Venture Capital

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  • Design with IDEO: Designing Sustainable Human Centered Business Models @Investors Circle Forum

    EZebis
    pemo
    20 May 2013 | 9:00 am
    Focused on innovative social design as IDEO discusses ways that their firm gains insights about customers & uses prototype  based experiments to help evaluate & explore business model options for business ventures.  Facilitators: David Aycan, Design Director IDEO & Joe Gerber, Business Designer IDEO @Investors Circle Spring Forum You can …

  • I hate social networking

    Technosailor.com
    Aaron
    1 May 2013 | 5:21 pm
    I hate social networking. I despise it. All of it. For me it’s a tool (like me, some would say). “But, Aaron. You have 1500 friends on Facebook and nearly 10,000 on Twitter. You’re lying.” Oh but I’m not. I used to love social networking. I used to travel to conferences where other social media people were just to, in hindsight, make myself look more like a stud. That’s why there are so many. I’ve dated or slept with social media women just for access. I’ve been that guy at SXSW that, as a former Austinite, I now mock. That one cutting to the…

  • University of the People: Support a Student

    Continuations
    17 May 2013 | 7:49 am
    I first met Shai Reshef, the indefatigable force behind University of the People, at DLD in 2009. Since then I have come to know Shai as someone who cares deeply about using education to empower people all around the world. He is taking quite a different approach from the MOOCs by scaling UoPeople much more slowly and deliberately and working diligently towards accreditation. The approach has two premises. First, in many countries around the world a degree plays a dramatic role in changing the income trajectory for individuals. This has also been the insight behind Vittana which provides…

  • Box acquires Folders and its ‘elegant’ French spin on file storage

    VentureBeat
    Rebecca Grant
    23 May 2013 | 10:56 am
    Box went on a little shopping trip to France. Today, the file-sharing company announced that it has acquired the technology behind a mobile app called Folders. Folders is an application developed in France by Martin Destagnol. It provides (in true French form) “the most elegant client for your cloud storage.” Using its “amazingly polished user interface,” people can manage multiple accounts like Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive; copy, move, delete, or transfer files; sort, search, and share files; and view them clearly on your smartphone. In a blog post about the news,…

  • The Benefits of a Challenge: A Lesson from Japanese Fishermen

    OpenView Blog
    Diana Martz
    22 May 2013 | 12:36 pm
    What do keeping employees motivated and fresh fish have in common? I just got back from my first trip to Asia, where I learned an interesting story about Japanese fishermen that directly correlates with business principles for employee motivation. The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But over the past several decades it has become increasingly difficult to find fish in close waters. Fishing boats have gotten bigger and ventured farther and farther out into the ocean. Of course, the farther the fishermen go, the longer it takes to bring back the fish, and soon people began to complain…
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    TechCrunch

  • With Metrics Up Since Acquisition, Parse Could Get Developers Integrating Facebook And Buying Ads

    Drew Olanoff
    23 May 2013 | 11:44 am
    After being acquired by Facebook, the mobile back-end service Parse has been extremely busy integrating itself into the company, as well as launching new services like web hosting for developers. The service has built tools to help developers focus on the front-end of their product, while handling all of the messy back-end things like cross-platform compatibility and testing. Naturally, Facebook integration is easier than ever for mobile developers thanks to the acquisition. Its been six years since Facebook’s Platform launched, and during a whiteboard session at its Menlo Park…

  • Lambda Labs Is Launching A Facial Recognition API For Google Glass

    Sarah Perez
    23 May 2013 | 11:29 am
    Lambda Labs, an early stage startup out of San Francisco, is preparing to release a facial recognition API for developers working on Google Glass apps. The API will be available to interested developers within a week, company co-founder Stephen Balaban says. The move comes on the heels of a Congressional inquiry into Google’s new wearable technology, still very much in the prototype phase. The startup’s facial recognition API, launched into beta last year, is already used by 1,000 developers, including several major international firms. It now sees over 5 million API calls per…

  • Box Acquires French File Storage Startup Folders To Help Develop Its Next-Gen iOS App

    Rip Empson
    23 May 2013 | 11:18 am
    It was just two weeks ago that fast-growing enterprise cloud storage company, Box, went out and acquired document embedding service and Y Combinator grad, Crocodoc. Apparently Aaron Levie sees what Yahoo is doing and he wants to show that Box is ready to do a little acquiring of its own. Today, Box followed up with its second acquisition in as many weeks, scooping up the tech behind French startup and Box, Dropbox and Google Drive client for iOS, Folders. Developed by Martin Destagnol, Folders and its tech will be integrated into Box’s new iOS app, which is in currently in development.

  • Ex-Googler Ben Ling Brings His Operations Experience To Khosla Ventures

    Ryan Lawler
    23 May 2013 | 10:50 am
    Former Badoo COO and ex-Googler Ben Ling has joined Khosla Ventures, according to sources. Ling, who has held senior operations roles for a number of big companies in the mobile and Internet space, has been added to a growing team at Vinod Khosla’s venture firm. (Update: Khosla Ventures just confirmed Ling has joined, starting this week.) Ling most recently served as COO of Badoo, where he was hired to oversee product, engineering, partnerships, and business operations at the company. Ling joined Badoo in May 2012, but he left after only about six months. Prior to Badoo, Ling spent a…

  • Google Adds Notification Center And Rich Notifications To Chrome Beta 28, Will Work Even When The Browser Is Closed

    Frederic Lardinois
    23 May 2013 | 10:48 am
    This isn’t exactly the launch of Google Now for the desktop, which many of us have been patiently waiting for, but Google today announced that it is bringing a richer notifications experience to Chrome, starting with the latest beta. This definitely feels like it brings Google Now yet another step closer to the desktop. These new notifications, which developers can easily add to their own Chrome packaged apps and extensions, will pop up outside of the browser window and live in a center outside of the browser, so users will be able to receive notifications, even if the browser is not…
 
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    Both Sides of the Table

  • Why We Need to Elect @EricGarcetti on Tues as Next Mayor of Los Angeles

    Mark Suster
    19 May 2013 | 7:32 pm
    On Tuesday Los Angeles will elect a new mayor. And while Eric Garcetti is leading in the polls by 7%, according to recent articles a victory is not certain. LA needs Garcetti. He would be the first tech mayor of our city. He understands our issues as a community and vows to help keep LA Tech on the map. From his opponent I have heard crickets in the past year. Why does it matter? And how can you help? If you live in LA please turn up to vote on Tuesday. In a citywide election every vote really DOES matter. If you live in LA (or even if you don’t you can help amplify) please consider…

  • Should You Consider Replacing Yourself as CEO?

    Mark Suster
    19 May 2013 | 9:56 am
    My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. I have talked about this publicly a great deal – how I prefer “missionaries” over “mercenaries.” But lately I’m more swayed by the wise words of Reid Hoffman. “Founder is a state of mind, not a job description” We all love the mythical stories of our great founder heroes who drove startups from scratch and led their businesses many years later: Bill Gates,…

  • The One Word That Shouldn’t Exist in an Entrepreneur’s Vocabulary

    Mark Suster
    15 May 2013 | 1:18 am
    No. The one word the best entrepreneurs never accept. I said it. Now let me walk you through a broader story because avoidance of the word in and of itself will seem cliche. Stay with me. When I was little I had a role model for entrepreneurship – my mom. She was a natural leader. She was president of the UJA in Sacramento. From this I saw civic involvement and leadership first hand. She was a nurse but was never graduated from a 4-year college. Still – she can do the NY Times crossword puzzle better and faster than I. Even today. She was a hustler. And a ball buster. And a…

  • The Corrosive Downside of Acquihires

    Mark Suster
    13 May 2013 | 6:57 am
    For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. And to keep up with the Jones’s it seems that Yahoo! has now employed the same strategy. And who cares, right? A couple of tech giants throw millions around in either cash (for which they have hoards) or part with some publicly traded stock. And a few teams of super talented, educated and bright entrepreneurs make a few mill. in their 20′s. What could be more capitalist than that? It has even gone so far that we now have…

  • Why Online Video Just Took One More Big Step to Legitimacy

    Mark Suster
    7 May 2013 | 11:14 pm
    Anyone who reads this blog frequently will know that I am a big believer in low-cost video content and specifically the power of YouTube as a content creation & distribution platform. Our industry just took one big step towards legitimacy with the hiring of renowned media exec Ynon Kreiz to run Maker Studios. The industry finally has one of their own at the helm of the largest YouTube network. This followed an investment late last year by Time Warner in the company in a round totaling $36 million, led by Rachel Lam, head of their investment group. This has been a very welcome…
 
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    VatorNews.tv

  • Yahoo buys PlayerScale - ninth startup in nine months

    23 May 2013 | 9:16 am
    Maker of mobile gaming infrastructure becomes the latest find in Yahoo's acquisition spreeI can understand if you thought that Yahoo might want to take a break from what is becoming a pretty epic startup shopping spree after the company agreed to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion earlier this week. But taking a break just isn't how Yahoo rolls these days, I guess. Yahoo has now gone ahead and purchased its ninth startup in nine months; this time scooping up PlayerScale, which makes software infrastructure for cross-platform gaming. No financial terms of the deal have been disclosed,…

  • Mission Markets bags $1.5M for impact investing

    23 May 2013 | 9:13 am
    The A2 round brings Mission Markets' Series A to $3MFor the socially conscious retail investor, buying stocks is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you’re growing your long-term wealth and securing your financial future, but on the other hand—uh-oh, you’re supporting the capitalist fat cats, and by extension, the Wall Street fat cats. Way to contribute to the problem of unequal wealth distribution in America, jerk. In a unique “capitalism for good” move, Mission Markets has arrived on the scene as a happy alternative that allows investors to support the…

  • JustFab acquires Fab Shoes to conquer France and Spain

    23 May 2013 | 7:45 am
    JustFab ramps up international expansion, adds 5M members in five monthsLike a mighty conquistador (minus the historic cruelty and human rights abuses), JustFab is traversing the globe and carving out a larger stake for itself. One year after launching in Germany and the UK, JustFab is now taking its operations into France and Spain with the acquisition of The Fab Shoes, a subscription retail service for shoes that launched last year. The Fab Shoes already has 500,000 members throughout France and Spain, and the acquisition gives JustFab an easy foot in the door. “Acquiring Fab Shoes…

  • 10 million Galaxy S4 phones sold in less than a month

    23 May 2013 | 12:02 am
    Galaxy S4 hits the milestone in half the time it took the S3, four new colors coming soonJust last week, Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun told reporters that he believed that the Galaxy S4 would hit the 10 million mark this week. Not only did that prediction come true, but the S4 has now become the one of the fastest selling Samsung phone of all time. The phone has sold more than 10 million units less than one month after its commercial debut on April 27th, it was announced in a press release on Thursday. Samsung is now estimating that the phone is selling at a rate of…

  • Two executives say goodbye to Square

    22 May 2013 | 5:45 pm
    Alex Petrov and Alyssa Cutright both departed the company, with Petrov leaving before he startedTwo executives at Mobile payments company Square have decided to leave, one before he ever even started his job!  Both Alex Petrov and Alyssa Cutright have departed the company, Square has confirmed to VatorNews. Petrov, the former Vice President of Consumer Brands at Safeway, was to start his job as Vice President of Partnerships at Square, it was announced at the beginning of the month. But Square has confirmed that he never actually started his job before deciding to…
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    VentureBeat

  • SimpleRelevance raises $1M for tech that gives emails a personal touch

    Rebecca Grant
    23 May 2013 | 12:19 pm
    Impersonal, mass emails are easy to dislike and ignore, which is why SimpleRelevance has raised $1 million. SimpleRelevance’s platform gathers customer data and then personalized emails to specifically target individuals. The technology looks at information like past purchase behavior and combines it with geographic, social, and demographic’ data to send highly targeted emails. The goal is to make emails ‘smarter’ so the right message is automatically delivered at the right time, with custom subject line, content, and delivery times. The company claims that this degree…

