Technology Briefing
REGIONAL NEWSAnalytics software maker agrees to takeover
Insightful Corp., a Seattle provider of analytics and data mining software, has agreed to be acquired by TIBCO Software for $25 million.
The deal represents a 29 percent premium over Insightful's average closing price over the past 60 trading days.
Insightful will become a subsidiary of TIBCO and its stock will no longer trade on the Nasdaq. Insightful's sales slumped 21 percent during the first quarter to $4.9 million, while it also showed a net loss of $400,000.
Insightful also spun off its search business unit last year, selling it to Paul Allen's Evri startup (formerly Hypertext Solutions) for $3.65 million.
Cell Therapeutics stock reverse-split authorized
Last week, some upset Cell Therapeutics stockholders planned to not vote their shares at the company's shareholder meeting out of protest.
Despite the threat, a quorum was reached at Thursday's meeting, which took place without incident.
All the company's proposals, including a resolution giving the board the authority to reverse-split the company's stock, and a resolution to reduce the quorum necessary to hold future meetings, passed.
During a question-and-answer period following the meeting, CEO James Bianco said that while the board had the discretion to reverse-split the company's shares, "it's not something that is definite."
The company's stock -- which is trading under $1 a share -- is in danger of being delisted from the Nasdaq global market. If it doesn't recover, the shares could be moved to the Nasdaq capital market.
Bianco said that he hoped that the company's stock would recover without a reverse-split.
Biotechnology startup raises $9 million
Vaccsys, a Seattle biotechnology startup, has raised $9 million in a first close of an $18 million series A venture funding, according to a filing reported by Private Equity Hub. Investors in the deal include Alta Partners, The Column Group and Versant Ventures.
NATIONAL NEWS
Yahoo adds two new domains for e-mail users
Yahoo Inc. is introducing two new domains so e-mail users can choose names already taken on the main site. Users can start getting e-mail at ymail.com and rocketmail.com instead of just yahoo.com.