WHOOP picks up $12 mln Series B
Boston-based WHOOP, a performance optimization system for elite athletes, has secured $12 million in Series B funding. Two Sigma Ventures led the round with participation from Mousse Partners, Accomplice, Promus Ventures, Valley Oak Investments and NextView Ventures. PRESS RELEASE BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–WHOOP today announced the availability of its performance optimization system developed exclusively for elite athletes and teams to help them win more. In conjunction with the launch, the company also announced that it raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Two Sigma Ventures with participation from Mousse Partners, Accomplice, Promus Ventures, Valley Oak Investments, and NextView Ventures. The capital will be used to scale its business targeting professional and collegiate teams and to continue the development of next generation technology. WHOOP continuously measures every athlete’s strain and recovery, which helps balance training plans, prevent injury, and increase team performance. It is currently being used by athletes on teams across all major U.S. professional sports leagues and college conferences. Numerous Olympians are also using WHOOP to train for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The WHOOP system includes a sleek wrist-worn strap that measures key strain and recovery variables more than 100 times per second, 24 hours a day. WHOOP’s proprietary algorithms then process this data to provide athletes an Intensity score, which informs them about the level of strain on their body and what it means; a Recovery score, which measures the body’s preparedness for strain or exertion; and a Sleep Performance score, which evaluates the hours of quality sleep an athlete got in relationship to the sleep he or she needed. The WHOOP system presents a team dashboard to coaches and trainers to help inform training and game day decisions. “At the elite level, it’s no longer just about outworking your opponents to get an edge,” said Mike Mancias, the long-time athletic trainer for LeBron James, and now a WHOOP advisor. “In fact, research shows that 30 percent of athletes are overtrained, which can lead to injury and poor performance. It’s only by balancing intensity with recovery that athletes can optimize performance. WHOOP’s system and the data it provides helps me gain a better understanding of each of my individual athlete’s bodies, their capabilities, and their limitations, leading to better and safer athletic performance.” How WHOOP Works The WHOOP Strap is a device designed to be always on – worn by athletes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It collects more than 150 MB of physiological data per day based on five metrics: Heart Rate (HR) – Tracking and accurately reporting instantaneous heart rate. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) – Automatically analyzing, while an athlete is asleep, the tiniest variations in time between beats of his or her resting heart rate, providing detailed insights into the complex relationship of stresses on the body, cardiovascular health, and recovery. Skin Conductivity – Monitoring an athlete’s skin moisture, helping understand activity and sleep latency. Ambient Temperature – Combining observation of the environment in which an athlete is active with other sensor data to better understand his or her body’s response. Accelerometery & Motion – Knowing when and how an athlete is moving to understand not only his or her activity level but also refining the heart rate signal during exercise and providing insights into sleep quality. That data is streamed via Bluetooth to a sophisticated analytics platform that analyzes Intensity, Recovery, and Sleep Performance. Coaches and trainers can view each athlete’s data on an easy-to-use team dashboard to determine what activities they have engaged in, how much strain they have placed on themselves, and how they have recovered. Coaches and trainers then can easily see which athletes are undertraining or which are overtraining and putting themselves at risk of an injury, resulting in improved individual and team performance. Sophisticated privacy settings allow teams to customize how data is shared between coaches and athletes as well as athletes with one another. “Elite athletes require the highest level of body awareness,” said WHOOP CEO and founder Will Ahmed. “Given the slim margin between success and failure, it’s surprising that most athletes don’t really understand what they’re doing to their bodies. Even the fittest athletes are susceptible to overtraining, misinterpreting fitness peaks, and misconceptions around recovery and sleep. Coaches and trainers face the challenge of evaluating the status and training plans for 10, 20, or 50 athletes at a time. “We built a system that is always on: continuously measuring the nuances of an athlete’s strain and recovery throughout the day,” continued Ahmed. “Our athletes and coaches know that they are making more informed decisions thanks to WHOOP; and with highly-tuned, well-established routines, they are loyal to products that service their discrete needs and help them reach the next level. These are the principles of our system’s design. From its comfortable, lightweight form factor to its privacy and security to its presentation of data, WHOOP was built from the ground up to empower elite athletes who need peak performance.” WHOOP is working with teams across the NFL, NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and the English Premier League, along with several Olympic teams and trainers for some of the world’s most elite athletes, such as LeBron James and Michael Phelps. At the collegiate level, WHOOP is being used in all major conferences, including the SEC, Big 10, Pac 10, ACC, Big 12, and the Ivy League. The WHOOP Strap is the first on the market that users can charge either on-the-go or during a night’s rest without having to be removed. WHOOP is backed by an Advisory Board featuring some of the most influential names in health and technology. “WHOOP is the first performance optimization system targeted exclusively at elite athletes, teams, coaches, and trainers,” said David Joerg, Managing Director at Two Sigma Ventures. “As a technology-driven investment manager, Two Sigma shares the WHOOP appreciation for the power of data. We’re excited to see the promise of advanced technology and analytics brought to the highest level of athletic competition.” WHOOP is available immediately for professional, collegiate, and Olympic teams and athletes. For more information, please visit http://www.whoop.com. About WHOOP WHOOP is the performance optimization system that helps elite athletes and teams win. WHOOP provides athletes, their coaches, and trainers with a continuous understanding of strain and recovery to balance training, reduce injuries, and predict performance. The system is currently being used by professional and collegiate athletes, Olympians, and the United States military. For more information, please visit http://www.whoop.com.