  • WWDC press invites go out, Apple holding keynote on June 10

    Meghan Kelly
    23 May 2013 | 11:52 am
    Apple is officially holding its developer conference keynote on June 10 this year. The event, otherwise called WWDC, is one of Apple’s biggest where it traditionally announced a number of new products and software updates. VentureBeat received its invitation today for WWDC, which will run from June 10 through June 14. In late April, tickets for WWDC sold out within two minutes of going on sale. The tickets cost $1,600, but with iOS and Mac operating system updates on the horizon, developers are rightfully scrambling for the access. Apple revealed earlier on that it would be talking…

  • See the future of games at E3 2013

    -
    23 May 2013 | 11:47 am
    This sponsored post is produced by Electronic Entertainment Expo. In three weeks, the video game industry will descend on Los Angeles to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 to see the future of the video game industry. Will you be there? Be the first to experience new technologies, demo upcoming games and titles, and immerse yourself in all things video games. E3 is your opportunity to be part of what’s next now. Check out the companies that will transform the industry at E3 this year. Be a part of the future at E3 2013. Register now before it’s too late at www.E3Expo.com with…

  • Box acquires Folders and its ‘elegant’ French spin on file storage

    Rebecca Grant
    23 May 2013 | 10:56 am
    Box went on a little shopping trip to France. Today, the file-sharing company announced that it has acquired the technology behind a mobile app called Folders. Folders is an application developed in France by Martin Destagnol. It provides (in true French form) “the most elegant client for your cloud storage.” Using its “amazingly polished user interface,” people can manage multiple accounts like Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive; copy, move, delete, or transfer files; sort, search, and share files; and view them clearly on your smartphone. In a blog post about the news,…

  • Nextdoor releases mobile app to strengthen communities using smartphones

    Rebecca Grant
    23 May 2013 | 10:07 am
    July 9-10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Early Bird Tickets on Sale Nextdoor is going mobile. Today, the ‘private social network for neighborhoods’ released an iOS application so people can be connected to what’s going on in their community anytime, anywhere. Nextdoor raised $40 million in Februrary 2013 to accommodate its rapid growth. In less than a year, it has gone from 3,600 neighborhoods to 12,000 and has a presence in all 50 states. Thirty percent of all visits to the site come through mobile browsers, and there was clearly high demand for a dedicated iPhone app. Founder…
 
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    A VC : Venture Capital and Technology

  • The IPA

    Fred
    22 May 2013 | 3:34 am
    No, I am not blogging about India Pale Ale, although I must say that I am a big fan of it. I am writing about one of the best patent hacks I have seen in the decade that I have been working to find relief from the ridiculous patent system in our country. Twitter came up with a concept last year called the Innovator's Patent Agreement (IPA) and put a draft IPA up on GitHub. They have gotten a ton of feedback and have iterated and improved the concept since then. The basic idea of the IPA is that it is a contract between Twitter and the engineer(s) and designer(s) who developed the IP. The…

  • Native Advertising Event

    Fred
    21 May 2013 | 3:16 am
    This Thursday from 1pm to 6pm, our portfolio company Zemanta is co-hosting a summit on native advertising here in NYC.  I've written and spoken a fair bit about native advertising so regular readers will likely be quite familiar with this topic. However, from what I am seeing out there, native advertising is really hitting its stride as social platforms and mobile consumption become the norm. If you are a marketer or an entrepreneur working in the advertising/marketing space, you should be paying attention to this trend. I will be kicking off the event at 1pm with a brief talk and…

  • Success Has A Thousand Fathers

    Fred
    20 May 2013 | 3:50 am
    Back in the early days of AVC, I did a thing called VC Cliche Of The Week. There was an RSS feed of all of them powered by Delicious, but it is broken and most likely can't be fixed. You can find some of them on gawk.it. One of the cliches I posted about is "success has a thousand fathers." I thought I would re-run that post. Here it is. You can count on it - when a deal works out spectacularly everyone involved will take credit for it. This behavior is particularly annoying to the entrepreneurs who put the sweat, blood, and tears into the Company. They watch the VCs take credit…

  • You Can Do Too Much Due Diligence

    Fred
    13 May 2013 | 3:18 am
    It's Monday, time for another lesson I've learned in the venture capital business. Today I will tell a story that I love telling. It has some of my favorite people in it. Back in 2004, early in my blogging career, I heard about a service that had just launched called Feedburner. It provided a number of useful services for a blog's RSS feed. So I went and signed up and AVC became one of the first users of the service. I immediately liked the service and the idea. So I contacted the founder/CEO Dick Costolo, who has gone onto bigger and better things. I told Dick that I was…

  • Off The Schneid

    Fred
    8 May 2013 | 3:15 am
    The almost two year long slump is over. I've led a new venture investment for USV, which closed a few weeks ago and was announced last night. The company is Coinbase and my blog post announcing the investment is on the USV blog. The WSJ also wrote about it here. This hiatus, which I've blogged about a bit on and off, was mostly a result of being very full up with responsibilities for existing investments. I have made twenty investments since the founding of USV in the fall of 2004 (now 21) and have only exited six, so I have had fourteen investments that I am responsible for at USV. I…
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    Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing

  • Yahoo acquires Tumblr

    Brad Burnham
    20 May 2013 | 1:11 pm
    Yahoo announced today that they will acquire our portfolio company Tumblr. In September of 2007 we, together with Spark Capital, invested in a 3 person start-up founded by David Karp, a 21 year old coder who had not finished high school. At the time, our biggest challenge was convincing David to drop the four other projects he was working on to focus on Tumblr. Once he did, he quickly built one of the world's greatest platforms for self expression. Over the last five years, Tumblr became much more than that. Today we, as users, are all overwhelmed by the amount of content available on the…

  • The Patent Quality Improvement Act

    Nick Grossman
    9 May 2013 | 3:48 am
    This week, Senator Schumer introduced legislation that would take a whack at patent trolls: the Patent Quality Improvement Act aims to make it easier and cheaper for companies facing spurious infringement suits to defend themselves. This is not a complete fix for the software patent problem, and we absolutely need go further (more on how, below), but it's a step forward and we wholeheartedly support the Senator here. For those who are new to this problem: patent trolls are eating internet startups. "Troll" is another word for "patent assertion entity" (PAE) or "non-practicing entity" (NPEs)…

  • Coinbase

    Fred Wilson
    8 May 2013 | 2:37 am
    We have been thinking about and looking to make an investment in the Bitcoin ecosystem for several years. Today, we are happy to be able to talk about our first investment in the sector. We have made an investment in Coinbase along with our friends at Ribbit Capital, SV Angel and Funders Club. We believe that Bitcoin represents something fundamental and powerful, an open and distributed Internet peer to peer protocol for transferring purchasing power. It reminds us of SMTP, HTTP, RSS, and BitTorrent in its architecture and openness. Like what happened with those other low level protocols,…

  • CircleUp

    Andy Weissman
    6 May 2013 | 2:14 pm
    As venture capitalists, we understand how valuable an injection of capital into an early-stage, fast-growing business can be. But our industry has a particular set of economics, one that has skewed the availability of equity investment towards startups in the technology sector. Yet, despite a lack of access to upfront capital, entrepreneurs are constantly innovating in all areas of our economy. One of the most vibrant verticals is consumer products, with over 50,000 new consumer and retail companies started every year. These businesses are drivers of economic growth. CircleUp has created an…

  • Science Exchange

    Andy Weissman
    29 Apr 2013 | 12:36 pm
    Right now, there are thousands of scientists whose research is being held up because they lack access to the experimental expertise needed to test a hypothesis or verify a result. But while we have seen how online marketplaces can dramatically expand and create new businesses in many other diverse areas, it is still too difficult for those scientists to access the right experimental expertise. Help is on the way. Techniques that some label "science as a service" are making specialized resources and institutional expertise available on demand and with openness and transparency. Science…
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    Xconomy

  • Shutterstock CEO Jon Oringer Speaks About Deciding to Go Public

    João-Pierre S. Ruth
    23 May 2013 | 10:56 am
    João-Pierre S. Ruth Selling digital images and video helped Shutterstock in New York make its mark. Now CEO and founder Jon Oringer sees potential to expand into other content and media. He spoke as part of Internet Week New York, discussing why his company went public last October and new ways in which he wants to expand its platform. Shutterstock (NYSE: SSTK) provides its subscribers, many of whom are graphic designers, marketers, and media companies, with access via the Web to a library of more than 25 million stock photos, video, illustrations, and other graphics. Oringer’s company…

  • San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Effector, Ignyta, and More

    Bruce V. Bigelow
    23 May 2013 | 9:13 am
    Bruce V. Bigelow A startup with a new approach to cancer drug development made its debut this week in San Diego. We’ve got the details, along with other local news in life sciences and industrial biotechnology. —Effector Therapeutics, a San Diego startup developing anti-cancer drugs based on technology licensed from UC San Francisco, raised $45 million in a Series A round of venture financing. Steve Worland, the former CEO of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, founded Effector with UCSF scientists Kevan Shokat and Davide Ruggero, whose research has focused on translation control and cancer.

  • Digital Lumens, Finding Its Identity, Brings Cost & Energy Savings to Light

    Gregory T. Huang
    23 May 2013 | 8:20 am
    Gregory T. Huang Among local startups, Digital Lumens is a different kind of animal. It’s a hardware company. It’s a networking software company. It’s an energy-efficiency company. It’s an LED and “smart lighting” company. So what is it? Well, all of the above. Interestingly, Brian Chemel, a co-founder of the Boston startup, penned an op-ed earlier this year entitled “Boston’s hardware startups need an identity.” Luckily enough, his company seems to have found one. Digital Lumens is best known for making specialized LED (light-emitting diode) strips and fixtures that contain…

  • Under Purple Spotlights, Surge Accelerator’s Startups Make Their Debut

    Angela Shah
    23 May 2013 | 7:06 am
    Angela Shah The mimosas and Bloody Marys began flowing before 9 a.m. at Houston’s House of Blues, setting up a rock-concert after-party feel for the coming out party for a group of energy startups. The entrepreneurs were the headliners at Wednesday’s Surge Day, the 2nd annual Demo Day featuring Surge Accelerator’s latest class of entrepreneurs. The companies featured innovations ranging from a way to digitize land records to help oil and gas companies more easily secure mineral rights to using seismic waves to get clearer images and reduce risk in exploration wells. “Crazy ideas…

  • Mayer’s Challenge: Merging the Cultures of Yahoo and Tumblr

    David Nordfors
    23 May 2013 | 3:30 am
    David Nordfors Yahoo + Tumblr is a good match because Tumblr has the huge and vibrant social network, but no revenues, while Yahoo lacks social, but knows how to earn money on ads. Yahoo + Tumblr are a bad match, because Yahoo is a company with 14,000 employees in a corporate organizational culture needing change, while Tumblr is a startup culture with less than 200 employees. Or perhaps this is good? It depends on whether the Tumblr and Yahoo cultures can be brought to match. If Marissa Mayer wants to change the Yahoo culture, one obvious task will be to keep the Tumblrs from cashing out and…
 
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    Venture Capital Access Online: Website Updates

  • VCPro Database 2013 ***Updated For 2013***

    22 May 2013 | 5:00 pm
    VCPro Database 2013: 16th Edition Now Avaialble! VCPro Database 2013 (16th Edition) is a downloadable venture capital and private equity directory with complete profiles of over 5,000 venture capital firms worldwide. Compiled by a veteran VC researcher, VCPro Venture Capital Database is available in both Windows and Macintosh formats. (Updated January 2013) Features: >> Profiles of over 5,030 venture capital and private equity firms >> Searchable by all the data fields including contact information (company name and executive names) and investment criteria (stage, geographic, industry…

  • vcaDeals Q1 2013 ***Newly Released***

    22 May 2013 | 5:00 pm
    vcaDeals is a quarterly roundup of the US venture capital deals published on our site's Deals News section. Click the above link to learn more.

