Southeast VC

Richard Moore and NC Execs Meeting Next Month with VCs in Silicon Valley

Triangle executives, political and economic leaders are heading to California next month to meet with VCs on April 13 over lunch.

The goal will be similar to their Boston trip last year - to spread the word on investment opportunities in North Carolina. Here is a good article about the upcoming trip.

If you are interested in attending, email me.

With the Lenovo/IBM Deal Approved, Lenovo Looks for $350 million

The acquisiton of IBM's PC business by China's Lenovo Group has been interesting to watch - especially with IBM's PC business headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC. The deal makes Lenovo the third largest PC maker in the world.

The $1.75 billion deal finally won U.S government approval following a review by the Committee on Foreign investment. Lenovo is partially owned by the Chinese government and one of the initial fears was that the Chinese government could use IBM's RTP facility as a base for industrial espionage.

Now with the deal moving forward, reports say that Lenovo might be raising up to $350 million from three private equity firms including Texas Pacific Group, General Atlantic and Newbridge Capital.

IAC's Acquisition of Ask Jeeves

When I posted back on February 7 Ask Jeeves Acquiring Bloglines, More Acquisitions to Follow, I didn't see the latest Ask Jeeves deal in my crystal ball.

Check out WebProNews' column today on How Will IAC Purchase Change Ask. Good input from a lot of experts, but the question a lot of people are asking right now is how will this acquisition help improve Ask Jeeves. I think the better question is to think about how this acquisition will help IAC's other businesses. Click here for a full list. There is a lot of upside to this deal. Smart move.

Targacept IPO Pulled, Claiming Difficult Market Conditions in the Life Sciences Industry

Daniel Primack in his daily PE Week Wire pointed out this morning that NC-based Targacept yanked their planned IPO. He offers some good analysis for life science companies considering a similar exit.

Targacept has raised almost $125m.

Networking Opportunities - RTP

Looking to network with RTP technology executives and investors in a casual environment? It is still a little early, but make sure these Triangle TechJournal events are on your calendar if you are close by:

- BioNetworking, April 20

- DeckParty, May 19

Both Triangle TechJournal events will be held at the American Tobacco Historic District in downtown Durham, NC.  The DeckParty is known as the largest technology networking event in NC - usually attracting well over 1,000 technology executives and investors. It is free to attend with sponsors picking up the tab.

Visit Triangle TechJournal as it gets closer to those dates for more details. Hope to see you there.

Best Venture Capital Blogs

Thanks to Fast Company for the recognition. Most importantly, if you haven't seen it already, check out the other blogs they recommend.

Forbes "Ten to Watch in 2005" List

Two RTP-based companies were selected for Forbes "Ten to Watch in 2005" - TriVirix and PeopleClick.  Congratulations to both.

Thanks to Local Tech Wire for pointing this out today.

Apple's Battle with Bloggers

Will bloggers and other online publishers share the same constitutional rights that traditional journalists have to protect their sources?

A judge initially ruled this past week that Apple can force online publishers to release their source that shared confidential information about new products at Apple.

Apple argues that the free speech protections in the United States Constitution that protect journalists from revealing their sources do not apply to PowerPage, Apple Insider or to Think Secret. Instead, Apple says the laws only apply to "legitimate members of the press."

The battle stems from these sites reporting about an upcoming product that was code named Asteroid. Asteroid is the name for GarageBand, Apple's software for recording and mixing music. The rumor is that several Apple employees leaked the news in advance of it being announced by the company.

Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group is going to bat for PowerPage and Apple Insider. Think Secret issued a press release where they claim Apple is trying to bully the smaller journalists. That is pretty interesting reading.

Count on the lawyers representing the sites to appeal.

Firefox Continues to Chip Away at IE

Mozilla's Firefox continues to grab market share away from IE. Just a few weeks ago, Mozilla announced over 25 million downloads of Firefox. Here is a good article yesterday at MSNBC about the growth of Firefox and other browsers.

For more analysis of the growth of Firefox, check out this.