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WHOOP picks up $12 mln Series B
Cision prepares bid for UBM’s PR Newswire: Reuters News
(Reuters) — Cision, a provider of public relations software and intelligence, is working on a bid to acquire press release distributor PR Newswire Association LLC, according to people familiar with the matter. Cision, owned by private equity firm GTCR LLC, is participating in an auction run by British communications and events company UBM Plc (UBM.L), which owns PR Newswire, the people said this week. Cision faces competition for PR Newswire and there is no certainty it will prevail, the people added. The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Cision and UBM declined to comment, while PR Newswire and GTCR did not respond to requests for comment. Reuters reported earlier this year, based on sources, that UBM was looking to sell PR Newswire for more than $700 million. UBM is looking to sell PR Newswire so it can focus on increasing the company’s market share in trade shows and events. It bought trade show company Advanstar Communication Inc for $972 million last year. Based in Chicago, Cision has several products serving PR professionals and journalists. It owns a service called “Help a Reporter Out,” that matches experts with journalists, and PRWeb, a competing service to PR Newswire. GTCR has been acquiring several companies in the public relations software space recently. Last year it bought Cision and merged it with peer Vocus. It subsequently used Cision to acquire Gorkana Group Ltd, a media intelligence and data insights service provider. PR Newswire had revenue of 195.8 million pounds ($300.6 million) in 2014, accounting for 26 percent of UBM’s total revenue and down 3 percent from 2013. Its adjusted operating profit was 44.8 million pounds, down 1.8 percent.
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Cision prepares bid for UBM’s PR Newswire: Reuters News
BioMed Realty Trust in talks to sell itself : Bloomberg
(Reuters) — BioMed Realty Trust Inc (BMR.N), a real estate investment trust for biotechnologycompanies, is in talks to sell itself and has attracted interest from private equity firm Blackstone Group LP (BX.N), Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Founded in 2004, San Diego-based BioMed has a market value of $3.9 billion and is working with Morgan Stanley (MS.N) on a potential deal, the report said. The talks are ongoing and there is no guarantee a deal will be finalized, one of the sources told Bloomberg. BioMed, Blackstone and Morgan Stanley could not be immediately reached for comment.
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BioMed Realty Trust in talks to sell itself : Bloomberg
NEA leads $76.5 mln funding in Blue Jeans Network
Mountain View, Calif.-based Blue Jeans Network, a provider of cloud-based video collaboration services, has raised $76.5 million in new funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Joining the round are previous investors Accel Partners, Battery Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, as well as new investors Glynn Capital, Quadrille Capital, and the former baseball player Derek Jeter, among others. The company has now raised $175 million in total funding. PRESS RELEASE Blue Jeans Network Closes $76.5 Million Investment to Fuel Global Growth and Power New Era of Video Collaboration For Meetings, Events, and Interactive Experiences NEA Leads Round with Participation from Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, Glynn Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Quadrille Capital, and Derek Jeter September 23, 2015— MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – Blue Jeans Network, the global leader in cloud-based video collaboration services, today announced it has secured $76.5 million in new funding led by NEA with participation from previous investors Accel Partners, Battery Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, and new investors Glynn Capital, Quadrille Capital, and Derek Jeter among others. The new funding arrives as Blue Jeans achieves record growth across every critical business metric for the fourth straight year, including bookings (ARR), revenues, subscribers, meetings, minutes, participants and more. Blue Jeans has at least doubled, tripled, or quadrupled each of these metrics year-over-year, every year since it launched its service in 2011. Today the Blue Jeans Network provides more than 1 billion minutes of real-time video collaboration annually to over 25 million participants around the world. The new funding will help accelerate this growth with global market expansion in Europe, Asia and Australia, and support ongoing product innovation that sets the standard for visual collaboration and delivers an unparalleled customer experience. “Despite all the advances in modern technology, the human face is still the most powerful tool for business,” said Krish Ramakrishnan, CEO Blue Jeans Network. “As organizations have become more geographically dispersed, the need for video has become more critical than ever to establish and maintain meaningful connections, foster empathy and understanding, and improve communications. Our customers improve