  • Silicon Innovation Forum

    21 May 2013 | 5:00 pm
    Silicon Innovation Forum July 9, 2013 Click the above link to view this event.

  • Buyouts Chicago 2013

    21 May 2013 | 5:00 pm
    Buyouts Chicago 2013 June 25-26, 2013 Click the above link to view this event.

  • NextWave Greentech Investing

    21 May 2013 | 5:00 pm
    NextWave Greentech Investing September 12, 2013 Click the above link to view this event.
 
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    Venture Capital and Angel Investor Profiles

  • Investor Profile: Psilos

    23 May 2013 | 8:38 am
    Jeffrey M. Krauss, Managing Member, Psilos Jeffrey joined Psilos in March 2000 with a focus on investments in the healthcare services, healthcare information technology, specialty pharmaceutical and medical instrumentation segments. He currently serves on the Boards of Versamed, Valera Pharmaceuticals, HealthEdge, OneShield. Prior to joining Psilos, Mr. Krauss was a general partner at Nazem & Company, a New York-based venture capital firm, from 1990 to 2000, where he specialized in investments in the healthcare services and healthcare information technology segments. Prior to joining Nazem &…

  • Investor Profile: ARC Angel Fund

    23 May 2013 | 8:38 am
    Tom Nicholson, Angel Investor, ARC Angel Fund Tom Nicholson is an entrepreneur, early-stage investor and founder of Nicholson NY, a leading NYC digital agency sold for $75 million to the Interpublic Group (IPG) and IconMedialab of Sweden, today one of the largest Internet consultancies in the world (NYSE-Euronext: LBi). Subsequent to the sale, he served on the company's Board of Directors and was Chairman of the US region prior to his departure in 2009 to focus on the "post-PC" Internet. Tom has been an active part of the NYC digital scene since it's inception. Called the dean of multimedia…

  • Investor Profile: Alliance Consumer Growth

    23 May 2013 | 8:38 am
    Trevor Nelson, Managing Partner, Alliance Consumer Growth As a co-founder and managing partner of ACG, Trevor enjoys providing a unique level of partnership and capital to entrepreneurs with consumer businesses poised for compelling growth. He has years of experience investing in the consumer industry and executing a variety of financial transactions. Trevor currently serves on the board of Phil's Fresh Foods, maker of EVOL-branded frozen food products. Prior to founding ACG, Trevor was a principal with The Lessing Companies, a consumer-focused private equity firm. Earlier in his career,…

  • Investor Profile: .406 Ventures

    23 May 2013 | 8:38 am
    Greg Dracon, Principal, .406 Ventures Greg Dracon joined .406 in 2007 and is involved in all aspects of the investing and portfolio management process. He brings 18 years of venture investing and technology operating and management experience. Prior to joining .406, Greg was a Vice President of Core Capital Partners, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage venture and small to mid-sized growth technology companies. At Core, Greg focused on software, digital media, technology-enabled services and wireless applications. From 1995 to 2005, Greg held various operating and management roles…

  • Investor Profile: 37 Angels

    23 May 2013 | 8:38 am
    Angela Lee, Angel Investor, 37 Angels Angela Lee is the founder of 37 Angels, an angel investment network and training bootcamp for women investors. She is an entrepreneur and angel investor with a passion for education. She is also a consultant and educator and teaches Strategic Problem Solving, Entrepreneurial Thinking and Executive Communication at Columbia Business School, NYU, and General Assembly Angela participated in the FundingPost event: NYC Angel Conference on Thursday, April 18, 2013 in NY 37 Angels Today, 13% of angel investors are women. We want that number to be 50%. 37 Angels…
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    VentureWoods

  • Muscle Capital : Delivered

    Sunil Bhargava
    22 May 2013 | 12:28 am
    I am not a car guy. I had my last car for 15 years and put over a quarter of a million kilometers on it, but a couple of months ago I bought a Tesla. It felt like a piece of history so I had to have it. It is thrilling to be able to go 0-100km/hr in 4 seconds with only the hum of the tires and no engine roar. It is also fun to lift up the hood of the car to show off its “engine” when there is nothing there. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, is an amazing guy. He is fearless, going after goals that defy conventional wisdom. His brain doesn’t register risk the same way most folks do.

  • TLabs is organising startup mixer in various cities, applications open for Batch 4

    Abhishek Gupta
    9 May 2013 | 2:22 am
    It’s that time of the year again when TLabs goes to a lot of Indian cities and meet early stage startups and budding entrepreneurs. TLabs has now opened applications for 4th Batch (Fall 2013) and is calling all start-ups/entrepreneurs/founders/co-founders who have awesome ideas and are looking for support in nurturing their products into sound businesses. TLabs plan to travel across the country over the course of next few weeks to meet future game changers, so please come and meet TLabs family for a casual mixer in your town! What is TLabs mixer? Mixer is an open forum that provides an…

  • Accelerator->Angel->VC flow is still struggling to find its equilibrium in India

    Alok Mittal
    7 May 2013 | 2:39 am
    I had fun moderating the panel on early stage financing at India Internet Day. Vccircle has an interesting article. The key issues are as under: 1. Too few deals are progressing from accelerators to angel, and from angel to Series A. Only 5% of deals going from accelerators to Series A might not be very different from success rate without accelerators. 2. Angel stage valuations are stretched relative to Series A valuations. At 20% success in getting to Series A, a Series A valuation of 35 cr would be a breakeven point for angels (7 cr angel valuation is typical). At 20 cr, the stage is not…

  • The role of venture capital in growing Indian ecosystem

    Alok Mittal
    1 May 2013 | 9:49 pm
    Iamwire published this article by me around the broader impact of venture capital. I believe venture capital has had a defining role in getting first generation entrepreneurs out in increasing numbers, at the same time benefiting from that trend. In addition to entrepreneurs, the capital-exit model of venture backed companies also creates the right incentives for top quality talent to join startups. Other benefits abound – read on…

  • Customer Retention Strategy

    Srikanth Vasuraj
    17 Apr 2013 | 4:49 am
    As a start-up CEO, it is important that you build this strategy right at the outset, because this is a smart way of growing your business instead of just adding new customers. Ofcourse, getting new customers is critical to your business growth because it ensures a bigger market share and more endorsements for your product. But customer retention ensures additional business at negligible costs. So how do you do this effectively? Three things that are critical to your customer retention strategy are: Deliver Top Quality Service: You may have built the ‘best’ service delivery process to…
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    Seeing Both Sides

  • Should I Join an Accelerator?

    bussgang
    23 May 2013 | 4:10 am
    Today is Demo Day for Techstars Boston.  I love Techstars Demo Days for many reasons, not the least of which is the amazing community that gathers to hear the brief, well-rehearsed pitches from the various start-ups who have spent months planning for this big event. As accelerators like Techstars gain in popularity, many entrepreneurs wonder whether they should be applying and, if admitted, joining an accelerator and when they shouldn't.  I get this question a lot from my students, particularly as they're graduating and scrambling to figure out where they should start their…

  • Immigration Reform - Senate Testimony

    bussgang
    7 May 2013 | 8:19 am
    I was invited to testify at a Senate hearing tomorrow in front of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.  Below is my planned testimony. (update: the video of my initial statement is below and the full hearing video is here)  The immigration reform debate is near and dear to my heart and has whipped up the passions of many in the Innovation Economy, including Mayor Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and countless others.  It feels like, finally, we may get some positive movement on this and I'm honored to have the opportunity to help in any small way I can.

  • I am a Bostonian

    bussgang
    16 Apr 2013 | 1:23 pm
    I was born and have lived in the Boston area almost all my life.  I went to school here, met my wife and married her here, built a family and pursued my career here.  I am a rabid fan of all the sports teams and love exploring and connecting with every nook and corner of this community.  Never have I been more proud of the resilience of my home town.  Never have I felt more meaning in the statement:  "I am a Bostonian."   In the Flybridge partners meeting this morning -- which was held at one of our homes as our office is a part of the crime scene and in "lock down"…

  • Raising Your First Round of Financing

    bussgang
    12 Apr 2013 | 8:01 am
    I gave a talk at Harvard Law School this week to a VC and Entrepreneurship class on raising your first round of financing.  It was good fun and forced me to rethink my usual presentation and add some practical elements.  You can view the presentation here: How To Raise Your First Round of Capital from Jeffrey Bussgang My other SlideShare presentations are here.

  • Seeking A Job in Start-Up Land

    bussgang
    1 Apr 2013 | 5:57 pm
    My first time jumping into the start-up world was as a freshly minted Harvard MBA in 1995.  As my classmates were rushing off to high-paying, high-powered jobs on Wall Street, I joined a Series A start-up with 30 employees as a product manager, making $65,000 per year - lower than my pre-MBA salary at management consultancy The Boston Consulting Group.  Since then I've had a terrific ride, but I often think of that fateful decision when I get asked, repeatedly, by other freshly minted MBAs:  "How do I get a job in a start-up?"  Or, more generally, "How do I even begin…
 
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    PE Hub Blog

  • Stepping on the Peers

    David Drake
    23 May 2013 | 9:43 am
    Institutional investors are taking over the nascent peer-to-peer lending industry, and in doing so, taking the “peer” out of the equation. For their part, “peer-to-peer” lending platforms like Lending Club, Prosper, FundingCircle, Zopa, Peerform, and Ratesetter are embracing the shift. With deep pockets, institutional investors – hedge funds, asset managers, pensions, endowments, and foundations – bring growth, stability, and legitimacy to these online loan marketplaces. Lending Club alone is expecting to fund $1.5 billion in loans in 2013 (see “Crowdfunding Will Make 2013 the…

  • When Startups Need Marriage Counselors

    Connie Loizos
    23 May 2013 | 9:00 am
    Over a 10-year period ending in 2011, Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman researched roughly 10,000 founders, finding that by a company’s third round of funding, half of all original CEOs were gone, the vast majority forced out by their board of directors or outside investors. It’s no surprise to anyone who follows the industry. Sometimes, founders are ousted because a startup isn’t performing as expected. Sometimes, investors think a new CEO could do better. Lesser known is that CEOs are sometimes shown the door because a startup’s senior managers threaten to…

  • Heat-Seeking Missile: Finding (and Fostering) Innovation

    Debbie Landa
    23 May 2013 | 7:55 am
    In 2002, during the worst of the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, the Silicon Valley events scene was dire. Audiences consisted of VCs, vendors and founders—but no customers—and it didn’t seem to matter. It was an echo chamber of one-directional conversations. Selling to customers seemed secondary to building products and fundraising (ie: “build it and they will come”). If a company was any good, a VC was investing. But I knew talking to customers needed to be a higher priority, and I saw an opportunity to change the paradigm. After indulging in my addiction of the wildly…

  • Valuations Of Venture Deals In Silicon Valley Decline A Bit

    Mark Boslet
    23 May 2013 | 6:15 am
    Silicon Valley venture capitalists tempered their enthusiasm for investing in the first quarter, though only modestly, as software and Internet startups continued to spark spirited check writing, according to a study from Fenwick & West. The law firm’s quarterly report on valuations found that up rounds exceeded down rounds during the three-month period by 68% to 11%. The remaining 21% of deals were flat. While that may seem like a healthy margin, it is less than the 71% to 8% split of the fourth quarter. What’s more, the law firm’s Venture Capital Barometer – which measures the…

  • peHUB First Read

    Angela Sormani
    23 May 2013 | 12:26 am
    Here’s to quashing those myths about biotech and VC GiftCards.com agrees to buy Giftly Google brings own voice search to the iPhone and iPad Start-up Square loses two execs Texas venture capital weak but showing promise Euro mezz fund Beechbrook Capital reaches first close Here are the states sending the most goods to China OtterBox acquires rival mobile casemakers LifeProof The six things every CIO should know Image credit: Photo of a new dawn courtesy of Shutterstock The post peHUB First Read appeared first on peHUB.
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    Technosailor.com

  • 9 Years of Blogging: Lessons from the Trenches

    Aaron
    20 May 2013 | 11:46 am
    It is May 20 today and that means two things. First, it’s the 5 year birthday of this handsome boy. Without a doubt, his day will be filled with belly rubs and snacks… as it should be. But secondly, this is my 9th anniversary of blogging. It’s also the 9th anniversary of me installing WordPress for the first time and embarking on, what would become, a career change and my livelihood. This month, WordPress celebrates it’s 10th birthday which makes me a WordPresser for almost all of the time it has been around. In that time, I have dabbled in everything from traditional…

