Brightsource Energy raises an additional $150 million of equity financing

May 21, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

BrightSource Energy, developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, has raised an additional $150 million in its most recent equity financing. The Series D round brings BrightSource’s total equity financing to more than $300 million.

New investors including Alstom and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) joined existing investors in this round, led by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. As part of the financing, global power-generation leader Alstom has committed to invest up to $55 million.

The additional financing will be used to support BrightSource’s 2,610 megawatts in contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison to build 14 solar power plants in the US southwest by 2016. The funds will also be used by BrightSource to further its international expansion plans.

BrightSource Energy’s proprietary LPT 550 energy system is based on proven power tower technology. The system uses thousands of small mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a boiler atop a tower to produce high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine, which generates electricity. In order to conserve precious desert water, the steam is air-cooled and piped back into the system in a closed-loop, environmentally friendly process.

In February 2010, BrightSource received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy for $1.37 billion in loan guarantees to support the financing of BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project – the first of its US-based power projects. Once constructed, Ivanpah will be the world’s largest solar energy project, nearly doubling the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US today. The project will also create more than 1,000 local jobs at the peak of construction and generate $250 million in construction wages. The power plant will be constructed by Bechtel, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the Ivanpah project. BrightSource expects to commence construction later this year.

Location: USA, Oakland, CA

Ref: F231109-456

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Cyberplex acquires online media publisher Tsavo Media for $75 million

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Online advertising firm Cyberplex has acquired online media publisher, Tsavo Media, in a transaction valued at approximately $75 million.

Tsavo Media’s portfolio includes over 300 unique consumer websites, informational properties and social media blogs which generate over 30 million unique visitors per month. In 2009 Tsavo Media generated revenue of approximately $110 million and EBITDA of approximately $16.7 million, excluding management fees paid to its owners.

Ted Hastings, President and CEO of Tsavo Media, will take on the role of President in the combined organization and all other senior executives of Tsavo Media will remain with the organization.

“This is the largest and most impactful acquisition in the history of Cyberplex. We believe that it represents the next phase of growth in building a dominant Internet media company that will create significant value for our clients, shareholders and employees,” said Vernon Lobo, Chairman and co-founder of Cyberplex.

The total purchase price payable is $75,000,000, subject to post-closing adjustments. That is $37,800,000 in cash, US$2,200,000 in exchangeable shares and US$35,000,000 by way of vendor take-back notes. There is also an inducement for three of Tsavo’s existing key management personnel to enter into contracts of full time employment with Cyberplex. Full details are given in the release.

Location: Canada, Waterloo, Ontario

Ref: F231109-453

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Digital publishing business LibreDigital raises $8.1 million

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Digital publishing business LibreDigital has closed an $8.1 million Series C funding round led by new investor S3 Ventures with participation from existing investors Adams Capital Management and Triangle Peak Partners. The company’s other key investors include HarperCollins Publishers, The New York Times Company and Noro-Moseley Partners.

“This year, sales of e-books are expected to double to more than $700 million in the U.S. alone,” said Russell P. Reeder, President and CEO of LibreDigital, Inc. “This funding will be used to accelerate the delivery of e-books, and expand our technology offerings to include new solutions that help publishers better promote and sell books to digital consumers.”

LibreDigital enables publishers, distributors and device manufacturers to securely market and deliver content across an expanding number of digital channels, including e-readers, tablets, smart phones, social networks and online stores. The company offers solutions designed to deliver digital books, newspapers and magazines in the highest quality format possible.

Location: USA, Austin, TX

Ref: F231109-452

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TweetDeck raises $3 million

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

TweetDeck, an Adobe AIR desktop Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace application, has raised $3 million in Series B funding, led by their largest backers Betaworks.

Previous backers Accelerator Group, Roger Ehrenberg and Howard Lindzon, as well as new investors Ron Conway and Danny Rimer also participated. TweetDeck has now raised $5.3 million.

