Anyone else catch this one?...p.s., I'm a buyer of another 100 either today, Fri or Mon...trying to time a buy sometimes just as tough as a sell (although never sold a single share of my beloved!):
Thursday, Mar 9, 2000 1:13 AM ET
Reply # of 7352
Qualcomm, Softbank Back Brad Silverberg's New
Internet Firm
By Hui-yong Yu
Qualcomm, Softbank Back Brad Silverberg's New Internet Firm
Bellevue, Wash., March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Brad Silverberg and
nine former Microsoft Corp. and McCaw Cellular executives raised $140 million from investors led by Qualcomm Inc. and Softbank Venture Capital for a new company that will invest in wireless Internet technology.
Silverberg, a former Microsoft executive who led the
development of the Windows 95 operating system and Internet
Explorer browser, will be chief executive of the new company, Ignition Corp.
Wireless devices that access the Internet are set to
outnumber personal computers in coming years, making it a prime investment target. Qualcomm has been looking to tap the explosion in the wireless-data market, which Cahners In-Stat Group forecasts will attract 23.9 million U.S. users by 2003, up from 1.73 million last year.
``Wireless Internet is the next `It',' said Jonathan
Roberts, a managing director at the new company, who also worked at Microsoft. ``We've enjoyed being part of the big changes, the disruptive technologies, like the personal computer, the Internet, and wireless.'
Ignition's eight other managing directors include Steve
Hooper, who was CEO of McCaw, which was acquired by AT&T Corp. in 1994, and Kathy Iskra, former chief financial officer for Nextlink Communications Inc., which is controlled by Craig McCaw. The other former Microsoft executives are Jon Anderson, John Ludwig, Cameron
Myhrvold, Satoshi Nakajima, Chris Peters and Rich Tong.
Ignition modeled itself after Internet Capital Group Inc.,
which invests in business-oriented electronic commerce companies and forms networks of companies to work together, Roberts said. Ignition will offer equity stakes to senior managers of the companies in which it invests as a performance incentive to work with Ignition-backed companies.
Vested Interest
``We want them to have a literal vested interest in the
overall success of the family of companies,' Roberts said. ``We have a long-term approach to building these companies; our objective is not to take them public and cash out.' He said Ignition might go public itself but has no such plans now.
While Ignition will focus on funding, advising, and helping
build start-ups focused on wireless Internet infrastructure,
software, services, and devices, it also might buy stakes in or acquire more mature companies, Roberts said.
Qualcomm, which developed the world's fastest-growing
cellular phone standard, will be the largest shareholder in
Ignition, though the founders will collectively own a majority stake, Roberts said. Qualcomm said last week it will work with Microsoft to build wireless multimedia devices that use Microsoft software.
Madrona Venture Group, a Seattle-based venture capital firm,
also invested in Ignition. ``As carriers worldwide install and implement current and next-generation digital data networks, the wireless Internet's infrastructure is actively being built out,' Paul Jacobs, executive vice president of Qualcomm, said in a statement. ``Ignition can help spark this development to enable the wireless
Internet to rapidly achieve its full potential.'
Jacobs is on the board of directors of Ignition, as is Gary
Rieschel, president and CEO of Softbank Venture Capital.
Advisory Board
Ignition has a separate board of advisers that includes Tom
Alberg, managing director of Madrona and former head of legal and corporate affairs at McCaw; Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's chief technology officer who is on leave from the software company; and Mike McCue, CEO of Tellme Networks, a Silicon Valley startup creating a service that will allow consumers to retrieve information from the Web using telephones.
Ignition's advisory board also includes executives from
Amazon.com, RealNetworks Inc., and the University of Washington. |
