Active Network Shares Rise, Accelrys Buys Sweden’s Contur, Mitek Raises $15M, & More San Diego BizTech News

The IPO market is clearly improving, with San Diego’s Active Network serving as the latest example in a slew of new stock offerings. We have that and all the other tech news you need to start your week.

—Shares of the Active Network (NYSE: [[ticker:ACTV]]) steadily gained altitude last week after the San Diego-based provider of online registration services for events, went public through an initial stock offering of $15 a share. The stock is trading this morning around $18 a share.

—The number of IPO filings increased during the first quarter of this year, according to an IPO pipeline study from the Ernst & Young accounting firm. The San Diego-based Active Network was among 125 companies that filed for an IPO nationwide during the first three months of 2011, a 56 percent increase over the 80 companies that were registered to go public at the end of the first quarter of 2010.

—San Diego’s Mitek Systems closed a $15 million private placement to boost its working capital as part of its plan to move its listing from the over-the-counter bulletin board to the Nasdaq Capital Market. Mitek has developed mobile transaction technology that enables smartphone users to deposit checks, pay bills, and conduct other transactions.

—Accelrys (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ACCL]]) expanded its electronic laboratory notebook capabilities by acquiring privately held Contur Software AB of Stockholm, Sweden, in a deal valued at $13.1 million. Accelrys specializes in software used to model chemical reactions and to help scientists manage their research and development.

—In his WWW tech column, Wade argued that there is room for optimism as the latest wave of innovations in computer tablets, mobile apps, and cloud-based computing eliminate jobs and reshape the economy. He identifies “four slender threads” to hang some hope that the trend of technology ephemeralization—a coalescing of capabilities with fewer and fewer people—can enable dispossessed journeyman workers find gainful employment.

—San Diego was among the 25 “most electric vehicle-ready cities in the U.S.,” according to research from Dearborn, MI-based Ford Motor, which plans to roll out its Focus EV later this year.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.