fring™ (www.fring.com), the leading mobile Internet community and communication service, today announced the successful completion of its third round of funding to accelerate fring’s growth, openness and business activities. All previous fring investors participated in this round including U.S. based North Bridge Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Veritas Venture Partners and VenFin Limited.
Avi Shechter, fring co-founder and CEO said: “With this new funding round we will accelerate the realization of our ongoing commitment to make fring even more accessible, relevant and easy to use, therefore reducing practical barriers for mainstream users as well as 3rd party developers and partners who have expressed continued interest in fring and the fring platform.” He continued, “Combining community, experience and communication fring is already turning the mobile into the ultimate social device by mashing up people’s favourite forms and modes of communication even beyond what the fixed PC environment can offer. With this new investment all our investors recognize our leadership in this emerging paradigm shift, and demonstrate their long-term commitment to our vision. We plan to add to the fring experience and make it an ever more central part of fringsters’ social lives”.
This additional funding will be used to continue making fring more easily accessible and relevant to users and partners. With more supported platforms, devices, add-on services contributed by developers worldwide, continuously improved usability and rich features, fring is turning the mainstream mobile device into the social nexus for users to share, interact and communicate with all their cross-community mobile and online friends. For example, fring users share experiences with friends on facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and more, while communicating via Skype®, MSN® Messenger, GoogleTalk TM, Yahoo!TM, AIM® and ICQ® among others, and further enhanced with functional and location based services like WeFi, all through a single social experience from their simple fring interface on their mobile device.
Shechter concluded, “Our millions of users actively sharing, interacting and communicating over fring today will benefit greatly as fring becomes even more accessible to the rest of the mobile world, ready to shift their online social nexus to their mobile phones.”
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Coast2Coast makes tasty acquistion
Cris Dillon, COO of C2C said, “Well-run companies with top class operations and a great product will always perform well, even in a difficult financial climate. As a low cost, popular fast food, pies are a wonderfully resilient product. St Pie is growing strongly, with over 20 percent growth in sales per annum, year-on-year for the last five years. This transaction is in line with our strategy of investing in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in South Africa.”
Gary Shayne, CEO of C2C said, “The St Pie corporate culture and values are in line with those of Coast2Coast and we feel that this is a mutually beneficial transaction that has great potential.”
St Pie started fifteen years ago from a small café and today manufactures in a ‘state of the art’ foods plant in Lydenburg. It distributes 19 frozen pie variants to their growing database of over 1500 retailers who bake the pies and sell them to the public.
Wyk Geyser, managing director of St Pie is equally positive. “After successful negotiations and getting to know the C2C team, we’re ecstatic that we have found a partner who shares our values and can offer us the stability we’d like.
“The transition into the C2C group has gone extremely smoothly and we’re excited at the prospects of this new partnership. We can now continue to expand strongly and we feel extremely fortunate that despite the difficult times the economy is experiencing, we’re still able to enjoy the fruits of a flourishing business,” says Geyser.
The decision to invest in St Pie was based on the outcome of a thorough due diligence process and strong profitability and growth characteristics of the company. Coast2Coast generally invests in mature entrepreneurial businesses that have a minimum annual profit of R5-million, an annual turnover of at least R50-million, and St Pie comfortably fulfilled this criteria.
St Pie’s financial performance has not been adversely affected by the current gloomy economic climate and continues to expand strongly. “There is a good structure in place, sound business principles and a proven formula to ensure St Pie’s products pies are always of superior quality. In any financial environment, people have to eat and everyone enjoys good value.” Dillon concludes.
For more information on Coast2Coast visit www.coast2coast.co.za or www.stpie.co.za
Gary Shayne, CEO of C2C said, “The St Pie corporate culture and values are in line with those of Coast2Coast and we feel that this is a mutually beneficial transaction that has great potential.”
St Pie started fifteen years ago from a small café and today manufactures in a ‘state of the art’ foods plant in Lydenburg. It distributes 19 frozen pie variants to their growing database of over 1500 retailers who bake the pies and sell them to the public.
Wyk Geyser, managing director of St Pie is equally positive. “After successful negotiations and getting to know the C2C team, we’re ecstatic that we have found a partner who shares our values and can offer us the stability we’d like.