  • I hate social networking

    Aaron
    1 May 2013 | 5:21 pm
    I hate social networking. I despise it. All of it. For me it’s a tool (like me, some would say). “But, Aaron. You have 1500 friends on Facebook and nearly 10,000 on Twitter. You’re lying.” Oh but I’m not. I used to love social networking. I used to travel to conferences where other social media people were just to, in hindsight, make myself look more like a stud. That’s why there are so many. I’ve dated or slept with social media women just for access. I’ve been that guy at SXSW that, as a former Austinite, I now mock. That one cutting to the…

  • Two-Factor Authentication: What it is and Why You Should be Using it Now

    Aaron
    26 Apr 2013 | 8:46 am
    Photo by m thierry on Flickr.Not too long ago, WordPress sites around the world started getting attacked with automated botnet traffic trying to brute force admin passwords. The other day, the official Twitter account of the Associated Press was hacked. Last year, Wired reporter Mat Honan was hacked when his Amazon account was compromised. That compromise allowed an attacker to access his Apple ID which gave him access to Mat’s Google account which, in turn, let the attacker into Twitter. Email, in my opinion, is the gateway to identity theft. It’s bad if your Twitter or website…

  • WordPress Hacking and Cleanup

    Aaron
    12 Apr 2013 | 4:34 pm
    There’s a brute force attack underway on a global scale. Massive. The attack vector? Keep attempting user/pass combos in an automated way until a breakin happens. If your WordPress site gets hacked, I am available for cleanup and an audit. Aaron@technosailor.com It absolutely will cost you a minor fortune. That’s the way it goes. Don’t complain or whine, just get your credit card out. It would be cheaper to have a strong password and install a plugin that limits failed login attempts though. But if you don’t, rest assured I can help you despite you having to postpone a…

  • Abusing Twitter Direct Messages, Spam and Classlessness

    Aaron
    11 Apr 2013 | 8:01 am
    This morning I received a Twitter direct message from the official account for I hate JJ Reddick, one of the best Baltimore sports blogs I know of. I like these guys. I read the blog almost every day and follow many of the writers on Twitter. I live in Baltimore, or as we call it… “Smalltimore”. It’s a small town. You get to know people. You run into them all the time. (To be fair, I have yet to personally meet any of them, but it’s only a matter of time. Most of the writers are one degree of separation away.) As a Ravens fan, I am on board with them. I’m a…
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    GigaOM

  • Smule users record one billion songs, generate $12.6 M in revenue in 2012

    Janko Roettgers
    23 May 2013 | 11:53 am
    Music games on consoles may have fallen on hard times, but they’re alive and well on mobile devices: Smule, the company that brought us apps like I am T-Pain and Ocarina, earned $12.6 million in revenues in 2012. The company told Eliot van Buskirk over at Evolver.fm that it is on track to reach $20 million this year. Smule also shared some other interesting stats with Evolver: Its apps, which have been downloaded over 100 million times, are now being used by 15 million people a month, which have recorded one one billion individual songs so far. That’s a lot of auto-tuning, auto-rapping…

  • Box acquires Folders technology to enrich iOS offering

    Jordan Novet
    23 May 2013 | 10:14 am
    Box indicated on its blog Thursday that the cloud-storage company has “acquired the technology” for the Folders iOS app enabling users to open many kinds of files on the iPhone. The deal marks Box’s third acquisition, closely following on news of the Crocodoc deal. While Box has been taking an industry-by-industry approach to enterprise adoption, the Crocodoc buy showed that Box is also serious about serving up a slick and intuitive consumer-grade user experience for the enterprise. The Folders deal is more proof of that, and offers important capabilities that keep Box competitive as…

  • Galaxy S 4 picks up steam: 10M sold in first month, now available on Verizon

    Kevin C. Tofel
    23 May 2013 | 10:13 am
    With each new Samsung Galaxy flagship phone, the company is breaking records. On Thursday, Samsung announced the latest one: 10 million Galaxy S 4 sales in the first 30 days after launch. That figure is sales to retailers, not consumers, but it’s an accomplishment nonetheless. And strong U.S. sales should continue, as the Galaxy S 4 became available on Verizon today. It’s interesting to see the time frame for each Galaxy smartphone to hit the 10 million sales number: It shows how much momentum Samsung has achieved in the past four years. It took seven months for the original…

  • Following Behance buy, Adobe acquires mobile app design firm Thumb Labs

    Katie Fehrenbacher
    23 May 2013 | 9:52 am
    Brooklyn mobile app design and development shop Thumb Labs has been acquired — or acqui-hired — by Adobe. Thumb Labs is the group behind the mobile apps for Behance, the design community startup that was bought by Adobe late last year, and Thumb Labs says it specializes in stylish and hip apps for iOS. Details about the price of the acquisition weren’t disclosed. Adobe acquired Behance for close to $150 million, we reported last year. Thumb Labs says in a release: At the end of this month, the Thumb Labs team will begin focusing our mobile talents on a united mission to empower the…

  • Apple, in political crosshairs, is on pace to boost lobbying

    Erica Ogg
    23 May 2013 | 9:44 am
    Apple is well known for not putting a whole lot of effort into its D.C. lobbying game. But after a week that saw it unwittingly become the poster child for tax-dodging multinational corporations, it might need to step it up — if only to get some politicians off its back. But according to a report on Thursday, Apple is already on pace to spread more money around Washington this year than ever before. Apple may spend almost $4 million on lobbying this year as in 2012, reports Reuters. That’s low of course, but for Apple it’s a pretty hefty increase: The company spent about $2…
 
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    the Frank Peters Showthe Frank Peters Show

  • LocaDreaming with Ash Kumra

    frank@theFrankPetersShow.com (Frank Peters)
    23 May 2013 | 11:36 am
    Coffee with Ash Kumra Early coffee with Dream it Alive founder Ash Kumra. Got a well-established competitor in the local entrepreneurship ecosystem? Consider reinventing yourself to attack the market from a totally new vantage: Get hyper-local to grow entrepreneurship and build sustainable communities at the same time. Where to look for role models? Santa Monica is currently attracting the entrepreneur-class, building a vibrant city in the process. What gifts does Santa Monica enjoy? Among many, transportation choices – everything’s walkable or bikable. They attract the startups that…

  • Venture Forward Conference 2013

    frank@theFrankPetersShow.com (Frank Peters)
    22 May 2013 | 6:41 pm
    Join me in NYC next month for the 2nd Annual Venture Forward Conference. It’s hosted by Gust‘s David S. Rose. The one-day conference is preceded by a splashy soiree on June 17th followed by a full day of the brightest bulbs on the east coast. Except Mark Suster will be there, too. As will many others. Last year I called it, The best conference I had ever attended! and even though I’m prone to exaggeration, I’m assured the program is even better this year. See for yourself, register now.  

  • EBAN Congress Vienna

    frank@theFrankPetersShow.com (Frank Peters)
    13 May 2013 | 5:15 am
    Hansi Hansmann, President of the host angel group AAIA kicks off the EBAN Congress A surprise for me as the 13th EBAN Congress began in Vienna this morning; I finally met Stewart Craine of Barefoot Power in person. He’s been a guest on the show for his efforts to bring low cost power to impoverished villages in the Third World and this morning he was telling me of a new venture. So as these events often do, I am surrounded by old friends as I meet new ones. The venue at the Haus of Industrie is over the top with rich, old-world architectural touches; I really feel as if I’m…

  • Allen Yeung, Hong Kong BAN

    frank@theFrankPetersShow.com (Frank Peters)
    6 May 2013 | 3:25 pm
    Allen Yeung We’ve crossed paths at 4 ACA Annual Summits; now it’s time for everyone to meet Hong Kong Business Angel Network‘s founding Chairman, Allen Yeung. Lot’s of high net worth individuals? It’s easy to imagine that Allen should have lots of members near at hand, but what are the unique challenges of building an early-stage high tech investing network in Hong Kong? Allen shares his story… Show #412 Stream, flash player or iTunes

  • Dan Mindus, NextGen Angels

    frank@theFrankPetersShow.com (Frank Peters)
    2 May 2013 | 11:38 am
    Dan Mindus All Dan Mindus’ angel group members are under 40. Is this age discrimination, or is he on to something? It turns out his NextGen Angels has become a unique fit in the Washington D.C. fabric of early-stage investing groups. I met Dan as we prepared for a panel discussion at the ACA Annual Summit in San Francisco last month. Before we prepped I was concerned that such a small panel couldn’t cover 45 minutes of due diligence discussion. I was mistaken; Dan could more than satisfactorily hold his own sitting next to ACA Chair David Verrill. Dan and his NextGen Angels might…
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    Feld Thoughts

  • Announcing UP Global

    Brad Feld
    23 May 2013 | 6:25 am
    Startup Weekend and Startup America Partnership are joining forces to create UP Global.  In addition to Startup Weekend, UP Global also runs Next, StartupDigest, and NYSE Big Startup. Marc Nager, the CEO of Startup Weekend, will be the CEO of Up Global. Steve Case, the chairman of Startup America Partnership, will be the chairman of Up Global. I’m extremely psyched. I’ve been involved in both organizations since inception. The first Startup Weekend happened in Boulder in June 2007 and have been on the board for the past few years. I was at the White House for the launch of…

  • Patent and Immigration Reform Activities

    Brad Feld
    22 May 2013 | 1:42 pm
    Two of the public policy things I care about are patent reform and immigration reform. I believe our patent system – especially with regard to software and business method patents – is completely and totally broken. And our immigration system – especially concerning immigrant entrepreneurs – is an embarrassment. There is suddenly a lot of focus and attention on both of these issues. That’s good, and I’m hopeful that it will result in some meaningful positive changes. It pains me to see other countries – such as Canada, the UK, and New Zealand –…

  • An Unexpected Night In The Hospital

    Brad Feld
    21 May 2013 | 6:31 am
    First things first – we are fine. Amy had an emergency appendectomy last night. She’s recovering extremely well and feeling great, albeit a little sore, this morning. We’ll be going home in a little bit once the doctor gets here. Yesterday was a typical Monday. Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion. I went for a run. My partners and I had sushi for lunch. I did a bunch of email and phone calls. I walked 20,000 steps on my treadputer. I gave a talk with Jeff Clavier for one of our LPs (AMG) at Frasca to a bunch of their clients. Normal stuff. While hanging out at Frasca, I…

  • Bolt – Making Hardware Easier

    Brad Feld
    20 May 2013 | 12:27 pm
    Over the past few decades, the most compelling engineers and entrepreneurs I’ve met have tended to be working on problems that can be solved with software. Software has some great advantages but it comes with a few big drawbacks, namely it’s tied to a few standard types of input, although we are trying to impact that with some of our investments in our HCI theme. Along with the rest of the tech ecosystem, I’m starting to see more and more entrepreneurs with a piece of hardware in their development plan. These are not your parents’ hardware products. Instead, they are…

  • Sometimes Failure Is Your Best Option

    Brad Feld
    20 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    This post originally appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal as part of their Accelerators Program in answer to the question “When and how should you wind down a failing business.” Some entrepreneurs and investors subscribe to the creed “failure is not an option.” I’m not one of them. I strongly believe that there are times you should call it quits on a business. Not everything works. And — even after trying incredibly hard, and for a long period of time — failure is sometimes the best option. An entrepreneur shouldn’t view their entrepreneur arc as being linked…
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    Lightspeed Venture Partners

  • How to build trust in the Bitcoin ecosystem

    jeremyliew
    16 May 2013 | 8:44 am
    Well it looks like the Department of Homeland Security is investigating Mt. Gox and the primary complaint is operating an unlicensed money transmittal business. Things do not look good for Mt. Gox. Its US accounts are being seized. This will likely lead to US customers of Gox (principally buyers of Bitcoin) gradually abandoning the platform, either buying Bitcoin and moving it away, or withdrawing their USD directly. The increased spread in Bitcoin prices between Mt Gox and other exchanges suggests that people holding USD on Gox are indeed buying Bitcoin in order to get out of USD in accounts…

  • Got Pernix’d?

