NY – South West view (Photo credit: mat.c)

A lengthy piece in The Real Deal (TRD) recently examined the NY real estate market’s current tech boom. The market is having a difficult time defining a tech company in a world where almost everyone has a tech focus. Tech companies have brought expansion to real estate, but they still only represent a small part of the market. Colliers International reported that 6.4 percent of Manhattan office space leased so far this year went to “computer science and technology” companies and 14 percent went to “information and new media companies.”

Jack Petrie, president of brokerage Office Lease Center, noted that younger customers, such as in the tech industry, are more open-minded about their brokers. This creates an intensely competitive atmosphere for real estate brokers in the tech sector. Despite billions invested in tech by VCs and others, the industry is facing issues– funding over the last year was down 22 percent from the previous year. Google and Apple stocks have not been as strong as expected, and tech leasing in San Francisco is starting to recede.

Some of Manhattan’s largest tech leasing deals in the past two years:

• Google (75 Ninth Ave. 2.9 million square feet for $1.8 billion): Last month Google also leased 94,000 square feet of space at the Chelsea Market.
• Microsoft (641 Sixth Ave. 22,000 square feet): Currently considering a move from its Headquarters at 1290 Sixth Ave. to 11 Times Square.
• LBi (11 W 19th Street. 26,000 square feet): This space gives LBi, an Amsterdam-based global tech company, a total of 78,000 square feet in the building. The firm has two other Manhattan locations.
• Salesforce (685 Third Ave. 74,349 square feet): This new space is four-and-a-half times the size of their previous office. The lease is for ten years.
• Spotify (620 Sixth ave. 63,285 square feet): Spotify signed this lease in September after leaving its space in Google’s building.
• Meebo (641 Sixth Ave. 22,047 square feet): CA-based Meebo signed this five-year lease in August 2011. After being bought by Google, the space was sold to Microsoft.
• Cafemom (417 Fifth Ave. 35,000 square feet): This website for moms signed a seven year lease on this space, previously occupied by Atari.
• 100-104 Fifth Ave (55,000 square feet): Apple added 45,000 square feet to this space in 2011. This space is mostly for Apple’s ad division.
• Ebay (625 Sixth Ave. 35,156 square feet): This lease was signed for ten years and is intended to house the employees for the company’s Tech Center for Excellence.

Brokers are trying to take advantage of the growth of Manhattan’s Internet companies. But they have yet to develop a reliable system for how to classify these leases. TRD broke down and analyzed the different brokers and firms representing tech companies in Manhattan. They found that the city’s top commercial leasing companies are not at the top of the list. Michael Rouzenrouch, president of the small SoHo-based Miyad Realty said, “[A broker] with extensive knowledge is more key than the brand of the real estate company.”

The huge churn rate in the tech lease industry creates an interesting atmosphere for brokers. There is a lot of opportunity for poaching accounts from other brokers. Adding to this pressure is the overall slowdown in the market. The tech industry still has the most leasing potential. However, big leasing brokerages still tend to lease to big tech firms. CBRE did more tenant deals than any of the other firms examined by TRD. CBRE brokered 12 deals totaling 448,329 square feet. Jones Lang LaSalle was next, with 10 deals totaling 287,329 square feet.

TRD also took a close look at powerful techies and where they choose to live–and found they favor downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.

• Sean Parker: Parker’s Greenwich Village bachelor pad, Bacchus House, hasn’t helped this Napster and Facebook co-founder shed his party boy image. The townhouse, located on 10th St, was bought in 2010 for $20 million.
• Christopher Hughs: Facebook co-founder and media expert, Hughs recently purchased a majority stake in the New Republic magazine and became publisher and editor-in-chief. He also bought a downtown 4,164 square foot apartment for $4.8 million in 2010.
• Alexis Ohanian: Co-founder of Reddit. In 2011, he bought a 1,385 square foot Brooklyn Heights apartment on Furman Street for $1.24 million.
• Dennis Crowley: Founder of Dodgeball and Foursquare. He purchased a SoHo two bedroom co-op on E. 8th St. in 2007 for $1.15 million.

