Online real estate company Zillow will join the wave of consumer Web companies filing for initial public offerings. The Seattle-based organization, which first made a name for itself by publishing price estimates for homes, just filed an S-1 outlining its plans for a $51.75 million IPO.

Zillow has been expected to go public for a while now, thanks in part to hints from the company’s executives. In September, VentureBeat’s Owen Thomas speculated about whether the appointment of Spencer Rascoff as chief executive suggested that the company was calling off the IPO (since Rascoff didn’t have experience running a public company), but Bloomberg reported in March that the company has chosen Citigroup to manage the offering — which turns out to have been true.

The offering is a bit smaller than some of the other noteworthy IPOs from the past few months, including LinkedIn ($175 million), Pandora ($100 million), and HomeAway ($230 million). In fact, it’s even smaller than the $87 million in venture capital that Zillow has already raised.

The S-1 filing says that Zillow’s revenue is on the rise, having reached $30.5 million 2010, but the company still lost $6.8 million that year. (It mostly makes money from advertising.) The filing also says Zillow averaged 12.7 million unique visitors each month during the last quarter of 2010, up 66 percent from the year before.

Zillow rival Trulia has also stated its intentions to go public.

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

A cool iPad app can go a long way these days. Flipboard announced today that it has raised $50 million in venture funding at a $200 million valuation, according to BoomTown.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Flipboard has created a beautiful app for viewing social media using a book’s page-turning metaphor. It shows that taking advantage of a touchscreen interface to create a simpler way of doing something that can already be done elsewhere is a valuable contribution, particularly if users adopt it.

“We’re obviously thrilled, because we think it confirms our focus that people want a beautifully designed way to interact with content and to share it,” said Flipboard chief executive Mike McCue told BoomTown.  “And there is a lot more to come–on a scale of one to 10, we’re just at a two or three.”

Much of the funding came from New York-based Insight Venture Partnres. Previously, Flipboard raised $10.5 million.

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Bit9 has raised $12.5 million in a new round of funding for its enterprise security business.

The Waltham, Mass.-based company offers protection for endpoints, or the smartphones, tablets, and computers that connect to an enterprise network. Since those endpoints are increasingly vulnerable to attack, Bit9 specializes in protecting them so that information technology managers can still allow employees to use them. Overall, the endpoint security market is expected to reach $10 billion by 2014 as corporations try to protect their assets from increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.

Atlas Venture led the round, with participation from existing investors Highland Capital Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and .406 Ventures. New investor Paul Capital also joined the funding. To date, Bit9 has raised more than $23 million.

Demand for Bit9’s technology has escalated in the past year across industry segments such as government, healthcare, defense and retail. That happened in part because of sophisticated attacks, such as Operation Aurora, which cracked Google’s security system, and Stuxnet, which destroyed some of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

Patrick Morley, chief executive of Bit9, said that the company’s technology allows IT teams to precisely control what software is allowed to run and what is not. The company saw 140 percent revenue growth in 2010 and 60 percent growth in new customer acquisition. The company will use the money for new product development, better sales and marketing, and expansion in Europe.

Market researcher IDC expects the market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.3 percent, reaching $10 billion in 2014, compared to $6.6 billion in 2009.

Bit9 was founded in 2002 and has more than 70 employees. Rivals include Symantec, McAfee and others.

[image credit: inbluetech]

Tags: cyber attack, security

Companies: Bit9

People: Patrick Morley

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

JPMorgan, BofA Earnings May Show Weaker Revenue (Bloomberg)
“While loan growth tends to be seasonally weak in the first quarter, this quarter is tracking worse than seasonality would suggest,” Barclays Capital Inc. analysts led by Jason Goldberg wrote in an April 8 report. “We fear companies have been disappointed.” Profits may have increased even with declining revenue as lenders set aside fewer funds to cover loan losses and in some cases released reserves they’ve already built up, said Matt Burnell, a banking analyst at Wells Fargo. Cost reductions may also help the bottom line in a smaller way, Burnell said.

Goldman Sachs Accused by Marvell Founders of Margin Call Fraud (BW)
Sehat Sutardja, Marvell’s chief executive officer, and Weili Dai, the company’s former chief operating officer, said they were duped into selling shares in 2008 that are now worth $141.5 million, according to a complaint filed yesterday in state court in San Francisco. Goldman Sachs pressured them by claiming a regulatory rule, which didn’t exist, required them to sell their stock, according to the complaint.

US Lawmakers Reach Agreement On $38 Billion In Cuts (Bloomberg)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, high-speed rail and law enforcement are among the programs that would get reduced funding as part of a budget deal to avert a government shutdown, according to legislation unveiled this morning that identified specific cuts.