    Bipul Sinha
    15 May 2013 | 7:48 am
    Congratulations to Poojan Kumar, Satyam Vaghani and the rest of the PernixData team for raising a great Series B round led by Kleiner Perkins. At Lightspeed, we are very proud of what the team has achieved in short 15 months since inception. As the founding investor board member I have witnessed first hand an enterprise innovation at Instagram speed. PernixData’s innovative Flash Virtualization Platform (FVP) disrupts the storage market by enabling virtualized datacenters to take advantage of decoupled storage performance from raw capacity. With PernixData’s FVP, companies no longer need…

  • Lightspeed is anchoring a Bitcoin focused fund

    jeremyliew
    14 May 2013 | 5:02 am
      It’s no secret that that I see the opportunity for Bitcoin to disrupt multi-billion-dollar markets and dramatically cut transaction costs for people around the world.  We are in the early stages of innovation in this ecosystem, and Lightspeed wants to encourage that innovation So today, I am thrilled to announce that Lightspeed Venture Partners will anchor the newly created Boost BitCoin Fund. This fund will provide all of the Bitcoin related startups in the next Boost VC incubator class with guaranteed capital.  Joining us an investors in the fund are Rothenberg Ventures, the…

  • The role of startups in the SDN networking revolution

    Arif Janmohamed
    13 May 2013 | 5:14 pm
    For decades the leading network companies have been tightly coupling their software to complex, custom-built chips. Besides leaving IT buyers with a staggering array of appliances, the reliance on custom silicon has chilled industry startup activity. But with software defined networking (SDN), that is beginning to change. Check out my article in Network World for a look at the evolution of the SDN market, where we are today and what it means for entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/13eAUMc   Follow me on Twitter @arifj

  • More regulation of Bitcoin is a good thing

    jeremyliew
    7 May 2013 | 9:04 am
    FinCEN, the department of the Treasury responsible for fighting financial crimes has already issued guidance on how it views Bitcoin. Now it looks like the Commodities Future Trading Commission may also seek to regulate Bitcoin. More regulation is coming for Bitcoin. I think that this is a good thing. I do not believe that the US Government is out to stop Bitcoin. Some in the Bitcoin community may call me naive. But I believe that the arms of the US Government are primarily interested in their stated functions, not in some grand conspiracy to stop Bitcoin from becoming an alternative currency…
 
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    deal architect

  • The Un-Cola

    23 May 2013 | 11:26 am
    I like to catalog complex innovation and write about Polymath organizations who can blend infotech, biotech, cleantech and a variety of STEM skills to come up with new solutions. But there are times when a clean, crisp, simple product or...

  • More Innovation

    22 May 2013 | 4:21 pm
    On the New Florence blog Google Shopping Express Upgrading Mall Surveillance GE’s Industrial Internet Quests Your virtual double Cool Spaces Bedtime Math Facebook Home The Zero TV phenomenon

  • The shock and awe of the public cloud

    21 May 2013 | 11:14 am
    On a normal weeknight, Netflix accounts for almost a third of all Internet traffic entering North American homes. Look at the graph below and let the enormity of that sink in. Now consider this. Netflix uses Amazon Web Services as...

  • Bill McDermott and Boston

    20 May 2013 | 5:30 am
    I caught a replay of Bill McDermott's pitch at SapphireNow last week. Loved it. How could you not with acronyms like B2B2C?:) Seriously, tough to not like his sports talk and see him surrounded by sports world luminaries you see...

  • Global SIs: The Forest and the Trees

    20 May 2013 | 4:26 am
    A short talk with some Cap Gemini BPO execs at SuiteWorld last week and reading Phil Wainewright's post about Cloud SIs had me thinking how the global service firms are changing - and in many ways resisting change. Most larger...
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    Babbling VC

  • Folks Have Figured Out Finance...What About Insurance?

    Paul Jozefak
    30 Apr 2013 | 3:05 am
    Since we're focused on FinTech at our company, we love to see that the markets have finally realized that the finance sector is absolutely ripe for disruption. Be it in payments, invoicing, international money transfers, banking software, you name it....the start-ups are popping up. VC's too have seen that this space is hot and are piling in. You simply have to attend a conference such as Finovate to see how much is happening (and it's not all that recent a development).  On the other hand, so little seems to be evolving in the insurance sector. Think of the hassle you have with your own…

  • Skin In The Game and Other Games VC's Play

    Paul Jozefak
    29 Apr 2013 | 5:15 am
    I was reminded of one pet peeve I had from my past in venture capital when reading about Spark's newest development. I highly recommend that you read the article about these guys picking up their own legal fees. I too felt that it was always quite ridiculous to charge legal fees of a VC fund back to the portfolio company after you financed them. I hated this almost as much as VC's who used to charge closing fees on top of this. That was an absolute crime if you really think about how it was the VC fund taking their investor's money and funneling it directly into their own pockets via the…

  • Why You Should be Raising Money NOW

    Paul Jozefak
    22 Apr 2013 | 5:17 am
    I've been watching in amusement some recent financings and realized the getting has never been so good when it comes to venture capital. If as a startup you're even remotely considering raising money, you should be out in the market. If for no other reason than to see what your business may be worth, get a business plan banged together and send it to some VC's.  Why do I think this is the case? Well, very simply put, it's all about desperation and full accounts. At one end of the spectrum you have the funds flush with capital. They have to be out there putting their money to work. They are…

  • Back to Being An Entrepreneur

    Paul Jozefak
    15 Apr 2013 | 2:27 am
    I had a bunch of discussions recently with folks asking me how things were going since I've left the VC space. I had originally planned to write about this down the road.....a couple years down the road but maybe now is an opportune time. It's been over a year now that I left the VC gig and went back to being operational. You may find my thoughts interesting, regardless of whether you are in the VC space or considering your own startup.  What's the main difference between being a VC and being an entrepreneur? Well it's hard to pinpoint one specific thing but I'd say it's the sporadic nature…

  • Always Go Prepared

    Paul Jozefak
    10 Apr 2013 | 11:47 pm
    Today I'm quite pissed at myself. I made an amateur mistake of going into a meeting this week where I wasn't properly prepared. I didn't do enough homework on what had happened to date before said meeting and I didn't prepare a list of goals or things I wanted to achieve with this meeting. I'm using myself as an example because I shouldn't of made this mistake. It's one of those things where you have no one but yourself to blame for most likely being lazy or not putting enough weight on a meeting. The meeting itself was a typical sales call and there were enough people involved where one…
 
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    Venture Chronicles

  • The Wisdom of Being Safe

    Jeff
    22 May 2013 | 7:45 am
    I was reading this article on the wave of executive departures at HTC on the heals of a successful product, the HTC One, and a clearly unsuccessful launch of the HTC First. The reporting is actually good and highlights the phenomena of the death spiral that many in Silicon Valley are familiar with, as influential people in the company leave a succession of departures is certain to follow and taking with them the ability of the company to seamlessly conceptualize and develop new products that are the lifeblood of technology companies in the consumer space. One quote caught my attention if for…

  • My Next Journey: Ping Identity

    Jeff
    8 May 2013 | 10:41 am
    I recently wrapped up my transition period out of Get Satisfaction and immediately swung into a new role at Ping Identity. This was no easy decision for me as I continue to support the mission of Get Satisfaction and have invested much of myself in it over the last 3 years. Life in the Valley can be frenetic and the degree of institutional ADHD we exhibit is something I have long been aware of, and as a counterbalance to this I have strived for a high degree of continuity and stability in my professional life while also pushing myself into the next interesting thing. it’s a tough…

  • Windows 8: Return of the Start Menu

    Jeff
    22 Apr 2013 | 1:16 pm
    The Verge is reporting that the iconic Start Menu will be returning in Windows 8.1. For those of you that don’t follow such things, Microsoft removed the start menu is Win8 in when they replaced the desktop as the primary UX canvas in favor of the new tile interface, called Modern (originally called Metro). Removing the menu would probably have been a non-issue if the user experience of traditional and Modern designed apps were seamless but there is a critical distinction that makes this all but impossible to rectify, the current generation of Modern apps run in a dedicated focus,…

  • Lenovo Yoga–Straight up With a Twist

    Jeff
    13 Apr 2013 | 11:47 am
    I have been using a Lenovo Yoga laptop for a month and like it enough to report back on my impressions. This laptop replaces an Asus Zenbook Touch that I had been using and generally liked but in order to maximize the touch aspects of Windows 8 I found that having a touch screen simply wasn’t enough, a full convertible laptop is what makes the experience much more accommodating of touch interactions. Back in January I wrote about my initial reaction to Windows 8 and highlighted a couple of aspects of the hardware experience that needed attention. The Asus Zenbook Touch is a beautiful…

  • Ron Johnson Out: The Customer Experience Files

    Jeff
    9 Apr 2013 | 7:51 am
    I was in a cab yesterday with my wife, who works in the fashion industry, and she casually mentioned that Ron Johnson was out at JCP. I can imagine that everyone in the retail and fashion industry was aware of this 12 hours before the rest of us. This morning I was watching Squawk Box on CNBC and Richard Branson along with Virgin America CEO David Cush were being interviewed. Cush was asked about JCP and replied that the key lesson is that you don’t destroy your existing business model before ensuring that the new one works. This is good advice but I think it radically oversimplifies…
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    Frederic Destin

  • Shame on France : the Yahoo – DailyMotion debacle

    freddestin
    7 May 2013 | 4:30 am
     I was on the board of DailyMotion for many years, starting with the first round of financing in 2006 and ending with my resignation off the board in January 2013. We made many mistakes along the way but we survived and finally thrived.  The company is a great success; 200 million uniques a month, a big revenue number and profitable, and a top 30-35 global slot amongst the largest websites in the world.  More importantly, it's a company that was built on product excellence and managed to make in the face of full frontal competition from the biggest internet juggernaut ever to…

  • Men on Mars : The Reinvention of Atlas Venture

    freddestin
    1 May 2013 | 7:31 am
     I joined Atlas Venture 9 years ago. At the time we had 5 offices, 22 partners, 7 board rooms, a team of over 60,  over two billion in assets managed. And boy, were we making life difficult for ourselves. Today: one office, 7 partners. We still have two board rooms, but our startup companies seem to like that :-) Between 2005 and 2012, we went back to our roots. 2013 03 13 10 48 54 Complexity kills What is true for startups is true for VC firms. When I joined Atlas in 2003 we had way too much geographic and sector complexity. Picture this: London, Boston, Paris and Munich get on a…

  • Zombie VCs Take II – How to Spot an Active Firm

    freddestin
    7 Apr 2013 | 5:29 am
    An entrepreneur called Danielle Morrill just kicked up a bit of a shitstorm with a nicely titled "Zombie VC" post.   It's a nice pendant to her recent Zombie Startups post in which she deals with her own fears of becoming a living dead company after pivoting her startup, Referly. In it she tries to define rules for entrepreneurs for spotting Zombie firms.   Rise of the Zombie Firm Entrepreneurs should be aware the we are, indeed, surrounded by Zombie Firms.  The largest shakeup ever  in the venture industry in resulting in: firms whose numbers will never allow them to…

  • Boston VC community breaks with killjoy roots, will actually party

    freddestin
    7 Mar 2013 | 3:28 pm
    In a striking development from a long legacy of discretion and backhanded compliments, the New England VC community has decided to award itself a bunch of awards and actually, possibly, have some fun. After years of being forced into clumsy genuflections at the foot of Waltham's money hill before being allowed into plush, Four Season-esque offices, select entrepreneurs will even be allowed to cast their vote on who the best venture firm in town might be.  No word yet on what weighting their vote will carry in the final algorithm, but hey, Rome was not build in a day. "I heard they were…

  • LunchBeat Boston #1

    freddestin
    6 Mar 2013 | 10:43 am
     We're all heads down building our startups and sometimes we forget to have fun.  No more.  Edition 1 of LunchBeat Boston got 150 odd people dancing at the HackReduce space, and with that massive endorphin rush I bet we upped everyone's productivity this afternoon.   Lunchbeat is dead simple : grab a bottle of water and a sandwich and dance for an hour.  Beats were provided by the excellent Glow Kids & Fuse, organization by Dmitri Gunn, Rebecca Corliss at Hubspot and your truly. See you at the next one !
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    GenuineVC » GenuineVC