The Real Deal

English: Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Brooklyn Public Library is moving ahead with a new strategic to plan to bring the institution into the digital age. The library has evolved into more than just a place to borrow books but also a social service agency, where people come to learn computer skills. Linda Johnson, the President and Chief Executive of the Brooklyn Public Library, has developed an agenda which reflects the shifts in the community of library users and in the publishing world, such as the introduction of e-books. Also, Johnson is looking to open two smaller branches next year that will focus more on technology than books, populating the main library with a special teen section and training residents to take their GEDs online.

One of the obstacles in the way for Johnson and the Brooklyn Public Library is figuring out how to raise money. Ms. Johnson has reached out to Russian billionaire and Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who recently donated $1 million to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Crain’s New York

PAX Prime 2012 (Photo credit: Chase N.)

LiveU, based in Hackensack, NJ, recently raised $27 million in funding. The company’s 4G LTE-equipped LU70 backpack has become the go-to for companies looking to uplink HD video while in the field. The funding round included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Carmel Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital.

LiveU’s technology has been used by big broadcasters such as BBC News and NBC. Samuel Wasserman, CEO of LiveU explained that the funding will be vital as the company moves further towards being more of end-to-end solution for broadcasters.

[Editor's Note: LiveU is a client of Trylon SMR, owned by Trylon Communications, Inc., the parent company of NY Convergence]

Venture Beat 

Loosecubes (Photo credit: ajleon)

NY based Loosecubes, a co-working startup, will shut down its operations according to a blog post on its site. According to PandoDaily, the company raised $7.8 million in June and in 2010 the company raised $1.23 million. Loosecubes’ goal was to become “the Airbnb of office space.” However, with only 16 employees the company managed to run out of cash in six months. Operations will officially end on Friday.

In their blog post, founders Campbell McKellar and Anna Thomas gave no specific reasoning as to why the company is closing down: “The past two and a half years have been such an incredible journey. From a team of two to an incredible company of 16. From a big idea to a community of 25,000+ Loosecubers in over 60 countries around the world. And from a single coworking space to thousands of hosts, from Stockholm to San Diego, who have opened their work environments and minds to a better way of working.” PandoDaily reached out to McKellar but has not yet heard back.

PandoDaily

Man analyzing financial data and charts on computer screen (Photo credit: s_falkow)

The New York FinTech Innovation Lab has recently began looking for leading financial technology innovators. Winners of the search, announced by the New York City fund and Accenture, will be part of the FinTech Innovation lab’s 12 week program that helps financial technology companies accelerate product development and gain more exposure in the industry. Applications for the lab are available at fintechinnovationlab.com and are due by December 19th 2012, according to a press release.

“In its first two years, the FinTech Innovation Lab has been uniquely successful in providing early- and growth-stage fintech companies with unprecedented access to some of New York City’s most important financial institutions,” said Maria Gotsch, President and CEO of Partnership for New York City Fund.

Bloomberg Businessweek

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Priceline has agreed to acquire travel price comparison engine Kayak for $1.8 billion dollars in a cash and stock deal. Both Kayak and Priceline are based in Norwalk, Connecticut but Priceline has said it will operate Kayak as an independent subsidiary, according to CNN Money. Kayak “has world class technology and a tradition of innovation in building great user interfaces,” Priceline CEO Jeffery Boyd said in a prepared statement.

Kayak launched eight years ago and made a name for itself  in the travel space with its “metasearch” engine, which lets shoppers compare prices across many different vendors for flights, hotels and rental cars.

 CNN Money

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Advance Publications bought NY-based Reddit for less than $5 million in 2006. Now its estimated value is upwards of $240 million. Bob Sauerberg, president of Advance’s Conde Nast magazine division, said that they basically left the startup alone so they wouldn’t screw it up.

Forbes recently reported that Reddit is a thrifty company and needs only a smattering of ad revenue to cover expenses. Aaron Magness, marketing vice president at Coastal.com, says to Forbes Reddit’s seedier posts don’t bother his company, which sells eyewear online. They advertise on the site’s front page, which doesn’t have questionable content. As long as they stay away from the more offensive areas, Magness says they’re safe.

