SigEx Ventures : Investors are becoming increasingly interested in green technologyby Corina Ciubotaru

As climate change becomes a reality we are all responsible for, and governments start raising awareness, venture capital investors seem to be increasingly attracted to clean tech. In 2006, $2.9 billion were invested in this field in the US, compared to $1.6 billion in 2005, and a big part of this money went into energy-related ventures. This figure increased by nearly 60% in the first quarter of 2007 making the clean tech venture market the third most significant after biotechnology and software. GE was a big investor in clean tech in recent times; in the beginning of the year, they invested in a company that researches batteries for hybrid vehicles, and the American giant probably won’t stop here, aiming to invest $4 billion in renewable energy by 2010. Other companies have also announced they want to join the race: Citigroup is willing to invest $50 billion in the next ten years in companies that address climate change issues, while Bank of America intends to invest $20 billion in the same area. In Europe, the level of investment is significantly lower and it’s decreased in 2006 compared to the previous year. What should concern European leaders even more is that not only are they significantly behind the US when it comes to investments, but that the Americans have invested more in European ventures than the actual people benefiting from them. Part of this problem is due to insufficient state involvement in the issue, but some potential investors consider that there aren’t enough opportunities for them in Europe.

related story: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070606-clean-tech-investments-pull-in-10-percent-of-us-venture-capital.html

by Corina Ciubotaru for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

SigEx Ventures : Private equity companies going publicby Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

As a result of the tech-bubble bear market, most asset classes outside of U.S. large cap stocks, U.S. government securities, and municipal debt have been deemed "non-traditional" or "alternative" in some way.One of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend was private equity and the investors have flooded firms such as Blackstone and KKR with cash.Opportunities in the marketplace are researched by private equity. They are different from the standard stock analysis,which tends to focus on relatively arbitrary quarterly earnings per share estimates, because they analyze companies to determine whether the lines of business are worth more together or apart and they try to find unexploited opportunities. Richard Gere's character in "Pretty woman movie" would be the personification of today's "private equity." There are many options in having and managing a company. Sometimes it`s the best thing to do to tear the company apart and sell it, but sometimes you may leave it whole and shake up the business model.Going public doesn't necessarily take away these company`a flexibility.Warren Buffet's company Berkshire Hathaway has as it`s core business insurances.Geico and General Re are some of the primary lines of business.This hasn`t stopped Berkshire Hathaway from investing in, or acquiring, a host of other companies, like companies from high-tech electronics to making candy. Investors buy shares of the holding company, not the private equity subsidiary, refering to taking the private out of private equity.These will be publicly traded companies who engage in private equity portfolio management as their primary line of business, in order to cash in on the recent boom and successes and to provide liquidity for the firm's shareholders.

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

SigEx Ventures : Private equity picking up steamby Delia Cruceru

Although market commentators said that New Zealand’s global buyout is going down, in here the private equity activity is blooming. This year the many deals regarding private equity firms like Yellow Pages and MediaWorks have been transacted. Corporate raider Carl Icahn said “the global boom has reached its peaked” and Blackstone Group, Kravis, Kohlberg, Roberts (KKR) and Carlyle Group capable of paying high prices are waiting for better offers and deals. Paul Chrystal, head of private equity from Goldman Sachs JBWere said that in New Zealand assets are becoming very expensive: “not all people paying high prices are overpaying, but if they are, there's always more risk that they will have a difficult time later. I don't think there's any serious investors in the private equity market who haven't felt the pressure of prices, are worried by it, and are probably more cautious." AMP Capital Investor’s boss says "base interest rates and risk spreads are rising. While we'd seen private equity interest, we hadn't seen transactions on the smaller part of the market. That's clearly changed with Tourism Holdings and MediaWorks.” Chief economist and head of investment strategy of AMP Capital Investors says the boom in the private equity takeover activity will get bigger and will have positive effects.

related story: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10451724

by Delia Cruceru for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models

Zuckerberg dilemmas – sell or build??

Remember http://friendster.com – the popular networking site that got a buy offer from Goggle in 2003? I don’t …I just read about it. OK, this was a test question related to what an investor should do after his business reaches a certain level. It is the dilemma Mark Zuckenberg, founder of http://facebook.com faces right now. Should he sell the social-networking site to Google or should he keep on building?

The build-or-sell dilemma facing Zuckerberg is becoming more common among the precocious entrepreneurs immersed in the latest Internet craze, a communal concept of content sharing that has been dubbed Web 2.0. Besides Facebook, other Web 2.0 firms frequently mentioned as prime takeover targets include online video site Metacafe.com and Photobucket.com, which has emerged as one of the Internet's busiest destinations by hosting personal videos and photos that are routinely linked to top social-networking sites such as Myspace.com and Facebook.

If you are interested in social networking you can also try http://myjumps.tv a site where you can place videoblogs, have videconferences or use the mail and SMS tools.