  • Myth Busters: Debunking Seven Conventional Wisdom Maxims of Venture Capital

    David Beisel
    20 May 2013 | 5:44 am
    Compared to most other areas of finance, venture capital is practiced as more of an art, as opposed to a science. For that reason, it’s often said that VCs learn the business best through an apprenticeship model, under the wing of a more experienced pro. The art of venture capital also means that for entrepreneurs raising it, there isn’t one definitive playbook which can be used as a guide. Rather, over time, a series of collective experiences has solidified into a set of conventional wisdom which is shared repeatedly. Many common rules of the thumb are absolutely true (maximize the…

  • Driving to Conviction (Not to a Term Sheet)

    David Beisel
    29 Apr 2013 | 5:25 am
    Posts in the blogosphere, conversation on panels of/about VCs, etc. all talk about the best way for entrepreneurs to optimize their fundraising process with the end-goal of receiving a term sheet. It’s often spoken as if the second that magical term sheet document is in hand, the process is over. Unfortunately, that’s an oversimplification which should be recognized by savvy entrepreneurs.The goal of any VC fundraising process is in reality a bit more nuanced, as there are two key events an entrepreneur should be working towards:Partnership Conviction – having not just the sponsoring…

  • Startups Seeking Sherpas

    David Beisel
    4 Apr 2013 | 7:25 am
    After we sold our startup Sombasa Media just over a dozen years ago, I embarked on two distinct “journeys.” The first was a month-long 1500+ mile cycling trip from the southern tip of England to the northern tip of Scotland (“Land’s End to John O’Groats”). The second was a trip where we hiked the “Inca Trail” in Peru to Machu Picchu. Both trips “rhymed” with each other in that the point intentionally was about the experience of the voyage rather than merely the destination itself. I think that the reason founders are attracted to entrepreneurial endeavors often stems from…

  • Why I Like Our Investment in Triple Lift

    David Beisel
    4 Mar 2013 | 3:01 pm
    The web has become increasingly visual.Of course the same broadband penetration trends which catapulted the rise of online video over the previous decade also empowered delivery of image-heavy web pages. But more importantly and more recently, the proliferation of high-resolution screens epitomized by Apple’s Retina display means that today’s web browsing experience can be far more visually stunning than ever before.And so the past few years we’ve seen glossy graphically-rich sites which are image-centric become commonplace. The endless scroll of Pinterest, Polyvore, The Fancy, Behance,…

  • Back to School – VC Homework Assignments

    David Beisel
    11 Feb 2013 | 5:06 am
    VCs like to give out homework. They won’t call it that, though. But rather they use words like “diligence” and “information requests.” Just like in school, the homework can actually be productive, as in this case it can lead to a new customer or advisor. But just like bad teachers did in grade school, VCs sometimes assign completely useless busywork.Receiving a homework assignment or two after initial meetings with a venture capitalist is generally a good sign – it signals that the potential opportunity is interesting and exciting enough to engage further. They’re often…
 
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    Mark Peter Davis

  • When You Should Chase Small Investors

    MPD
    21 May 2013 | 5:20 am
    An interesting phenomenon exists in the process of raising venture capital.  While larger investors are typically the focus throughout the majority of the fundraising process, at the last minute, entrepreneurs are incentivized to attract smaller investors into their round. Investors who write large checks are typically perceived to be more attractive to entrepreneurs raising a round from venture capitalists.  (In the current market, to me a “large” seed stage investor is one who writes at least $500K and more typically greater than $1 million checks.  For series A rounds these are…

  • Welcoming Coinbase to Interplay Family

    MPD
    14 May 2013 | 6:11 am
    I’m excited about what Bitcoin might do to the global economy.  If it succeeds it could become a global currency – the Internet uniting our world in yet another dimension. As a result, when I had the opportunity to participate in Coinbase’s recent round I jumped.  Coinbase seeks to provide the payment infrastructure necessary to make transacting in Bitcoin easy.  It’s a big task, but the company’s founders Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam are the right guys for the job. I’ve known Fred for quite awhile.  He’s a wall street wiz-kid who jumped from foreign exchange trading at…

  • Why You Shouldn’t Raise VC

    MPD
    8 May 2013 | 8:29 am
    It seems like nearly every entrepreneur is on a crusade to raise venture capital. Among the ranks of Ramen-eating, credit-card-maxing founders, venture capital is revered as a start-up panacea. With venture capital, it seems, you can live lavishly, hire a platoon of PhDs, and virtually guarantee an IPO. Chances are, though, you shouldn’t raise venture capital money. Simply put, most start-ups aren’t poised to grow big enough to satisfy the needs of venture capital funds. And, if your smaller company does raise VC, it typically won’t be the best way to maximize your…

  • Book Launch: The Fundraising Rules

    MPD
    1 May 2013 | 4:48 am
    For the past five years, I’ve been chipping away at a book designed to illuminate the arcane venture fundraising process.  I’m excited to announce today that it is now available as a resource to entrepreneurs everywhere. The book is called The Fundraising Rules and you can find it on my blog or on Amazon. The book is constructed as a handbook for entrepreneurs who are raising venture capital, structured in the chronological order of the fundraising process.  You can either read it front to back or flip to chapter 4 on preparing your fundraising materials when you’re ready to do that.

  • Seeking Partner for Interplay Ventures

    MPD
    24 Apr 2013 | 8:47 am
    While I announced Interplay Ventures only a few weeks ago, it’s been in development for the better part of 6 months.  At this point, I’ve covered a lot of ground and am approaching the next step – expanding the partnership. When Dan Primack of Fortune covered Interplay a week ago folks started to reach out, expressing interest in joining the team.  His coverage hit a few weeks/months before I had planned to bring on a partner, but the quality of the folks reaching out has catalyzed the process.  As a result, I’ve decided to open the doors to interested parties to…
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    Jason Ball's TechBytes

  • The Desktop is Dead

    Jason Ball
    29 Apr 2013 | 12:25 am
    Just to qualify the title, the desktop is dead if you’re under 20 years old. Screens are migrating from living room to desktop to tablet to mobile. Depending on which generation you belong to, one of those screens is your home screen. I made a heretical statement 2 years ago in this post - “Facebook is going to be irrelevant in 10 years”, which was true, but the unspoken part which was omitted was “Facebook ON THE DESKTOP is going to be irrelevant”. FB positions itself as a mobile company – they are doing their best to remain relevant in a post PC world.

  • It’s not easy being green

    Jason Ball
    26 Mar 2013 | 12:05 am
    This may seem odd, but one of my favorite new companies sells laundry detergent. As an entrepreneur (or investor) there’s a lot to be learned from the Company… First a preface: I’m not a crazy tree-hugger, but I’m fortunate enough to live in a place where being green is relatively straight forward- central London. I don’t own a car (it’s impractical), I ride a bicycle and take public transportation, there are recycling containers in my apartment building, most of the lights in the house are eco lights, I shop locally and try to buy local, in season foods,…

  • The Perfect Pitch

    Jason Ball
    10 Feb 2013 | 11:16 pm
    Last week I posted on how you can meet VCs- this week it’s how to get the most out of that meeting. What format should you use for the first presentation? This is the template that I developed over several years, and recommend whenever an entrepreneur asks what format to use. It’s a time tested format I’ve used for multiple pitch events that I’ve run- it works. The most important part of this pitch is your demo. Make sure that it’s flawless. The objective of your first meeting is to get to a second meeting. You will start to drill down on one or two points of the…

  • 3 Steps to Meeting Investors (at Events)

    Jason Ball
    3 Feb 2013 | 11:30 pm
    You’re at a big event, lots of investors are there – how do you optimize your chances of getting an investment from a VC or angel investor? Follow these three steps (and do not stray). Your goal is to get a meeting. You’re not going to close a deal right there on the spot- understanding that and what you’re trying to achieve is essential. Securing funding is a multi-step process- you only need to take one step at a time. Step one is getting that meeting. So, on to the process: 1) Do not, and I repeat, do not walk up randomly and pitch them on the spot. (Aka Don’t…

  • What’s next in Mobile?

    Jason Ball
    29 Jan 2013 | 12:00 am
    I joined Qualcomm Ventures 5 years ago because I thought the newly released iPhone would herald in an era where the web met wireless – and what a 5 years it’s been… The first wave of companies, when I first started, were “mobile only” plays – they were remnants of the dumbphone age. I couldn’t have cared less – I was only interested the next wave: web services where the handset was the window into the service. One investment based on this thesis was we7 – a cloud based music service which became “a personal DJ in your pocket” a…
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    VC Adventure

  • The ten year entrepreneur

    seth levine
    8 May 2013 | 2:57 pm
    It’s easy to get lost in the celebration of high flying companies that quickly take an idea to market, scale and sell. It’s exciting, financially lucrative and makes for great reading. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a few companies like that in the Foundry portfolio (Zynga, AdMeld and Gist all went from idea to sale/IPO in a relatively short period of time). But the reality is that most companies take years (and years and years) to develop – the average time from company founding to exit event is now approaching 10 years. And in many respects, being a great entrepreneur…

  • Boulder is for Media

    seth levine
    6 May 2013 | 4:37 pm
    Recently Boulder based Datalogix announced that they had raised 25M to accelerate the build-out of its online ad targeting data business. The Datalogix story is one of perseverance and adaptation and it’s great to see them taking off. TechCrunch reported on the financing here. One thing caught my eye in the story and got my hackles up. In the very first paragraph about the financing Josh Constine said the following: Since it’s based in Denver you don’t hear a lot about Datalogix, but the 250 employee startup is crucial to the future of advertising Living in Boulder and being…

  • Measuring customer satisfaction

    seth levine
    17 Apr 2013 | 5:36 pm
    There was a great thread this week on the Foundry CEO email list about Net Promoter Score and how companies are using it to measure the satisfaction of their customers (specifically in the case of NPS, their propensity to recommend the product or service to others). NPS can be a useful tool when used properly (which was much of the discussion on the email thread – who to measure, how often, etc.). But NPS can be cumbersome to measure, hard to understand granularly and not very helpful in letting you know what any given customer is really thinking about their interactions with your company…

  • #3010: The Video

    seth levine
    27 Feb 2013 | 10:03 am
    I blogged last year about the amazing 40th birthday trip my wife Greeley sent me and 9 friends on – cycling through Slovenia and Italy (original blog post along with a bunch of pictures here). We had a video put together of the whole experience that I thought I’d share. Thanks to Mike Shum for the video production!

  • The Democratization of Entrepreneurship

    seth levine
    20 Feb 2013 | 10:58 am
    One of the great trends we’ve been witnessing over the past decade, and in particular the past 5 years, has been what you might call the “democratization” of entrepreneurship”. It’s a powerful trend and one that I think will have a huge impact not just on the US economy and workforce, but perhaps even more intensely on other areas of the world – particularly developing economies. There are several underlying factors that I think underpin this sift that are worth noting: - The breaking down of geographic boundaries that confined entrepreneurial communities. Fundamentally…
 
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    Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

  • Twitter Digest: 2013-05-22

    Paul Kedrosky
    23 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    Some appealing features of a parliamentary system | MinnPost http://t.co/4RJSNgEHc3 -> Harassing @TWC about their dumb decision not to carry Premier League Extra Time & NBC LIve Extra next EPL season. -> Wildfires ahead: SoCal vegetation moisture levels in some inland areas are driest in 100 years – http://t.co/bfFGi0KwRC -> Vanguard graphic arguing that “low-cost portfolios” is an innovation seeing rapid adoption http://t.co/bo8f6g5x78 -> .@BrianNorgard US DOE made only two loans to startups under ATVM: one was Fisker; other was Tesla. Not bad for a failed program.