Forbes

New York University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to CB Insights, startups founded by New York University alumni raised $1.2 billion during the past five years. The University Entrepreneurship Reports revealed that the most of the funding went to Internet companies. Of these, 95 percent are still in business and 70 percent conduct business in NYC.

According to New York CityBizList, most of the NYU deals were lead by Union Square Ventures.

New York CityBizlist

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Online real estate listing company Zillow this week acquired Buyfolio, a NY-based company that allows users to organize and communicate with brokers when searching for properties.  Buyfolio lets users create a database of listings and share it with a broker or family members who can update it with information.

According to GigaOm, this is Zillow’s fourth acquisition. CEO Spencer Rascoff was recently in the news after the Security and Exchange Commission questioned how the company was reporting its sales.

GigaOm

LocalVox,

According to Street Fight, the new 3.0 version monitors Yelp, Twitter mentions, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Citysearch and several other sites.

Street Fight

[Editor's Note: LocalVox is a services partner of Trylon SMR, owned by Trylon Communications, Inc., the parent company of NY Convergence]

General Assembly

According to TechCrunch, the company is setting its sights on expanding its educational curriculum online as well as creating a global network of campuses.

TechCrunch

Image via CrunchBase

Lerer Ventures, NY-based investment firm, has raised its largest fund yet. According to Business Insider, this third round of funding amounted to $36 million. The group was started by Eric Hippeau, Jordan Cooper, Ken Lerer, and Ben Lerer. With the money, the firm plans to continue investing in early-stage companies in NY. Since its second fund was raised last May the company has invested in about 70 companies, and over the last two years has been one of the more active NY early-stage firms.

Some of its investments include Venme, which was just acquired for $26 million, and GroupMe which was acquired by Skype for $80 million. According to Hippeau, the firm is frequently asked to make joint investments with other funds, even some on the west coast. Lerer has gained popularity among early stage companies because the partners all come from a variety of backgrounds. Ken Lerer co founded Huffington Post, Ben Lerer co founded Thrillist, Hippeau was a media executive and entrepreneur and former Huffington Post CEO, and Cooper recently sold Hyperpublic, his startup, to Groupon.

Business Insider

Empire State Building as seen from Top of the Rock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the latest Q3 report from CB Insights, two out of every 10 Internet deals are done in NY. Even though NY ranks forth in VC funding (behind Silicon Alley, Massachusetts and SoCal) its deal count reached a five-quarter high. Small seed VC deals make up 49 percent of the activity. While NY is tech dominated, green tech and healthcare tech businesses are also emerging.

New York Observer

Peter Moustakerski of Voila Chocolat shares his homemade product. (Photo Credit: Lauren Keyson)

By Lauren Keyson

Several entrepreneurs came to iEvening’s “Are You Fundable?” event last night to get feedback on their products. All of them involved technology or the internet.  A lot of advice for the timid and not so timid presenters included the need for grit – the need to stick to their guns and argue their case even in the face of rejection.  Alan Brody, CEO of Convean and organizer of the iEvening event, felt that there were two fundable possibilities out of the group.  One was Keepskor, simplified game creation because it helped ad agencies make games. “The competitive environment warrants examination, and CEO Tristan Louis will have to drill down on that, but he is a proven serial entrepreneur.”

Brody also liked a company called Memorist that had “memory volts” and was a way to store valuable documents. “Theoretically it’s fundable because there is a huge need for this.  But in order to make it work, they need to warrant it and do several demonstrations that show it’s safe. “

There were also a few unfundable startups. One was a make-it-yourself chocolate business called Voila Cholat from founder Peter Moustakerski. The other was Rodawg.com, high-class packaging and paraphernalia for marijuana.  The CEO Josh Gordon explained how his startup was making smoking products for the medical marijuana marketplace. “I figured out how to leverage the cultural acceptance. We created a brand with better packaging for medical industry — we provide a more professional way to promote product instead of in a baggy.”

According to the feedback, both were in danger of being lifestyle businesses, which Brody explained had their own unique problems. “Neither of them had defensible products.  They both have the possibility of reaching a mass audience, but the chocolate company needs to find a way to reveal some knowledge of chocolate that hasn’t already been tapped, and the marijuana company needs to show that they are offering extraordinary, early-stage access to a potentially explosive marketplace.”