“The transition into the C2C group has gone extremely smoothly and we’re excited at the prospects of this new partnership. We can now continue to expand strongly and we feel extremely fortunate that despite the difficult times the economy is experiencing, we’re still able to enjoy the fruits of a flourishing business,” says Geyser.
The decision to invest in St Pie was based on the outcome of a thorough due diligence process and strong profitability and growth characteristics of the company. Coast2Coast generally invests in mature entrepreneurial businesses that have a minimum annual profit of R5-million, an annual turnover of at least R50-million, and St Pie comfortably fulfilled this criteria.
St Pie’s financial performance has not been adversely affected by the current gloomy economic climate and continues to expand strongly. “There is a good structure in place, sound business principles and a proven formula to ensure St Pie’s products pies are always of superior quality. In any financial environment, people have to eat and everyone enjoys good value.” Dillon concludes.
For more information on Coast2Coast visit www.coast2coast.co.za or www.stpie.co.za
Saturday, April 18, 2009
SA investor seeking
South African investor is seeking to invest in entry-level short-term insurance brokerage firm or multi-purpose broking operation in Gauteng.
Must be fully licensed, have existing staff infrastructure and preferably have existing revenue base as well as represent a known franchise brand.
For further information please e-mail sales@rival.co.za with your information.
Must be fully licensed, have existing staff infrastructure and preferably have existing revenue base as well as represent a known franchise brand.
For further information please e-mail sales@rival.co.za with your information.
Venture Capital Investments Plunge 61% Amid Frozen IPO Market
U.S. venture capital investments fell 61 percent to $3 billion in the first quarter, the lowest level in 12 years, as the financial crisis chased away funding for technology and clean-energy deals.
Read the complete article here.
Read the complete article here.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
LEHMAN BROTHERS’ MERCHANT BANKING BUSINESS JOINTLY ACQUIRED BY REINET AND CURRENT
Reinet Investments S.C.A., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Reinet Fund S.C.A. F.I.S., and the current management team of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s Merchant Banking business have completed the acquisition of the assets of Lehman Brothers’ Merchant Banking business. Reinet and the management team have created a new entity, which has been named Trilantic Capital Partners (‘Trilantic’). Trilantic will manage approximately $3.3 billion in portfolio assets
through the two former Lehman Brothers funds – Fund III and Fund IV (‘the Funds’).
Through the transaction, which has been approved by the Funds’ limited partners, Reinet has purchased a 49% stake in Trilantic for $10 million and will take over Lehman Brothers' $230 million of un-invested limited partner commitments to Fund IV. The management team will own the remaining 51% of the partnership.
Charles Ayres, former managing director and head of global merchant banking for Lehman Brothers, will manage the new entity along with his four other partners: E. Daniel James, Joseph Cohen, Vittorio Pignatti-Morano and Javier Banon.
Johann Rupert, Executive Chairman of Reinet, said:
“Alan Quasha, principal of Quadrant Management and Vanterra Capital, played the key role in leading the transaction. Without his experience and diligence the deal would not have closed. Alan will serve on Trilantic's Investment Committee. The former Lehman Brothers franchise and closely knit team provide a strong platform with significant uncommitted capital at a time of great investment opportunities in the private equity middle market.”
through the two former Lehman Brothers funds – Fund III and Fund IV (‘the Funds’).
Through the transaction, which has been approved by the Funds’ limited partners, Reinet has purchased a 49% stake in Trilantic for $10 million and will take over Lehman Brothers' $230 million of un-invested limited partner commitments to Fund IV. The management team will own the remaining 51% of the partnership.
Charles Ayres, former managing director and head of global merchant banking for Lehman Brothers, will manage the new entity along with his four other partners: E. Daniel James, Joseph Cohen, Vittorio Pignatti-Morano and Javier Banon.
Johann Rupert, Executive Chairman of Reinet, said:
“Alan Quasha, principal of Quadrant Management and Vanterra Capital, played the key role in leading the transaction. Without his experience and diligence the deal would not have closed. Alan will serve on Trilantic's Investment Committee. The former Lehman Brothers franchise and closely knit team provide a strong platform with significant uncommitted capital at a time of great investment opportunities in the private equity middle market.”
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