Tech's for-sale list

Every Silicon Valley company is for sale, at some price. But some are more eagerly for sale, or more desperately in need of cash, than others. How to tell? The list of private companies presenting at Montgomery & Co's technology conference, which begins today in Santa Monica, is a good guide. They'll deny being on the block, of course. But the investment bank's conference is one of the biggest markets of the year for acquisitions and later-stage technology investment deals; it's a low-rent tech answer to the dealmaking of the Cannes film festival. Prime flipmeat, and the rotting kind, after the jump. Among those pitching this week: movie booking site, Fandango; fashion newsletter, Daily Candy; video ad broker, Spot Runner; ad network, Quigo; Gomez, which now provides website monitoring; Pixsy, image search engine and Techcrunch fave; ringtone seller Thumbplay; MP3 database, Gracenote; and wifi network of networks, the once-hot Boingo Wireless. Of course, perennial buyout candidate, blog search engine Technorati, is also touting its business. Though its presence carries less significance: Technorati has been open to acquisition offers for years; and its execs are such indiscriminate conference-goers that, if only to sit on the panel, they'd volunteer for jury service.

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