He continued, “An investor would look at Gordon and say, ‘I’ll keep an eye on him because he is young enough and an obvious ambassador to an emerging marketplace.’  He has grit. He is pushing it and willing to fight. Moustakerski may have grit, but it’s not demonstrable in the chocolate world.  It’s out of his business zone and he is at an age where you expect him to be working with his business pedigree, which is finance.

Brody’s colleague Mayra Ceja, CEO of Tiger Cub Advisors, gave slightly different feedback to the two entrepreneurs, “Only 2% of people get funded by angels and VCs. You need to have a product that gives investors a 100x returns. Things that are not VC friendly — like food oriented products — need to be pitched to very specific types of investors.  And how do you pitch something that isn’t mainstream? There is a bias from investors and VCs – for instance, they don’t want to be associated with porn.”

John Ason, professional angel investor, had this to say about funding startups, “I’m looking for exciting new companies that can get into hyper-growth and I am looking for good ideas with passion. Passion is one of the key items I want to see in companies – something that I can relate to and get an emotional connection to.”

“Life’s a pitch,” added Ceja.  “The whole idea is that you are always pitching as a startup or entrepreneur – new product, referrals, investors –so be clear on why you are pitching. Most businesses are not fundable so you have to fight for yours, defend it.   Show them you’re passionate.”

Image via CrunchBase

Lawsuits brought against Facebook Inc, NASDAQ, and different underwriters will all be brought under a judge in NY, who will have to sort throughout the after effects of Facebook’s IPO earlier this year. According to Wall Street & Technology, recently a group of federal judges ordered that the cases be transferred to U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan. Facebook requested the transfer, and vow to strongly defend their case.

Some investors are claiming that they lost money because of technical glitches in the Nasdaq stock market, and have also accused NASDAQ of, “selectively disclosing unflattering information about its business prospects to Wall Street analysts who then shared it with privileged investors.” The lawsuits could cost Facebook millions to defend itself. Since the stock opened at $38 a share it has fell as much as 50%.

Facebook asserts that it didn’t violate any rules, and claimed that NASDAQ is to blame for trading glitches on the day of the offering. The grouping of the cases keeps lawsuits from happening at the same time in various courts. Lawsuits against NASDAQ OMX Group Inc will also be for Sweet to review. NASDAQ has already asked that their suits occur on a different track than Facebook’s.

Wall Street & Technology

Last year when TechCrunch wrote about AdGenesis, they described it as, “the Match.com of video advertising.” Publishers in the Genesis Media network include Fox, Parade, and Conde Nast. The company has reported that it now reaches over 150 million consumers, and 15 million U.S. users opt in to its video platform.

TechCrunch

[Editor's Note: Genesis Media is a client of Trylon SMR, owned by Trylon Communications, Inc., the parent company of NY Convergence]

Image via CrunchBase

Accedo Broadband, a Stockholm-based technology developer for smart TVs and IPTVs, plans to build a NY branch. According to Xconomy, the company announced its acquisition of Brooklyn-based CloverLeaf Digital, which gives Accedo an automatic NY presence. CloverLeaf, in return, can increase its operations according to founder Lawrence Brickman, “We wanted to be larger, more muscular, and have more resources available to us.”

CloverLeaf was founded in 2003 and develops services like personal dashboards and app stores for the interactive television market in North America. Its customers are mostly independent cable television operators and telephone companies. There has been increase in demand recently for CloverLeaf’s TV Everywhere, which makes shows accessible online to subscribers and pushes content to mobile devices and tablets. Brickman will lead the NY team for Accedo.

Xconomy

Image via CrunchBase

Recently, two NY based big data companies announced additional funding. The first, Dataminr, raised $13 million in a Series B round with GSV Capital, Equity Partners, and others. According to Xconomy, Dataminr was founded in 2009 and uses its access to tweets from Twitter to analyze trends and global events for its clients in the financial and government sectors. The company’s event detection engine can identify popular groups of activity on Twitter. Ted Bailey, CEO of Dataminr, said, “It figures out which of those hotspots are related to an individual user’s portfolio, trading strategies, and macro topics of interest.”