Read more at TechCrunch

Location: UK, London

Ref: F231109-451

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Playdom acquires Acclaim Games

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Another acquisition by Playdom.

Social gaming company Playdom has acquired Acclaim Games, a developer of social networking and downloadable casual games. Acclaim was privately held and is based in Los Angeles, California. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. 

Acclaim has built a name for itself in the casual and MMORPG gaming space by developing and publishing free-to-play titles available on the Acclaim website. With more than 15 million registered online users already playing Acclaim’s games, the company launched RockFree, a Facebook guitar game, in March 2010, which now has tens of thousands of daily active users. Acclaim is currently working its latest Facebook game due to launch this summer.

Howard Marks, CEO of Acclaim, (a former Activision 2.0 co-founder and Chairman of the Activision Studios), will run the Acclaim studio for Playdom and serve in a senior strategic role for the parent company focused on Playdom’s business development activities. Acclaim’s Chief Technology Officer, Neil Malhotra, a longtime Marks colleague, will now act as the studio’s senior technical officer.

“Bringing Howard and Neil into Playdom strengthens our leadership and bolsters our position as an innovative games developer for the future,” said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom. “Howard and Neil have worked together building and operating games for many years, and their pipeline of new games is strong.  We are also excited about opening our first Los Angeles based social game development studio which gives us access to all of the game development talent in Southern California.  We look forward to big things from this team.”

Location: USA, Mountain View, CA & Los Angeles, CA

Ref: F231109-450

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Pearson to buy Melario for £99.3 million

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Pearson (PSON.L on London Stock Exchange) has agreed to buy Melorio (AIM: MLO) for 99.3 million pounds ($142 million) in cash. That is 225 pence per share and a 31% premium over the trading price on 17th May. Pearson says it has undertakings to accept the offer from 49.9% of the shareholders.

Melario is a support services group providing training and assessment services to the information technology, construction, logistics and healthcare sectors.

Yesterday Melorio announced that Revenue is up 86% to £58.4m (2009: £31.4m) and is up 65% to £16.5m (2009: £10.0m)

Link: Melorio PLC – Prelimnary Results – May 19, 2010

Pearson said on Wednesday the acquisition was a response to growing global demand for vocational training, with developed economies looking to maintain their competitive position and developing countries seeking to boost skills.

Melario said “Pearson is an international education and information company with world-leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing.  Pearson believes that the acquisition of Melorio will support its vocational education strategy by combining Melorio’s training delivery skills with Pearson’s complementary strengths in educational publishing, technology and assessments.   The Melorio board believes that shareholders should have the opportunity to consider the offer and have therefore agreed unanimously to recommend the offer.”

Melorio are being advised by Cenkos. Pearson is being advised by Lazard.

Pearson shares have fallen -19.50p (-2.03%) as at 1730pm today.
 
Link: Schroders PLC Melorio PLC – Form 8.3

Location: UK, London

Ref: F231109-449

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Yell buys Trusted places

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Yell has acquired Trusted Places Limited, the company behind the popular UK local reviews website trustedplaces.com.

The purchase means that Yell will, for the first time, enable consumers to recommend a local business through its Yell.com website.

The combination of Yell’s database of over two million businesses with TrustedPlaces’ proven expertise in generating recommendations from local consumers represents a major shake-up of the fast-growing local reviews market.

It will drive strong benefit to Yell’s 399,000 mainly small business advertisers, through generating additional leads and providing a richer online interaction with existing and potential new consumers.

Mark Canon, president of new media at Yell in the UK, said: “This represents a significant growth opportunity. We all know that recommendations help local businesses to attract new consumers, so Yell.com and TrustedPlaces are a perfect fit.”

Initially, TrustedPlaces reviews will be added to Yell’s business listings, leading to full integration under the Yell.com domain.

The company also expects that the techniques and technologies that have made TrustedPlaces successful in the UK will be shared with other Yell Group operating companies in the US, Spain and Latin America.

