Kelly Perdew

• Rotowire analysis of the #RotoHog NBA Stock Exchange Fantasy basketball game. http://bit.ly/1w7CP6 #
• and…The NBA Stock Exchange game: http://bit.ly/4D1T8G Market goes live in 2 days! Powered by #RotoHog #

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I was very fortunate to know Luis Villalobos for over 10 years, as a fellow Board member, business partner, mentor and friend and I will miss him greatly. We grew much closer over the most recent 5 years as he asked me to partner with him in launching the next iteration of his vision to help entrepreneurs succeed: Angel Venture Partners.

He was always been there for me in any business deal, contract negotiation, or fund-raising event with logical, well-thought out, and always accurate advice. Luis came to my last two birthday parties (he knows and gives great wine as presents!), my wife’s and my engagement party, and he came to our wedding in Vegas this last January and took better photos of the event than our photographer! Luis embodied the 10 leadership principles I outline in my book - especially integrity. Luis always maintained clarity in every deal and acted with the utmost integrity. Southern California and the US entrepreneurial community has lost a great man, a great contributor. He will be missed by all.

Here is Luis’ formal bio (it is about 6 months old so there are probably a few more deals he’s in) but it doesn’t come close to describing his true impact on the world:

Luis Villalobos has a proven track record as a direct investor in 63 early-stage ventures – 14 successful exits (4 IPOs and 10 mergers), and 31 ventures remaining active. He has a strong technology background and holds several patents as lead inventor; he formed, headed and sold two ventures; and has mentored about a dozen CEOs. He earned degrees at Harvard Business School (MBA) and MIT (SB Math) where he was a National Merit Scholar.

He was the founder of the Tech Coast Angels, whose 111 portfolio companies have received $782 million in capital. He is a founding Board member of the Angel Capital Association – an organization with 100+ member angel groups. He helped start two other angel groups, East Coast Angels in Sydney Australia, and Camino Real Angels in Texas. He has developed and led over 100 workshops for angel group leaders, angels, bar associations (for MCLE credit), and entrepreneurs – on valuations, due diligence, term sheets, deal structures, venture capital, angel investing, early-stage funding, business plans, patents and intellectual property, and entrepreneurship. Villalobos is frequently quoted in the press regarding angel investing, and is a featured speaker and panelist at entrepreneurial events and conferences.

Villalobos has experience and expertise in IT (telecom, computer architectures, networks, micros, minis, codecs, security, graphics, imaging, compression); artificial intelligence (genetic algorithms, neural networks, fuzzy logic); software (assemblers, compilers, Visual Basic, application programming, cognitive and recognition algorithms); biotech (degenerative brain disease therapeutics); applications (computer-based education).

Please consider contributing to this fund that his colleagues and friends in the Tech Coast Angels have set up in his name: Luis Villalobos Memorial Scholarship, UCI Graduate School of Business: Send check to UCI Graduate School of Business c/o Luis Villalobos Memorial Scholarship Fund.

• #Rotohog CEO Kelly Perdew open letter - Fantasy Sports, New Financing, New Games. http://bit.ly/X9mgp #

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I hope this note finds you well and that you are enjoying the early fall, especially the fantasy football season that is well underway and keeping us at RotoHog so busy these days.

Our last few months have again brought some tremendous news and unprecedented growth for our company, and we wanted to give you a quick update on what we are up to and what’s coming next. Even in this challenged economy, it is becoming clearer every day that fantasy gaming is a great outlet for both the ardent and casual sports fan, and we are very excited to help those gamers, and the media partners that are presenting those games on very large platforms, quench that thirst for quality play and information.

Some highlights of our recent activity include:

• Fantasy Football: We have launched our multi-sport game solution for Sporting News (http://www.sportingnews.com/fantasy/football), one of the largest fantasy gaming platforms in the industry, as well as football games for Los Angeles Times (http://football.latimes.com/), ProFootballWeekly (http://www.profootballweekly.rotohog.com/), Rallycast (https://www.rallycast.com/rallycast/index.jsp), Operation Sports (http://fantasy.operationsports.com/), and Military.com (http://football.military.com/scm/).

• NBA.com: We are currently building and deploying games as part of our continuing partnership with Turner Sports and the NBA, and will launch the third season of the NBA Stock Exchange game on NBA.com this coming week with some spectacular new features. (http://www.nba.com/fantasy/)

• Military.com Partnership: One of the most passionate groups for fantasy gaming is the US Military, and we have launched a new platform for the highly-trafficked website Military.com, starting with football and carrying into other sports and events. It is a great opportunity to give something back to a core audience that is particularly meaningful to me and which is passionate about the product and can get some real rewards out of the prizes that will be built into the competition.

