I Hate Banks

Globes, today:

IBM Corporation (NYSE: IBM) is in talks to acquire data storage company Storwize Inc. at a company value of $140 million. Storwize has raised $38 million since it was founded in 2004, which means that the sale is a successful exit by the company's investors.

Storwize president Gal Naor and CTO Jonathan Amit founded the company, which develops real-time data compression software for handling data even before it is sent to storage systems. In recent years, data compression for storage systems has become a pressing need in view of the huge quantities of enterprise data, upgrades of communications infrastructures, and the need to save space and electricity costs. Storwize says that its systems can compress data at a ratio of up to 1:15, reducing storage space by up to 95%.

Storwize has held three financing rounds. Its investors include Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Capital, Pujo Zabludowicz's Tamares Group, Tenaya Capital (formerly the venture capital arm of Lehman Brothers), Tokyo Electron Device Ltd., Dutch private equity investor group Stichting Gemeenschappelijk Bezit, and Israeli private investors former Bank Hapoalim chairman Shlomo Nehama(pic), and Igal Ahouvi.

Why I hate Banks? Because a few years ago I bought shares of a special Startup Investment Fund. It was a very confidencial fund, only for their clients, because the fund was supposed to use their inside knowledge of the market to make successful investments. They HAD knowledge, as Mr Nehama's successful personal investment appears to demonstrate. The fund... the fund... (let me collect myself)... is worthless and liquidating.