  • Twitter Digest: 2013-05-21

    Paul Kedrosky
    22 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    “He proposed a centi-million dollar dome over downtown”. Who is, Don Atchison. -> I’ll take “CRAZY CANADIAN MAYORS” for $1,000, Alex. I’m aces at that category. -> JotD (Job of the Day): Heard by millions of people each week, you’ll get to say, “This is NPR” each day. https://t.co/VHXJANiaFB -> Poll: Teens migrating to Twitter — Facebook has too much "drama" http://t.co/12BVkrZD36 ->

  • Twitter Digest: 2013-05-19

    Paul Kedrosky
    20 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    Urban Dictionary: Highlingual – The belief that, when high, you can speak two or more languages http://t.co/F9sjt3Y77j -> There hitherto unplumbed relationship between football passing direction and politician orientation http://t.co/14SOuKvnIS -> Oh, ugh: Psychology tops SDSU list of most popular degrees among 2013 graduates – http://t.co/wrikqz1606 -> That sound you hear is every VC in US rummaging thru portfolio for SFTTCSYBITL (Some Fucking Thing They Can Sell Yahoo Before It’s Too Late) -> To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, giving money and an impatient board to a…

  • Twitter Digest: 2013-05-16

    Paul Kedrosky
    17 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    Tableau to start trading tomorrow with symbol “DATA”. Nice. Love those guys. -> Like services such as Wealthfront, but wish there was an uber-Wealthfront that managed allocations to LendingClub, CircleUp/Angellist, etc. -> Frontline: The Retirement Gamble – http://t.co/ip8xqqyGwC -> Today in “ewww”: Human feces taint more than half of U.S. public swimming pools | http://t.co/FVGlfXHLSD -> Lovely: Newegg nukes “corporate troll” Alcatel in third patent appeal win this year http://t.co/4wVEwd0Hfy ->
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    BeyondVC

  • Branding first starts with your team

    Ed Sim
    17 May 2013 | 7:07 am
    External branding starts with developing a consistent, internal message first. When you think of branding and positioning, remember that your first line of offense and the most important representation of your company comes from your employees.  Make sure you have a succinct, crisp and clear 2-3 sentence pitch on what you do and that everyone from the CEO down to the engineer or QA can repeat the same mantra.  Whether your employees are doing sales pitch or at a conference or cocktail party, they should all be starting with the same message.  The more it is said the easier the…

  • Camping out and closing deals

    Ed Sim
    15 Jan 2013 | 6:12 am
    I am sure you can see a common thread in many of my recent posts – Sales, Sales, Sales!  I don’t care how great your product is because without an ability to articulate the value proposition succinctly, tell the world about it in a capital efficient manner, and sell the damn thing, you are SOL (yes, shit out of luck!). Pitch11x14 original So what does camping out have to do with selling? Let me explain.  In sales I am sure you have heard about all of the various models to prospect, push leads through a funnel, and get to closing.  One underestimated method is the…

  • Cutco Knives and startups

    Ed Sim
    28 Sep 2012 | 6:18 am
    When I worked for Cutco Knives one summer in college selling the world’s finest cutlery, my dream was to sell the Homemaker +8 at every meeting.  It was the Rolls Royce of knife sets and in every sales call I had, I always tried to flog the deluxe set.  Of course, more often than not, I left with selling a spatula spreader or much smaller set.  Many a memory was brought back yesterday as my wife and I went through a sales pitch for Cutco knives from an enterprising college student.  His pitch was great…and entertaining…and the same from 20+…

  • Startups and Intellectual Property (IP)

    Ed Sim
    16 May 2012 | 8:02 am
    Lately questions about Intellectual Property or IP have been cropping up left and right.  Eliot Durbin (my partner at BOLDstart Ventures) and I had a long discussion this morning in preparation for his panel today about IP and patents.  Last week, we met with a company and when we asked about their core IP, they launched into a 5 minute discussion about the various patents they filed.  Do startups really think patents are going to make or break their business?  Yes, having core tech or IP matters but patents are a different question altogether.  Your best protection…

  • What entrepreneurs can learn from Jeff Spicoli

    Ed Sim
    25 Jan 2012 | 9:28 am
    I know I may be dating myself here, but over the past few weeks I couldn't help but think about the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High and one of the standout characters, Jeff Spicoli.  When asked by Mr. Hand, his teacher, why he keeps coming late and wasting his time, Spicoli answers, "I don't know." I Don't Know Fast Times at Ridgemont High at MOVIECLIPS.com In several meetings with entrepreneurs during the past few weeks, they would have been better off answering like Spicoli rather than giving me some hollow bull shit answer.  I want to make it very clear that I don't expect…
 
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    VC Cafe

  • FFF and 31 Crowdfunding Platforms To Raise Money for Your Startup

    Eze Vidra
    22 May 2013 | 6:57 am
    Crowdfunding is rapidly growing in the UK and elsewhere. No longer restricted to Friends Family and Fools, founders can [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Mobile Game Monetization – It’s the UI, Stupid

    Eze Vidra
    19 May 2013 | 1:41 pm
    The Smartphone Era has been good to games. This category captures more than 80% of mobiledownload revenue (AppAnnie) but earns even more from from in-app purchases and advertising. This post covers the main drivers for gaming ROI and adoption. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Words of Encouragement for European Startups

    Eze Vidra
    15 May 2013 | 8:44 am
    The Eurozone is in crisis - GDP numbers point to the worst recession since 1999 and major economies are shrinking. That said, the startup ecosystems are growing and have lot to be optimistic about. I urge founders to also consider the good news and take on a more positive outlook based on "this is water"' by David Foster Wallace. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Invest in Israel – May 2013 Edition

    Eze Vidra
    14 May 2013 | 6:36 am
    As every month, VC Cafe is re-posting the “Invest in Israel” Newsletter, published by the investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, which offers many helpful tools for prospecting investors.  For the Invest in Israel archive, click here.  This edition doesn’t [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Video: How can your startup make use of Campus London?

    Eze Vidra
    14 May 2013 | 6:28 am
    I had a great pleasure to host Don Dodge at Campus last month for our one year anniversary to speak with the venture community in London about Campus, startups and Google. Don is a senior developer advocate with years of experience as an influential Microsoft startup evangelist (like Guy Kawasaki did [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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    SAI

  • 17 Stanford Business Students Who Are Going To Change The World

    Lynne Guey and Max Nisen
    23 May 2013 | 11:47 am
    Stanford's Graduate School of Business is the most selective MBA program in the world, accepting only 7% of the people who apply. Harvard accepts 12%. It's ranked 1st by US News and Business Insider, and 2nd by the Financial Times.   Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's surrounded by the companies and minds that have created some of the most influential companies in the world. Students don't just come to get a job that pays more after school, but to create disruptive companies and change the world. We've picked out some of the most impressive students there right now. …

  • Sorry, Google, Normal People Don't Care About Google Glass

    Robert Libetti and William Wei
    23 May 2013 | 11:43 am
    The tech community has been going crazy recently over the release of Google Glass for developers. We gave it a try as well. Will it be the next revolutionary device? Will it be a bigger hit than the iPhone? Is it worth the price? We won't know for sure until it's released for consumers. Nonetheless, we decided to see what the average person thought of the device and if all the hype in the tech world has even hit regular people yet. Find out what they thought below:   Please enable Javascript to watch this video Produced by Robert LibettiSEE ALSO: What Normal People Really Think Of…

  • INFOGRAPHIC: How Location Data Is Being Collected And Transforming The Mobile Industry

    Business Insider
    23 May 2013 | 11:15 am
    With over 770 million GPS-enabled smartphones, location data has begun to permeate the entire mobile space. The possibilities for location-based services on mobile go beyond consumer-facing apps like FourSquare and Shopkick It's powering advertisements, and many other services — from weather to travel apps. In a recent report from BI Intelligence on location-based data, we analyze the opportunities emerging from this new local-mobile paradigm. We specifically examine how location-enabled mobile ads have generated excitement, look at how…

  • Ben Ling Turns His 'Hobby' Of Finding Billion Dollar Companies Into A Full Time Job At Khosla

    Nicholas Carlson
    23 May 2013 | 10:59 am
    Former Google, YouTube, and Facebook executive Ben Ling is joining Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. There, he'll be leading investments in small mobile and Internet startups that he believes can grow up into huge, multi-billion dollar companies. Ling's last job was COO of a social startup called Badoo. There he oversaw product, engineering, marketing, operations, business development and corporate development. In a phone interview, Ling told us he picked Khosla because of its "venture assistance model." He likes the way Khosla takes a hands-on approach with the…

  • VIDEO REVIEW: Nokia's Newest Lumia Windows Phone (NOK, MSFT, VZ)

    Steve Kovach and William Wei
    23 May 2013 | 9:38 am
    Nokia has a new flagship phone, and it's called the Lumia 928.  Unlike the six-month-old Lumia 920, the Lumia 928 is a Verizon exclusive. Otherwise, it's basically the same phone but with an uglier design. Check it out for yourself in our hands-on video review below:    <div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div> Produced by William WeiSEE ALSO: The Full Written Review Of The Lumia 928 Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »    
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    Continuations

  • Immigration Reform

    23 May 2013 | 7:29 am
    I am an immigrant (from Germany). I work in tech (as an investor and previously as an entrepreneur). I support comprehensive immigration reform. That part is pretty simple — it would be hypocritical to argue that something that I have benefitted from tremendously should be less accessible to others. But I have largely chosen to stay out of this particular fight because the arguments on both sides have been too narrow with a lot of needlessly heated rhetoric. I am quite convinced that the actual impact here will be less than people expect it to be in either direction. The reason is…

  • Antifragile by Nassim Taleb (Book Review)

    22 May 2013 | 5:29 am
    Ok, so this isn’t so much a review as an exhortation to read Antifragile by Nassim Taleb which I consider one of the most important non-fiction books I have read. Let me start with some disclaimers: 1. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction books, not because I don’t start them but because I don’t finish them. Most aren’t good or important enough and you are often better off reading the blog post or HBR article on which they are based. So you may want to take my claim of “one of the best” with a grain of salt but I don’t say it lightly either. 2.

  • Tech Tuesday: Security in Startups

    21 May 2013 | 5:44 am
    Last week in Tech Tuesday I asked for topics to write about in my series on technology in startups. There seemed to be a fair bit of interest in security, so here we go. First off a disclaimer. As with any general purpose advice, you need to think a lot about what it is you are trying to do. The security requirements for a bitcoin startup are vastly different from those for a social media one. When you are just getting going you should treat security the same way as scalability: make sure you have the basics covered but don’t spend too much time on it as your bigger problem is to build…

  • Tumblr and Yahoo

    20 May 2013 | 5:42 am
    It is now official that Tumblr will become part of Yahoo. Marissa announced the news in style with an animated gif. I have been lucky to be part of Tumblr’s journey as an angel investor and as an active blogger on the service since February 2008. I am excited about the combination with Yahoo. When Marissa took over Yahoo, I expected that acquisitions would play a role in her transformation of the company. At the time I wrote that the ideal target would be “startups that have very talented people and also interesting products but could benefit from the scale of Yahoo.” Tumblr…

  • University of the People: Support a Student

    17 May 2013 | 7:49 am
    I first met Shai Reshef, the indefatigable force behind University of the People, at DLD in 2009. Since then I have come to know Shai as someone who cares deeply about using education to empower people all around the world. He is taking quite a different approach from the MOOCs by scaling UoPeople much more slowly and deliberately and working diligently towards accreditation. The approach has two premises. First, in many countries around the world a degree plays a dramatic role in changing the income trajectory for individuals. This has also been the insight behind Vittana which provides…
 
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    articles » Venture Capital News

  • 29 Year Old Man Raises 33 Million USD

    admin
    11 May 2013 | 11:35 pm
    A young man, Mike Brown from Bowery Capital, traveled for the last year all over the country and rural towns. Still, this was neither a vacation nor a fun activity. This is how a less than 30 year old man thinks of launching his own venture capital company. Although it was a very demanding period, this past year paid off, he met with many potential limited partners which he pitched about his idea for Bowery Capital. The company would be an early stage company based in New York and the limited partners eventually enabled him to raise 33 million USD, by offering each 1 million USD. Mike Brown…

  • ForgeRock Lands $15 Million Series B Funding

    admin
    11 Apr 2013 | 4:51 am
    ForgeRock, a start-up San Francisco based company, provider of identity and access management software, closed yesterday $15 million series B round of funding. The venture capital funding was led by Foundation Capital and Accel Partners, a prior investor of the company. Accel Partners was the investor that led the series A round of funding and offered $7 million in 2012. Bruce Golden declared that they are looking forward to helping the company to continue with the expansion of its global presence and disrupt the traditional approaches to IAM by developing a new IAM architecture that solves…