• Financing: Even in this challenging economy we continue to find new investment dollars, which is the clearest proof of our viable business platform in this highly competitive space. This month we closed an additional $2 Million from Mission Ventures, which gives us even more bandwidth to grow as a brand.

• Media coverage: We were recently featured in the September issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. In case you missed it the link is: http://entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2009/september/203140.html

• Venture Industry: I am honored to be a keynote speaker at VentureNet (http://www.venturenet.org/) this year. The conference is always exciting, has sold out the last 10 years, and I recommend it for anyone raising money or starting a technology business in Southern California. Here is the code for a significant discount if you are interested in attending:
-Website: www.venturenet.org
-Code: VNJK
-Discounted rate: $99 ($100 savings off the non-member rate)

These are only a few of the latest developments and we will be implementing and announcing many more deals in the near future. We expect more partners and properties to be joining us in the fourth quarter and into 2010, as we grow market share and visibility as the best in class for developing and marketing innovative games for some of the biggest and most passionate players in the industry.

As always thanks for your time and interest, and if there is anything we can do to assist you or answer and questions, comments or opportunities please let me know.

Regards,

Kelly

• Leading a discussion on leadership at AccessEN next week in Los Angeles: http://bit.ly/19YLic #

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• #RotoHog. Great coverage of the Fantasy Sports Industry in September’s Entrepreneur Magazine: http://bit.ly/kfFYf #
• #RotoHog. Entrepreneur Magazine also put up our video interview on the subject of Entrepreneurism and Fantasy Sports: http://bit.ly/M01xL #

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• #RotoHog Wow! Marine Corps bans social media usage. http://bit.ly/160Yzn #

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• #rotohog - Posted CEO Open Letter #3 about RotoHog’s fantasy sports platform progress: http://bit.ly/rzn8O #

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Dear friends and colleagues,

We continue gaining momentum and I want to update you on the past month. We are growing and adding new partners as we approach what will be a record fall season of creation and activation for the team here. Also, thank you very much for those of you that reached out with business ideas, they were very useful!

Recent exciting developments since we last communicated include:

• Sporting News. We launched the fantasy football Salary Cap and Draft & Trade games on SportingNews.com, which is the first of many launches with one of the premier titles in sports publishing. Find the games here: Salary Cap and League Manager. The league manager draft application will include features never before seen in the fantasy space. Check it out.

• Fox Sports En Espanol. We launched our second-half baseball season with Fox Sports En Espanol, which follows on the heels of a very successful implementation of a fantasy game and Sports Market Ticker™ for their baseball coverage. Click here for the game. Fox secured an excellent sponsor for the game – Clamato.

• The Sports Network. We closed a large-scale deal with The Sports Network wherein TSN will work with RotoHog to provide data and news across multiple sports. This will ensure that RotoHog and its partners have the most accurate, up-to-date information within their fantasy games.

• Diskavontade. We closed a deal for RotoHog to power unique Brazilian Serie A and World Cup Pick ‘Em soccer games to Diskavontade, a company specializing in VOIP technology with emphasis on communications to and from Brazil. Diskavontade will use the game to attract and engage its network of agents, and to promote their products and features in an innovative fashion.

• FUHU. A partnership with FUHU, one of the world’s leading web application providers, to create and manage fantasy sports games and content for their uFooz portable ID cards. This will enable subscribers to share fantasy sports, photo sharing and other content across a host of social networking platforms. The games and applications will also be housed on uFooz.com and be available to millions of fantasy game fans worldwide. Create your own urFooz card here.

• AlwaysOn 250 Global Media Company Award. I am also very pleased to report that RotoHog was selected as a worldwide finalist by the industry group AlwaysON as one of their top 250 global media companies, and is one of the few sports entities to make the list. This is the latest in a series of acknowledgments that continues to show how quickly we are becoming a leader in the space, with a number of additional announcements and new partnerships coming in the fall. See list here.

• RotoHog Redesign. We upgraded the look and feel of RotoHog.com to highlight our platform capabilities. However, all of the games that you have enjoyed playing (and many more) will still be available on the site HERE.

The breadth of these relationships indicates the power and flexibility of the platform the team here has built. Despite the economic slowdown, the fantasy gaming space continues to grow, and we are very proud to be at the forefront of that growth with our applications, our unique games, the most scalable and flexible platform, and creative solutions for our business partners. Please let me know if you have any ideas for partners for all of our soccer offerings for next year!

As always, we want to thank you for your support and interest, and we hope to see you soon.

Regards,

Kelly

• Legalizing sports betting? http://tinyurl.com/mjs6ag #

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