More evidence of financial troubles at Alex Vieux's publishing and conference group. Filings with the SEC suggest that Red Herring, which was sued by at least three unpaid vendors last year, was forced into a bridge round in December. The company, which has also had difficulty in promptly meeting payroll, raised $1.02m last month by taking out convertible debt. That looks ominous.

A bridge financing is often a sign that a company's having trouble raising another round of funding. The new investors have the power, if certain conditions are not met, to force the company into liquidation.

Vieux's annual ETRE conference, most recently held in Barcelona in October, certainly used to be the leading event for high-tech execs in Europe. I'd assumed Vieux could still rope in enough executive attendees to subsidize a loss-making print magazine.

But Vieux's not quite as plugged in to the sources of power in Silicon Valley as he'd like people to think. And Red Herring, since Vieux bought the shuttered title in 2003, has never regained the status among readers and advertisers that it had during the last internet boom.

The legendary title, a bible for venture capitalist and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley during the 1990s, seemed like a smart investment when Vieux picked it up for almost nothing in 2003. But the killer of a struggling title is not the purchase price but the upkeep. Which might explain Red Herring's need for the repeated injections of cash, about which, more later.