Principal, Philip Canfield said, "We have followed the progress of Dan and his leadership team at Zayo for some time and, together, we have been looking for opportunities to do acquisitions in the bandwidth infrastructure domain. Dan and his team have a long history of success and value creation and exemplify the traits and characteristics associated with the GTCR Leaders Strategy. We look forward to working with Dan and all of Zayos existing shareholders to build upon their past success in the bandwidth infrastructure domain.

"GTCR's impressive track record of partnering with leaders to build companies through growth and acquisitions combined with their domain expertise in technology makes them a perfect partner for Zayo," commented Dan Caruso. "We are thrilled to have a new equity partner who shares our commitment to growing our business and providing vital bandwidth infrastructure to our customers."

Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal counsel to GTCR. GTCR's proposed equity investment to finance the transaction will be made from GTCR Fund X, a private equity fund raised in 2011 with $3.25 billion of committed capital.

About GTCR

Founded in 1980, GTCR is a leading private equity firm focused on investing in growth companies in the Financial Services & Technology, Healthcare and Information Services & Technology industries. The Chicago-based firm pioneered the Leaders Strategy finding and partnering with management leaders as the critical first step in identifying, acquiring and building market-leading companies through acquisitions and organic growth. Since its inception, GTCR has invested more than $9 billion in over 200 companies. For more information, please visit http://www.gtcr.com.

About Zayo Group

Zayo Group is a national provider of fiber-based bandwidth infrastructure and network-neutral colocation and interconnection services. Zayo serves wireline and wireless carriers, data centers, internet content and services companies, high bandwidth enterprises as well as federal, state and local government agencies. Zayo provides these services over regional, metro, national and fiber-to-the-tower networks. Zayos network assets include over 45,000 route miles, covering 42 states plus Washington D.C. Additionally, Zayo has approximately 5,200 buildings and 2,300 cell towers on-net, and over 94,000 square feet of billable colocation space. For more information, please visit http://www.zayo.com.

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GTCR Announces Investment in Zayo Group to Finance Zayo’s Pending Acquisition of AboveNet

Domain Associates latest investment is as much a bet on Russia as it is on the potential of new medicines.

The Princeton-based venture capital firm is teaming up with the Russian government-backed investment group Rusnano in an ambitious deal to bring new medicines and medical devices to Russias emerging healthcare market.

Its very daunting and its very exciting, said Brian Dovey, a partner at Domain. The Russian government is very committed to establishing a regional pharmaceutical industry.

The agreement calls for Rusnano and Domain to co-invest in as many as 20 U.S. life science companies with products in advanced stages of development. The joint investment will provide up to $660 million over a three-year period to the companies all of which will be selected from Domains existing portfolio.

And theres more to the deal a specialty pharmaceutical company will be created in Russia and through a combination of technology transfer agreements and licensing arrangements, the new company will have rights to manufacture and sell products resulting from the joint venture. In that way, Russia will gain a local pharmaceutical company with a variety of products in a few years far quicker than if the business was started from scratch. Forming the new company will be funded with an additional $190 million, according to the agreement.

Domain, which has $2.4 billion of capital under management, is known throughout the country for its investments in the life science industry. Nearly 25 years ago, it provided early financing to Amgen and helped the company grow into a biotech giant. Its portfolio also includes such names as Align Technology, which makes clear braces and Cardiac Science, a defibrillator maker.

The collaboration with Rusnano represents its first venture in Russia.

Its not such an unusual bet though. With the market for initial public offerings withered by the wobbly world economy and many early-stage companies considered too risky, venture capitalists are putting their money on the promise of emerging markets.

In addition to Russia, venture capitalist firms are pouring money into China and India. For Russia, the partnership provides a leveraging of Domains life sciences expertise and for Domain, the partnership is strengthened by Rusnanos knowledge of Russia and neigboring markets in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Pavel Rodyukov, Rusnanos senior investment manager, said the group will invest in products that are in the later stages of development, enabling them to go to market within about four years. This will be one of the first big players in a regional pharmaceutical industry, Rodyukov said. It is also the countrys first brush with innovation in the pharmaceutical area.

See the article here:
Princeton venture capital firm and Russians collaborate on life sciences

When a sniper ends the life of soldier Paul Bumer in Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front," a laconic situation report from the frontlines recounts an unusually quiet day. In the grand scheme of things, nothing worth reporting has happened. Reading David Kravets' recent article in Wired brought this upsetting ending to mind. U.S. authorities taking down individual domains based on copyright infringement charges is the online equivalent of Remarque's allied snipers: picking off the occasional domain for better or worse has little effect on the overall situation.

The domain community, however, feels differently. Searching for "domain seizure" on Twitter brings up thousands of hits. A domain name website created some buzz by issuing a press release yesterday which "downgraded" its "rating" for the .COM and the .NET TLD from AAA to AA, due to these seizures posing "a threat to any .com domain and the Internet DNS in general."

Crunching real market data, I think these opinions are hyperbolic, and these fears are irrational. Domain registrations are stronger than ever (according to Verisign's Domain Name Industry Brief), and people are not reluctant to register new .COM and .NET domains. Data from the secondary domain market do not show any justification for this claim either.

Figures from Sedo.com, the largest domain marketplace worldwide, show neither a reduction in sales volume (which usually precedes a decline in market prices) nor in sales prices. On the contrary, February showed a very strong upward trend in the total number of transactions, as well as domain prices reaching close to an all-time high (IDNX.com).