And if you are here why not go for something more educational? The Foundry School offers training courses for PR practitioners, translators and computer engineers. It is a training, research and development center working on behalf of SigEx Inc. The revolutionary platform it uses for communication is based on the SuperPBX concept. The Foundry and Sigex Inc., are the creation of CEO Chris Cantell and COO Frederic Artru - two professionals in their field of activity. For more information please visit our website http://thefoundryschoo.tv

Diana Zotescu, student at SigEx Foundry (( http://sigexfoundry.info )
"Public Relations & Advertisement" project of The Foundry School ( http://thefoundryschoo.tv)

Our Favorite SigEx Foundry blogs by Silvia Baldin

Here is a list of our top ten blog sites. They all relate to SigEx Ventures, the Foundry School and the founders Chris Cantell and Frederic Artru. We invite you to visit them as well for news on other Sigex Ventures companies and SigEx Foundry projects.

1. http://frederic-artru.blogspot.com
2. http://sigexventures-sigexfoundry.blogspot.com
3. http://sigexventureseurofund.blogspot.com
4. http://silviasigexfoundry.blogspot.com
5. http://diana-sigex.livejournal.com
6. http://sigexventures-avenirdesmedias.blogspot.com
7. http://sigexventures-futureofmedia.blogspot.com
8. http://sigexventures-beapartofit.blogspot.com
9. http://sigexventures-nanodata.blogspot.com
10. http://sigextogo.blogspot.com

Our Favorite SigEx Foundry blogs by Silvia Baldin

Here is a list of our top ten blog sites. They all relate to SigEx Ventures, the Foundry School and the founders Chris Cantell and Frederic Artru. We invite you to visit them as well for news on other Sigex Ventures companies and SigEx Foundry projects.

1. http://frederic-artru.blogspot.com
2. http://sigexventures-sigexfoundry.blogspot.com
3. http://sigexventureseurofund.blogspot.com
4. http://silviasigexfoundry.blogspot.com
5. http://diana-sigex.livejournal.com
6. http://sigexventures-avenirdesmedias.blogspot.com
7. http://sigexventures-futureofmedia.blogspot.com
8. http://sigexventures-beapartofit.blogspot.com
9. http://sigexventures-nanodata.blogspot.com
10. http://sigextogo.blogspot.com

by Silvia Baldin

Enhanced Communications by Silvia Baldin

The future of media is just around the corner, and it ain’t the Internet. It’s a completely new viewing diagram where you pay for the experience and control, and you see whatever you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want, anywhere in the world.


Picture This

It’s 9:20 Sunday morning. You are sitting on your couch and turn on your TV to see what’s happening. You want to watch soccer, but your team is playing in Brazil and last night’s game won’t be shown for hours. You could watch the new Monsters Inc. movie, but your cable company isn’t willing to pay the royalties until next year, even though your friends in Germany saw it last night. You know you can pick it up off the web, but you will have to wait hours for it to download. Besides, you would have to watch the movie on your computer, in your office (no couch), by yourself, without your kids. After nearly half a century, the broadcasters are still controlling what you can see, and when and where you see it.


Look What’s Coming

TV, cable, telephone and cell phone technologies already let you see, hear and call from anywhere to anyplace, anytime at all. People think these technologies are already “good enough" as separate islands – now if only they could be “bridged" together...

Connecting this diverse group of products and services will be no small task, but it is inevitable with the convergence of technology, an over-supply of bandwidth (which has driven traffic load utilization down from 10-15% to 2% for most networks) and the new “bridge" technologies now being developed. As the convergence of cell phones, digital TV, cable distribution and the Internet become increasingly common, coupled with a “super" PBX, they will morph into Enhanced Communications where family get-togethers, with unlimited numbers of participants, can be broadcast to every family members’ TV; where Internet video games and music merge into one stream of digital content enhanced with participants communicating from any part of the world; and where you really can order any movie in any language at any time on any communications device (Watch your favorite movie on your cell phone while riding the train home, perhaps?). The new “new" media will be delivered with the “bridged" distribution channels for multiple transport pipes and can be viewed on your TV, your PC, or your cell phone in one continually-widening, broadband open-pipe to your home, office, and throughout your enterprise.

What’s missing is a commercial platform – the “SuperPBX" – for controlling the transport pipes and software that will let you receive the applications and digital content, interacting with, and displayed on, any device. Your cell phone, even with 3G, won’t be powerful enough, your powerful terabyte router from Juniper or Cisco will not be able to receive the necessary data from the cable network to deliver the enhanced media products. The solution delivered by a new SuperPBX “bridge" platform creates a massive opportunity for innovation. A new industry, composed of next generation start-ups, media giants and major carrier suppliers, is emerging to deliver high traffic, Enhanced Communications products and services for that “bridged" platform. The platform itself could be advanced PBX, multi-channel wireless, video recorder, display cell phones or a global enhanced game. And what of the new “bridge" – the SuperPBX platform? Once the SuperPBX arrives, will we need our computers, TV’s and cell phones?