The second company is eXelate who announced a $12 million Series C round led by New Spring Capital. The company was founded in 2007 and gathers data for marketers and advertisers in terms of online purchasing content, household demographics, and consumer behavior. Mark Zagorski, CEO of eXelate, said the company helps advertisers better understand their audiences. Additionally, the digital advertising sector is evolving to tablets, smartphones, and interactive TV. He said, “Not only is data being capture on those [devices], advertising is being served in those venues. The idea of creating a seamless messaging world [for digital advertising] is where the business heading.”

Xconomy

Bottom of Wall Street from FDR (Photo credit: SheepGuardingLlama)

Move over banks. The tech sector is coming to Wall Street. H.E.L.M., or Hire + Expand in Lower Manhattan, is NY’s latest initiative to expand startups. It’s a contest that awards up to $1.2 million in funding to startups willing to locate in the financial district.

The competition is sponsored by NYCDEC, LMDC and HR&A. A panel will choose up to 20 finalists who will receive $10,000 each. After that, up to four winners who sign leases within a year would receive $250,000 each.

TheNextWeb

nyc skyline (Photo credit: Dorli Photography)

Local accounting firms are making a profit off of NY’s booming tech industry, according to Crain’s NY Business. There is a growing market of partners that are heading tech practice groups. This expansion is seen as a way to re-boost client lists hurt by struggles of local industries like fashion and publishing. These accountant groups are promising to work with younger entrepreneurs until their startups have come full circle. However, once companies become big enough to IPO, a lot of investors only feel comfortable with big-name auditing firms. This is why smaller firms are interested in making a connection early on, so as to secure a long-lasting partnership that international firms cannot offer.

Seth Molod, a partner at Berdon, said, “These companies need someone to talk to,” Mr. Molod noted. “Young, inexperienced companies need handling…You get a sales guy you won’t see again.” Additionally, small firms can offer more affordable options for startups that are low on cash. Sometimes this means a stake in equity is given for a reduction in fees.

Crain’s NY Business

Eric Hippeau (Photo credit: jdlasica)

Eric Hippeau is a prolific investor in over 80 startups, most of which are based in NY. Previously the CEO at The Huffington Post, Hippeau is currently working at Lerer Ventures and has been praised by names such as Buzzfeed‘s Jonah Peretti and Buddy Media‘s Mike Lazerow. When Hippeau started at the Huffington Post in 2009 he was just a board member, but he managed to turn the website into a business with $30 million in revenue by 2011, according to Ad Age.  After the site’s sale to AOL in 2011, which he opposed, Hippeau left to join Ken Lerer at Lerer Ventures.

Many wonder now whether Hippeau will consider a CEO position again. He said, “Yeah, why not? But that’s what we’re doing here: We’re building from scratch.” This comment is in reference to Soho Tech Labs, a startup incubator located at the Lerer Ventures SoHo Office. The supervisor is ex-CTO for Huffington Post, Paul Berry. So far, the incubator has launched one company, CasaHop, a house-swapping site.

Advertising Age

Daily Worth

DailyWorth currently has 250,000 subscribers for a mass audience, 80,000 subscribers for higher earners, and 60,000 subscribers for entrepreneurs, with only 1% of this total being male. The company sends out daily emails and offers free subscriptions. Founder of DailyWorth and Web engineer, Amanda Steinberg expects the company to be profitable by October. So far, the site has received funding and advertising from a variety of sources, like Oppenheimer Funds and Google‘s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

DailyWorth’s current competition is Alexa von Tobel‘s LearnVest, another financial website for women based out of NY.  However, LearnVest has for-pay options, ranging from $69-$349, which hundreds of thousands of users opt for. Both companies try to appeal to women through both topics and tone, and strive to make finances interesting to females.

Crain’s New York Business

NJ – Hoboken: Stevens Institute of Technology – Edwin A Stevens Hall (Photo credit: wallyg)

The Stevens Institute of Technology located in Hoboken, NJ is commencing a 10-year expansion plan that it expected to narrow the focus of the engineering school and increase its undergraduate student body by almost 60%. The proposal will be released this Friday and will include a focus on technology, according to Wall Street Journal. 100 professors will be hired and the undergraduate enrollment will be expanded from 2,500 to 4,000. The plan is expected to cost $400 million by its completion in 2022.