If hard numbers still don't convince you, we should take a quick "Tour d 'Europe:"

There is no doubt that the advances of US authorities are problematic. In the U.S., they will certainly be perceived as attempts to censor the Internet. However, concluding that .COM and .NET domains are therefore "precarious" investments is borderline hysterical. Admittedly, if you want to run a file-sharing website with a lenient approach to traditional copyright issues, a domain that is in reach of U.S. authorities is probably not the best choice. Neither is a .CO.UK, a .DE, an .FR or an .ES. But we knew that already, didn't we? The perceived threat of the Feds stealing your domain is no viable threat at all.

All data shows that domain investors have not walked away from U.S.-governed registries as a result of the recent seizures. Uncle Sam will, most likely, continue to leave the world's domain investors alone. All but a handful of domains will manage to evade the cross-hairs, and .COM and .NET values will continue to survive and flourish.

Disclaimer: The seizing of domain names as a way to enforce copyright claims is more than dubious, and I like many working in the world of domain names am not supporting any ideas of government entities deciding which sites remain online and which ones don't. The reaction among the Internet community to the recent SOPA bill should be proof enough that this is the prevailing opinion online. However, claiming that this has an effect on the investment performance of .COM and .NET domains is far-fetched, if not absurd.

By Thies Lindenthal, Product Manager for Domain Pricing, Sedo.com

Related topics: Domain Names, Internet Governance, Law, Top-Level Domains

Original post:
All Quiet on the Virtual Front: Why Domain Investors' Fear of the Feds is Irrational

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

BOKU, the global leader in online mobile payments, announced today that it has secured $35 Million in funding. Investors include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Telefnica Digital, the growth arm of the global telecoms leader, as well as previous investors. Additional participants in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. The funding will be used to expand the team, broaden infrastructure and continue BOKUs global expansion that started in 2009.

Payments is an industry that requires scale, and in the three years since BOKU launched weve grown rapidly to partner with more than 250 mobile network operators, processing transactions in 67 countries around the world, said Mark Britto, CEO of BOKU, Inc. We see this investment as a clear vote of confidence from our new partners at NEA and Telefnica. They recognize that weve established a mobile billing system that offers bank grade technology on a global scale; this strategic investment will help us expand our business as well as facilitate the growth of our new BOKU Accounts platform.

Payments are going mobile and we want to be at the forefront of this trend, said Matthew Key, Chairman & CEO, Telefnica Digital. BOKU has quickly established itself as a true innovator in the mobile commerce space and this investment gives us access to their tools, infrastructure and know how, ideally complementing our own mobile payments expertise. In addition to the investment we are also embarking on a global partnership with BOKU to enhance our operator billing capabilities and the overall payment experience through our future mobile wallet services.

Financial Services is a key focus area for Telefnicas Digital unit that has been formed to drive growth and innovation across a range of digital services. Telefnica is committed to bringing mobile wallet and other innovative payments services to its customers across its operating businesses and through Wanda, its joint venture in Latin America with MasterCard. Tracy Isacke who runs the Venture Capital arm of Telefnica Digital and is based in Silicon Valley led the investment in BOKU.

BOKU has built a phenomenal business around online mobile payments, said Ravi Viswanathan, PhD, General Partner at NEA. The next step is bringing mobile payments offline, and thats what BOKU Accounts accomplishes. It works on all mobile operating systems across all hardware types, and applies for all subscribers. We look forward to partnering with BOKU as they take their offering to a whole new level.

BOKU has raised a total of $75 Million in a series of funding rounds starting in 2008 when the company was formed. The company operates in 67 countries around the globe and partners with 250 mobile network operators.

About BOKU:

BOKU, the leading online mobile payments company, brings bank-grade payments technology and mobile users together, creating a trusted, accessible platform for consumers, merchantsand carriers alike. Based in San Francisco with offices in Europe and Asia, BOKU reaches nearly 4 billion consumers worldwide, across 66 different countries. Leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists fund BOKU including Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures.For more information visit: http://www.boku.com

About Telefnica Digital

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BOKU Secures $35 Million Strategic Investment From NEA, Telefónica and Other Investors

If US Airways ever does orchestrate a merger with American Airlines, the company will already have several merger-related domain names ready to go.

The Associated Press writes "US Airways confirmed Tuesday that the company registered several domain addresses that include the names of both airlines, including usairways-american.com and american-usairways.com." Others, according to The Wall Street Journal, include USandAA.com and OneworldOneairline.com.

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC: US Airways in good spot, CEO says

US Airways spokesman Andrew Christie tells AP the airline bought the domain names to prevent anyone else from buying them and using them "in a way that might negatively impact our brand."

Still, the Journal notes US Airways already acknowledged in January that it hired an investment firm and a law firm to help gauge a possible bid for American parent AMR.

In a statement to the Journal, US Airways says while it "is not imperative that US Airways participate in further consolidation we are interested in studying potential value-enhancing opportunities, including a possible US Airways-AMR transaction."

However, if US Airways does attempt to merge with AA or any other airline, President Scott Kirby says the company won't repeat the mistakes it made in its failed hostile bid for Delta in 2006.

While not specifically addressing American as a potential partner, Kirby says that any future consolidation attempt would have to have at least some support on both sides.

"We can't do it alone," Kirby is quoted as saying by Bloomberg News. "It's important, in an ideal world, to have the constituents of the bankruptcy, principally labor, on your side. An outright hostile transaction won't work."

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US Airways grabs merger-related Internet names