investing

Former Intel clone maker seeks buyer

Transmeta's chips are on the block. The former supplier of low-power Intel-compatible processors said Wednesday that it is actively seeking a buyer, and also announced two agreements with Intel.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, which has remade itself into a supplier of chip-related intellectual property, said that after exploring a range of "strategic alternatives" over the past few months and after strengthening its balance sheet, it will seek a sale as a way to "enhance value for all its stockholders."

Transmeta is working with financial adviser Piper Jaffray.

Back in February, Transmeta weighed an unsolicited offer … Read more

Intel putting $20 million in business social-net firm

Intel Capital, the chipmaker's venture arm, has signed a deal to acquire a $20 million stake in Telligent Systems, which specializes in social-networking software for businesses.

Intel is an existing client of Telligent.

The two companies have not disclosed a valuation for Dallas-based Telligent. Part of the $20 million stake has already been acquired, the companies said Tuesday, with the rest to follow within 12 months.

"This significant investment from Intel Capital will allow us to grow our team, our capabilities, and our reach during a time of market expansion," Telligent CEO Rob Howard said in a … Read more

Credit crunch pinching clean-energy sector

The crisis rocking the U.S. financial sector is rippling into the clean-energy business, bruising more mature industries like wind while leaving young start-ups relatively untouched so far.

The unraveling of debt-heavy investment banking firms--including the demise this week of Wall Street icons Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch--means that financing for large-scale renewable energy projects will get harder and more expensive, according to analysts.

"This isn't good news for anybody--it's going to have an impact economy-wide," said Ethan Zindler, head of north American research at New Energy Finance.

New Energy Finance's clean-energy stock index is … Read more

Monty Widenius invests in Act II: IT Mill

Well, that didn't take long. Monty Widenius, one of the founders of MySQL, resigned from Sun Microsystems last week but has already invested some of his hard-earned MySQL dollars in IT Mill, a Finland-based open-source start-up focused on the development of Rich Internet Applications.

While no mention is made of anything other than a financial investment and advisory role for Monty, it's good to see him sticking close to open source and to business. Monty notes that he sees 10 to 15 Finnish companies worthy of investment. It's safe to assume he'll have some money left … Read more

Cameesa: A Threadless where customers are also investors

It's no secret I'm a fan of Web T-shirt shops. This time last year I rounded up 20 different online shops that specialize in selling the cotton wonders, but few of those were as interesting as Cameesa.

Like many online T-shirt operations, everything on Cameesa is designed by freelancers who submit their stuff with the hopes of making a buck and getting some recognition. These designs (once approved by human editors) go into a pool where shoppers can pick out a shirt they want; the only catch is that they've got to invest in it so Cameesa … Read more

Google sours on $1 billion AOL investment

Google acknowledged late Thursday that it may have made a bad bet on AOL.

The search giant said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its $1 billion investment for a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's Web unit "may be impaired" and that it may have to take a charge in the future:

Based on our review, we believe our investment in AOL may be impaired...We will continue to review this investment for impairment in the future. There can be no assurance that impairment charges will not be required in the future, … Read more

The alternative-energy bubble

What do you get when you mix Al Gore, global warming, whacky environmentalists, skyrocketing oil prices, lots of venture funding, and irrational exuberance? An alternative-energy bubble.

What, you don't believe that there's an alternative-energy bubble? Then you're just not paying attention. It may not be the biggest bubble in the history of technology--yet. And it may not be ready to burst--yet. But it's a bubble, all right. All the signs are there.

In solar energy alone, hundreds of millions of dollars of venture funds have been poured into the likes of Nanosolar, SoloPower, OptiSolar, HelioVolt, eSolar, SolFocus, Solel, Miasole, GreenVolts, Hydro Green, Infinia, Sopogy, Cyrium, SkyFuel, BrightSource Energy--the list goes on and on.

All the usual suspects are in the game: big-name venture capital firms, investment banks, private-equity firms, energy companies, technology companies, individual investors, a new batch of investment companies focused primarily on energy, and even a hedge fund or two.

There are lots of recognizable names, as well, including Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Microsoft founder Paul Allen, and Sun Microsystems founder and ex-Kleiner Perkins partner Vinod Khosla.… Read more

Corporate giants push into clean-tech venture investing

Buoyed by long-term trends, venture investing in clean-tech companies hit a record last quarter as the participation of corporate giants began to make a more pronounced impact.

Ernst & Young on Monday published a report based on data from Dow Jones VentureOne which shows that clean-tech venture investing shot up to $961.7 million in the second quarter.

That's a 41 percent increase from the first quarter of this year and an 83 percent jump compared to the second quarter last year.

Clean tech, or green tech, is one of the most active--or some argue overheated--areas in venture … Read more

Green-tech firms thirsty for seed capital

With all the venture capital money going to clean tech, it's easy to think that it's the dot-com bubble all over again. There's certainly a whiff of that gold rush mentality. But the inherent differences between the Internet and the energy business get clearer every week.

Today's installment is the mismatch between venture capital and clean tech--this time, at the small side of the money spectrum.

Entrepreneurs that want to start clean-tech companies from scratch are not being particularly well served by the traditional venture capital funds, a few articles this week argue. It appears that … Read more