Nariman Farvardin, Stevens President, is expected to announce a $10 million gift from Greg Gianforte, software executive and Stevens alumnus, for a new academic building at the university. President Farvardin hopes to make Stevens better known for its technology and to make up for the 16 counts brought against the school by the state attorney general in 2009 for  improper borrowing. Both sides settled in 2010.

Farvardin noted that the school has been lacking a clear focus, and said, ”It was somewhat surprising. I would have thought the university would have a much more definitive plan for its future.” A big portion of the new plan is dedicated to focusing on technology in sectors such as health care, defense and finance. Farvardin also sees CornellNYC Tech as an opportunity, not a threat. The plan is expected to add 50 undergraduates a year and build several new buildings on the school’s campus.

The Wall Street Journal

Founder Jim Bruene (The Finovate Group) -Photo Credit: Lauren Keyson

By Lauren Keyson

One thousand people poured into the Finovate Fall 2012 to watch 64 entrepreneurs demo their innovative financial technology products to 1,100 financial institution executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.  The founders had seven minutes to present their fintech innovations, which included banking, investing, security and retail to the consumer. The largest and most represented field was mobile. The second most demoed area was social – such as Twitter and Facebook integration, followed by mobile payments, security, small business and sales/marketing/investing.

“There is so much stuff that is migrating into mobile,” said Jim Bruene, founder of Finovate. That was just huge. It just interacts with everything that people are showing.  But we really look for something new that people haven’t seen before, and that have impact. I created Finovate because I’ve been in the financial product area for a long time, I just wanted to see all the good stuff comes out quickly, and all the new stuff in one place. Being exposed to that is the ‘funnest’ part.”

Bruene did say a few companies stood out because they were completely new to him.  For example,  CK Mack had an innovative business model.  It’s a system that enables people to invest in the rental real estate market, mostly single-family houses.   Consumers can come in and put $100 dollars in a house here and another $25 there. Co-founders Linda Schictanz and Marcus Zoeller explained the product as a way of bringing the returns generated by rental real estate to the online investing market. “Our web platform opens the historically popular field of real estate to a broad audience, allowing unprecedented diversification and stellar returns.”

Another was Bolstr, a crowdfunding platform that empowers communities to invest in local businesses.  “It’s the first crowdfunding platform focused on adding liquidity to main street small businesses and the only platform able to legally operate pre-JOBS Act,” said founders Charlie Tribbett and Larry Baker. “We worked tirelessly along with our legal counsel to create a model that works within the current regulatory environment.”  How it works is that people can invest in say, a restaurant, and then they can participate in the revenue – they actually get a piece of the restaurants revenue until they get they get their return.

While several of the demonstrations had to do with traditional consumer banking, there was a new category called ‘youth banking.’  PlayMoolah is on a mission to change the way kids use money through fun technologies that allows them to experience money management in order to earn, spend, save and give. “Through real dollars, real action and real impact, we hope for kids to take control of their money and become empowered by using it to live their dreams and create value for society,” said co-founders Audrey Tan and Min Xuan Lee. Then there was Waspit, or “Banking 2.0.”  It combines traditional banking features with social media platforms to create more intuitive experiences for its users.

Virtual Piggy aims at the same under 18 demographic but it’s aimed at security.  It is designed to provide a secure mechanism, so youth can initiate purchases online that are parent approved, controlled and monitored.  The parents can establish parameters around what they can spend, but it’s still full service banking for the younger crowd.

There were also several companies that focused on using the phone to make payments more secure.  One of these was Locaid, which locates smart and feature phones, tables and mobile devices on wireless carriers. It allows mobile developers to locate devices for enterprise authentication, fraud management and consumer location.

The two-day conference ended yesterday with eight Best of Show winners:  Credit Sesame, Money Desktop, PayTap, ShopKeep POS, Dashlane, Dynamics,  eToro and LearnVest.

