Motricity, a Washington-based company that develops a software platform for mobile phones, has filed for an IPO of up to $250 million.




Motricity’s core product is the ‘mCore Platform’, which offers a mobile search engine, storefront, and channels that allow carriers to deliver content to their customers. The company often acts as “the brand behind the brand” as it builds mobile software. Motricity’s carrier clients include AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Virgin Mobile. Enterprise clients include TBS, Showtime, Vogue, and Yahoo.

The company generated $88M in revenue in the first 9 months of 2009, but has not reached profitability. On its S-1 filed today, the company says its growth strategies include:

• Focus our efforts on expanding the breadth of our solutions with industry leading participants, leveraging our strong relationships with the top five wireless carriers in the U.S.;
• Expand our business into developed and emerging international markets, such as those in Southeast Asia, India and Latin America, by applying our expertise gained from the U.S. market and fully leveraging the capabilities and scale of the mCore platform;
• Advance our technological leadership through the enhancement of the mCore platform, and the introduction of new solutions that increase the total value we provide to our carrier and enterprise customers;
• Leverage our core competencies, technologies, and existing market position to broaden our offerings and customer base and advance into new market segments;
• Gain additional scale and technology through opportunistic acquisitions that expand our total market opportunity, provide complementary technologies and solutions, and aid our international expansion efforts; and
• Enhance our smartphone solutions to fully capitalize on the extensive capabilities of these devices and their significant market adoption.

[techcrunch]

How much exactly is the Nexus One line of Android phones worth to Google? The folks at Trefis have modeled Nexus One sales into their financial forecast for Google and estimate that it will account for nearly $20 billion of Google’s market cap (based on its target price pf $659 per share), accounting for 9.3 percent of the total. That is more than its estimated contribution of ad and search partnerships (5.1 percent), Google Apps (3.2 percent) or YouTube (2.4 percent). Only search ads account for more of Google’s total value (68.1 percent).

How does Trefis come up with these numbers? Trefis is an investing site which comes up with financial models for stocks which translate into interactive stock charts and price targets. If you don’t agree with their model, you can change some of the underlying assumption sin the drag-able charts and create your own model (see below). Trefis is assuming Google will sell 5 million Nexus One phones this year, and that the Nexus One market share will grow from 0.4 percent this year to 3.4 percent in 2016, when the iPhone will have an 11.5 percent global mobile phone market share (as shown by the olive-colored line above) and Blackberry will have an 8.2 percent share (green line).

That seems a bit aggressive, but as I mentioned, you can always change the assumptions to something you think makes more sense. For instance, if the Nexus One even manages to capture 1 percent of global mobile phone market share, it would add 2.44 percent to Google’s market share, or about the same as YouTube. The Trefis model takes into account other factors, such as the unsubsidized price and margins declining over time. Remember, even though HTC is making these phones, Google is the one who is selling them, both directly and through carriers such as T-Mobile (who are subsidizing the $530 unlocked price and offering them to consumers for $180 with a contract). The Trefis model projects Nexus One revenues to be:

2010: $2.8 billion
2011: $5.7 billion
2012: $8.5 billion
2013: $11 billion
2014: $14 billion

While it’s fun to play around with these numbers, nobody can really predict how successful the Nexus One family will be. And it is not safe to assume typical mobile phone margins since Google has other motivations for pushing these phones, namely to increase adoption of the mobile Web where it will make its real money through mobile search. Also, this model does not take into account the software revenues from all the other Android phones out there. It is only Nexus One. Trefis estimats that Googl eis making a $231 gross profit on each phone, based on iSuppli’ s$174 component cost estimate plus other costs such as warranty, R&D ($50), and HTC’s cut ($75). Google has publicly stated that the profits from the Nexus One are minimal. Yet, if two thirds of Apple’s market share can be attributed to the iPhone (as estimated by Trefis), it doesn’t seem like a stretch to think that Nexus One can become 9 percent of Google’s.

In fact, if you look at Google’s stock price on the day before the Nexus One was confirmed, it was $590, and it rose to $627 just before the official launch on January 5, adding nearly $12 billion to Google’s market cap in that time alone. Of course, there were other factors contributing to the stock’s rise during that time, but an extra $20 billion on top of Google’s current $185 billion market cap is not unthinkable. (The stock today is trading at $585, after the disclosure that it might be exiting the China market).

How much do you think Nexus One is worth to Google?

[techcrunch]

The Public Option : Facebook's Impending IPO

With the recent introduction of a dual-class stock structure emulating that of Google, rumors of a impending Facebook IPO abound. Though nothing has been officially announced, it seems a likely possibility in 2010.

Below we look at the ever-changing and often controversial valuation time line of one of the web's most popular sites

[click to enlarge]

[gigaom]

TeleNav, Inc. announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary, TNAV Holdings, Inc., filed a registration statement on Friday, October 30, 2009 with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of TeleNav’s common stock.




The shares in the offering will be offered by TeleNav and certain selling stockholders. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined.

J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are acting as joint book-runners for the offering. Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Canaccord Adams Inc., Piper Jaffray & Co. and Pacific Crest Securities Inc. are acting as co-managers.

Copies of the preliminary prospectus for the offering, when available, may be obtained from J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Ave., Edgewood, NY 11717, Telephone, (631) 254-1735; or Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., 100 Plaza One, Jersey City, New Jersey 07311, Telephone: (800) 503-4611.

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.






About TeleNav Inc.

TeleNav, Inc. is a leading provider of location based services, or LBS, including voice guided navigation, on mobile phones. TeleNav’s LBS solutions provide consumers and enterprises with convenient and easy to use location specific, real time and personalized features and functions. TeleNav’s flexible and proprietary LBS platform enables it to efficiently provide its LBS to millions of end users, across more than 500 types of mobile phones, all major mobile phone operating systems and a broad range of wireless network protocols.

TeleNav’s wireless carrier partners include Alltel, AT&T, Bell Mobility, Boost Mobile, China Mobile, Cincinnati Bell, NII Holdings, Rogers, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile UK, T-Mobile USA, Telcel, Telecom Italia Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vivo Brazil. TeleNav’s other partners include Ford Motor Company, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, INRIX, LG, Motorola, NAVTEQ, Nokia, Palm, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sanyo and Tele Atlas. TeleNav is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. TNAV Holdings is a wholly owned subsidiary of TeleNav. TeleNav intends to merge with and into TNAV Holdings prior to the offering and the surviving company will be renamed TeleNav, Inc.





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