Update Apr 17 11:20am: Confirmed, RBC Capital Markets is an underwriter

The Canadian airline company, Porter Inc., confirmed today the company plans to go public with an initial public offering (IPO) to raise capital.

The company declined to answer when it could happen, nor any other information including who the underwriters would be and what type of underwriting would be used such as a firm commitment underwriting.

The regional aviation company currently flies planes from Toronto’s downtown island airport to destinations in both Canada and the United States.

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The Calgary-based energy firm Athabasca Oil Sands Corporation is readying a $1.35-billion initial public offering (75-million shares) by the end of next week on the TSX. The shares will debut at $18 per share.

The underwriters are GMP Securities and Morgan Stanley. Due to increasing demand in this hot IPO, including major interest from international investors, particularly Asian-based institutional and private investors, the IPO could raise $1.5-billion in capital for the firm as the underwriters exercise valuable options to buy more discounted shares.

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Twitter has raised a new round of financing at a $100 million dollar valuation.

Benchmark Capital, Spark Capital, Institutional Venture Partners are returning investors and were involved in the new offering. There were also two new shareholders added to the mix, T. Rowe Price and Insight Venture Partners.

The terms of the deal will not be disclosed, including neither the total amount Twitter has raised (except to say it was a significant sum) nor any indication as to the investment weights from each investor.

We just know that Twitter was valued at $1 billion after internal people familiar with the matter confirmed the valuation to the AP.

The new funds will be used to fund company operations, and could include purchasing new equipment to grow the service and even expand the current 60-strong workforce.

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Dole Food, one of the biggest producers and marketers of produce have filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC.

According to the prospectus, the company wants to raise up to $500 million by selling common stock (undisclosed expected share price) via the IPO.

Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo will be underwriting the IPO according to the SEC filing.

The company plans to trade on the NYSE with the ticker DOLE.

It is unclear as to exactly when this would happen.

TechCrunch is reporting VC firm General Atlantic has submitted a term sheet with a $2 billion valuation to Facebook. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg previously said they would only raise new funds at the previous $15 billion valuation, a valuation that will not be happening now.

Facebook will soon need to raise money as the company continues to experience explosive growth, burning about $20 million a month in cash to support operations.

Facebook may also go for an IPO given the company recently ousted CFO Gideon Yu, looking for a CFO with public company experience.

Pixazza is a new start-up that hopes to become the AdSense of photos. The company has developed software that identifies items in pictures and matches them to real products people can purchase. The company users real product experts to help match related products. For example, when visiting your favorite celebrity site, if you find something that looks great on someone, if available, you will be able to mouse-over to get pricing on related products, and click to learn more and buy.

“Pixazza’s unique technical advantage is its crowdsourcing platform,” said CTO James Everingham. “No computer algorithm can identify a black pair of Jimmy Choo boots from the 2009 fall collection as well as a person. Rather than rely on computer algorithms, our platform enlists product experts to drive the process.”

Pixazza has raised a Series A fund worth $5.75 million from Google Read the full story

Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank has announced it will raise $250 million by issuing 7 million Class A preferred shares at $25 per share. TD needs to continue to raise cash with depleting reserves as a result of massive credit losses as a result of the global financial crisis. TD’s Tier 1 Capital ratio is also now down to 8.3%, the lowest in Canada. The Canadian Fed prohibits the ratio to fall below 7% Part of the plan, the underwriters can also exercise an option to buy 3 million more shares. TD plans to raise more than $2 billion starting in 2009. TD Q4 revenue was down 7% in Q4, while profits were down to $1.014 billion ($1.22 per share). Adjusted Q4 profit was down 35%

Handheld computer maker Palm has announced a $100 million investment from its largest equity provider Elevation Partners who owns at least 25% of the company. The funds will be used to expand Palm’s new upcoming operating system and operations. Palm is expected to unveil its new mobile OS at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which runs near the end of Jan 2009. Palm continues to struggle with sales as competition stiffens from Blackberry and the iPhone. Palm will also unveil its own App Store, Read the full story