Our source tells us Bogosian has been "spouting this imminent IPO line for years. It's all he talked about in all-hands meeting when I was there."

2004, "Visto takes aim at Blackberry, IPO" by Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch:

With enough cash in the bank for now, Visto will likely produce positive cash flow and net income by the middle of next year as it adds customers, including a major wireless operator in October, [Bogosian] said. Visto hopes to be one of the few entrants in the current one-deal-at-a-time IPO market.

Visto hopes to go public during the next 12 to 18 months, but isn't in a big hurry. "You don't want to be one of those, 'I've-fallen-and-I-can't-get-up' companies," says Visto's chairman, president and chief executive, Brian A. Bogosian. So the company, which sells software that enables email to be sent to cellphones, will use its new venture cash to keep growing and move toward profitability. It hopes to break even by the time it goes public.

US company Visto, which launched the action against RIM last week, is talking to banks about going public next year. Its chief executive, Brian Bogosian, said that a flotation would value the company at "billions of dollars"

The executive said he has been talking to bankers about potentially taking the company public next year depending on its growth and profit. "We believe we could IPO in 2008," said Bogosian. "We would expect to be profitable at the time we do an IPO."

And who's funding the venture capitalist? Why, spendthrift pension funds and university endowments. Which is why, if they're smart, those institutional investors will avoid giving good money to Visto investors Altitude Capital, Oak Investment Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Meritech Capital Partners, Rustic Canyon Ventures, GKM, and Blueprint Ventures. (Photo by Tracy O)

Why should Visto be shy about taking money from a hedge fund that funds patent lawsuits? Maybe they don't want to be seen as moving from 'litigious startup' to 'patent troll'. Personally I like trolls but not everyone does.

You could call it hedge fund or private equity, either way it is investing in patents and lawsuits, not sales growth. A startup probably wants each of its rounds led by a growth investor. A round led by Altitude is not a 'growth' round thus the embarrassment. On the plus side, maybe Altitude money is now earmarked for the lawsuits, leaving the VC money for the operating company. This probably makes the VCs happy as they are uncomfortable spending so much on lawsuits (outside their expertise). In exchange, Altitude will likely receive a % of any lawsuit payoff. The growth investors are happy to lay off this risk/reward to Altitude.