Under the deal, Sokratis Papafloratos, chief executive and co-founder of TrustedPlaces, is joining Yell as head of social products in the UK.

He said: “The internet gives customers more influence in the reputation of a local business than ever before.

“This exciting partnership gives businesses the opportunity to harness the power of recommendations like never before.”

TrustedPlaces was launched in late 2006. The private equity backed startup now attracts around 700,000 unique users a month looking for recommendations on local businesses across a range of key categories. These cover, for example, Restaurants, Bars and Pubs, Hotels and Travel, Beauty and Spas, Shopping and Home Maintenance and Repairs, which includes services such as plumbers.

Location: UK, London

Ref: F231109-448

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Deloitte acquires carbon and sustainability consultancy dcarbon8

May 20, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has acquired dcarbon8, a carbon and sustainability consultancy, to help the firm evolve its environmental and sustainability consulting practice.

Guy Battle, a founder of dcarbon8, is joining Deloitte as a partner.

dcarbon8, a ‘grand prix’ award winner at the 2008 Green Business Awards, is at the forefront of carbon management services especially focussing on embodied carbon within products and complex supply chains. This includes the capacity to deliver Carbon Trust and Planet Positive certification of products, businesses and buildings. dcarbon8 also increasingly specialises in developing corporate sustainability and communications strategies to meet the challenges laid out by the UK Government for the low carbon economy.

John Connolly, CEO and senior partner at Deloitte, commented: “dcarbon8 is a leading innovator in carbon and sustainability consulting and already advises a number of blue chip clients. We are delighted to welcome its team to Deloitte, where their expertise in carbon footprint, water and sustainability advisory services will complement and enhance our existing credentials as we seek to establish leadership in this field.

“This deal will bring together pioneering and highly skilled people from both organisations enabling us to offer an increased range and depth of carbon and sustainability advice to a broader number of clients.”

Guy Battle, founder and director of dcarbon8, commented: “The challenges facing business as the world moves towards a low carbon economy are enormous. We see the move to Deloitte as a fantastic opportunity to combine our respective skills adding the necessary depth and resource to allow us to meet the growing demands of our customers in this field.

Location: UK, London

Ref: F231109-447

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Zuckerman to bid for Newsweek

May 19, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

According to Keith Kelly at the NY Post, Mort Zuckerman may be making a bid for Newsweek. If correct, he will be competing with Politico, Thomson Reuters, Steve Rattner, and Haim Saban all who have also been reported as preparing bids to buy Newsweek from the Washington Post Company. Bids are due to Allen & Company, which will oversee the auction, by June 4.

Zuckerman has been the publisher/owner of the New York Daily News since 1993 and has been  Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News & World Report since 2007. He converted US News to a monthly from a weekly, and made large scale staff cuts. Keith Kelly reports that sources said Zuckerman believes he could extract major savings from Newsweek if he combined it with the mag (US News) he already owns.

After a loss of $28 million last year, News week has lost $2.3 million in the first quarter, with revenue falling 36 percent to $29.4 million.

Ref: F231109-446

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Yahoo! to acquire Associated Content

May 19, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Yahoo! is to acquire Associated Content. The acquisition is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2010. Financial terms were not disclosed. Paid Content have reported that they hear the price is between $90 million and $100 million.

Associated Content was founded by Luke Beatty in Denver, Colorado, in 2004. Associated Content receives more than 16 million unique users per month (comScore) and the editorial staff reviews more than 50,000 pieces of content per month, including articles, images, audio and video. Associated Content has 380,000 contributors.

“Together, we’ll create more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network.” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo!

Associated Content content is currently U.S.-centric, Yahoo! expects to scale the platform globally.

Location: USA, Sunnyvale, CA

Ref: F231109-445

Links: Read the press release here and Associated Content FAQs here and Luke Beatty’s blog post here!

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