their productivity, save time and money, and build better relationships with Blue Jeans. We are so proud of how far we’ve come in a few short years, but we are not done yet. With this investment we are fueling up our tanks and preparing to step on the gas.” “Blue Jeans has rapidly become the leader in cloud-based video communication, and we are thrilled to lead their pre-IPO financing round,” said Jon Sakoda, general partner at NEA. “This team made the right bet five years ago, predicting that the emergence of cloud, video, and mobile technologies would rapidly expand the market for collaboration. They’ve executed tremendously well, delivering growth that ranks them among the fastest growing SaaS companies in history while continuing to disrupt the market incumbents with innovative new products and services.” Blue Jeans set the industry standard for video as a service when it first launched in 2011 and disrupted the market with its hallmark interoperability, providing the first, best, and only solution that could seamlessly connect business video conference room systems like Cisco and Polycom with consumer desktop and mobile solutions like Skype and Google. With these unique capabilities, great performance, and an easy to use interface, Blue Jeans disrupted the billion-dollar-a-year video bridging hardware (MCU) market as customers abandoned legacy hardware solutions for Blue Jeans’ cloud-based offering. The company has also seen tremendous adoption of its service as a “converged conferencing” solution that offers customers a single tool for their combined audio, video, and web conferencing needs. Customers no longer have to decide in advance if a meeting will be an audio, video, or web call and then use a different tool from a different vendor, with a different account and user interface. Blue Jeans provides them one tool that works whether people join over audio or video and whether or not they have presentations or other content to share. More recently, Blue Jeans has gained traction for its underlying platform and APIs which allow customers and partners to embed interactive video capabilities into their own applications and workflows. These capabilities are being used today by healthcare, training, and call center customers and have also been embedded in popular applications like Salesforce Chatter. In addition to Blue Jeans’ flagship meetings service, earlier this year the company released its second major product line, a large-scale interactive events and experience service called Blue Jeans Primetime. Blue Jeans Primetime extends Blue Jeans’ interactive video conferencing with new streaming capabilities to broadcast events to a worldwide audience, and includes the unique ability for the moderator to switch participant roles between active participant and passive observer, making it possible for speakers and their audiences to interact in brand new ways. In the few months since its launch Blue Jeans Primetime has seen success, not only providing existing customers with a new tool for their all-hands meetings, large training sessions, and marketing events, but also opening up new market opportunities in media, entertainment, and sports for early adopters like TED, The Sundance Film Festival, and The Players’ Tribune. With this unique portfolio of services for meetings, events, and experiences, Blue Jeans continues to provide tremendous value to its rapidly growing global customer base. Today almost 5,000 organizations ranging from high-growth startups, to the Fortune 100, to industry leaders in healthcare, education, technology, media, and entertainment use Blue Jeans every day to collaborate, boost business, and engage with their most important audiences. Customers such as Facebook, Sephora, Red Hat, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Code.org are just a few that have saved approximately 7.5 billion travel miles, $3.3 billion in travel costs and 2.7 billion pounds of CO2 thanks to Blue Jeans. “When I met the Blue Jeans team, I was busy starting my new venture, The Players’ Tribune, a media site dedicated to helping athletes tell their own stories directly,” said Derek Jeter. “I was captivated by what Blue Jeans’ video could do to amplify the voice of our athletes. Now after working closely with the team, I share their vision and see the enormous potential that exists for interactive video events and experiences in business, sports, media, and entertainment.” This funding round brings the total overall financing for Blue Jeans to $175 million. About Blue Jeans Network At Blue Jeans Network, we aim to bring great minds together to meet, share ideas and reach their audiences through the power of video collaboration. By making video communication easy, secure and scalable, our customers can make online conversations, meetings and events personal again. Blue Jeans’ cloud-based platform has taken video into the mainstream, giving thought leaders in business, education, entertainment, and media the power to interact face-to-face with anyone, anywhere. Blue Jeans Network is a private company headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information go to: http://bluejeans.com or follow the company on twitter @BlueJeansNet.
