Waterloo Tech Digest - February 9, 2010 (水城百事)

by Waterloo Tech Digest, Tuesday, February 09, 2010, 12:10

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WATERLOO TECH DIGEST -- #155
February 9, 2010

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Compiled and written by
Gary Will
http://www.garywill.com
http://twitter.com/garywill

In this issue:
1. Avvasi raises $15M, prepares to launch product next week
2. Sandvine sales up 35% in 2009
3. Open Text quarterly sales jump to nearly US$250M

4. Arise raises an additional $900K, wins Cambridge contract
5. Moxy Media acquisition part of Toronto company's IPO plans
6. Dalsa ends challenging year with small profit

7. RDM reports quarterly loss
8. Com Dev sales up 14% in 2009; Ainsworth steps down from board
9. STOCK REPORT: Dalsa, Biorem shares bounce back to 2008 levels

10. Startup notes from Clearpath Robotics, T-Ray Science, PostRank, Tungle
11. Miscellaneous tidbits from SMARTsoft, Restaurantica, Desire2Learn,
Christie, Athena

WATERLOO TECH DAILY
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to 85 items in the last month, including profiles of SparkMatrix,
eSentire, IMS, and RIM's "spring surprise")
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ARCHIVES
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[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
Avvasi raises $15M, prepares to launch product next week
February 1, 2010

Avvasi has closed a $15 million round of funding, with follow-on
investments from Tech Capital Partners and Celtic House, along with a
first-time contribution from the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund
(OETF), the provincial government's $250 million co-investment fund.

Avvasi was founded two years ago by Mate Prgin, Alex Leyn and Michael
Gallant, who had previously worked together at VideoLocus and PixStream
(companies that had been funded by Tech Capital and Celtic House,
respectively). It raised seed funding a few months later.

The company will be unveiling its first product, Q-Vue, next week at
Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. It says Q-Vue enables wireless
carriers to measure mobile video quality of experience, giving operators
"complete and comprehensive insight into their ability to deliver on QoE
expectations for video and other mobile applications. The solution
identifies mobile video traffic patterns and subscriber QoE without the
need for drive testing."

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[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Sandvine sales up 35% in 2009
January 14, 2010

A good end to the fiscal year for Sandvine, with sales of $19.0 million in
the quarter ended November 30 (Q4 09). Sales were up 19% from the previous
quarter and 2% from last year. Net loss in the quarter was $4.7 million,
which included a previously announced $1.7 million charge from the
surrender and cancellation of 780,000 stock options.

Three companies accounted for 46% of sales -- about the same as in Q3,
with two of those companies repeating among Sandvine's three largest
customers. DSL was Sandvine's largest customer segment in the quarter,
while the wireless segment dropped from a strong Q3 but was still the
second largest market for Sandvine in the quarter, ahead of cable. Of the
eight new customers won in the quarter, six were wireless service
providers and the other two were DSL.

For the year, Sandvine sales of $68.8 million were up 35% from 2008. Net
loss for the year was $19.5 million -- about the same as a year ago. Sales
to DSL and wireless customers accounted for nearly two-thirds of all
revenue, up from just under half last year.

Sandvine ended the year with $85.8 million in cash and securities.

[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Open Text quarterly sales jump to nearly US$250M
February 3, 2010

Open Text also reported a solid quarter, earning US$21.2 million on sales
of US$247.8 million in the period ended December 31 (Q2 10). Sales were up
19% from last year and 17% from the previous quarter. The company had six
million-dollar licensing deals in the quarter.

Operations generated US$32.5 million in cash and Open Text ended the
quarter with a cash balance of US$247.6 million.

[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
Arise raises an additional $900K, wins Cambridge contract
January 14 & 26, February 2, 2010

Arise has taken three more draws from its equity funding facility with
Haverstock Master Fund, receiving an additional $900,000 from the issuance
of 3.92 million shares. That's on top of the $250,000 raised early in
January that was mentioned in the last digest.

The price of Arise shares has fallen with each draw, dropping a total of
10% in the month between the first and fourth draw.

Arise plans to take another $250,000 draw next week, bringing the total to
$1.4 million.

Haverstock buys shares from Arise at a discount to the market price and
can then sell them on the open market (see October 6 digest).

Arise also announced that it won the contract with the Region of Waterloo
to install a 150kW rooftop solar system at the Regional Operations Centre
on Maple Grove Road in Cambridge. The Region received 19 bids on the
project, six from firms within Waterloo Region (including Canadian Solar).
The system is expected to be operational by the middle of the year.

[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
Moxy Media acquisition part of Toronto company's IPO plans
January 25, 2010

Guelph's Moxy Media was at the centre of a planned IPO for Toronto's Avid
Life Media. The Globe and Mail reported that Avid Life was trying to woo
investors for a $60 million IPO that would see the company acquire Moxy
Media shortly after the offering closed.

Avid Life calls itself "a network of targeted niche brands with highly
engaged users," but, despite its best efforts, just about everyone else
was calling it "the company behind Ashley Madison" -- the website that
helps married people have affairs. The headline on the Globe story was
"Adultery website owner aims for listing." Avid Life acquired Ashley
Madison in 2007 and also bought the popular HotOrNot in 2008.

Reuters subsequently reported that IPO plans were put on hold after Avid
Life received a lukewarm response from investors.

As part of the investor sales pitch, it was disclosed that Moxy Media had
sales of $192 million and EDITDA of $27 million in 2009 (both far higher
than Avid Life's numbers). Moxy Media evolved out of Geosign and says it
runs "more than 300" websites, with the actual number thought to be more
than an order of magnitude higher than 300.