Image via CrunchBase

TheStreet bought The Deal LLC, which owns the mergers and acquisition magazine The Deal, for $5.8 million recently, according to The Wall Street Journal.  Elisabeth DeMarse, Chairman and CEO for TheStreet, wrote, “We own investing journalism here at TheStreet, and The Deal owns deal journalism, so together we are a glove fit, combining these two excellent newsrooms.” The magazine will be shut down and staff will be laid off, including editor Robert Teitelman.

This sale was considered a few years ago by The Deal, but did not secure the price it wanted. The Deal began in 1999 as a newspaper focused on mergers and acquisitions. Other publications followed suit and eventually deal coverage had its own place in financial news. TheStreet expects the high renewal rates of The Deal’s digital subscribers to offset some of the declines in TheStreet’s offerings.

The Wall Street Journal

ADM8 (Photo credit: Ars Electronica)

Founders of the NJ-based brokerage firm Themis Trading are taking aim at the Wall Street practice of high-frequency trading. Their book, Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfolio, details how HFT rigs the markets in favor of big money players.

Wall Street favors the practice because it’s faster and lowers transaction costs. But Sal Arnuk and Joseph Saluzzi say HFT has hidden costs, such as the technical instability that caused Knight Capital to lose $400 million in minutes. Algorithms and formulas dictate stock price—not the market view of the company being traded. HFT firms are also privy to prices before smaller traders, making it next to impossible for smaller firms like Themis to execute trades at the listed exchange price.

The New York Times

The objectives of the Investor Feedback Forum are:

• To help early stage startups refine their investor pitch
• To provide actionable advice and feedback for each presenting startup
• To provide insight on how investors evaluate startups and pitches
• To award prizes to the most viable startups, based on audience voting

Investor Panelists at the forum will include:

• Somak Chattopadhyay, Partner at Tribeca Venture Partners
• Owen Davis, Managing Director at NYC Seed
• Daniel Schultz, Co-Founder & Managing Director at DFJ Gotham Ventures
• Kirill Sheynkman, Senior Managing Director at RTP Ventures

Startup Pitches from:

NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 13: Exterior views of the Soho House on December 13, 2010 in New York City. Swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay was found dead in her room on December 9, 2010 at the Soho House. Cachay’s boyfried Nicholas Brooks has been charged with attempted murder and strangulation. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The newly formed Technology, Advertising and Startup Council will hold its inaugural event today at NYs SoHo House. VC’s from Greycroft Partners, Union Square Ventures, Physic Ventures and Lerer Ventures will sit down with startups such as content aggregator RebelMouse,  hyperlocal advertiser PlaceIQ and the Twitter-social analyzer Topsy. 

TASC, formed by ad executives Darren Herman, Ian Schafer, David Berkowitz and Mark Silva, is still in early stages, but is considering expanding to other cities. They may also roll events for specific categories—such as e-commerce startups—and add other agencies and VCs.

Adweek

Forbes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After it was bought by True/Slant and Lewis Dvorkin was installed as chief product officer, Forbes underwent a major metamorphosis. Its 1,000-plus contributors post more than 450 times a day. Contributors include Forbes staff, paid freelancers, unpaid experts and advertisers who pay to post alongside editorial content. Its digital year over year revenues have increased by 26 percent for the first half of 2012. Unique visitors increased from 23 million in October 2011 to 31.5 in July.

But according to some, Forbes.com is a just content farm. Poynter said there is no way to maintain quality from outside contributors at that pace. Even their readers agreed. One commenter wrote, in part, “The cache of the former Forbes brand still works with some who don’t know better but by and large the entire site is junk now.”

Emedia Vitals

Image via CrunchBase

Super angels are a bigger presence in NY startup investments. David Tisch, former managing director of Tech Stars NYC, Brian Cohen, chairman of New York Angels and investor David Rose are a new breed of angels with large portfolios. They invest actively, and move in and out of opportunities quickly.

Super angel investors don’t sit on companies’ boards. Instead they offer advice and mentoring. Unlike venture capitalists, super angels tend to encourage startups to sell to larger companies instead of creating their own business model. That typically translates into a faster exit and a smaller return on investment than a venture capital firm.

Crain’s