BofA Kept Executives In Dark On Dividends (WSJ)
The March 23 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission was more explicit than an earlier news release. It showed that the Federal Reserve had “objected” to the proposed dividend increase following a “stress test” of all major U.S. financial institutions. Shares of Bank of America, the only bank to disclose the Fed’s outright objection, dropped almost 4% in three days after the filing. But Chief Financial Officer Chuck Noski and Chief Accounting Officer Neil Cotty didn’t see the filing before it went to the SEC, people familiar with the matter said. Head of investor relations, Kevin Stitt, found out late the night before, according to one of these people.

Gupta Says His SEC Suit Should Be Heard In Federal Court (Bloomberg)
…instead of dismissing the complaint as the agency has requested.

Sokol Knew Lubrizol’s Board Would Be Told of Berkshire Interest (Bloomberg)
Sokol knew Dec. 17 that Lubrizol Corp Chief Executive Officer James Hambrick planned to notify his board of directors about Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s possible interest in acquiring the company. Sokol, who had inquired about Lubrizol through Citigroup Inc. bankers, was informed of Hambrick’s intention by the same bankers, according to a Lubrizol regulatory filing yesterday.

Hedge Funds Attract $35 Billion In February, Heaviest Inflow On Record (Barron’s)
Hedge funds attracted net inflows of $34.9 billion in February, their heaviest monthly inflow total on record, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research. That helped to raise industry assets to $1.73 trillion, the highest level since October 2008.

Japan Nuclear Disaster Put on Par With Chernobyl (NYT)
The decision to raise the alert level to 7 from 5 on the scale, overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, is based on new estimates by Japanese authorities that suggest the total amount of radioactive materials released so far from Fukushima Daiichi since the beginning of the crisis had reached that threshold.

Fed Plays Down Inflation (WSJ)
At the Economic Club of New York on Monday, Janet Yellen, the Fed’s vice chairwoman, said U.S. monetary policy “continues to be appropriate.”

Super Jumbo Jet Clips Another Plane At JFK (WSJ)
The wing of an Airbus A380—the world’s largest passenger airliner—scraped against the tail of a much smaller regional jet at JFK Airport Monday night. The A380 was an Air France flight bound for Paris. It had left the terminal and was headed for the runway. Meanwhile, a Bombardier CRJ7 jet operated by Comair, which operates flights for Delta Air Lines, had just arrived from Boston and was taxiing toward its gate. As the two planes crossed on intersecting taxiways, the Airbus’s wing hit the rear of the smaller jet.

Facebook Claimant Says He Has Email Proof He Owns Half (Bloomberg)
Paul Ceglia alleges that Zuckerberg defrauded him, lying about the early success of “The Face Book” at Harvard University, where Zuckerberg was a student at the time. Ceglia claims he is entitled to half of Facebook…Ceglia claims in his complaint that he contributed “his time, ideas, knowhow, and other ‘sweat equity’” to the start of Facebook.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Marseille Networks, a startup that makes it easier to design chip prototypes, said today it has raised $4.5 million in a second round of funding.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is relatively rare as a chip company that successfully raised venture capital money. Chip startups are rare these days because it usually takes a lot of money to create a new chip and bring it to market. But Marseille is offering a way to bring down chip costs significantly.

Marseille is making its own line of consumer electronics chips. But it has also created the Virtual Silicon platform, which can be used by other chip companies or system companies to design their own chips. The platform lets engineers design chips in software and test features in real-time prior to fabricating the first chip. That allows for early collaboration with customers.

The company will use the money to kick off production of its own first line of consumer electronics chips — the VTV-1200 series of video up-converter chips, which make video images sharper.

The company has moved from development to production of its 65-nanometer chips with less than $12 million in overall investment. The Virtual Silicon platform uses a hybrid of hardware emulation (where one machine pretends to act like another) and software simulation, where a software program simulates the final product. By doing this kind of prototyping rapidly, big companies can work the kinks out of their designs early and get their products to market on time and at lower costs.

The Virtual Silicon platform also allows Marseille to build chips that have been tested and approved by consumer electronics manufacturers. That reduces the overall risks of manufacturing. Amine Chabane, chief executive of Marseille Networks, said the company reduces the risk and cost associated with making new chips.

Marseille was founded in 2005 and has 30 employees. Rivals include Marvell, Silicon Image, and Realtek. But Marseille says the Virtual Silicon technology helps its stand out from rivals. Investors include KMP and Kumpulan Modal Perdana Sdn Bhd.

Tags: chips, rapid prototyping

Companies: KMP, Kumpulan Modal Perdana Sdn Bhd, Marseille, Marvell, Realtek, Silicon Image

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Mpire, a company that helps to verify, optimize and measure online display advertising, today announced a third round of funding for $3 million to support the company’s growth. The company also decided to change its official name to its main product, Adxpose.

Adxpose helps advertisers and publishers gain more control of their online ads. For advertisers, the tool tracks specifics like where ads land and how users interact with them. The tool also gives content publishers control over things like placement, reporting and protection from fraud.

