Get this,an Internet stock is in the black for investors.
Shares of Laguna Hills-based Interchange Corp., which runs a paid Internet search service, are up since the company’s initial public offering a few weeks ago.
Interchange’s shares have nearly tripled from their debut to about $24 as of last week, with a market value of some $140 million.
The company is set to release third-quarter results this week. Interchange, the subject of investor chat room banter, could be seeing buying spurred by speculators looking for the next Google Inc.
On one day alone last week, the company was the subject of a thousand board postings, including one that said “go baby Goog.”
Interchange recently did a deal with the U.S. arm of Britain’s On-line UK Ltd., which plans to use Interchange’s advertising system on its site.
The company didn’t provide a value on that deal. Gregory Parker, director of strategic alliances for Interchange, said, “This partnership creates immediate revenue opportunities.”
Interchange could use the help. The company’s public offering was a life preserver of sorts. In the company’s prospectus, it said it needed the $22 million it raised in October.
“Management believes, based upon projected operating needs, that our working capital is insufficient for us to maintain our current level of operating activities through Dec. 31, 2004,” the company said in the filing for its offering.
The company said it was raising money to help pay off debts, including taxes owed. Interchange had accumulated $12.8 million in losses as of the end of the first quarter.
In its regulatory filing, Interchange said it expects to use $2 million of the funds raised to pay back taxes to the federal government. The company said it failed to pay, or pay on time, taxes from 2000 through 2002.
Interchange, which has about 50 workers, also plans to use money from the stock offering to expand, boost marketing and for other corporate purposes.
Interchange was started in 1999 as eWorld Commerce Corp. The company’s name was changed to eLiberation.com Corp. later that year.
Last year, Interchange took on its current name. The company has about 5,000 direct advertisers in its database. It supplies those listings to some 200 Web sites and search engines. When a Web surfer does a search with an Interchange partner, the advertiser’s name appears with the search results.
Interchange, like Google, makes money each time the Internet user clicks on a sponsored listing.
In the first quarter, Interchange said it received 40 million searches a day. One search engine partner,LookSmart Ltd.,accounted for 38% of Interchange’s revenue for the first quarter.
Interchange is growing. It posted sales of $4.3 million in the second quarter, 23% higher than the first quarter. Interchange leases about 8,600 square feet of space in Laguna Hills and says it will need more space in the next 12 months.
Another New MTI face
Tustin-based MTI Technology Corp. hired another new executive,Don Campbell, who joins as head of the company’s federal business unit.
“Don Campbell has an immense depth of experience building successful federal business units in the past. He has worked in the industry for more than 20 years selling enterprise hardware and software solutions,” said Rick Ruskin, executive vice president of sales, MTI. “His knowledge of government procurement procedures and his broad mastery of the storage market made him the logical choice to lead MTI’s dedicated Federal sales group.”
Earlier this month, MTI announced that Scott Poteracki, who was chief financial officer of Seattle supercomputer maker Cray Inc., joined MTI in the same role. Both executives join MTI as it’s trying to turn a corner.
During the technology boom, MTI counted a market value several times its current $62 million. But then came the bust, patent disputes with EMC Corp. and stepped-up competition for storage devices.
FieldCentrix, Intel
FieldCentrix Inc. said it would work with Intel Corp. to make computers that offer field service workers with real-time information.
Field technicians use FieldCentrix’s software to track appointments and link with dispatchers. It even maps out the address of their next stop.
FieldCentrix, which employs about 75 people, mostly in Irvine, looks to piggyback its software with sales by equipment makers and services provided by distributors and repair outfits.
The deal with Intel should produce software that works with the chipmaker’s Centrino line of mobile computing chips.
FieldCentrix has quite a history. In 2002, the software maker was bought by an Enron unit. After more than a year of prying itself from the failed energy company, FieldCentrix wound up back in the hands of its original venture backers as well as those that took part in the company’s recent funding round.
Correction
In the Business Journal’s Nov. 1 chipmakers list, we should have listed Harold Blomquist as chief executive of Morpho Technologies Inc. in Irvine instead of founder Shahriar Sadri. Our bad,we’ve actually interviewed Blomquist.
