It does look like they are making steady progress, though last year's aborted IPO is probably going to limit their options for some time.
The following piece was in The May Report, a Chicago based tech oriented email newsletter, this morning. Ron May has issues with Advanced Equities, though I am not fully convinced that the following is original Ron May material. I did a search on Google and came up empty.
Advanced Equities Inc. is at it again with Alien Technology Corp. nine months after a failed IPO
Nine months after canceling a proposed public offering, radio frequency identification systems developer Alien Technology Corp. has returned to its existing stakeholders for a new $33 million round of venture funding. Insiders SunBridge Partners of Palo Alto, Calif., and Advanced Equities Inc. of Chicago co-led the round. Two more existing shareholders, Rho Ventures of
New York and New Enterprise Associates of Menlo Park, Calif., also contributed to the new funding.
Sevin Rosen Funds of Dallas and CMEA Ventures of San Francisco, which had previously invested in Alien, were not named as investors in the current round. Other earlier shareholders included Equitek Capital of Beachwood, Ohio, Lago Ventures of the U.K. and Miami Valley Venture Fund of Dayton, Ohio, but it was unclear whether they continue to hold stakes in Alien or participated in the new round.
The deal builds on eight previous rounds totaling more than $258 million. SunBridge led Alien's previous round, a $66 million funding in July 2005. Advanced Equities has held a stake since 2003, when it led Alien's $18 million seventh round, and was to be among the co-managers of Alien's scuttled offering.
Morgan Hill, Calif.-based Alien had hoped to raise as much as $108 million by selling 9 million shares at $10 to $12 apiece in late July. The company pulled back its share offer, then formally withdrew its filing about a week later. New York-based Bear, Stearns & Co. was the lead bookrunning manager, while Cowen & Co. LLC of New York and Robert W. Baird & Co. of Milwaukeewere to co-manage the offering alongside Advanced Equities.
Since the time of the failed offering, Alien has replaced its chief executive. George W. Everhart, a former Fujitsu Personal Computer Corp. chief executive who also spent time at 3Com Corp. and startups SealedMedia Inc. and OneSecure Inc., took over Alien's top spot in January. OneSecure was sold to NetScreen Inc. in 2002, while Stellent Inc. acquired SealedMedia in 2006.
The company's previous CEO, Stavro E. Prodromou, became its executive adviser for business development and government affairs shortly after the offering was canceled.
Alien reported that its revenues have increased sharply in the last several months. For the first six months of its 2007 fiscal year, the period ending April 1, 2007, the company said its revenues are up 43% over the last six months of 2006, while its net cash used in operating activities was down 50% in the same period.
Alien manufactures low-cost tags that deliver radio frequency identification signals to the company's proprietary reader devices. RFID technology has become widely used for asset tracking, inventory management, shipping logistics, medical tracking and other processes in recent years.
Alien said that at least $19 million of the projected offering's proceeds would be used to fund enhancements at its manufacturing facility in Fargo, N.D.
Based on the number of shares outstanding, the offering would have valued Alien at more than $500 million last summer. The company posted revenues of just under $20 million for the fiscal year ended Oct. 1, 2005, and just under $10 million during the following six months. |