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NEA leads $76.5 mln funding in Blue Jeans Network
Italy’s Versace may pick U.S. or Asia for listing, says CEO: Reuters
Fashion house Versace may pick the United States or Asia for its planned stock market listing, its chief executive said on Tuesday, following other prestigious Italian brands such as Prada and Ferrari. Versace, in which private equity group Blackstone bought a 20 percent stake in 2014, is working on an initial public offering which a source close to the matter said could take place as early as next year. The group expects to close 2015 with sales of more than 630 million euros ($703 million), up from 549 million euros last year, CEO Giangiacomo Ferraris said on Tuesday. He added however that both China and Russia were a concern. He declined to give a timing for the float, saying it depended on external factors such as market conditions. “But we’re seriously working towards it,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event. “We want to be ready.” Ferraris said there were several options for the bourse listing. “Our market shares in Asia are well distributed. Our investor Blackstone is American with offices in London, our brand is Italy-based so the range of possibilities is large. We’ll decide when the moment comes,” he said. The group famous for its Medusa head logo returned to profit in 2011 after struggling for years following the murder, in 1997, of founder Gianni Versace. It is now led by creative director Donatella Versace. “The (IPO’s) goal is to ensure the long-term prospects of the company and reduce its dependence on the family,” Ferraris said. Milanese fashion house Prada picked Hong Kong in 2011 for its stock market listing, betting on fast-rising consumer demand in the world’s second-largest economy. Luxury sports car maker Ferrari plans to list its shares in New York next month. An economic slowdown in China, which in recent years has been the luxury sector’s growth engine, is increasing the appeal of mature markets such as the United States for luxury brands. The Russian economy in turn is seen contracting sharply this year, hit by the impact of international sanctions due to the crisis in Ukraine.
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Italy’s Versace may pick U.S. or Asia for listing, says CEO: Reuters
PE-backed BioClinica buys Synowledge
BioClinica, which is backed by Water Street Healthcare Partners and JLL Partners, has acquired Synowledge. No financial terms were disclosed, Based in Miami, Florida, Synowledge is a pharmaceutical and biotech company. PRESS RELEASE NEWTOWN, Pa., Sept. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — BioClinica®, Inc., a specialty clinical trials services and technology provider, today announced that it has acquired Synowledge to expand its offering into the growing drug safety and regulatory business process outsourcing market. Headquartered in Miami, Synowledge specializes in pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs and information technology services to support biopharmaceutical companies with recording, analyzing and reporting adverse drug events. “This acquisition extends BioClinica’s solutions into an important new area for our customers,” said BioClinica President and Chief Executive Officer John Hubbard. “Synowledge is a highly regarded provider that biopharmaceutical corporations trust to manage the critical process of monitoring and reporting adverse drug events. Its capabilities complement our deep scientific expertise and technology-enabled services that support our customers in developing and bringing new drugs to market as safely and efficiently as possible.” Since its founding in 2006, Synowledge has grown rapidly to serve many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations. The company offers pharmacovigilance services across all therapeutic areas and stages of drug development, including case processing, aggregate reporting, medical literature review, call center support and signal detection. Synowledge employs a highly skilled global workforce of more than 500 people who provide customers with around-the-clock expertise and support remotely or onsite. The company also offers information technology services for drug safety applications. Sankesh Abbhi, who founded Synowledge, said, “We are very pleased to become part of BioClinica. Our companies share a deep commitment to serving our customers and supporting their goals through highly specialized expertise and tailored solutions. Together, we offer customers a broader set of services and increased access to resources that support their overall drug development process.” Effective immediately, Mr. Abbhi will serve as senior vice president and head of global safety and regulatory solutions. He will report to Mukhtar Ahmed, president of BioClinica’s eClinical Solutions Division. “Synowledge is a proven industry leader in the adoption of pharmacovigilance and regulatory technologies,” said Mr. Ahmed. “With its depth of expertise in business process execution, data analysis and application-managed services, we will further extend our eClinical product and services portfolio so that we can provide our customers with a comprehensive offering that spans across the life sciences landscape.” About BioClinica, Inc. BioClinica is a specialty clinical trials services provider that improves the development of new medical therapies by delivering expertise and technologies that enhance clinical research data and analytics, worldwide. The company offers industry-leading medical imaging services, enterprise eClinical technologies, clinical research centers and cardiovascular safety solutions that bring quality and efficiency to every phase of clinical development. BioClinica’s experience spans three decades and includes thousands of studies in all therapeutic areas. The company serves more than 400 pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and device organizations – including all of the top 20 – through a network of offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.bioclinica.com. About Synowledge Synowledge is a specialized Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory Affairs and IT services provider that assists and enables small, medium and large life sciences organizations to satisfy their global regulatory requirements. The Synowledge team consists of highly qualified and skilled experts who are committed to helping companies meet and exceed the challenging demands of the R&D lifecycle. Our comprehensive outsourcing solutions cover all therapeutic areas and combine the unique strengths and knowledge of industry leading experts. Our commitment to quality allows us to deliver accurate, consistent, and robust solutions to the life sciences industry. Synowledge was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Synowledge has global offices in North America, Europe, India, and Japan. For more information, please visit http://www.synowledge.com
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PE-backed BioClinica buys Synowledge