  • Handshakez Gets $ 3.6 Million in Series A Funding

    admin
    8 Mar 2013 | 3:25 am
    A few days ago Handshakez got a $ 3.6 million in series A round of funding that was led by Austin Ventures. At the funding First Round Capital, CrunchFund, Floodgate and Valhalla Partners also participated. Chief Executive Officer Jason Wesbecher explained that the company was planning to close the series A round of funding before the summer, but it happened earlier than they expected because the executives saw a great momentum at the end of last year so they decided to speed things up a little bit. Jason Wesbecher is an expert marketing executive who worked for Siebel Systems, Tibco and Jive…

  • Startup Infinio Gets $ 10 Million of Funding

    admin
    13 Feb 2013 | 12:48 am
    Startup Infinio, a developing software company based in Cambridge, recently declared that they raised a series A round of founding amounted at $ 10 million. The round of funding was led by the new investors Highland Capital Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. Infinio’s officials declared that the software that it produces is designed to address issues around storage performance, called “the most expensive bottleneck in virtual environments” by the startup. The total amount of Infinio’s funding sums up to $ 12 million since it was founded. Other investors took part in the series A…

  • Transaction that Will Produce More than $2 Million in Funding

    admin
    3 Feb 2013 | 2:17 pm
    (General Metals Corporation) announced recently that they entered into a letter of intent with Open Gold Corp ] in order to raise capital and thus provide greater access to their capital needs in the future. As per the terms, more than $2 million are expected to be raised. The completion of the transaction depends on the final agreement between the two companies. Open Gold should issue shares of the common stock to General Metals so that them and their shareholders will own more than a half of Open Gold’s shares, that include the ones issued for the capital raise. As this will be completed,…
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    OpenView Blog

  • The Truth Behind the “Where Else Are You Interviewing?” Question

    Lindsey Gurian
    23 May 2013 | 6:30 am
    “Where Else Are You Interviewing?” This was a question I was taught to ask when I worked for a recruiting agency. I have been doing some serious thinking about this question, and I wonder — what value are we really getting from asking this? Should we add it to the list of bad interview questions and cut it out of all together? The Truth Behind “Where Else Are You Interviewing?” Not many people may realize this, but in recruiting agencies, asking where else a candidate is looking actually serves one purpose — to help the recruiter find out who is hiring so he or she…

  • How to Do Market Research in 5 Minutes

    Nick Petri
    23 May 2013 | 4:30 am
    As a B2B market researcher, I spend a lot of my time speaking with extremely targeted, senior decision makers at Fortune 500 companies. Image provided by: Campaign Asia Or at least, I spend a lot of my time trying to speak to these people. The truth is, I spend only a small portion of my time actually speaking with them. There’s a good reason for this discrepancy. Senior decision makers are very difficult to get a hold of and have a high opportunity cost for the time they spend dropping knowledge. If a CFO makes $800k per year, they’re not likely to be enticed by a $10 Starbucks gift…

  • The Benefits of a Challenge: A Lesson from Japanese Fishermen

    Diana Martz
    22 May 2013 | 12:36 pm
    What do keeping employees motivated and fresh fish have in common? I just got back from my first trip to Asia, where I learned an interesting story about Japanese fishermen that directly correlates with business principles for employee motivation. The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But over the past several decades it has become increasingly difficult to find fish in close waters. Fishing boats have gotten bigger and ventured farther and farther out into the ocean. Of course, the farther the fishermen go, the longer it takes to bring back the fish, and soon people began to complain…

  • “Don’t Tell Me What I Can and Can’t Eat!” 4 Simpler Ways To Promote Employee Wellness

    Meghan Maher
    22 May 2013 | 11:33 am
    We all know that healthy living and wellness are hot topics. With the adult obesity rate in America soaring to 37.5% and new research coming out every day about another chemical or preservative that will cause a deadly disease, how can we not talk about it? But should employers go as far as restricting what employees can and cannot eat? One employer thinks so. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has decided that they will go vegan — and this decision includes everyone. Whether or not you choose to practice in your home, only vegan food may be eaten in the office. I think most…

  • Customer Segmentation: What Is Customer Segmentation?

    Scott Maxwell
    22 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    At OpenView Venture Partners, we spend a lot of time working with our portfolio companies to help them focus on their best customer segments. This is the first step in creating a market dominating growth strategy and dramatically improves a company’s growth, competitive advantage, and economic model. A firm should select its buyers with great care. Not every customer is a good customer. A buyer who is too costly to service, too demanding, or too powerful may be bad for business.” — Micheal Porter What Is Customer Segmentation and How Do You Define a Customer Segment? At the…
 
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    Boston Business News - Local Boston News | Boston Business Journal

  • Goldman banker fined, banned in alleged Cahill pay-to-play

    23 May 2013 | 11:44 am
    The former Goldman Sachs investment banker nabbed in an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving secret contributions to former state Treasurer Timothy Cahill’s campaign for governor has been fined $100,000 and barred from the securities industry for five years by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Neil Morrison was a vice president at Goldman Sachs’ Boston office and solicited underwriting business from the state treasurer’s office beginning in July 2008, the SEC said. Morrison also…

  • TechStars Boston class touts throng of paying customers (slideshow)

    23 May 2013 | 11:42 am
    The majority of startups in the spring 2013 session of TechStars Boston have paying customers for their products, while most of the others expect to be generating revenue soon, founders said Thursday. The startups' products aim to revolutionize the worlds of government policy, pharmacy, real estate development, farming, robotics, online advertising, sports fanship, software security and more. The three-month session, which has included 14 startups, reached its conclusion Thursday with its Demo…

  • Ironwood to raise $136M to support launch of IBS treatment drug

    23 May 2013 | 11:10 am
    On Friday, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:IRWD) will close on an offering which will raise $136 million for the company to use to fuel the recent launch of its first drug on the market. The offering of 1.5 million shares at $13 a share was announced on Tuesday, and is the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech’s company’s second offering so far this year. In January, Ironwood raised $175 million in a debt offering, also said to be mostly for the launch of launch of Linzess (linaclotide), the…

  • 13 Million U.S. homeowners underwater in Q1

    23 May 2013 | 11:06 am
    The national negative equity rate fell in the first quarter, to 25.4 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage, according to the Zillow Negative Equity Report. But another 18.2 percent of homeowners with mortgages, while not technically underwater, likely do not have enough equity to afford to move. Slightly more than 13 million homeowners with a mortgage were in negative equity, or underwater, at the end of the first quarter, owing more on their mortgage than their home is worth. But when including…

  • Biogen Idec taps Harvard professor as new CSO

    23 May 2013 | 10:58 am
    Weston, Mass.-based Biogen Idec (Nasdaq:BIIB) has named Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas, a professor at Harvard Medical School, as its permanent chief scientific officer, a position in which he’s served on an interim basis for about a year. Artavanis-Tsakonas was named to the newly-created role while on sabbatical from Harvard, where he is a professor of cell biology and founding director of the Developmental and Regenerative Biology graduate program. He will report to Doug Williams, Biogen’s executive…
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    Mendelson's Musings

  • Calling All Angels – Fort Collins Version

    Jason Mendelson
    22 May 2013 | 11:37 am
    Three keys to a building a strong ecosystem for startups are: (1) entrepreneurs; (2) technology; and (3) investors.   For a long time, newer entrepreneurial communities have relied on the first two segments to attract the third.  We are now realizing that to sustain and grow a vibrant entrepreneurial community, we need to support all three. Angel investors are typically very bright, successful entrepreneurs who want to give back after they cash out in one or two of their own ventures.  Although they understand how to build products and companies, they may not have a lot of experience in…

  • CU Boulder’s New Venture Challenge. Come Join Me

    Jason Mendelson
    16 Apr 2013 | 2:40 pm
    I’ve seen the “Transactional IQ” – i.e., the level of understanding around startup deal making – rise at CU over the past five years.  This fall I finished teaching a Venture Capital course at CU for the fifth time.  And in recent years I’ve helped coach CU’s Venture Capital Investment Competition team.  It is fun to see what involvement with students over a five year trajectory can accomplish. I’ll be involved in another five year milestone on Wednesday.  CU-Boulder’s New Venture Challenge Fifth Annual Championships are Wednesday 5:00 – 7:30 p.m. in the Wittemyer…

  • You Love API’s? Here is something for you Boulder / Denver

    Jason Mendelson
    19 Mar 2013 | 2:50 am
    If you are involved in tech and entrepreneurship, there are two upcoming events that you can’t miss, called APIs & IPAs. The events, hosted by Singly, SendGrid and FullContact (all Foundry Group portfolio companies), are on March 27th at Rock Bottom Brewery in Denver and March 28th at Bitter Bar in Boulder. APIs & IPAs is a tech community happy hour, with drinks and appetizers covered by the host companies. We hope to see you there! APIs & IPAs Denver (3/27): http://denverapis.eventbrite.com/ APIs & IPAs Boulder (3/28): http://boulderapis.eventbrite.com/

  • My “First” Rock and Roll Video (a.k.a “Come to VentureScape 2013!)

    Jason Mendelson
    26 Feb 2013 | 6:53 am
    For those of you who know me, I have always loved being a musician.  For a while, I thought that I would make my living as a drummer, but the world conspired against me.  That being said, I couldn’t be grateful enough that I ended up as a venture capitalist. Last year, I spearheaded the Foundry Group “I’m a VC” Video.  It was as ton of fun and I’m certainly proud of it, but musically it’s a parody song and I don’t have the same emotional attachment that I do with the real music that I create, especially those songs that I co-write with my business…

  • Colorado Law – Teaching In-House Lawyers How to Run Lean

    Jason Mendelson
    7 Feb 2013 | 11:29 am
    It’s clear that in-house law departments are going through a major paradigm shift. In the same way that manufacturers are testing out technologies that are allowing them to keep up productivity while cutting costs, CEO’s are asking law department leaders to trim as much as possible. Throughout the world, law departments are using manufacturing theories such as Six Sigma to get more from less. On April 8, The University of Colorado Law School will hold a three-day executive training program for Chief Legal Officers and in-house counsel where they will learn from professionals about how to…
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    eWallstreeter

  • Loom Is Building A Better iCloud

    23 May 2013 | 9:29 am
    Barely a month or two after launching the Y Combinator-backed photo-sharing service Popset, the team realized they were solving the wrong problem. Users weren’t struggling to share their photos with groups; they needed tools to help them organize and manage their photo libraries across a variety of platforms and services. So the company decided to change its course, and today it’s announcing what it has in store: Loom, a cloud storage and syncing service that’s like a better alternative to iCloud. “People were requesting features and giving us feedback that caught our…

  • Lyft team gets $60M more; now it must prove ride-sharing can go global

    23 May 2013 | 9:00 am
    Ride-sharing startup Lyft has closed a $60 million funding round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, the company announced on its blog. It also confirmed raising $15M in October of 2012. ...

  • Lyft, A Year-Old Startup That Helps Strangers Share Car-Rides, Just Raised $60 Million From Andreessen Horowitz And Others

    23 May 2013 | 9:00 am
    A massive infusion of cash.

  • Lyft, A Year-Old Startup That Helps Strangers Share Car-Rides, Just Raised $60 Million From Andreessen Horowitz

    23 May 2013 | 9:00 am
    Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz just announced that it invested $60 million in a startup called Zimride. Zimride makes a car-sharing/semi-pro taxi service called Lyft. How it works: You open an app on your smartphone to summon a driver to take you somewhere. A car with a big, fuzzy pink mustache affixed to its front arrives to pick you up. The person who picks you up is not a professional driver, but another Lyft user. Zimride, which is only a year old, plans to use the $60 million to expand beyond its current markets. The funding enters Lyft into more serious…

  • Kim Dotcom Claims To Own The Password Technology That Twitter And Google Use

    23 May 2013 | 8:58 am
    Kim Dotcom claims to own the patent for two-step verification, password technology used by Google and Twitter, reports The Guardian. Two-step verification is a means of logging in to a site with a one-time-use password sent to your mobile device every time you access the service. For someone to access an account, he must know the standard password and have the mobile device corresponding to the login. Dotcom apparently filed the patent in 1998 under the name "Kim Schmitz" but he may not have been first – The Guardian suggests that other patents by Ericsson and Nokia from 1994 beat…
 
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