The company also announced several changes to its leadership, including former president and chief revenue officer Kirby Winfield to chief executive, and former senior vice president of strategic development Ryan Polley to chief operator. Winfield will also join the company’s board of directors.

Several competitors offer similar services, including DoubleVerify and Adsafe Media.

The Seattle-based company, founded in 2005, claims to have had a good 2010 with a 150% quarter-by-quarter increase in revenue and impressions optimized, according to a company announcement.

The latest round of funding was led by previous investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson and included Ignition Partners.

Tags: display ads, display advertising, online ads, optmization, verification, Verify

Companies: adsafe media, adxpose, DoubleVerify, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Ignition Partners, Mpire

People: Kirby Winfield, Ryan Polley

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Gemvara, the online tool for customizing and buying jewelry, today announced it has secured a third round of funding for $15 million led by European venture capital firm Balderton Capital. The funding will be used to expand merchandise, hire around 30 more employees and continue to work on the company’s online customization tool.

The company, which originally allowed shoppers to customize their own jewelry through touch-screen computers in jewelry stores, has since cut out the middle man and gone completely online. Visitors can now simply go online and search through thousands of pieces of jewelry, customizing them by metal and stone.

The idea is that consumers are limited by jewelry pieces within stores and prefer to customize the pieces based on their own tastes. The concept appears to be working as Gemvara is seeing rapid growth and, according to founder and chief executive Matt Lauzon, revenue. The company claims that the average order is around $1,000 per customer.

Companies dabbling in customization, also known as do-it-yourself, appear to be doing well with venture capitalists, not surprising with growth rates around 17,000 percent over 3 years.

Many jewelry sites, including well known companies like Blue Nile and Tiffany & Co, offer customization or personalization of jewelry, but the difference with Gemvara appears to be the notion of altering already existing designs rather than creating from scratch. For those consumers who might not know exactly what they want, this could be a powerful selling point.

The Lexington, Mass. company, founded in 2008, raised two previous rounds of funding totaling $11 million from Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Partners, which both participated in this round of funding.

Tags: custom, custom jewelry, online jewelry

Companies: Blue Nile, Gemvara, Tiffany & Co.

People: Matt Lauzon

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

$$$ Judge Holwell read the names of dozens of people who will testify or be mentioned during the trial, and asked the group whether they had heard of any of them. The names mentioned included Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, who may be a witness for the prosecution. Not a single juror had heard of Blankfein, who testified before Congress last year about his firm’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. And the judge mispronounced Blankfein’s name. Instead of pronouncing the second syllable as “fine,” Holwell rhymed it with “bean.” [Bloomberg]

$$$ Spitzer Flirts With Mayoral Bid [Politico]

$$$ Hedge Fund to Predict Markets Using Twitter [CNBC]

$$$ Billionaire Sons Aspire to Make Snowbound Niseko Asia’s Aspen [Bloomberg]

$$$ KKR Appoints Rosenberg to Head Global Real Estate [FINS]

$$$ Seventeen months after bringing charges in the largest insider-trading case in decades, the pressure is on the U.S. to prove its case against Mr. Rajaratnam. The trio of prosecutors, who sometimes lunch over Cuban sandwiches near the courthouse, are Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s go-to team for insider-trading cases. [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

In assessing his performance this year, Oswald Gruebel said he added no value.

UBS AG Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel won’t accept a bonus for 2010, despite the bank’s having returned to profit last year and halted massive outflows of wealthy client funds.

“I’m forgoing a bonus because I was not in a position to add value for our shareholders—our share price ended 2010 at nearly the same level as it began the year,” Mr. Gruebel said in a telephone interview. UBS’ shares ended 2010 4.4% lower.

UBS CEO Will Forgo 2010 Bonus [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Richard Ruzika is leaving the nest.

From Dealbook:

Richard Ruzika, the influential Goldman Sachs executive who runs the firm’s special situations group, is retiring from the Wall Street bank, according to a memo sent last week to employees. Mr. Ruzika, 51, is a member of the firm’s management committee and is in charge of the special situations group, an elite division that invests in and lends to companies. It is well known for its typically profitably deal on everything from Japanese golf courses to Texas wind-power companies. The unit was previously run by Mark McGoldrick, who was called Goldfinger for his ability to find winning investments for the firm.

“Please join us in thanking Rich for his many contributions to Goldman Sachs and in wishing him and his family all the best in the years ahead,” the firm’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and president, Gary D. Cohn, wrote in a note to employees.

Jason Brown, who has headed special situations in Asia since 2007, will replace Mr. Ruzika. The memo says Mr. Ruzika is retiring and will remain at Goldman for another few months. It is not known what he plans to do next. Mr. Ruzika, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

Goldman’s Ruzika To Retire [Dealbook]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker