Venture Capital

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    TechCrunch

  • YouTube Is Falling Apart Again

    Erick Schonfeld
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:37 pm
    The ads are destroying YouTube. At least this one is. It is a video ad for sustainable energy company from Spain called Acciona. Yeah, I had never heard of them either. The video starts with this Euro-dude in a suit starting to blow up and crack apart like he’s made from plaster. Halfway through, the actual video player crack in half, and all of the surrounding parts of the site shake and fall away, while an annoying voiceover is saying something about rebirth. I don’t know, maybe it makes more sense in Spanish. The visual effect is interesting, but feels like a gimmick since…

  • Marissa Mayer Chosen As A Glamour Magazine Woman Of The Year

    Leena Rao
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:30 pm
    Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer was recently profiled in a Vogue Magazine article that offered a in-depth glimpse into the exec’s lifestyle, loves, career and fashion preferences. Now, Mayer has been named as one of Glamour Magazine’s 2009 Women of the Year. Joining Mayer on the list are a variety of female powerhouses and icons including Maya Angelou, First Lady Michelle Obama, Susan Rice, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Mayer has been frequently profiled in business and technology publications over the years, but it’s also nice to…

  • The Just Because We Love You TwitterPeek Giveaway #Crunch

    Michael Arrington
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:53 pm
    If you’re a Twitter freak and think that a dedicated Twitter device is just the thing for you, read on. This week we saw the launch of the TwitterPeek, a cute little device built by Peek that will do just about anything you want it to do, as long as all you want it to do is access Twitter. It won’t surf the web. It won’t make phone calls. It won’t support third party apps. But it most certainly does run Twitter. You can get it in black. Or, if you want to show a little flair, you can get in in cyan. For some crazy reason I wanted one. A friend bought me one that I will…

  • Gowalla Hops Onto Android Via The Mobile Web

    MG Siegler
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:09 pm
    Up until now, if you wanted to use the location-based service Gowalla on the go, you had to have an iPhone. Today, that expands to Android. But rather than building an app, Gowalla has extended support to Android using the mobile web. This works because Android’s browser is closely tied to the device and is able to access location information, which is vital for Gowalla. The goal is to extend this mobile web support to BlackBerry and a few other location-aware devices in the next week or so, co-founder Josh Williams tells us. As a small team, Gowalla, like its rival Foursquare,…

  • textPlus 2.0 Hits The App Store For Free Texting

    Daniel Brusilovsky
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:26 pm
    textPlus, a text messaging app that’s powered by GOGII, has just hit the App Store. textPlus lets any iPhone or iPod Touch send free text messages to any cell number by using in-app advertising to cover its costs. There is no limit on how many text messages you can send per month, it’s just a matter of getting WiFi, 3G or an Edge connection. GOGII was one of the first companies that was funded by iFund, the partnership between venture capital firm KPCB and Apple, which was announced at the Apple SDK roadmap event. With version 2.0 of textPlus, GOGII is announcing the availability…
 
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    Demo.com

  • Join Us: December DEMO Innovation Meet-Ups in San Francisco, Seattle, NYC and Austin

    DEMO Staff
    30 Oct 2009 | 1:32 pm
    The DEMO Innovation tour where Matt Marshall, DEMO Executive Producer and the DEMO team travel around the globe to connect with the DEMO community in search of  the best innovation to showcase at DEMOspring 2010 is making it's way across the U.S. in December. Read more

  • DEMO’s visits to London and Boston show California is great place to launch

    DEMO Staff
    30 Oct 2009 | 1:28 pm
    Matt Marshall, DEMO Executive Producer I’ve been on the road lately, in a continued effort to find and meet with the best companies around to launch new products at the DEMO conference, and have been developing some cool ideas for DEMO’s next conference in March. I’ll share more about those ideas in future posts. Read more

  • DEMO rocked! Now the party starts again

    DEMO Staff
    13 Oct 2009 | 7:25 am
    From: Matt Marshall, Executive Producer, DEMO Conferences and Editor-in-Chief, VentureBeat It’s been two weeks since the end of DEMO. I’m awestruck by the experience, both by all of the incredibly talented people that convened there in San Diego, and by the traction 70 entrepreneurs were able to get during those short few days. Thank you to all of the people who came and make it such a terrific event. Read more

  • DEMO 2010 starts now

    DEMO Staff
    7 Oct 2009 | 2:58 pm
    We're fresh off DEMOfall 09 where two weeks ago, 70 companies launched products and announced innovative business plans. If you haven't taken a look, check out the class of DEMOfall 09 at www.demo.com.   Read more

  • DEMOfall 09 starts today.. Watch live coverage

    DEMO Staff
    22 Sep 2009 | 6:41 am
    Didn't make it to San Diego for DEMOfall 09? Watch it live on www.demo.com home page starting Tuesday, 9/22 at 8:30am. PT,  thx BitGravity! Read more
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    Both Sides of the Table

  • Good Judgment Comes with Experience, But Experience Comes from Bad Judgment

    Mark Suster
    5 Nov 2009 | 8:44 pm
    This is part of my Startup Advice series of posts. I heard Bruce Dunlevie of Benchmark Capital say these words at a conference in London nearly 10 years ago.  I jotted the words down (I normally pay little attention to anything said at conferences.  Most of it is BS) and thought about them much over the years.  I later learned that the quote was taken from somewhere else (perhaps as early as the 13th century!) but whoever is responsible I just want to help spread it. There is a folklore in Silicon Valley that you should fund first-time entrepreneurs.  When you see the successes of Mark…

  • Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?

    Mark Suster
    4 Nov 2009 | 5:42 pm
    This is part of my Startup Advice series I often have career discussions with entrepreneurs – both young and more mature – whether they should join company “X” or not.  I usually pull the old trick of answering a question with a question.  My reply is usually, “is it time for you to earn or to learn?” Let’s face it.  If you’re thinking about joining as the director of marketing, product management manager, senior architect, international business development lead, etc. at a startup that has already raised $5 million the chances of you making…

  • Are Business Plans Still Necessary?

    Mark Suster
    3 Nov 2009 | 2:28 am
    This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. I remember going to an Under the Radar conference in 2006 in the heat of the Web 2.0 craze.  There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 wares.  Ajax was the new buzzword and many companies went overboard.  People mistook extra doses of Ajax for a successful product. Unfortunately this was reinforced by the many conferences that rushed to espouse the benefits of Web 2.0 and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!,…

  • My Interview on This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis

    Mark Suster
    1 Nov 2009 | 9:35 pm
    Last Friday I was on This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis. Lots of great discussions here. Ok, I know it’s an hour-long video, but if you have time in the evening, we had a series of great discussions once you get 6 minutes in or so past the upfront advertisements. Topics include: - Should you raise money at a high price and then just spend it slowly? - Is the VC model broken? - Why did the VC investment pace slow down so much? - Was Fred Wilson right that a VC owning a small stake is OK? (short answer: in most cases a small stake is a problem. Long answer in the video) - Is it…

  • 5 Tips to Becoming a More Customer Centric Organization

    Mark Suster
    1 Nov 2009 | 12:11 pm
    Turn Your Organization Inside Out This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. The world has changed much since I started my first company in 1999.  As organizations we have become more open and I believe this is great for businesses and their customers.  In the first 4 years of running BuildOnline we were an “Outside In” organization. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features.  The Outside In…
 
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    VatorNews.tv

  • Get ready for lots of small IPOs

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pm
    Sarbox relief and Open Table's mini offering may set the model for post-crash public launchOn Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a small-business exemption to the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules, permanently waiving the audit requirements for all companies with market caps under $75 million.  Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have long bemoaned the newly repealed requirements, which were intended to prevent Enron-style scandals in big companies, but have also contributed to the IPO drought among small ones. The exemption, somewhat surprisingly urged by White House…

  • Google Maps goes to Mexico

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:55 am
    In a few days, Mexico will be the first Latin American country to enjoy Street ViewGoogle announced Friday afternoon that Mexico now has its own version of Google Maps, available at maps.google.com.mx. Besides being able to take advantage of the most basic use of Google Maps (as a navigational tool), Mexicans will also be able to enjoy an incredibly convenient feature that has been offered in the U.S. for some time now, called the Local Business Center. Now, once a large enough quantity of businesses have incorporated their geographical location and business information into the data center,…

  • Brizzly Twitter client already supports Lists

    6 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am
    Third-party Web-based Twitter client seamlessly merges Lists with its own Groups featureThough Twitter officially launched Lists only a week ago, third-party developers are already hard at work implementing the new feature into their applications. Seesmic, a desktop client that supports both Facebook and multiple Twitter accounts, was the first, adding support earlier this week.Thursday night, Web-based Twitter client Brizzly took second place by announcing that Lists would work with Groups without a hitch. Groups, which, like Lists, allows one to sort other users into categories of any size…

  • Twitter rolling out its own retweet button

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:51 pm
    Microblogging site continues to add new features to serviceLast week Twitter rolled out its new "Lists" feature to try and get its declining users more engaged.  Today the micro-blogging service announced it's launching its own official Retweet button to a small percentage of accounts. Retweeting is common practice already.  You see it on blogs and news sites across the Web.  Basically, a user reads an article and if a retweet button is available, they can click it and have an automatic tweet set up on their Twitter update.  Several third party startups like Tweetmeme and…

  • IBM introduces cloud platform for developers

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm
    New solutions for testing software in the cloud offers developers more flexible optionsIBM on Thursday announced a group of solutions for developers to develop, test, and deliver applications in private and public cloud environments.IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud is a new and free public cloud for software development designed to speed up and enhance development and delivery of software. The platform is specifically targeted at larger enterprises who see hundreds of development projects yearly. With compute and storage as a service environments, IBM hopes to create a…
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    VentureBeat

  • Windows 7 sells 234% more copies than Vista

    Anthony Ha
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:58 pm
    It looks like all the positive buzz round Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system paid off in sales. Windows 7 sold 234 percent more copies during its first few days on the market than Vista did during the same period of its release, according to research by the NPD Group. NPD’s data covers the week of Oct. 18 to 24. Windows 7 only launched on the 22nd, but these numbers also include pre-sales from the days before. While the reviews weren’t universally positive, Windows 7 was seen as a huge improvement on Vista, the operating system so hated that it became a punchline of…

  • Announcing DiscoveryBeat: an event on how to get your apps noticed in an age of noise

    Dean Takahashi
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:39 pm
    VentureBeat is throwing a new mini-conference and networking event, DiscoveryBeat. DiscoveryBeat addresses one of the biggest conundrums for Silicon Valley’s most dynamic startups and developers: How to get your social game or mobile application noticed in an age of noise? It will be held in the afternoon of Dec. 8 at the Automattic Lounge on Pier 38 in San Francisco, a hip location with an ocean view. We’ll discuss the “secret recipe” for getting discovered in an age when getting discovered can mean huge viral growth and the difference between profound success or…

  • ClickFuel provides internet tools to small businesses

    Cody Barbierri
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:34 pm
    As a web generation, when we’re looking for a dentist, plumber, or other small business, our first instinct is to go online when we need these services. Sure, there’s Yellow Pages that can find a name, number and address, but as consumers we are used to more and these small businesses usually lack a formal online presence. However, there are several companies that have emerged with the tools to help. ClickFuel, a Boston startup that designs, manages and tracks marketing campaigns, has recently launched a set of Internet marketing tools designed to help small businesses to promote…

  • MSN changes the butterfly

    Paul Boutin
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:33 pm
    MSN’s new home page, which you can see at preview.msn.com, is the first one that doesn’t look like it was designed by Microsoft. The new page has the same cheery look and feel as the Bing search box that perches at its top, waiting to grab your next search away from Google. The MSN butterfly logo has been redesigned to match the new look. It’s pretty, but I doubt many users will notice the change. It still pushes the NBC peacock button in my brain, and I’m sure I’m far from alone. The big surprise is the new design of the “verticals” as they’re…

  • Smart Meter maker Landis+Gyr lands $100M for epic rollout

    Camille Ricketts
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:48 pm
    Last week’s announcement of $3.4 billion in stimulus funds for utilities was big news for smart meter makers. Almost every recipient of the money said they would be using it to add millions of advanced meters to their coverage areas. Now major meter maker Landis+Gyr has proved that the government grants will stimulate private investing in the sector, raising a new $100 million from its current backers. The Swiss company says it will use the funds for a fast and dramatic deployment of smart meters, and not just in the U.S. — it will look at rolling out its hardware in Asia,…
 
 
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    A VC

  • Valuation and Option Pool

    Fred
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:31 am
    One of the more contentious things in the negotiation between an entrepreneur and a VC over a financing, particularly an early stage financing, is the inclusion of an option pool in the pre-money valuation. As my friend Mark Pincus likes to say, "it's just another way to lower the price".I'll accept that critique. And take it one step further. The option pool is absolutely a piece of the price negotiation. But it is a very important one as I'll explain.But first, let me lay out a few things for those who aren't well versed in these matters. The pre-money valuation is…

  • Great Meetup Last Night

    Fred
    5 Nov 2009 | 4:21 am
    About a hundred readers of this blog gathered last night in the cafeteria of Washington Irving High School just off of Union Square in Manhattan to meet each other and celebrate the generosity of this community in the recent Donors Choose Bloggers Challenge. It was a great moment for me. I got to meet many readers who I know by name but not in person. Putting a face to a name is a wonderful thing. I also got to meet Sarah Bunting, whose blog, Tomato Nation, raised $315,000 for Donors Choose in October. Talk about "blog stars". I've got a lot to learn from Sarah.And I got to meet…

  • The Double Opt-In Introduction

    Fred
    3 Nov 2009 | 3:55 am
    I'm sure everyone out there gets email intros. Someone who knows you sends you and someone you don't know an email suggesting you meet.I send emails like that a lot. I might send a half a dozen or more every day.I get even more emails like that. Sometimes dozens a day.And I'd like to propose some email intro etiquette which I follow almost religiously myself:When introducing two people who don't know each other, ask each of them to opt-in to the introduction before making it.Last night I got talking about this with some friends who also get a lot of email intros. All of us get…

  • Thematic vs Thesis Driven Investing

    Fred
    2 Nov 2009 | 3:36 am
    As the venture business has grown and matured, many firms have developed specific areas of focus. Our firm, Union Square Ventures, for example only invests in web services. I believe this is a good thing for both the investors in venture funds, called LPs, and the entrepreneurs. But there are a number of ways that firms can execute their focus on a particular area. Two of the most popular are "thematic investing" and "thesis driven investing".They are very different.Thematic investing involves identifying big themes and going after them. Examples from the world of web…

  • The Donors Choose Threepeat Is Complete

    Fred
    1 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am
    We did it, for the third year in a row, this blog has won the tech blog category of the donors choose blogger challenge. Most importantly, we raised a total of $37,504 for teachers' projects in public schools. That number includes a $19,680 match from HP. Backing that out, this community contributed a total of $17,824 this year.Here's our three year history: It is interesting to me that the total amount raised by this community has been relatively constant over the past three years but this year we really took up the level of participation.That may be a result of the meetup I am doing…
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    Union Square Ventures

  • Introducing Tracked.com

    brad
    21 Oct 2009 | 6:29 am
    At Union Square Ventures, we seldom invest in a company before it launches publicly. The exception is when we have the opportunity to back an experienced entrepreneur with a strong team and a strong product vision. That is exactly what happened with Tracked.com. So we now find ourselves in the unusual position of announcing the public launch of an investment we made some time ago. A year ago, Mike Yavonditte, a web veteran based in New York who had worked at Ziff-Davis, Juno, Alta Vista and Interactive Corporation, and who had most recently gone wire to wire as the CEO of Quigo, began…

  • Foursquare

    albert
    4 Sep 2009 | 2:25 am
    We recently wrote about our search for native mobile applications, which we defined as applications that simply were not possible previously (as opposed to making something that already exists online accessible via mobile). We have also long been interested in gameplay (Zynga and Heyzap) and in local information (outside.in). We were therefore thrilled to find an opportunity that combines all three and are pleased to announce our investment in Foursquare. Foursquare allows you to "check in" at a venue (via the iphone app, the mobile site, or SMS). Your check in is broadcast to your friends,…

  • Chris and Malcolm are both wrong

    brad
    9 Aug 2009 | 9:58 am
    Many of you are familiar with dust up between Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell that was touched off by Malcolm's review of Chris's new book, Free: The Future of Radical Price. [UPDATE: Free is no longer free. The link to Chris's book has been retired. You can find Chris's book on Amazon.] Anderson's book points out that the cost of providing web services is declining as a result of open source software, commodity hardware, and cheap bandwidth. Gladwell agrees with the trend but notes that it is very expensive for YouTube to host video. Gladwell and Anderson also traded visions of the…

  • The Mobile Challenge

    Albert and Andrew
    25 Jun 2009 | 3:33 pm
    We are fascinated by the disruption underway in mobile applications. Carriers seem to have lost their role as gatekeepers for applications as smartphone sales are rapidly ramping and "app stores" or direct downloads are the new distribution models. This is exciting as it opens up a whole new arena for startups to compete in. Here is some of our early thinking about this with the goal of getting a discussion going. The challenge for startups (and investors!) has been identifying opportunities that are "native" to the new platforms. By "native" we mean opportunities that simply did not exist…

  • Bring the world to your event

    Eric
    15 Jun 2009 | 7:50 am
    Union Square Ventures hosted an event called Hacking Education that sparked conversations far beyond the day of the event, and did so in a way where we gave up control of the conversation and allowed it to spread. Steven Johnson recently wrote his thoughts about how Twitter will change the way we live, and within that article explained the process by which we shared our small event with anyone who was interested, and explained its impact: Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience…
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    Xconomy

  • Wireless Chip Designer MaxLinear Files for IPO

    Bruce V. Bigelow
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:05 pm
    IPO, funding, Semiconductors Bruce V. Bigelow wrote: MaxLinear, a fabless RF chipmaker based in Carlsbad, CA, filed a registration statement today for an initial public stock offering, marking only the second IPO in the San Diego area since Bridgepoint Education made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in April. About 45 IPOs have taken place nationwide so far this year. Eight semiconductor industry veterans founded MaxLinear in 2003. The company specializes in designing highly integrated, CMOS (Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) chips, and has had notable success designing…

  • LaserMotive Wins $900K NASA Prize

    Gregory T. Huang
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:17 pm
    startups, competitions, Space Gregory T. Huang wrote: Kent, WA-based LaserMotive has won $900,000 in a NASA competition to build a small prototype device that one day could help lead to a commercial “space elevator,” a cable that could transport cargo to and from outer space. The news was reported by the New York Times and other outlets. LaserMotive, a laser power-beaming company, is led by Thomas Nugent and Jordin Kare, who both also work with Bellevue, WA-based Intellectual Ventures. The power-beaming project and competition was reported by TechFlash earlier today. Comments |…

  • Porn Always Wins, Bacon Salt Expands, and Other Thoughts from Entrepreneur University

    Gregory T. Huang
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    startups, entrepreneurs, events Gregory T. Huang wrote: I’m not going to do justice to this event. Let’s just get that out there right now. There were some great speakers and panels at yesterday’s Entrepreneur University in Bellevue, WA, organized by the Northwest Entrepreneur Network. But this isn’t about them. This is about the crowd-pleasers that brought an otherwise productive day to a close. That’s right—this is about pornography and Bacon Salt. Not necessarily in that order, though. About a year ago, I profiled Bacon Salt, a couple of ex-Jobster guys in Seattle who hit…

  • Ion Torrent, Stealthy Company Tied to Harvard’s George Church, Nabs $23M Venture Deal

    Luke Timmerman
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:15 pm
    Biotech, Genomics, VC Luke Timmerman wrote: Ion Torrent Systems, a company advised by Harvard University genomics pioneer George Church, has raised $23 million in new capital to develop what it calls on its website “groundbreaking and highly disruptive technology” and to hire people who “want to do what it takes to put a dent in the universe.” The company, which has a location near Yale University in Guilford, CT, and one in San Francisco, has raised $23 million in equity out of a financing round that could be worth as much as $26 million, according to a regulatory…

  • LogMeIn Stockholders To Cash In

    Wade Roush
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm
    IT, deals, VC Wade Roush wrote: Woburn, MA-based remote control software company LogMeIn (NASDAQ: LOGM), which went public in July, said today that early investors plan to sell 2.9 million of their shares in a secondary public offering. At this afternoon’s share price of around $19.35, that would bring the stockholders some $56.1 million. Venture backers Prism VentureWorks and Polaris Venture Partners are among LogMeIn’s largest shareholders. LogMeIn said it will also sell 100,000 company-owned shares in the offering. Comments | Reprints | Share:        
 
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    Ross Mayfield's Weblog

  • From Enterprise 2.0 Adoption to Business Value

    Ross Mayfield
    2 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am
    In 2006, Enterprise 2.0 gained a definitional framework with Andrew McAfee's seminal article. But then the conversation quickly shifted to adoption frameworks. In part this was needed for something that was both new and powered by people. But unfortunately it has caused a perception problem, to the detriment of the industry. It's time to elevate the conversation from adoption to business value.There isn't a shortage of budget for Enterprise 2.0, but quipping the I in ROI is nominal doesn't cut it. At Socialtext, we've been hard at work combing through our customer…

  • Expertise Location and Social Sofware

    Ross Mayfield
    26 Oct 2009 | 3:42 pm
    Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on How to Find In-house Experts in a Big Company by researchers Izak Benbasat, Dorit Nevo and Yair Wand. The traditional approach is the centralized credentialing of experts, which fails with dynamic organizations adapting to change. Expertise-location systems also fail to share less formal attributes of expertise such as trustworthiness, communication skills and propensity to help. They believe the answer to this problem is, no surprise, enterprise social software:Activities and interactions that occur in blogs, wikis and social networks…

  • Web 2.0 Square

    Ross Mayfield
    22 Oct 2009 | 3:20 pm
    The theme of this year's Web 2.0 Summit is web squared (pdf). That is, its time to focus on impact in the real world. Fred Wison says the big trends driving this space are social, mobile and real time -- to form a golden triangle. I'd suggest geo, or location, provides as big of a vector for exploration and impacts the others. Geo has always been the missing dataset of the web, but very soon all mobile devices, browsers, laptops and specialized devices will provide geotagging. Geo will become a facet of the other three trends, becoming ubiquitous in existing services, and the…
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    DEMO Conference Blog

  • Join Us: December DEMO Innovation Meet-Ups in San Francisco, Seattle, NYC and Austin

    DEMO Staff
    30 Oct 2009 | 1:32 pm
    The DEMO Innovation tour where Matt Marshall, DEMO Executive Producer and the DEMO team travel around the globe to connect with the DEMO community in search of  the best innovation to showcase at DEMOspring 2010 is making it's way across the U.S. in December. Read more

  • DEMO’s visits to London and Boston show California is great place to launch

    DEMO Staff
    30 Oct 2009 | 1:28 pm
    Matt Marshall, DEMO Executive Producer I’ve been on the road lately, in a continued effort to find and meet with the best companies around to launch new products at the DEMO conference, and have been developing some cool ideas for DEMO’s next conference in March. I’ll share more about those ideas in future posts. Read more

  • DEMO rocked! Now the party starts again

    DEMO Staff
    13 Oct 2009 | 7:25 am
    From: Matt Marshall, Executive Producer, DEMO Conferences and Editor-in-Chief, VentureBeat It’s been two weeks since the end of DEMO. I’m awestruck by the experience, both by all of the incredibly talented people that convened there in San Diego, and by the traction 70 entrepreneurs were able to get during those short few days. Thank you to all of the people who came and make it such a terrific event. Read more

  • DEMO 2010 starts now

    DEMO Staff
    7 Oct 2009 | 2:58 pm
    We're fresh off DEMOfall 09 where two weeks ago, 70 companies launched products and announced innovative business plans. If you haven't taken a look, check out the class of DEMOfall 09 at www.demo.com.   Read more

  • DEMOfall 09 starts today.. Watch live coverage

    DEMO Staff
    22 Sep 2009 | 6:41 am
    Didn't make it to San Diego for DEMOfall 09? Watch it live on www.demo.com home page starting Tuesday, 9/22 at 8:30am. PT,  thx BitGravity! Read more
 
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    Venture Hacks

  • Best of the startup blogs

    Nivi
    4 Nov 2009 | 8:31 am
    We read the startup blogs so you don’t have to. Jason Cohen explains how to hire employee #1 (practical, tested advice). Fred Wilson explains how to make an email intro without making yourself look bad (this is how I do it). Bill Gurley explains why Google will pay mobile device companies to use their OS. Fred Destin explains why, much of the time, he doesn’t know why he passes on investments (finally someone admits it — I look for reasons to say yes, not reasons to say no). Chris Dixon explains why he’s reassured when Sequoia invests in a Y Combinator company. Fake Steve…

  • Lean startups aren’t Cheap Startups

    Mr. Guest
    3 Nov 2009 | 8:03 am
    This post is by Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur with eight startups under his belt, including two large craters (Rocket Science and Ardent), one dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany), and several base hits. Steve is also the creator of customer development and this is one of his best posts on the topic. If you like it, check out his blog and tweets @sgblank.– Nivi At an entrepreneur’s panel last week, questions from the audience made me realize that the phrase “Lean Startup” was being confused with “Cheap Startup.” For those of you who have been following the discussion, a…

  • Customer development by the book

    Nivi
    2 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    Ash Maurya’s new blog documents his journey through customer development. This is the most by-the-book application of customer development that I have ever seen. I am following this blog very closely; it’s thoughtful and well written. Some highlights: Is AdWords the right MVP for your product? “For Timothy Ferris, his MVP for testing new products that don’t yet exist (micro-testing) comprises of a landing page, signup page, and Google Adwords to drive traffic. However, this approach presupposes that: You can create a good landing page You can write good adwords copy…

  • Our first online workshop: How to pitch investors

    Nivi
    30 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am
    We’re teaching our first ever online workshop on “How to pitch investors” about eduFire — a platform for live video teaching online. Sign up here. I’ve taken classes on eduFire and it works really well; here are some recordings of their classes. (Update: This class is full so I’ve opened up a second class. Sign up here.) (Another update: The second class is also full. E-mail me to get on the waiting list for the next class. And if you want to buy a recording of the class, e-mail me or contact me on eduFire. We obviously won’t be able to work on your pitch…

  • Notes from Startup School 2009

    Nivi
    29 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am
    Mark Bao has posted his notes from this year’s Startup School. Here are my favorite parts (everything below is cut-and-pasted directly from his notes — read the full collection): Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga: My Startup Experience what really matters is that YOU CONTROL YOUR BOARD. Mark Zuckerberg claps. How? (1) Create a board that reflects the ownership of the company. (2) Make a new board seat for a new CEO, (3) Do a term sheet tune-up. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook: Q&A with Jessica Livingston he says he never pitched Facebook a lot. Just got introduced to people…
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    Venture Capital Access Online

  • VCPro Database 2009

    14 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    VCPro Database 2009 (12th Edition) is a downloadable venture capital and private equity directory with complete profiles of over 4,200 venture capital firms worldwide. Compiled by a veteran VC researcher, VCPro Venture Capital Database is available in both Windows and Macintosh formats. (includes a FREE annual update in January 2010) Click the above link to learn more.

  • PayPal X Innovate 2009

    13 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    PayPal X Innovate 2009 November 3-4, 2009 Click the above link to view this event.

  • Sample Private Placement Memorandum

    13 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    A Private Placement is an extremely complex document. The primary purpose of a PPM is to give the entrepreneur the opportunity to present all potential risks to the investor. The PPM protects the entrepreneur in the event that the investment goes sour! That's why it's so important that the private placement memorandum be accurate and complete. Click the above link to learn more.

  • Venture Capital Fundraising Activity Registers Second Consecutive Quarterly Decline in the Third Quarter of 2009

    11 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    NEW YORK, October 12, 2009-- Just 17 venture capital funds raised $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2009, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). This level represents the smallest number of venture funds raising money in a single quarter since the third quarter of 1994 when 17 funds were also raised and the lowest level of dollars committed since the first quarter of 2003 when $938 million was raised. Click the above link to read the news story.

  • A New Addition to Entrepreneur Showcase

    1 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Venture ID: 679 N.B. The above and other venture listings are reserved for members (accredited investors) only. Register for free membership (Accredited Investors Only) http://www.vcaonline.com/showcase/register Login to Entrepreneur Showcase http://www.vcaonline.com/showcase/login Showcase Your Business Plan or Executive Summary to Accredited Investors Entrepreneur Showcase provides a fast, simple and cost-effective way to showcase your business plan or executive summary to every accredited investor of our network. This is the best way for accredited investors to see your venture. Post Your…
 
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    VC & Angel Investor Profiles

  • Investor Profile: Noro-Moseley Partners

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm
    Kathy Harris, Partner, Noro-Moseley Partners Kathy joined NMP in 2002 as Senior Vice President - Business Development and was promoted to Partner in 2007. With more than 20 years of financial and private equity experience, she focuses on identifying and evaluating attractive early and growth stage companies. Prior to NMP, Kathy was a Partner at Atlanta-based Technology Ventures where she evaluated investment opportunities primarily in the software and information technology areas and actively worked with the firm's portfolio companies. Prior to Technology Ventures, Kathy served as Vice…

  • Investor Profile: Brand Building Ventures

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm
    Parker Gilbert, Angel Investor, Managing Partner, Brand Building Ventures Parker Gilbert is the Managing Partner of Brand Building Ventures, based in Westchester County, New York. Brand Building Ventures, founded in September, 2004, is committed to investing in emerging consumer goods and services companies that possess unique selling propositions. Mr. Gilbert has thirteen years of classic consumer packaged goods marketing experience across a range of product categories. Over the course of his career, Mr. Gilbert has won two sales awards and one national advertising award. He has a track…

  • Investor Profile: Contour Venture Partners

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm
    Matt Gorin, General Partner, Contour Venture Partners Matt Gorin is a general partner and co-founder of Contour Venture Partners and has experience in technology operations, start-ups and turnaround management, with a focus on the financial services and applied technology sectors. Matt was previously part of the launch team at Promontory Interfinancial Network and before that worked at Red Hat. Earlier in his career Matt was at Morgan Stanley within its financial services focused venture capital fund and was a turnaround consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Some of his investments include…

  • Investor Profile: Edison Venture Fund

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm
    Tim Foster, Business Development Manager, Edison Venture Fund Tim Foster serves as Manager of Business Development. Tim is responsible for managing and expanding Edison's referral source network of service provider professionals and financing sources in the Mid-Atlantic region (PA, DE, MD, VA, DC, NJ, NY, CT, MA) Tim identifies and builds new relationships for mutual referral opportunities. This includes trading deal flow and facilitating lead sharing with referral network contacts and sourcing Edison deals and portfolio company opportunities to service providers. In addition Tim represents…

  • Investor Profile: FirstMark Capital

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:38 pm
    Amish Jani, Managing Director, FirstMark Capital Amish Jani, a Founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, focuses on software and systems investments in the enterprise, communications and digital media sectors, and serves on FirstMark Capitals Investment Committee. Amish also leads FirstMarks investment strategies for the Indian marketplace. Prior to founding FirstMark Capital, Amish served as a Partner with Pequot Ventures. *Come meet with Amish in this exclusive New York City speaking engagement: Perfect Venture Conference V on November 12, 2009 FirstMark Capital Some invest in…
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    VentureWoods

  • Israel: Leader in Business Innovation

    Alok Mittal
    1 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm
    CNBC has this interesting video on what makes Israel business innovation tick

  • Will angels dirty their hands?

    Alok Mittal
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:47 pm
    I was speaking to a successful entrepreneur and angel investor yesterday about the evolving angel investment climate in India. He voiced a concern that seems to strike a chord - that while many successful entrepreneurs in India are involving themselves in angel funding, and even setting up early stage funds, there is a tendency to “rise above” building companies and a resistance to acting as a peer to budding entrepreneurs. Many successful entrepreneurs seem to graduate over, and consider it below themselves to roll up their sleeves with a rookie. Conference speeches take over…

  • Last date for nominations extended till 20th October 2009 for the NASSCOM Innovation Awards

    Avinash
    12 Oct 2009 | 3:23 am
    The NASSCOM-BCG Innovation Report 2007 detailed the imperative for companies to significantly increase innovation to develop path-breaking services/products and delivery mechanisms, etc. Since then, there has been a transformation in the character of the Indian IT-BPO sector, which has embraced innovation. Participating in the innovation movement have been multinationals, who have set up captive R&D centres and offshore development facilities in India, indigenous IT-BPO companies, who have rapidly recognized and adopted an innovation led approach to service the IT off-shoring and domestic…

  • Angel Investor Event: Kolkata/October 21

    Sanjukt K. Saha
    9 Oct 2009 | 1:15 am
    One Billion Minds continuing its mission to foster the spirit of innovation & entrepreneurship in India, invites innovators to present path breaking ideas to an international team of angel investors on October 21, 2009 at Kolkata Date: October 21st 2009 Venue:  ITC Room, Bengal Chambers of Commerce, Kolkata Eligibility: Product or Service with High Innovation and/or Social Angle How to Apply? A. Register: Email ambar.singh@onebillionminds.com to register B. Submit ONE PAGE Innovator Pitch by Thursday 16th October 11 PM C. Shortlisted Teams will receive an opportunity to present to the…

  • Entrepreneur Journeys - VW Reviews

    Alok Mittal
    8 Oct 2009 | 10:24 pm
    Sramana had announced an offer for venturewoods readers to review her first book - Entrepreneur Journeys 1. We have received some of the initial reviews, and I am happy to share those here. People who might have otherwise read the book may please comment here itself.
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    topix: venture capital news

  • Metabolex, Inc. Closes $8.6 Million Financing Round

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Metabolex, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of proprietary new medicines for the treatment of metabolic diseases, today announced it had closed an additional $8.6 million in financing.

  • Valuation And Option Pool

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:58 pm
    One of the more contentious things in the negotiation between an entrepreneur and a VC over a financing, particularly an early stage financing, is the inclusion of an option pool in the pre-money valuation.

  • State names venture capital winners

    6 Nov 2009 | 6:50 am
    Five Nashville firms have been selected by the state to be part of a $120 million venture capital program.

  • Altruik Secures $4.7 Million in Series A Round of Financing

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:47 am
    Altruik, Inc. , a technology innovator in search engine optimization , today announced the closing of its Series A round of financing.

  • Sudha Murthy sells Infy shares worth Rs 430 cr for VC fund

    5 Nov 2009 | 6:47 pm
    New Delhi, Bangalore: Just a month after Infosys chairman and chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy offloaded 0.13% of his stake in Infosys worth Rs 174 crore to set up a venture capital fund, his wife Sudha N Murthy has sold 22% of her stake in the company.
 
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    VCCircle Feeds

  • Exl Acquires American Express Captive For $30M

    Madhav Chanchani
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:25 pm
    Captive outsourcing units continue to be strong M&A targets. In another captive operations sell off, outsourcing firm ExlService Holdings Inc has acquired the operations of American Express's travel business in Gurgaon. The acquisition of American Express’ Global Travel Service Center operations is valued at $30 million net of working capital adjustments at closing, ExlService said in its release.The Nasdaq-listed firm has also entered into a eight-year agreement which will bring more than $160 million in revenues over the life of the contract. "Through this transaction, we…

  • Blackstone Records $278 Million In Net Profit; Says Worst Is Over

    Sahad P V
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:55 am
    Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP posted a forecast-beating quarterly profit and said it is gearing up for more deals and IPOs as the lending and equity markets recover. The company, which has immense real estate and private equity assets, has stepped up deal activity in the past few months, including buying Anheuser-Busch InBev's U.S. theme parks for up to $2.7 billion. It is also considering initial public offerings for a number of its companies. "We see great opportunities to buy assets from motivated sellers," Blackstone Chief Operating Officer Tony James said on…

  • Intel Capital-Backed Intrasoft Tech Plans IPO

    Sahad P V
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:19 am
    Intel Capital-backed online greeting cards firm Intrasoft Technologies, which operates under the brand 123greetings.com, is looking to raise around Rs 35-37 crore through a public issue offering. The IPO, which would dilute its equity base by around 25.12%, would translate into a valuation of around Rs 150 crore ($ 32 million) for the company. Intel Capital holds around 16.3% currently which would get reduced to 12.2% post IPO. It had invested a sum of Rs 20 crore in the company through convertible preference shares in 2007. At the issue price expected to be close to Rs 100/share, it would be…

  • Clearwater Capital Invests Rs 35Cr In Oricon Via FCDs

    Sarimul I Choudhury
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am
    Clearwater Capital is investing Rs 35 crore in diversified company Oricon Enterprises (formerly Oriental Containers) through fully convertible debentures (FCD). Mumbai-based Oricon Enterprises manufactures a range of packaging products besides having exposure in specialty solvents. But Clearwater could be looking at a different play in Oricon as the company is merging two other companies (Zeuxite Investments and Naman Tradevest) with itself, making it a logistics-cum real estate entity. What is significant is the quantum of equity dilution that would happen when the debentures are converted…

  • ChrysCapital Exits Shriram Transport; Nets Up To 12x

    Madhav Chanchani
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:37 am
    The limited partners of ChrysCapital should be a happy lot. The New Delhi-headquartered private equity firm has completed its exit from Shriram Transport Finance Company (STFC), a Chennai-based commercial vehicle financier, netting a multiple of around 11-12x. The PE firm sold its remaining 2.13% stake in STFC for Rs 174.3 crore by Wednesday, market data reveals. According to VCCircle calculations, ChrysCap has earned more than Rs 1,400 crore on the investment it made five years ago. The investment was made from ChrysCap’s $258-million third fund through its subsidiary UNO Investments.
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    Seeing Both Sides

  • What Makes Boston's Start-Up Scene Special?

    bussgang
    3 Nov 2009 | 6:16 pm
    (follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bussgang A few weeks ago, Fred Wilson posted a presentation he delivered on What Makes the NYC Start-Up Scene Special. I was inspired to deliver a similar presentation today to a group of Harvard Business School students who are interested in entrepreneurship in Boston. There's been alot of chatter in the community about a start-up renaissance in Boston.  Don Dodge of Microsoft had a great post listing out all the amazing start-up resources in the Boston community that's worth reviewing as well. I'll post the video as well in the coming…

  • The VC Gender Gap - Are VCs Sexist?

    bussgang
    5 Oct 2009 | 8:31 pm
    I find the preponderance of males in VC an annoying and stubborn phenomenon.  When I first entered the start-up game as an entrepreneur in the mid 1990s, I didn't think much of the "VC gender gap" as there were plenty of women executives around.  In fact, between one third and one half of the executive teams at my two start-ups (Open Market and Upromise) were women. As the father of a capable, ambitious daughter, perhaps I'm over-sensitive to the issue, but since becoming a VC seven years ago, I find it amazing that only 5-10% of the VC industry is made up of women. …

  • Healthcare and Entrepreneurship

    bussgang
    10 Sep 2009 | 4:17 am
    President Obama's compelling healthcare speech last night made the case for acting now. In a follow-up email that he sent to millions, he urged action to finally address this pressing issue, positing that we are "closer now than we have been in 60 years." Here's my question - where can I find an analysis of the impact of the plan on entrepreneurship? Why has this major engine of job growth been silent or ignored in the debate - or have I just missed it? Anything that creates friction in entrepreneurship is a bad thing for our innovation economy. I have seen aspiring…

  • Serving as an Entrepreneur in Residence at HBS

    bussgang
    8 Sep 2009 | 8:54 pm
    When I was at Harvard Business School (HBS) in the early 1990s, entrepreneurship was an afterthought.  When I joined the venture-backed Internet start-up Open Market in the spring of 1995, I was one of only a handful of graduates that joined a start-up out of business school (at a fraction of the salary of my classmates, I might add!) Today, the entrepreneurship department is the largest department at HBS.  Students aren't just joining start-ups, they're creating start-ups.  The annual business plan contest is a huge draw and it is estimated that as many as 40-50 start-ups are…

  • Should Entrepreneurs Be More Like Teenage Girls?

    bussgang
    29 Aug 2009 | 2:52 pm
    Even though I graduated from college (gasp) 18 years ago, I still think about the school season as my annual planning cycle rather than the calendar year.  Having three school age kids reinforces this life rhythm. And so as I was thinking through my personal goals for this coming year, and discussing individual goals with each of my kids (a recently adopted ritual I highly recommend for any parent), this article from The Economist caught my eye.  The article's subtitle, tells it all:  "Depression may be linked to how willing someone is to give up his [or her] goals."  The…
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    Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

  • Goodbye Microsoft, the next chapter

    DonDodge
    4 Nov 2009 | 10:43 am
    Microsoft announced more layoffs today, and I was one of them. This was a total surprise to me, and management offered no explanation. This is pretty standard procedure, mostly for legal reasons, but none the less left me with a cold feeling...but only for a minute or two. Today I start thinking about the next chapter in my life. It is always exciting to look beyond your normal boundaries and think about new possibilities. Being totally consumed with my job and traveling every week has left no time to think about other opportunities. That changes today. I couldn’t be more excited about the…

  • Failure is NOT an option Why this can be a bad strategy

    DonDodge
    4 Nov 2009 | 7:06 am
    An exec at a large European financial company recently told me his former CEO believed “Failure is not an option”. Great, I thought. This means they will do whatever it takes to succeed, try five or ten different approaches until it works, get the whole company focused on the goal, etc. No, he told me. What it means is “Make a mistake and you are fired.” Wow! Another example of the difference between startups and big companies. I have worked most of my career in startups where you are always pushing the envelope, taking big risks, where there are no obvious answers, and you just keep…

  • Bing announces search deals with Twitter and Facebook

    DonDodge
    21 Oct 2009 | 12:13 pm
    Microsoft Bing announced a blockbuster deal with Twitter and Facebook that will bring Real Time streams of Tweets and Facebook updates to Bing’s decision engine. The big news is that Bing will apply ranking, relevance, authority sources, spam and porn detection, and eliminates the duplicate entries. Bing will use lots of indicators of authority. Things like how many followers a user has, how often a tweet is ReTweeted, popular hash tags, etc. Real Time search has been around for a while, but no one has been able to apply all these quality filters so that you actually get useful results. You…

  • Ev Williams on Twitter at Web2.0 Summit

    DonDodge
    20 Oct 2009 | 5:46 pm
    Ev Williams, CEO of Twitter, was interviewed by John Battelle at Web 2.0 Summit. John focused his early questions on a revenue model for Twitter. Ev was fairly evasive and basically gave a very “Craig Newmark” style answer “We are focusing on the user experience and making Twitter a great service.” He did mention that doing something around advertising that takes advantage of the real time nature of Twitter and the analytics of the real time stream to better target ads probably makes sense. John Battelle asked Ev about Hollywood celebs and professional athletes using Twitter. The NBA…

  • Marketing as Competitive Advantage? Barrier to Entry?

    DonDodge
    20 Oct 2009 | 9:53 am
    The tech startup world is all about amazing new technology, innovation, and Intellectual Property (IP), things that create “barriers to entry” for other companies and give you a “sustainable competitive advantage”. Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan, co-founders of HubSpot, have just released a new book Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs. The premise of the book is that Exceptional marketing can be a formidable barrier to entry. This is revolutionary thinking for those of us in the high tech world and venture investors. Of course it shouldn’t be. If we…
 
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    Bizjournals.com: Venture Capital

  • FDIC seizes United Commercial Bank

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:17 pm
    Federal regulators closed San Francisco’s troubled United Commercial Bank — one of the nation’s largest banks serving the Chinese-American community — and sold the bank and its $6.5 billion in deposits to East West Bancorp. (EWBC)

  • Prosperan Bank fails; Alerus Financial buys deposits, branches

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:40 pm
    In the swiftest demise yet of a local bank, Oakdale-based Prosperan Bank was shuttered Friday by state regulators.

  • Freddie Mac will not make Treasury draw

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:35 pm
    A day after Fannie Mae said it would tap the Treasury Department for another $15 billion, Freddie Mac reported another quarterly loss but said it does not currently need more government aid. (FRE) (FNM)

  • Rainier Pacific gets NASDAQ warning

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm
    Rainier Pacific Financial Group Inc. said Friday that it has received a warning notice from the NASDAQ stock exchange that it could be delisted because the minimum bid price on its common stock was below $1 for 30 consecutive days. (RPFG)

  • United Security Bank of Sparta fails

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:17 pm
    Regulators seized tiny United Security Bank of Sparta, Ga., Friday, making it the state's 21st failure of the year, as Georgia’s banking crisis shows no sign of abating.
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    PE Hub Blog

  • peHUB Second Opinion 11.06

    Erin Griffith
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:15 pm
    GE Capital is Back: Analysts are bullish about GE Capital: “We believe the risk GE Capital poses is reduced, 2010 earnings achievability is high, and there is more upside across the company into 2011.” That goes in line with a lender I spoke with who said he’d competed with GE Capital on a deal this week for the first time since last year! (WSJ) Where are Harvard Grads Going? “About 11 percent went to private equity or leveraged buyout jobs, and 2 percent took positions in the venture capital industry, compared with 17 percent and 4 percent last year,…

  • PE Pro in Zany Scuffle Over Leftover Wine!

    Erin Griffith
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:20 pm
    I’m going to pretend peHUB is Page Six for a minute with some light reading (hey, its the end of the day on a Friday). Last night I attended the ACG Private Equity Wine Tasting Gala, where buyout pros attempt to one-up each other with their taste in exclusive, rare fine wines. Each participating firm sponsors a table, where the GPs pour a special wine of their choosing to a crowd of bankers, intermediaries and service providers. The wines are so valuable that one firm (which I won’t name) almost came to fisticuffs with an overzealous waiter over a few open, full bottles. As the event…

  • Grant Thornton: Long Term Decline In U.S. IPOs

    Deborah Gage
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:47 pm
    The number of companies listed on U.S. exchanges has dropped by more than 22% since 1991 and nearly 39% since 1997, even though that was around the beginning of the dot-com boom, Grant Thornton reports in a study that was two years in the making and was first reported by peHUB. U.S. exchanges are losing ground to exchanges in China, London, Italy, Tokyo, Toronto, Australia and Germany, where listings continue to increase. In the U.S., meanwhile, there are not enough new IPOs to replace the number of companies that are being delisted. Grant Thornton estimates a possible loss of 22 million U.S.

  • Bankers, Get Those Books Off The Shelf!

    Erin Griffith
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:48 pm
    That’s the mantra I’ve been hearing from PE pros desperate for deals. Sellers want to sell, half of the bankers don’t have any deals to do, and the other half is holding its bounty of sale books hostage. There are bankers out there with literally shelves filled with books, they say. Why aren’t willing sellers on the block? One reason is that some bankers and shareholders just want a company’s manager to focus on carrying the company through the recession without the distraction of an auction, said Robert Berry, Head of M&A at mid-market investment bank Raymond James. Further,…

  • VCs: Thousands Of Companies Will Exit Next Year…

    Deborah Gage
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:32 am
    But they may not be going public. Four VCs — Sharon Wienbar at ScaleVP, Sandy Miller at Institutional Venture, Brian Jacobs at Emergence and Courtney McCrea at Weathergage (a fund of funds) — appeared earlier this week on a panel at Dow Jones LP Summit and were asked to predict the future. They all see a big pickup in VC-backed exits –  thousands of companies that are five to 10 years old that will be ready to go out by next summer. But they also aired what have become usual complaints about the harms of going public for small-cap companies: the short-term trading…
 
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    GigaOM

  • Free Conferencing CEO Asks FCC to Keep on Google Voice

    Stacey Higginbotham
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm
    Even though less than 1 percent of the population uses Google Voice, David Erickson, president of the Free Conferencing Corp., a conference call company whose numbers are blocked by the service, is pretty aggrieved. So he met with the FCC and filed a letter urging the regulatory agency to get Google to play fair. He also offered to help Google find lower rates for its rural call termination fees. “Google shouldn’t be able to tell consumers where they can call and where they can’t,”  he said in an interview with The Hill, a trade publication. Actually, I’m with him on…

  • Thanks to Our GigaOM Sponsors!

    Edit Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm
    We’d like to say thanks to this week’s GigaOM sponsors: PEER 1: Fully Scalable Hosting Solutions Concentric: Hosted IT Services Mozy: Simple, Automatic, Secure Online Backup SoftLayer: SoftLayer delivers on-demand virtual data center services and solutions. Salesforce: Force.com Cloud Platform PayPal: Innovate 09 – The Intersection of Ideas and Money

  • 11 Top Open-source Resources for Cloud Computing

    Sebastian Rupley
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm
    Open-source software has been on the rise at many businesses during the extended economic downturn, and one of the areas where it is starting to offer companies a lot of flexibility and cost savings is in cloud computing. Cloud deployments can save money, free businesses from vendor lock-ins that could really sting over time, and offer flexible ways to combine public and private applications. The following are 11 top open-source cloud applications, services, educational resources, support options, general items of interest, and more. Eucalyptus. Ostatic broke the news about UC Santa…

  • Rich Carriers Got Richer in Q3

    Colin Gibbs
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:30 pm
    The rich mobile carriers got a little richer in the third quarter, as the nation’s top two operators increased their leads over the rest of the field. Verizon Wireless added a million subscribers and posted revenue of $15.8 billion, up 24.4 percent year-over-year, while AT&T reported 2 million net adds — thanks largely to the iPhone — and $13.65 in revenue, up 8 percent over the year-ago period. Meanwhile, the increasingly heated prepaid space took its toll on Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, as both service providers saw customer growth slide in the third quarter.  Leap…

  • Vint Cerf Plugs His Plucky Space Web Protocol Into Android

    Sebastian Rupley
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am
    Google evangelist Vint Cerf, who many people think of as one of the fathers of the Internet, has his eyes on some interesting Earth-based applications that can work with his long-standing interplanetary extensions of the Net. He announced at the Open Mobile Summit this morning a software stack that sits on top of the open-source Android operating system that could strengthen wireless network communications through his DTN (Delay Tolerant Netorking) Interplanetary Net protocol. Cerf has been working with NASA since 1998 to develop DTN as a way to overcome limitations in the TCP/IP protocol…
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    EzineArticles.com

  • How to Price Your Private Equity Offering on the Back of an Envelope in Six Easy Steps

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:35 pm
    There you are, you're drafting the term sheet for your private placement memorandum and you come to the warrant section. You know, that part of an equity security offering that states how much of the equity you're willing to part with. You can't just throw out a number - "20%", "40%", "anything under 50%". If you offer too little in warrants, your prospective investors will never become your investors; the return is not sufficient to compensate for the risk. Offer too much, and yes, you'll get investors, but at the expense of leaving money on the table. It needs to be a win-win. That's great,…

  • How to Value an Emerging Business to Raise Venture Capital in Today's Economy

    5 Nov 2009 | 6:36 am
    When you're looking to raise capital for an emerging business by selling stock or other securities (i.e., equity financing) to venture capital or angel investors, the value of your business will determine how much stock you have to sell to get the cash you need. The higher the value of your business, the less stock you have to sell to get your business funding.

  • The Factoring Option - Learn How Invoice Factoring Works

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:59 am
    Invoice factoring is quickly becoming a mainstream business financing tool that being used by small, medium and large sized businesses. It has been gaining traction in part because banks have tightened their lending standards, leading company managers to look for business financing elsewhere.

  • Joint Venture Real Estate Projects

    4 Nov 2009 | 12:49 pm
    The thought of a Joint Venture attracts a wide range of people. There are no perfect reason that why people like to enter in to it. People think that getting in to real estate development joint venture will have a good pay back.

  • Angel Investing - The 'Elevator Speech' Antidote

    4 Nov 2009 | 8:46 am
    Listening to the delivery of an elevator speech is the single most distracting event in an investor's journey. It is to that point in time - the equivalent of 'love at first sight' - that most of the subsequent failures can be traced. An elevator speech is an advertising undertaking. It is an attempt to draw in a potential investor and get them interested in providing funding for a venture. It the starkest terms, it is a money trap.
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    Ventureblogs

  • Welcome Reid Hoffman to the VC Side of the Table

    David Hornik
    5 Nov 2009 | 2:40 pm
    First came the announcement earlier in the year that Marc Andreessen was joining the ranks of "capital" -- a welcomed defection from "labor." And now my friend Reid Hoffman has jumped into the fray as well, joining Greylock Partners in their new fund (although he is not quite abandoning "labor" -- for the time being he will continue on as Executive Chairman of LinkedIn). Having two superstars like Marc and Reid join the venture business is excellent news at a time when the press is gleefully touting the demise of our profession. While the venture business is, no doubt, under serious pressure…

  • Lessons from Rajeev Motwani's and Craig Johnson's Lives

    David Hornik
    12 Oct 2009 | 4:07 am
    In the past three weeks, I have attended 2 memorial services and 2 brises. The brises celebrated the births of two future superstars -- the sons of four of the smartest entrepreneurs and venture investors in the Bay Area. The memorial services celebrated the lives of two recently deceased superstars -- both entrepreneurs and venture investors in their own right. As I listened to the stories of the lives these great men had lived, and listened to the toasts and prayers for these great men-to-be, it struck me that there were lessons to be learned for entrepreneurs and venture investors alike.

  • Pen and Paper are Mightier Than the Laptop

    David Hornik
    29 Sep 2009 | 7:37 pm
    Relatively recently I hosted a meeting of the advisors to one of my portfolio companies. It was an impressive group of tech veterans. Each of them had been involved in the building of multi-million dollar high tech companies. Yet, what struck me about this summit was how many of these computer gurus carried with him a good, old fashioned notebook. Two varieties seemed to dominate the gathering -- the classic, leather-bound Moleskin and the pocket-sized graph paper Rhodia. I was surprised to see so much scribbling and so little typing. Since that meeting, I have kept my eyes out for this…

  • Fueling the IPO Fire? or Burning it Out?

    David Hornik
    21 Sep 2009 | 1:00 am
    This weekend I was reading a blog post written by Chris Douvos. Chris is an investor in a number of well-known venture firms and writes a blog called Super LP. His commentary always cracks me up, even when he's writing about the finer points of risk curves, financial models and the like. In his post entitled "Keeping the Window Open," Chris cautions the investor community to not be too overzealous in taking companies public during this time when the gently re-emerging market is so fragile. As he rightfully points out, those companies that go public and then promptly miss their numbers, not…

  • Venture Capitalist At Your Service

    David Hornik
    8 Sep 2009 | 10:08 am
    When I first became a Venture Capitalist, I had been a practicing attorney and my partner Dave passed on the somber news that he believed there was a good chance that I would fail at the venture business. He explained to me that lawyers were "agents" and Venture Capitalists were "principals" and that being good at one was no indicator of being good at the other -- in fact, Dave felt that being a good agent suggested you would not likely make the leap to being a good principal (but, hey, he liked me so we'd give it a go). Dave's assessment wasn't without historical support. If you look at the…
 
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    Recent Buzzes - VC Experts, Inc.

  • Note on Preparation and Content of Placement Memorandum ('PPM')

    3 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    The early rounds of financing entail the issuance of securities in "private placements," transactions exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933 in accordance with one or more statutory exemptions, as discussed in "Reg. D and Other Exemptions from Registration". Most source materials suggest that the use of private placement memoranda is essential in private placements. Sound off on this week's buzz in the Comments Section.

  • Planning Ahead for Distress In A Venture Backed Company - The Special Situations Committee

    2 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    Recent events are showing that syndicates are sometimes challenged to act quickly, methodically, consensually and effectively when the portfolio company is showing signs of poor performance and the possibility of a sub-venture return. Sound off on this week's buzz in the Comments Section.

  • The Dilution Concern for Founders

    28 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    If my students at Cornell University take away one thought from the entire semester of instruction, that thought is embedded in the following exposition: First, I draw on the blackboard an inverted bell shaped curve, the top of the curve heading downwards rather than up. Then, I remind them of the old saying in the commercial real estate business: "There are three rules for making money in commercial real estate and they are Location, Location, Location." I then migrate that old joke to the venture capital business. "There are three phenomena that trivialize even the best of investment…

  • Proposal Would Subject Registered Investment Companies to New Proxy Access Regime

    27 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    On June 10, 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled the details of its proposal to allow shareholders to have their director nominees included in the proxy materials of investment companies registered with the SEC under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the "Company Act") and issuers with a class of equity securities registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"). The controversial proposal, which passed by a 3-2 vote of the commissioners at the SEC's May 20, 2009, open meeting would allow a shareholder (or group of shareholders) who owns at…

  • Interview - Randy Mitchell, of the International Trade Administration - U. S. Department of Commerce

    21 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    This week we welcome Randy Mitchell, of the International Trade Administration at the U. S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Mitchell is responsible for private equity/venture capital in the Department's Office of Financial Services Industries and is the United States Representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for Entrepreneurship. Among several duties, Mr. Mitchell is responsible for enhancing the competitiveness of the U.S. venture capital sector. Sound off on this week's buzz in the Comments Section.
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    Frank Peters Show

  • Andy Rappaport, Social Innovation Fast Pitch at USC

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:38 pm
    August Capital's Andy Rappaport is the featured speaker at USC's Social Innovation Fast Pitch Wed Nov 11th at 4pm. He calls it a fireside chat. Andy, can you give us an idea of what you'll be sharing? Show #256 (15:29) Listen

  • EBAN's Claire Munck

    4 Nov 2009 | 8:46 pm
    Growing from 20 to 100 members since 2003, EBAN must be doing something right! The European Business Angel Network is the association for angel groups and early stage players in Europe. With all that interest in angel investing come certain challenges, too, like cross border syndication. Join us as we take a trip through Europe's angel investing scene. Show #255 (34:05) Listen Save these dates 8 Dec 2009 the Puerto Rico Venture Forum in San Juan 15-16 April 2010 EBAN's 10th Annual Congress in Istanbul 5-7 May 2010 ACA's Annual Summit in San Francisco

  • Jeff Sohl, Considerable Decline in Angel Funding

    27 Oct 2009 | 8:18 am
    Jeffrey Sohl at the UNH Center for Venture Research reports today that "the angel market appears to have reached its nadir in the first half of 2009". Noting that dollars invested saw, "a decrease of 27 percent over the first half of 2008". Read the report.

  • Warren Hanselman, TCA's Portfolio Returns

    26 Oct 2009 | 11:56 pm
    "How are we doing as a group?" That's what new members want to know when they join the Tech Coast Angels. Warren Hanselman, past Vice Chairman knows exactly how we're doing; he maintains the database which tracks every one of the 157 companies we've funded. As he looks at TCA's returns, he's become an advocate for Basil Peters' Early Exits. "The next step in the evolution of angel groups is we need to find a way to start syndicating the good deals, the deals where they're truly worthy, they're up running and their next step would normally be to go to a VC, would be to go to our sister…

  • The Future of Angel Investing

    21 Oct 2009 | 12:36 am
    On the show today: Hans Severiens Award winner Bill Payne, Tech Coast Super Angel Dave Berkus, the NVCA's John Taylor and Seattle's Dan Rosen, Chairman of the Alliance of Angels - that's a power panel! John brings the NVCA 3rd Qtr report and the angels chew on the implications. "[A] deliberate industry shift towards a longer term venture capital investment strategy." We all know what that means: longer times for angels to exit. Is there an alternative to 8-9 year terms before exit? That's when things get lively! Is the future of angel investing about to change? Today many angel investments…
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    Feld Thoughts

  • The Ether and the Scrum

    Brad Feld
    3 Nov 2009 | 10:49 pm
    Every day I get emails from entrepreneurs that make me think.  In this case, it’s from a friend who is on the fundraising trail.  He started off the email with “I felt compelled to share this with you as someone who would appreciate it.”  I thought it was dynamite and asked him if I could share it since – in its unedited form – it captured so nicely what I expect many entrepreneurs feel. And, just as importantly, it’s something I hope VC’s realize that entrepreneurs – even very experienced ones – feel. I am fortunate to have successfully raised venture capital…

  • Pretending You Are Luggage

    Brad Feld
    2 Nov 2009 | 11:04 pm
    At dinner tonight we started telling miserable airplane travel stories.  Everyone has a least one (or 7,321) so it’s fun to hear some of the really abysmal ones, especially the night before I head to the airport to catch an early morning flight. We were also talking about various philosophies of life and how to deal with difficult stuff.  After a while the conversation circled back to air travel.  And then I heard the best line of the night. “When I travel I pretend I’m luggage.  From the moment I set foot in the airport, my expectation is that I’ll be treated no…

  • Oblong – An Example of Investing In The Future

    Brad Feld
    2 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am
    We’ve been investors in Oblong since 2007 and I’ve talked about them regularly on this blog including a post titled I’ve Seen The Future from my first meeting with them.  I’ve known two of the founders – John Underkoffler and Kevin Parent – since we lived together at MIT (we all lived in a fraternity called ADP on Mass Ave. at the same time, along with a bunch of other entrepreneurs including Colin Angle – the founder of iRobot and Jeet Singh / Joe Chung – the founders of ATG.) A few months ago my partner Jason Mendelson was introduced to a reporter from Bloomberg who was…

  • Maniacal Crazy People

    Brad Feld
    31 Oct 2009 | 5:14 pm
    Three of my VC friends (Santo Politi, Mark Suster, and Kate Mitchell) were on Fox Business’ Capitalist Ad”Ventures” series.  The underlying theme of this segment was the characteristics of entrepreneur that VCs look for. Fox doesn’t seem to have embeds, so you’ll have to use this URL to watch “The Future of Venture Capitalism”. While Santo, Mark, and Kate weren’t the maniacal crazy people (although I’m sure some will argue that), they were clear about the ones they are looking for.  Nice job gang!

  • Home Networking Is A Crappy Phrase

    Brad Feld
    30 Oct 2009 | 9:02 am
    We spend a lot of time talking about “computers in the home” as part of our Digital Life theme.  Over the past year, I’ve heard the phrase “Home Networking” with increasing frequency.  It made the rounds a while back (anyone remember when it was called a HAN – home area network) but seemed to fade into the background for a while.  I’m not sure what caused it to show up at our party again (although I’m suspicious that it is Windows 7), but it’s back. My mother doesn’t know what “home networking” is, nor does she care.  And she is an example of a…
 
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    Ask The VC

  • When to Shut Down Your Company

    19 Oct 2009 | 9:02 pm
    Last week we started the blog series (written by Roger Glovsky), How to Wind Down Your Company.  The response and comments were great!  Keep them coming.  This week we tackle the hardest problem of all: deciding when to shut down your company. It is not easy an easy decision, especially for entrepreneurs.  Starting a company is about creating a vision, persuading others to believe in the vision, turning an idea into reality, and pursuing a dream.  The last thing an entrepreneur wants to do is to shut down his or her dream. So, how do you make the decision to shut down…

  • Know Your Communication Strategy When Raising Money

    19 Oct 2009 | 7:26 am
    Today’s interesting post is from Matt Eventoff and talks about how startups need a communications strategy while raising money – not all that dissimilar from a disgraced politician.  Thanks Matt!

  • How To Wind Down Your Company – New Series

    7 Oct 2009 | 9:51 am
    Of the most popular posts that Brad and I have created are our series on Term Sheets, Compensation, and Mergers and Acquisitions.  One of the subjects that we've wanted to tackle has been the dissolution of companies.  It's never fun to think about failure, but it happens a lot. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten around to it yet, so it was with great joy that my friend Roger Glovsky elected to write the series himself.  This is post one of the series and I'm really excited to introduce Roger to our readers.  Take it away, Roger. This is a follow-up to Jason Mendelson's…

  • Thoughtful Analysis on the Dynamics of the VC Industry

    25 Aug 2009 | 9:58 am
    I tend to stay out of the “VC is dead, long live the VC Industry” discussion but I couldn’t avoid Bill Gurley’s fantastic post titled What Is Really Happening To The Venture Capital Industry?  All I can say to this post is “what Bill said.”

  • How to Run a Great Board Meeting

    7 Aug 2009 | 10:47 am
    Today, the great post is by my partner Brad.  He has a great post on how to run a great board meeting.  Should be required reading in my opinion.
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    Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog

  • Lessons from leaders in virtual goods

    jeremyliew
    30 Oct 2009 | 7:34 pm
    Worlds In Motion has a good summary of my panel today from the Virtual Goods Summit, where leaders in Asian and Western virtual goods social networks shared what lessons they had learned.

  • Speaking at Virtual Goods Summit – 15% off code

    jeremyliew
    8 Oct 2009 | 4:45 pm
    I’m speaking at the Virtual Goods Summit on Oct 29-30th. I’m moderating an all star panel including Min Kim from Nexon, David Wallerstein from Tencent, Bill Wang from Perfect World and Dai Watanabe from DeNa. Between them, these four companies generate around $1bn in annual revenues through virtual goods sales. So we should be able to learn something from the discussion! The full program is here. If you’d like to join me at the summit use the code “LSVP” to get a 15% discount

  • Birthday greetings as a proxy for how communication is becoming more public 3.0

    jeremyliew
    29 Sep 2009 | 3:20 pm
    This is the third year that I’ve tracked my birthday greetings as they have moved from private channels to public channels, primarily facebook. As I noted previously, in 2007 and 2008; Social networks have changed the dynamic – it isn’t enough to wish someone a happy birthday, but it is also important to be SEEN to wish someone a happy birthday. Equally, it is important to be SEEN to have a lot of people wish you a happy birthday too! This year the shift continued but was much less pronounced, as the graph below shows: It’s somewhat notable that despite the huge increase of…

  • Where will the next ad network breakthrough come from?

    jeremyliew
    24 Sep 2009 | 6:36 pm
    I’ve noted in the past that the four core competences of ad networks are: Aggregating Inventory Aggregating Data Targeting Sales Better targeting has historically been one core area of competition for ad networks, especially those focused on direct response advertising. However, as Anand Rajaraman (co-founder of Kosmix, a Lightspeed portfolio company) points out, more data usually beats better algorithms. Andrew Chen recently noted that after three years of work, Netflix awarded its $1m prize to a combined team of experts for an algorithm that only improved targeting by 10.5%: This…

  • Awesome stats on social game purchasing

    jeremyliew
    23 Sep 2009 | 11:23 pm
    Andrew Chen has a guest post from Gambit that breaks down who is buying virtual goods and how much they are buying. The summary is that while teens spend substantially less per capita than people older than 20, they more than make up for it in volume. Read the whole thing and see the pretty charts here.
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    Clean Ventures

  • Clean Sweep 73

    Tim Chapman
    4 Nov 2009 | 7:40 am
    A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment. DealsUK cleantech specialist Ludgate Environmental Fund has made a follow-on investment of Euro2.3m in portfolio company agri.capital. The investment bring's Ludgate's total investment up to Euro7.3m.Münster-based agri.capital produces biogas from manure and silage feedstocks, and currently operates at 44 sites with total

  • Clean Sweep 72

    Tim Chapman
    16 Oct 2009 | 7:56 am
    A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment. DealsWaste treatment group New Earth Solutions secured £5m from Ludgate Environmental Fund as part of an ongoing £15m fundraising round. The Dorset-based group provides waste services, including a proprietary temperature-controlled composting process, for local authorities across southern and central England. Its New Earth

  • Clean Sweep 71

    Tim Chapman
    5 Oct 2009 | 7:40 am
    A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment. DealsWave power developer Aquamarine Power raised £10m to support offshore testing of its Oyster device. Investors include Scottish & Southern Energy and Sigma Capital, who previously backed Aquamarine in 2007.The Oyster is a hydro-electric wave energy converter, which uses the motion of the sea to pump high-pressure water to

  • Clean Sweep 70

    Tim Chapman
    17 Sep 2009 | 4:13 am
    A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment. It's been a while since the last one, and there's been plenty happening. DealsEnergy-efficient electronics developer Nujira raised a £10m fourth round from new investor Environmental Technologies Fund, Bank Invest, 3i, Amadeus, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and private investors. The Cambridge-based firm provides a range of

  • Clean Sweep 69

    Tim Chapman
    25 Aug 2009 | 5:08 am
    A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment. DealsGreen cement developer Novacem raised something over £1m from Imperial Innovations, the London Technology Fund and the new Royal Society Enterprise Fund. A spin-out from Imperial College London, Novacem is developing a cement which absorbs more carbon dioxide over its lifetime than is emitted in its production.
 
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    Guy Kawasaki

  • The 19 bloggers Inc. thinks you should read

    GuyKawasaki
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 pm
    Inc. named 19 bloggers that you should read. We’ve aggregated them all in one place: Inc19.alltop.

  • How to Get Found

    GuyKawasaki
    4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pm
    The reality is that people and technology is getting better and better a blocking out unwanted interruptions—aka, “marketing.” Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, and he explains in my post on the American Express Open Forum “how to get found.” It’s all about creating great stuff and letting Google et al do what they do: find great stuff.

  • How I tweet

    GuyKawasaki
    2 Nov 2009 | 8:47 am
    By popular demand (and some complaints), I’ve done a FAQ with myself about how I tweet. Hope this helps you use Twitter for your business too. I explain how I use ghostwriters and why I repeat my tweets among other “unusual” practices.

  • Current Twitter Demo Script

    GuyKawasaki
    28 Oct 2009 | 2:26 am
    This is the set of links that I used to demo Twitter by going down through this list to show why Twitter is such a valuable marketing tool. Introduction Home page Profile page Monitor Search Guy Kawasaki or Alltop Starbucks VIA introduction Search for “Prius” or “Civic” Sell Dell Outlet Kogi BBQ Support Comcast Cares Engage JetBlue Virgin America Fandango Prospect Camaro Camaro near Palo Alto Advanced searches Surfing or skateboarding (shows how to eliminate extraneous results such as “surfing the web” How I Tweet - Find Alltop MyAlltop helped me find this.

  • How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness

    GuyKawasaki
    26 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pm
    Over at the American Express Open Forum blog, I explain how to not look clueless on Twitter. The first five ways are: Don’t tell other people how to tweet. Don’t tell the world that you unfollowed someone. Don’t ask people why they unfollowed you. Don’t constantly tweet mundane updates and babble. Don’t use a small picture for an avatar. To read all ten and why they impugn your intelligence, click here.
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    deal architect

  • Tools: Test before you buy

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:53 am
    I first asked in the late 90s when I was at Gartner – why do testing, conversion, change configuration and other tools vendors not allow system integrators to deploy their tools for the duration of relevant phase of an implementation...

  • NetSuite Business Cloud event feedback

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am
    I presented in the NetSuite Business Cloud seminar series in its final leg – in Chicago and Atlanta. The 6 week tour had previously been to London, Sydney, Manila and New York. While I did not envy some of the...

  • If this is fake, give us plenty more

    4 Nov 2009 | 6:46 am
    Ron Markezich, corporate VP of Microsoft Online says "we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]," And guess what – he said it as...

  • Vendor traffic in the Data Center

    4 Nov 2009 | 5:24 am
    Cisco adds the storage building block to its network and computing plans with a JV with EMC. HP, in turn, decides to go after Cisco’s sweet spot with new HP ProCurve offerings integrated with HP BladeSystem. Oracle, awaiting regulatory approval...

  • More New Renaissance

    1 Nov 2009 | 1:42 pm
    On the New Florence blog 12 really Maverick Ideas Mouse 2.0 The new plants in Motown Solar Decathlon Intel Risks it all (again)
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    PureVC

  • Trading Currency For Yield

    James Chen
    30 Oct 2009 | 7:51 pm
    Most investors don't realize this but investing is a simple exercise is trading one currency for another. In the foreign exchange market in order to buy a currency you must sell another one in a pair. For example to buy the US Dollar you must sell another currency such as the Euro. The system is built this way because all markets are dynamic and all instruments are relative to each other.The stock market is another example of this. In the US, we pay US dollars for a share of a public company's stock. In essence you must short the US Dollar and go long the equity of the company you…

  • Don't Bite The Hand That Feeds

    James Chen
    13 Jul 2009 | 1:26 pm
    One key concept in business is to take good care of your best customers. In the startup world, a marquee customer can lay the pipeline for further deals with that company as well as serve as a reference to get your foot in the door of new leads. In business when times get rough and the economy is in recession, it is important to hunker down and to think of creative ways to add revenue. Generally, you don't increase fees and rates to increase revenue. Doing so is a great way to get customers to stop using your product. When your customers are having tough times, you don't want to…

  • Why Commercial RE May Not Crash

    James Chen
    26 Jun 2009 | 2:18 am
    Many market commentators have been predicting that commercial real estate is the next shoe to drop in the credit crisis. I've seen a handful of presentations with whopping statistics on the amount of outstanding debt that will need to be revolved in the upcoming years. However, there has not been the massive apocalypse in commercial RE. At least not yet.And there actually may not be. At least for a long while. The reason is that early this year the IRS changed some rules to allow REITs to pay some or all of their dividends in the form of stock. Typically a REIT pays its dividend in 100%…

  • When Your Investor Owns the Marketplace

    James Chen
    23 Jun 2009 | 8:48 pm
    One reader has commented that I seem to be going on a lot of tirades about the economy and the bailout and that this blog has seemingly taken a political bent. That comment is well taken and so I will post this final post about the bailout and the excessive governmental tampering with the free markets now. I promise to leave the topic alone after today and move on.So now that it appears that the economy has bottomed, banks are paying back their TARP loans. This is good news but it seems that now banks are negotiating with the government to buy back the warrants owned by the government. These…

  • The Private Equity Grind Down

    James Chen
    19 Jun 2009 | 8:48 pm
    Every industry has its own "Grind Down". Perhaps it goes by another name, but our firm refers to a "Grind Down" as a negotiating tactic that occurs in deals when one party or the other at the last minute tries to achieve more favorable terms for itself or threaten to back out of the deal at a time so late in the game that the other party cannot find another transactor.Most homeowners have experienced the common retail mortgage grind down where when you go to buy a house and the deal is about to happen that the lender has some funny stuff fees in the transaction that you…
 
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    VentureWoods

  • Israel: Leader in Business Innovation

    Alok Mittal
    1 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm
    CNBC has this interesting video on what makes Israel business innovation tick

  • Will angels dirty their hands?

    Alok Mittal
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:47 pm
    I was speaking to a successful entrepreneur and angel investor yesterday about the evolving angel investment climate in India. He voiced a concern that seems to strike a chord - that while many successful entrepreneurs in India are involving themselves in angel funding, and even setting up early stage funds, there is a tendency to “rise above” building companies and a resistance to acting as a peer to budding entrepreneurs. Many successful entrepreneurs seem to graduate over, and consider it below themselves to roll up their sleeves with a rookie. Conference speeches take over…

  • Last date for nominations extended till 20th October 2009 for the NASSCOM Innovation Awards

    Avinash
    12 Oct 2009 | 3:23 am
    The NASSCOM-BCG Innovation Report 2007 detailed the imperative for companies to significantly increase innovation to develop path-breaking services/products and delivery mechanisms, etc. Since then, there has been a transformation in the character of the Indian IT-BPO sector, which has embraced innovation. Participating in the innovation movement have been multinationals, who have set up captive R&D centres and offshore development facilities in India, indigenous IT-BPO companies, who have rapidly recognized and adopted an innovation led approach to service the IT off-shoring and domestic…

  • Angel Investor Event: Kolkata/October 21

    Sanjukt K. Saha
    9 Oct 2009 | 1:15 am
    One Billion Minds continuing its mission to foster the spirit of innovation & entrepreneurship in India, invites innovators to present path breaking ideas to an international team of angel investors on October 21, 2009 at Kolkata Date: October 21st 2009 Venue:  ITC Room, Bengal Chambers of Commerce, Kolkata Eligibility: Product or Service with High Innovation and/or Social Angle How to Apply? A. Register: Email ambar.singh@onebillionminds.com to register B. Submit ONE PAGE Innovator Pitch by Thursday 16th October 11 PM C. Shortlisted Teams will receive an opportunity to present to the…

  • Entrepreneur Journeys - VW Reviews

    Alok Mittal
    8 Oct 2009 | 10:24 pm
    Sramana had announced an offer for venturewoods readers to review her first book - Entrepreneur Journeys 1. We have received some of the initial reviews, and I am happy to share those here. People who might have otherwise read the book may please comment here itself.
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    Southeast VC

  • Why Showing Up to a Meeting is Not Enough

    Jason Caplain
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm
    Over the last few weeks, I have been giving greater thought to how people perceive our firm after a first meeting. And this is happening because during that same timeframe, I've had two very different experiences with companies I have met with. And that made me think more about my personal interactions with people that meet me or my partners. I thought I'd share my experiences here from those 2 meetings hoping you and I can learn something from this as well. To set this up properly, it is important to mention that: 1. Our firm could be a customer for both companies I talk about. 2.

  • Happy Halloween!

    Jason Caplain
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:19 pm
    Wow, the folks at ChannelAdvisor really went all out for Halloween this year. Looks like fun. Check out all the pics of their employees today. I wish I could have made it over to see in person!

  • Best Buy, Google, ChannelAdvisor & Pier 1 Share their Holiday Strategies

    Jason Caplain
    27 Oct 2009 | 8:01 pm
    Retailers: here is some good advice for the holiday season offered by some experts. Video features Lorraine Twohill and Eric Schmidt from Google, Jeff Haddox from Pier 1, Brad Smith from Best Buy and Michael Jones from SCV portfolio company, ChannelAdvisor. If you want to learn more, check out the Google Retail Advertising Blog, which highlights this video.

  • Internet Summit - Save $50

    Jason Caplain
    25 Oct 2009 | 9:24 am
    Internet Summit is next week Nov4 and 5 in Raleigh, NC. Our firm, Southern Capitol Ventures is co-presenting along with TechJournal South. Friends of SCV can receive a $50 discount when registering by using the VIP code "SCV50." That will bring the cost for you down to $245. Register here. We have a fantastic lineup of 75 speakers including brands such as Google, Pandora, Expedia, ESPN, Digg, Lending Tree, Technorati, comScore, Huffington Post, Meebo, AOL, Gannett, IBM, Goldman Sachs, SAS and Microsoft just to name a few. Last year was sold out. This year we expect north of 1,000…

  • AVIcode Exceeds Q3 Sales Goal & Company has Fun (at Mike's expense)

    Jason Caplain
    16 Oct 2009 | 9:53 pm
    We announced our investment in Baltimore-based AVIcode earlier this year.Look what happened when they topped their sales goals for Q3. Ha, looks like lots of fun. Congrats to the AVIcode team!  And here is my partner David Jones (in white). Have you ever seen a VC so happy?
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    Babbling VC

  • It's Not About Paychecks. It's About Equity!

    Paul Jozefak
    5 Nov 2009 | 2:46 am
    I've often made the dating reference when it comes to VC's and entrepreneurs. Well, there's one further point which I want to make clear, although to many it's obvious. After we invest, we want to eventually sell our stake. Be it via an IPO or a trade sale, we eventually want out. This means that our premise for investing is taking the money we initially invest and increasing it tenfold or better. You're scratching your head asking yourself why is Paul writing this? It's obvious! Well, not to everyone. We are not looking for businesses which get to break even and then flatline on their…

  • Why Are There Simply Deals We Won't Do

    Paul Jozefak
    1 Nov 2009 | 8:40 am
    I'll keep this one short but it answers a question often asked. As is probably the case with most VC's and their LP contracts, there are industries we can't invest in. Very simply put, we won't invest in gambling, porn, first-person shooter games and anything having to do with alcohol, drugs or tobacco. All LP contracts vary but it's pretty clear why some of these areas are taboo for VC funds. Hence, if your company is in one of these industries, you will most likely have difficulty finding a venture fund to back your business. Note that I am not making any judgement on these industries and…

  • As in any profession, most VC's are full of shit!

    Paul Jozefak
    26 Oct 2009 | 1:35 am
    I read the following line in Paul Graham's essay"The reason VCs seem formidable is that it's their profession to. You get to be a VC by convincing asset managers to trust you with hundreds of millions of dollars. How do you do that? You have to seem confident, and you have to seem like you understand technology."I don't mean to imply with my blog title that all VC's are idiots. Simply put though, even if they are, they sure as hell can hide it well. It's funny how much that sentence from Paul's essay stuck in my mind. Having recently been out in the market gauging LP appetite for venture…

  • A VC's Perspective: Blogs I'm Reading Now

    Paul Jozefak
    19 Oct 2009 | 12:35 am
    I bang out a post like this every now and again as it needs updating. I read a bunch of blogs every day but there are always a couple I come to first. These are usually the core of my reading and tend to drive what else I read as I discover new ones via links in posts. Below is the core of blogs which make up my daily reading now. Tune in 12 months from now to see if this list has remained the same:A VCFred's blog has been on this list for a long time. I am presuming it'll remain on this list for a while longer. I simply like how Fred writes and the best part of his blog is the comments…

  • Here's How My VC Timeframe Works (as oppossed to yours!)

    Paul Jozefak
    18 Oct 2009 | 3:34 am
    This is less of a rant and more so a service announcement. It's become clear to me that often, entrepreneurs expect a VC's day to revolve around them and their wishes. I'm referring very specifically to the time from when said entrepreneur sends in his business plan until next steps happen. I'm going to generalize a bit but want to give you an idea of what happens with your business plan once you submit it to a VC fund. I've put in general timelines:Day 1 through Day 5:Now I am presuming you've read my other posts about how to get your business plan in front of a VC. I won't go into those…
 
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    DataGrant Venture Capital News

  • STEC Lowers Its Future Prospects Sending Shares Down by 40%

    FrancisLinton81
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:39 am
    STEC Inc., which is a Santa Ana-based company, reported a major fall in share prices on Wednesday. The company develops flash memorial drives that are used by corporate and industries. On Tuesday, STEC had said that it might be possible that the orders from its major customer, Hopkinton, which is a Mass-based EMC Corp., is expected to lower down and this resulted in the lower value of the shares at $700 million. This marks a 40% reduction from its previous share value. The company announced a very disappointing outlook for the fourth-quarter that made investors sell large amounts of their…

  • Q4 Outlook of Smith Micro Lowers Share Prices

    FrancisLinton81
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:34 am
    Smith Micro Software Inc., which is an Aliso-Viejo based cell phone software developer, reported a reduction in share prices on Thursday. This happened as a result of the fourth-quarter prospects announced by the company on Wednesday. The results have lowered the analyst’s expectations from the company. The share prices were lowered down by 20% to approximately $225 million on Wall Street. The company reduced its sales expectations at about $105 million to $110 million, which is low from what the company had earlier announced. The analysts were hoping for average sales of around $111…

  • Expansion Plans of Powerwave in Thailand

    FrancisLinton81
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am
    On Wednesday, Powerwave Technologies Inc., which is a Santa Ana, based company, declared its plan to open a factory in Thailand. By the end of the year, the factory is anticipated to be in working condition and would comprise of 135,000 square foot area. It would start with around 300 workers initially and hopes to increase the number to 500 by the end of next year. The factory would be into producing different types of wireless gear that would include power amplifiers, radio heads, repeaters and power distribution units. The company said that the factory would prove to be of help in keeping…

  • Quest Settles Lawsuit with Its Q3 Results

    FrancisLinton81
    4 Nov 2009 | 10:30 pm
    On Tuesday, the third-quarter result of Quest Software Inc., which is an Aliso Viejo-based business software developer, has been announced by the company. The company is into developing software to improve and manage other business programs from Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and more such companies. The sales of the company have not been up to the mark of the analyst’s expectations, whereas the profits have surpassed their expectations. The analysts were hoping for sales of $172 million which was met with $171 million by the company, indicating a 9% low from the last year. The profits were…

  • Q3 Results of Masimo Corp. Surprises Analysts

    FrancisLinton81
    4 Nov 2009 | 10:27 pm
    Masimo Corp., which is an Irvine-based maker of medical devices, has reported its third-quarter earnings and sales on Tuesday. The sales and revenue of the company have beaten the expectations of the analysts on Wall Street. The company is into making monitoring devices and supplies for the patients. Masimo Corp. reported a profit of $13.1 million, which was though down from the last year by 1%. The analysts were hoping for a Q3 profit of $12.6 million. This marked a 12% high from the previous year’s profits. The revenue also rose to $75.1 million that marked a 14% growth from the…
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    DealBook

  • Treasury Rejects Sale of Tax Credits to Goldman

    By DealBook
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:58 pm
    As expected, the Treasury Department blocked the sale of Fannie Mae's unused tax credits to Goldman Sachs late Friday, arguing that the government would lose more money on taxes than it would gain from the proposed deal.

  • EBay Settles Suit Over Skype Sale

    By DealBook
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pm
    EBay has formally settled the litigation around its sale of Skype, settling a dispute with the online calling service's founders.

  • Madoff Trustee Drops $279 Million Merkin Claim

    By DealBook
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:42 pm
    The trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff's investment firm has dropped a $279 million claim against the New York financier J. Ezra Merkin's hedge funds, which invested one-fourth of their money with the now-convicted swindler.

  • Like Son, Like Father at JPMorgan Chase

    By DealBook
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm
    Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, no longer has to look very far for parental advice. His father is joining the bank's securities business.

  • Landry's: The New Frankenstein?

    By Steven M. Davidoff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:46 pm
    The Deal Professor examines the buyout of Landry's Restaurant, a leveraged deal that was terminated in the financial crisis and resurrected from the dead this week.
 
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    Ann Arbor USA Blog

  • Switchback Introduces New Web-based Membership Management System

    Susanna Thomashefski
    21 Oct 2009 | 7:12 am
    Switchback, a web development firm specializing in open source content management (CMS) and client relationship management (CRM) systems, announces the release of their new web-based membership management system, Caravan™. The system was built on two open-source platforms, Drupal and CiviCRM, which were modified and extended to meet the unique needs of membership-driven, non-profit organizations. Continue reading about Switchback…

  • SPARK East Incubator Profile: WhereToFindCare.com

    Lori Emerson
    15 Oct 2009 | 7:59 am
    WhereToFindCare.com LLC is a Michigan-based startup that seeks to empower people in health care decision-making. Because there are so many choices for health care today, the firm offers a free website that combines quality and satisfaction data of many different types of health care facilities and presents them in a clear, concise format which eases patients’ decision making process. It allows patients, families and visitors to rate and review the care they received so that others may benefit from that knowledge, as well. As a SPARK East business incubator tenant, WhereToFindCare.com has…

  • FastTrack Awards Accepting Applications

    Susanna Thomashefski
    8 Oct 2009 | 8:37 am
    Ann Arbor SPARK is now accepting applications for the FastTrack Awards. The application deadline is October 19. FastTrack is an exciting annual program sponsored by Ann Arbor SPARK, AnnArbor.com and Weidmayer, Schneider, Raham and Bennett, CPAs recognizing companies in Washtenaw County for outstanding business success. Awards are presented to companies with consistent records of growth, defined as revenue of at least $100,000 in 2005, and average growth of 20 percent for the following three years. 2008 revenues must be greater than 2007 revenues. The 2009 FastTrack Awards will be featured…

  • Nanosystems featured in the Detroit Free Press

    Elizabeth Parkinson
    6 Oct 2009 | 12:02 pm
    “In just four years, John Nanos has gone from teaching organic chemistry at the University of Michigan to building a multimillion-dollar company that’s helping the environment.  Katherine Yung profiles Ann Arbor SPARK client Nanosystems in October 4th, 2009 feature.” http://www.freep.com/article/20091004/BUSINESS06/910040435/1002/Business/Greener-chemical-products-allow-start-up-to-blossom “But Nanos, who got his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Kalamazoo College, wasn’t a businessman. He credits the economic development organization Ann Arbor SPARK…

  • Michigan Pre-Seed Capital fund recipient Limo-Reid pays back $750,000, plus interest, to 3 investors

    Elizabeth Parkinson
    30 Sep 2009 | 12:45 pm
    As reported by Tom Henderson, Crain’s Detroit Business September 30, 2009 Ann Arbor Spark, as well as two other community-development organizations, have been repaid with interest for early support of a Deerfield-based company that hopes to revolutionize transmission systems for trucks and military vehicles.Limo-Reid Inc. has paid back $250,000, plus interest, that Spark loaned to the company as part of the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund in 2007. Also getting paid back their investments of $250,000 each were Detroit-based NextEnergy and Troy-based Automation Alley. At the time of the…
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    Venture Chronicles

  • Can the UAW Be Owner and Representative?

    Jeff
    26 Oct 2009 | 7:12 pm
    Interesting times we live in… the UAW is finding itself increasingly at odds with it’s members over the negotiated but not yet approved Ford labor agreement.   On Sunday, 92 percent of workers at Ford’s Kansas City Assembly Plant voted against proposed contract changes. The vote there came after a stormy meeting at nearby Winnetonka High School where UAW Vice President Bob King, head of the union’s national Ford section, made an appeal to workers to support the agreement, which was negotiated by the UAW and Ford earlier this month.[From Ford workers in…

  • Life After Hard Drives

    Jeff
    25 Oct 2009 | 12:47 pm
    What comes after hard drives? Good question and one that is critical to our future computing ambitions. According to a new study, if HDDs continue to progress at their current pace, then in 2020 a two-disk, 2.5-inch disk drive will be capable of storing more than 14 TB and will cost about $40 (today, a typical 500 GB hard drive costs about $100). Although flash memories have also become popular - with advantages such as lower power consumption, faster read access time, and better mechanical reliability than HDDs - the cost per GB for flash memories is nearly 10 times that of HDDs. In…

  • Internet Regulations Coming

    Jeff
    22 Oct 2009 | 9:14 pm
    One sobering thought to think about while you are celebrating the FCC’s decision to move forward with net neutrality regulations is that for the first time the FCC is asserting itself as the authority to regulate how the web is governed. With Thursday’s vote, the five-member panel began the process to move forward with the regulations announced last month by the agency’s chairman, Juilus Genachowski. His proposal would formally codify the FCC’s four existing principles, intended to prevent Internet service providers from giving preferential treatment to certain content and…

  • Newsday.com Destined for Failure with Pay Wall

    Jeff
    22 Oct 2009 | 10:16 am
    Cablevision must have gotten punch drunk with all of the talk coming out of newspapers about going to a subscription model for their online services, because they are going big, really big, with a $260 a year pricing plan for Newsday.com Those who are not customers of Optimum Online or the newspaper - both owned by Bethpage-based Cablevision Systems Corp. - will have to pay a $5 weekly fee. However, nonpaying customers will have access to some of newsday.com’s information, including the home page, school closings, weather, obituaries, classified and entertainment listings. There also…

  • Pay Per Performance Advertising Goes Hyperlocal

    Jeff
    20 Oct 2009 | 12:00 pm
    I used a new app from mobiQpons yesterday and color me impressed. The way it works is you install their iPhone, Android or Blackberry app (no signup required, just load the app) and when location services on the device is turned on you will get notifications of merchants offering coupons or promotions in your area. Merchants have to be signed up for the service in order for their promotions to run through the network but that’s not surprising. From what I can gather the only time that mobiQpons gets paid is when a coupon is redeemed by a customer. This is good because it’s true…
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    Fred Destin

  • The one-sentence e-mail turndown

    FredDestin
    31 Oct 2009 | 2:49 pm
    Image via Wikipedia If you have pitched VC's, you have probably received one of those: Thanks Company X for sharing your proposal, this is not one for us, best of luck with the fundraising and stay in touch.  Best, VC Y You are probably thinking, WTF.  After all, aren't VC's paid to look at pitches and business plans ?  Actually, we are not.  Here are reasons why I regularly write the above: If I won't invest in you, I can't spend time with you.  And before you ask, of course there are plenty of exceptions including some really naive entrepreneurs who I really like…

  • The Ignorant VC as counterpart to the Ignorant Entrepreneur

    FredDestin
    26 Oct 2009 | 7:43 am
    I decided to fully republish a great post by David Woodward that was fuelled by an interview we did together but which captures the views I previously developed here better than I could express them.  Hope you enjoy ! A few days ago, I had an interesting chat with Fred Destin, Atlas Venture's ebullient technology partner. Atlas bought a stake in the property website Zoopla at the beginning of 2008, which wasn’t exactly a fun time to be involved in the property game. It was also a pretty difficult period to source capital in any sector—all in all an investment climate fit to make even the…

  • DailyMotion raises EUR17M and defies expectations

    FredDestin
    22 Oct 2009 | 12:02 am
    Image via CrunchBase DailyMotion today officially announces its new round of EUR17M, defying the fate that has befallen most video sharing startups (see: Veoh's hail mary) as it breaches through 60M Uniques Users.  Atlas Venture participates above pro-rata in this round and grows ownership. As for most video-sharing sites it's been a rollercoaster four years of hypergrowth, legal woes, scaling challenges peppered with some great moments of exhilaration.  The segment remains challenging, not least because your main competitor is not an old school media business but a fast-moving…

  • The problem with VC Motivation

    FredDestin
    12 Oct 2009 | 11:10 am
    Many VC's, particularly in Europe, are disappointing in their (lack of) intensity.  They are not 24/7, passionate advocates of the businesses they fund; neither do you meet them at random conferences scouting for new companies; nor do they necessarily come across as particularly engaged at board meetings.  Why is that ?  Let's talk VC compensation and motivation for a second. My motivation as a VC Introspection is as good a place as any to start.  Here are my top motivations for being a VC (leaving out the personal stuff): Company building: every VC is different, some like…

  • Boring is good: A global view of the housing bubble

    FredDestin
    9 Oct 2009 | 2:37 am
    Unusually for me, a short post on property on the back of this great illustrative graph from McKinseyQuarterly. These graphs are general to the point of being useless and regional differences remain stark.  As a personal example, I sold my house in London in July of last year (check it out on Zoopla), just as the market was shutting down and subsequently bought a house in Switzerland; a lucky escape. It is surprising to me that the Swiss market is depicted as not having really budged that much despite the fact that a decent house anywhere between Geneva and Montreux will probably set you…
 
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    Get Venture: Venture Made Transparent

  • Alex's News Picks: November 6th

    Alex Horn
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am
    How to Create a Budget Network Effects And Scale Economies (aka Spolsky vs. Heinemeier)  Who’s Your Who’s Who? Getting the right people involved in your startup It's not even 80/20 - 8% of Internet users account for 85% of clicks 20 of the Best Resources to Get Your Startup Off the Ground

  • The Social Media Clutter Problem

    Mark Davis
    4 Nov 2009 | 6:37 am
    There is an interesting dynamic that I wanted to highlight – the value of social media sites plateaus for individual users once the individual reaches a critical mass of content. Have a lot of friends? Good luck trying to follow all of their twitter streams or their postings on Facebook. The overflow of content produced by the masses has diminishing marginal returns. The next tweet a friend makes will either be lost or push another tweet off of the first page of the queue. There is no way to consume all of the content presented to us, leaving the value of these services to plateau in their…

  • Alex's News Picks: November 3rd

    Alex Horn
    3 Nov 2009 | 10:37 am
    10 Years Ago Today: When Online Groceries Were All The Rage If - You can lead by example  Lean startups aren’t cheap startups  Exit Strategy  Admob data – Android making great progress 

  • How Revenue Models Affect Customer Experience

    Mark Davis
    2 Nov 2009 | 5:46 am
    Image provided by ShutterstockI have often discussed the impact of revenue models on the customer experience. Some revenue models make the customer experience better; some make it worse. Revenue models have one of three impacts on the customer experience (and subsequently customer loyalty): they can hinder the experience, not impact it, or enhance it. In a tribute to our agrarian roots, I will refer to these impacts at Slash & Burn, Harvest and Fertilize, respectively. Slash & Burn refers to monetization strategies that cause customers to defect. Customers are essentially cut-down and…

  • Alex's News Picks: October 29th

    Alex Horn
    29 Oct 2009 | 10:10 am
    Top 5 things missing from most entrepreneur pitches THE #2 REASON WHY VC'S SAY "NO" What rehab taught me about making bad investments Why Investors Are Wild For Brazil 6 More Troublemakers you meet in a start up
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    Will Price

  • Why Blog?

    Will Price
    26 Oct 2009 | 7:57 pm
    I am reading Warren Bennis' seminal work on leadership, On Becoming a Leader.The book profiles scores of business leaders and seeks to identify common abstractions that help reveal "truths" about leadership.Early in the book, I came across the following passage, which perfectly describes why I blog and the benefits of structuring your thoughts via a post:"Faulker said, "I don't know what I think until I read what I said." That's not just a joke. You learn what you think by codifying your thinking in some way. Codifying one's thinking is an important step in inventing oneself. The most…

  • Scott Cook - Wisdom

    Will Price
    7 Oct 2009 | 11:01 am
    On Monday, Widgetbox and I were invited to attend and present at Intuit's inaugural entrepreneurship day. Intuit's founder, CEO, CTO, and senior management hosted twenty plus companies to share ideas on innovation and to explore avenues of partnership.For me, the highlight proved to be an impromptu talk by Scott Cook on lessons learned from 28 years with Intuit.He boiled down this advice to the following observations:The Power of Word-of-Mouth81% of Intuit's customers are driven by WOM WOM remains the #1 driver of customer acquisitionBe Where the Customers AreUnderstand where customers buy…

  • Last Child in the Woods

    Will Price
    28 Sep 2009 | 5:32 pm
    Last Friday, my wife and I went to see Richard Louv speak.  Richard is the author of Last Child in the Woods, Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder.His book and talk center on a series of alarming developments in the lives of America's children:increasing divide between the young and the natural worldloss of freedom and time alone for children to explore the woods, local creek, etc.growth in structured "play dates" and the decline of time to create play, particularly play outside fear of traffic and strangers that keeps kids inside rather than outside running around and…

  • Living History: Larry Ellison

    Will Price
    22 Sep 2009 | 2:00 pm
    Last night, Ed Zander (ex-CEO of Motorola) interviewed Larry Ellison at the Churchill Club.The interview proved to be fascinating, with Ed Zander a perfect choice to push and prod Ellison on topics ranging from ORCL's early years, his motivations for buying Sun, to politics, sailing, and the prospects for the US economy.The title of the post "living history" hit home last night. We are fortunate to not only live in a place where monster companies are born and scale, but also to work in an industry where many of the pioneers remain active - Ellison, Jobs, Ballmer, Dell....While the story…

  • Now

    Will Price
    18 Sep 2009 | 2:54 pm
    There is a real challenge in being present - that is enjoying right now, this moment. Modern technology and life makes it very easy to be distracted and the stress and pressure of Silicon Valley provide ample opportunity to ponder the past or project the future.The problem is that such ponderings and projection limit the ability to enjoy right now and sap your energy and effectiveness.Books on wisdom share a common refrain - the past is the past, the future is uncertain and a projection of anxiety or fantasy, and the only sure thing is right now. Too often people live in their heads -…
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    VCinJerusalem

  • No time for Blogging? Yes and No

    Jacob Ner-David
    4 Nov 2009 | 10:22 pm
    As many of "you" might have noticed, I have not posted anything new in quite some time. Is it because nothing is happening? Absolutely not. In fact at times too much is happening. Is it because I don't have enough time? No. I could "make time." But making time is a question of prioritization. Do I spend ten more minutes with my kids on their homework or write a blog posting?  Do I focus on my life partner and talk to each other or write a blog posting? Do I go for a run or a bike ride or write a blog posting? As I have stated in the past, I am not the world's…

  • Twitter Humor: Twittelah for Your Jewish Mother

    Jacob Ner-David
    24 Sep 2009 | 2:27 am
    During this holiday season, when we repent, then jump back into family tension, then repent again, enjoy this twitter humor (thanks to Barry Pasikov for sharing):

  • Is Twitter Worth Billions? Jeff Thinks So. I'm still not convinced.

    Jacob Ner-David
    21 Sep 2009 | 3:22 pm
    See this interview with my good friend Jeff Pulver on the "State of Now" and the "Real Time Internet." Oh, and by the way, Jeff thinks Twitter is worth billions. Now. Well, good thing Jeff is public that he is a shareholder, we wouldn't want him to be objective about this company... Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com

  • Asaf Ramon, Of Blessed Memory

    Jacob Ner-David
    13 Sep 2009 | 2:00 pm
    No words can describe the tragedy that has befallen the Jewish people and the Ramon family. Asaf Ramon, the son of the legendary Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut, who followed his father's footsteps in the Israeli Air Force, died today when his F-16 fighter jet broke apart over the southern Judean desert. We can only hope that the Ramon family finds some solace knowing so many mourn along with them. May they never be the victims of horrible statistics again, and only know joy. And may the memory of Asaf Ramon be a blessing to us all, reminding us of the selflessness that still…

  • US Open - NOT! Locked out of Live Stream

    Jacob Ner-David
    1 Sep 2009 | 2:03 pm
    Wow. I can't believe that in 2009 I still get messages like this when clicking on a "Live Now" link on US Open website (see below). Instead of US Open LIVE should be called US OPEN DEAD...if you have a non-US IP address...
 
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    Red Herring

  • Blackstone: Back in Black

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:57 am
    Private equity behemoth reports $275 million third-quarter profit, noting equity and debt markets are healing from the financial carnage of the past year.

  • Ancestry.com Makes Lukewarm Trade Debut

    5 Nov 2009 | 6:34 am
    Shares of Web destination for family tracking close 5 percent higher in first day of Nasdaq trading after company raises $100 million in initial public offering.

  • iPhone Enterprise Outlook Rocks RIM

    2 Nov 2009 | 4:17 am
    Shares of Canadian smart phone maker take a beating after release of report that says Apple's iPhone is gaining acceptance in IT departments.

  • Allegis' Ackerman: U.S. Innovation 'Stalling'

    2 Oct 2009 | 7:02 am
    Allegis Capital's managing director says U.S. lawmakers are considering tax measures with unintended consequences on the VC industry, threatening job creation and innovation.

  • AT&T Unleashes MMS for iPhone

    24 Sep 2009 | 5:09 am
    U.S. carrier finally announces MMS capability for the popular Apple phone.
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    Redeye VC

  • VC - Back to the Future?

    Josh
    28 Oct 2009 | 3:35 pm
    I just came across a great report by Industry Little Hawk entitled the Venture Capital Rebound (pdf).  In the report, the authors reach a similar conclusion to Paul Kedrosky (read Paul's great research for the Kauffman Foundation here) -- that too much capital has gone into venture capital.  Paul has argued that we need to shrink the amount of venture funding by 50% -- a statistic that almost every VC agrees with.  (Ironically, 100% of VCs would argue that their fund should be in the half that survives).What is refreshing about the Industry Little Hawk white paper, however, is that they…

  • Company Math vs VC Math

    Josh
    15 Oct 2009 | 8:40 am
    Fred Wilson has a great blog post today entitled The 'We Need to Own' Baloney.  In it he discussed the fact that many VC's apply arbitrary ownership thresholds to investments.  I couldn't agree with Fred more - but I'd take it even further.  This is not just limited to ownership requirements.  Rather, VC's often impose "VC math" on companies in three areas: The amount VC's "need" to own The amount VC's "need" to invest The return VC's "need" to generate certain exit returns These "requirements" are a direct result of the mathematical model that venture funds are optimized for.  And as…

  • First Round Capital to open NYC office

    Josh
    1 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    I believe that as the world has gotten “flatter” over the last decade, it’s created a big opportunity for venture investors who recognized that great entrepreneurs can come up with great ideas in almost any location.  Indeed, over the last several years, First Round Capital has invested nationally and has funded companies in over a dozen states.  However, I do believe that certain ecosystems provide real leverage when it comes to the hard work of turning those ideas into reality.  Take acting for example.  Despite the fact that Philadelphia has some great theaters (like the Kimmel…

  • A deal that was "mint to be..."

    Josh
    14 Sep 2009 | 8:42 am
    I’m super excited by today’s news that Intuit has acquired Mint.com for $170 million.   It’s been amazing to watch Aaron Patzer and the entire Mint team transform a rough prototype to a world-class product over the last three years.  As my partner, Rob Hayes (who led our investment in Mint and served on their board of director’s) wrote this morning:   "It has been a short 3 years since we met Aaron Patzer at a STIRR dinner in the Valley.  Seven days after we met, he had a term sheet for his seed round and off he went.  During that time we have had a…

  • Help me rename "Lifestyle Business"

    Josh
    8 Jul 2009 | 6:12 pm
    While venture capitalists pass on companies for many reasons, one of the most common reasons is that they don't think the opportunity is "big enough".  What does this mean?  It means that even if the company executes as planned, the VC doesn't think the exit will be large enough to generate the VC-sized returns.  This determination is based on the venture capitalist's "fund math" and their expected returns model.  It means that VC doesn't think he will make a big enough return by investing here.What doesn't this mean?  This doesn't mean that the business is not going to succeed.  It…
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    Seth Levine's VC Adventure

  • The “real” America

    3 Nov 2009 | 7:34 pm
    I’ve generally avoided political issues on this blog, but this isn’t something I can keep my mouth shut on. Yesterday Meb Keflezighi became the first American to win the New York City Marathon in 27 years. Born in Eritrea on the east coast of Africa, Keflezighi moved to the US when he as 12 (more than 20 years ago), is an American citizen and has raced for the US Olympic team. Still, there are some who are calling his achievement diminished because he’s not “technically” an American by virtue of having been born outside of the United States – chief among them Darren Rovell of…

  • How long should your “trial” period run?

    30 Oct 2009 | 2:43 pm
    I’ve had this running debate with a handful of friends – I’d love to throw it out there for comment. The questions at hand are 1) whether companies should offer a “free trial” period for their software/web service; 2) if they do, how long should it last; and 3) what information should you ask for before starting a trial (specifically should you ask for credit card information up front). Here are a few thoughts. I’d love to hear your opinion. While you know that your web service is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it’s really really hard to convey the chocolaty goodness…

  • Looking forward to Defrag

    28 Sep 2009 | 6:59 am
    I’m really not a big fan of conferences. I go to a small number every year and like most people I find that for the most part, the best part of most conferences happens in the hallways and lobby where there’s a chance to connect with other attendees. The conference itself simply becomes the framework to support making those connections. Defrag, however, is a rare exception to this widely held view in the conference world – it’s a conference worth attending not only for the connections you’ll make in the hallway but also in the insight you’ll gain inside the presentation rooms.

  • ESPRIT 2009

    22 Sep 2009 | 2:42 pm
    I’ve been involved with the Boulder ESPRIT Awards for the the last 8 years. ESPRIT is put on by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce to “celebrate entrepreneurship” in Boulder county. Each year ESPRIT honors a handful of entrepreneurs who embody the best attributes of the Boulder business community. This year is the 25th anniversary of the awards and the program will celebrate the last 25 years of innovation in Boulder valley and look forward to some of the people and programs that are serving as catalysts for innovation for the next 25 years. I’m the event chair this year, which means for…

  • Welcoming the new Lijit Welcome Wijit

    22 Sep 2009 | 12:17 pm
    Lijit quietly released a very cool new widget for users of their service (that's you, right?). The new Lijit Welcome Wijit greets site visitors who come to your site via a search term and gives them a relevant roadmap of your site as it relates to the search query that brought them there. It's great for your site visitors who now have additional context for their interest in your content. It's also great for publishers who can now create a more sticky experience for their users and expand the cross pollination of their content. From Greg Keller's post on the Lijit blog, the Welcom Wijit is…
 
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    Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

  • QOTD: John McCain’s 15% U.S. GDP Cut

    pk
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:54 pm
    No idea how I missed this wonderfully inflammatory Paul Samuelson quote from a few weeks back, but it’s a contentious keeper: Had John McCain won [the 2008 election], the present G.D.P. in the United States would have been even lower than it is now by more than 15 percent. More here.

  • Who Files for Bankruptcies?

    pk
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:49 pm

  • Books of the Week

    pk
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:23 pm
    Some books I’ve been reading during my travels this week and that others might like – an eclectic list. Scroogenomics. The name more or less says it, but why you shouldn’t buy people presents for the holidays. The Great Cities in History. A lovely series of essays and meditation on what made great cities great through history. Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Josh Lerner’s new book on how government and venture capital should be kept far apart. Lords of Finance. I got stalled half-way through this many months ago, but finally finished it off this week. Probably my favorite book of 2009,…

  • Readings: Wind, Brazil, Tools, Complexity, and Ship-Tracking

    pk
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:15 am
    How Bernie Madoff made basket cases of his customers’ accounts (SI) Denmark a global leader in wind power (FP) Brazil’s rise to agricultural dominance (FT) Companies lining up for IPOs (E&Y) Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions (MarineTraffic) Prezi - The zooming presentation editor (Prezi) 18 truths: The long fail of complexity (ZDNet)

  • Why is the Boston Marathon More Volatile Than the NYC Marathon?

    pk
    5 Nov 2009 | 3:26 pm
    As readers know, I’m fascinated by volatility and our response to it. In capital markets a little volatility is important, and a lot is dangerous – it can result in things flying apart, with unpleasant financial consequences. In sports it works the other way around. Too little volatility in results and sports is boring. A little makes things more interesting; and a lot can make something compulsively watchable. I was thinking of this during the recent New York marathon. Yes, an American won, which was a nice change, but the other thing that happened was that result unpredictability…
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    BeyondVC

  • The Googlization of IT

    Ed Sim
    27 Oct 2009 | 12:55 pm
    Today I took a sales team from a portfolio company to meet with a couple of senior IT executives at a major retail company.  Towards the end of the meeting, it started to become quite clear to me the effect that Google and the web has had on IT to date and where it was going. In an oversimplified way, it seems that there have been 3 distinct phases to how the web and Google have impacted the enterprise, first starting at the app layer and increasingly diving deeper into the core infrastructure.Phase 1 - Consumerization of IT - all internal corporate users are consumers first and then…

  • Washers, dryers and secret sauce - why naming your technology is important

    Ed Sim
    16 Sep 2009 | 2:36 pm
    Our washer and dryer was on the fritz today, and as I started to do some research on large capacity stackable units I started to get overwhelmed with all of the new terminology and features.  After all, isn’t a washer a washer and a dryer a dryer.  How many different combinations and features could there be?  As I dug deeper I found myself thinking about these appliances less from a consumer’s viewpoint and more from a marketing one and appreciating how these various companies could make a commodity product sound so exciting and differentiated.  Sure, all of the competing products had…

  • Future of television advertising (continued again!)

    Ed Sim
    5 Aug 2009 | 3:42 pm
    My first post about portfolio company Visible World and the future of television advertising was in October 2004 (see here).  In the post, I wrote about how television advertising needed to change and how the advertisers and those with inventory had to adapt to the rising online threat and offer new technology to make their ads more targeted and measurable.  Visible World has been pushing this vision for quite awhile and over the years it has built momentum through investments and relationships with Time Warner and Comcast. And just recently the company announced a deal with Google TV Ads…

  • Lessons from Joost

    Ed Sim
    1 Jul 2009 | 4:53 am
    I am not going to rehash Om Malik's excellent summary of "What went wrong with Joost" but I did want to dive deeper into a few points.  As I have always said, raising too much money can be a curse and not a blessing.  Here is an excerpt from my post in 2006Trust me, I love having well capitalized companies.  However, having too much money can be a curse, not a blessing.  More often than not, I see management lose financial discipline and avoid making hard decisions when capital is abundant and not scarce.  To many executives, money does solve all problems.  And yes, having money allows…

  • I want it NOW, I want it REAL TIME

    Ed Sim
    16 Jun 2009 | 8:14 am
    I was recently asked by a friend if he should get his son the new Nintendo DSi.  This would be an upgrade from the current DS and also add the photo capability.  As I thought about my own son's usage of the device, I said no.  Once my son got an IPod Touch for music and now games, he never looked back.  While he loves the music, the real reason is because of the App Store and ability to instantly download any game for free instantaneously.  While the DSi does have a Wi-Fi connection, the IPod Touch is just so easy and frictionless.  And as evidenced by the rise of the Internet and the…
 
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    alarm:clock

  • Applied Materials Bottom Fishes Advent Solar

    jgb
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:48 pm
    Chip maker Applied Materials has acquired "substantially all of the assets, including intellectual property," of New Mexico-based Advent Solar. That startup developed crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. However, Lux Research analyst Ted Sullivan says that it “was done very cheaply. Investors did not get their money back — pennies on the dollar is a very safe assumption. It was effectively acknowledged that Advent was a failed company.” Advent Solar's timing was terrible. Just when it was ready to start manufacturing its cells for solar…

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    Pheedo
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:06 pm

  • Making The Green Scene: SMUD Buys Biomass Electricity, Suntech Keeps Selling, And Wind Power Should Be Seen, Not Heard

    jgb
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm
    The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) continues to find new way to meet its goal of having renewable energy account for 33 percent of its power supply by 2020. Today SMUD announced that it will be purchasing 123-gigawatt hours per year from Buena Vista Biomass Power at a cost of $15 million per year. When the Buena Vista Biomass Plant comes online in mid to late 2010, it will utilize forest thinnings, agricultural wastes, scrap lumber and paper, and sawdust to create electricity. The woody biomass is burned and the heat is used to create steam that powers turbine generators.

  • France's TravelHorizon €20M. To Buy Ski Site Sportura

    jgb
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:10 am
    TravelHorizon, a France-based operator of a European, multi-lingual online travel sites, has raised €20M from AGF Private Equity and CM-CIC Capital with return backer Wellington Partners. Part of the proceeds will be used to acquire Sportura BV, a Dutch online travel site focused on ski-related trips. TravelHorizon offers holidays in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. It offers golf and spa, summer, seaside, and school holidays. The company provides information on resorts, accommodations, green fees, golf, and mountains activities online. It also serves travel agents.

  • Biovitrum AB and Swedish Orphan Form New Niche Specialty Pharmaceutical Company

    honeil
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:19 am
    Nordic biotechnology companies Biovitrum AB and Swedish Orphan announced plans to merge. The newly formed company will be Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (SO-Bi) focused, to design and manufacture specialty pharmaceuticals for rare diseases. Biovitrum AB has agreed to pay kr3.5B ($500M) to initiate a guaranteed rights issue of financing. The deal will directly increase earnings per share for Biovitrum's shareholders. Sharing a similar vision and philosophy each company brings strong core competencies. Biovitrum AB brings to the deal its manufacturing infrastructure, a few late stage clinical…
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    VC Cafe

  • Global from Day One: MoodBase knows what the web is feeling

    gmugliston
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:25 am
    The communication and collaboration tools that we have at our disposal help us to be more productive in the workplace and lead richer social lives. Despite the clear benefits, however, it is worth remembering that our increasing reliance on these tools is not without cost. Many of us now experience information overload: too much data flowing in from too many sources at every hour of every day. And the newfound obsession with all things real-time suggests that this is not likely to become less of an issue going forward. Fortunately, a number of startups are building tools to help us cut…

  • Giza and Bessemer Fund Soluto’s Second Round

    Eze Vidra
    5 Nov 2009 | 3:45 am
    A year after its first round of $1.8 million, Israeli start up Soluto has announced a second round of $6.2 led by Bessemer Partners and previous investors Giza Venture Capital. Soluto was founded in 2007 by Ishay Green and CEO Tomer Dvir. The company develops ‘anti-frustration’ software for PCs, and has remained in stealth since inception. Last year, I reported on a survey they ran on PC frustration and the form still seems to be up. Apply to join the alpha test and read the full story at  TechCrunch.

  • Finjan Sold to M86 For Stock

    Eze Vidra
    4 Nov 2009 | 9:55 am
    About 13 years after its inception, Israeli start up Finjan exits with a ‘humble’ (yet profitable) acquisition by UK’s M86 Security. With over $80 million in invested capital, the company was a once a contender in the lucrative anti virus and Malaware protection market for the enterprise. Yesterday, UK’s M86 has announced the acquisition of Finjan for an undisclosed sum. Globes estimates Finjan’s price tag around $30-40 million. The deal will be paid in stock, and Finjan’s founders get to keep the intellectual property rights. Finjan was started in 1996…

  • Magento builds momentum by leveraging the power of open source

    gmugliston
    4 Nov 2009 | 3:30 am
    “It had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it. That is, it’s free.” – Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, speaking in 2000 about the competitive threat posed by Linux. The open source software movement has evolved a great deal since Ballmer famously likened Linux to communism. One need not look far to find mainstream examples of open source software implementations. For example, the White House uses open source content management system Drupal. Blogs at the New York Times run on WordPress. And Apache Hadoop is used by the likes of…

  • LibraFestival navigates the fast-changing mobile industry with a diversified approach

    gmugliston
    2 Nov 2009 | 2:29 am
    I recently spoke with Barak Ben-Ezer, Director of Business Development at LibraFestival (formerly ApParty), a Tel Aviv-based mobile application development company. LibraFestival is the company behind the hugely successful iFog app – the app has been purchased from Apple’s App Store more than 200,000 times for $0.99 – and a series of others, including iLoogie, iSplat, and Mr. Mistletoe Kiss. The team allocates roughly 70 percent of its resources towards developing its own applications, but also develops custom applications for corporate clients. The company can empathize with other…
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    Silicon Alley Insider

  • Sarah Palin Bans Press, Cellphones, Cameras From Speech

    Erin Carlson
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm
    Sarah Palin is sending a stern message to the media: Stay away! Read the rest of this story »See Also:John Carney's An Idiot: You Must Vote TodaySarah Palin: The Never-Before-Seen 2008 Victory SpeechJoe Biden Doesn't Know Jack About My Energy Policy

  • Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues”

    TechCrunch
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:21 pm
    Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said earlier this week that he intends to make sure his company’s games don’t include scammy offers in the future. Our full background on this story is here. But what he didn’t say in that blog post is that Zynga has been scamming users from the beginning qu... Continue reading »Join the conversation about this story »

  • Woman Of The Year!

    Dan Frommer
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:20 pm
    Google's Marissa Mayer is one of Glamour magazine's 2009 "Women of the Year." She's called "the visionary." She tells Farhad Manjoo: Read the rest of this story »See Also:Watch The WSJ Accuse Marissa Mayer Of "Encouraging Promiscuity" (NWS, GOOG)Google's Marissa Mayer Shows Off 'Social Search' (GOOG)Google's Marissa Mayer Is On Twitter (GOOG)

  • CHART OF THE DAY: Cable Networks Saving Media Companies' Butts

    Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm
    Media companies beat earnings estimates left and right this week. How did they do it? In large part, thanks to their television divisions, where cable networks grew. With two noticeable exceptions, the television segment of these media companies was up, while the overall companies' revenues dropped. It's the dual revenue structure of ads and affiliate fees from cable companies that grew revenues. At CBS, ad sales were down 5%, but affiliate fees were up 11%. Affiliate fees were up double digits year over year for half these companies. Meanwhile, ad sales were down. Read the rest of this story…

  • Employees Are Driving iPhone Enterprise Share Gains--At The Expense Of BlackBerry

    Rory Maher, CFA
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm
    This is a report from our premium subscription research service The Internet Analyst.  The Internet Analyst is currently in beta, with a formal launch coming towards the end of 2009.  To sign up for a free beta trial, please submit your name and email address here. As we've noted, iPhones are starting to gain share in the enterprise market. This trend is important for two reasons: First, the enterprise represents a huge potential market for iPhone and other smartphone growth Second, the dominant enterprise smartphone vendor, Research In Motion, looks increasingly vulnerable Read the…
 
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    The Private Equity Data Center Buzz

  • Deal Terms and Returns: Antidilution Protection

    28 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    This week we are going to take another look at how terms can affect returns. What if your company had raised $7MM in Series A and Series B rounds , but now you are looking to raise one last round. The problem is that this round will be a "Down Round" priced at $.75 per share as compared to the previous Series B round price of $2. So what would the effect be of Weighted Average Anti-Dilution vs. Full Ratchet Anti-Dilution for the founders and investors?

  • Private Company Investments: FourSquare Labs, Inc.

    21 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    We have covered many of the up and coming or already "here" companies that provide social networking. One of the newest that has recently launched is not from California, yet rather they call the East Coast home. This week we are going to take a look at the first round of financing announced for FourSquare Labs, Inc. FourSquare Labs, Inc. is headquartered in New York, NY. The company provides online mobile social networking services by using LBS (Location Based Service) application technology that allows users to receive information and entertainment services via mobile devices through a…

  • Deal Terms and Their Impact on Returns, Part 2

    13 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Last week we discussed the impact that the Deal Terms have on Returns, and how tweaking some of them might help in negotiating a new round of capital. This is something that could be applied to both sides of the table. We previously showed how the Return would react when the Participation Cap is changed from 0 to 3x. This week we are going to look at a different term, the Liquidation Multiple, and see how it can affect the return.

  • Deal Terms and Their Impact on Returns

    6 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    As we have been demonstrating our new Portfolio Analysis Tool over the past couple of months, we have run into people from all sides of the business that have never really taken notice on how just one or two slight changes to the Deal Terms could effect their return. When it comes to negotiating a deal, both sides of the table are weighing the risks for the greatest return. We have heard some say that they did not take on funding due to they could not come to an agreement on the valuation. What if you could tweak one or two terms in the offer and keep the valuation, but still accomplish what…

  • Private Company Valuations: Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

    3 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Recently we have seen various reports released that discuss VC funding numbers for Q3 2009. One of the industries that continued to be at the top of the list with VC funding is Biotechnology. This week we are going to take a look at one of those Biotechnology companies that received some additional funding last quarter. Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Inc is headquartered in San Carlos, California. The company develops therapeutics and diagnostics for Celiac disease and raised a Series A2 round last quarter, bringing in an additional $8.5 MM. Participating in this round were Sofinnova Ventures,…
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    DubaiBeat.com

  • Latin American Funds Look To Middle East For New Investors

    5 Nov 2009 | 11:08 pm
    With investors pulling out of funds as they look to liquidate their assets, Latin American hedge fund managers are actively seeking new sources for potential clients. And Middle East investors are on top of the list. Alternative Latin Investor, a publication covering alternative investments in Latin America, has been speaking with several Fund managers based in the Middle East to find how their Latin counterparts can attract valuable new clients in the region. Read the full story here.

  • UAE private equity firm setting up a new $2 billion fund

    5 Nov 2009 | 7:35 am
    Abraaj Capital, the largest private equity group outside North America and Europe, is setting up a new fund worth at least $2 billion to exploit attractive valuations, its managing director Mustafa Abdel-Wadood told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit - an online interview series by Reuters. The firm which has raised about $7 billion since inception in 2002 and manages about $6 billion, is also in advanced talks to invest in a logistics firm. Read the full details on Reuters

  • Middle East investors investing $4.6 billion in Scotland

    4 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am
    MEED, the Middle East business intelligence provider, is estimating that investors from the Middle East either hold or are planning investments in Scotland worth about $4.6 billion, about 10 per cent of the total foreign investment in Scotland. International investors, including Gulf companies and funds, are attracted to Scotland by its reputation for high-quality produce, innovation and technology - the MEED is reporting. (It also tells the story of Mahdi al-Tajir, the richest man in Scotland in 2009, who set up one of Scotland’s most iconic brands, the Highland Spring bottled water…

  • Abu Dhabi invested in California-based private jet firm

    3 Nov 2009 | 8:29 am
    XOJET, a private aviation company based in California, announced financing totaling $470 million led by TPG, a private equity firm, and Aabar, an Abu Dhabi based investment firm. This consists of $100 million in equity and a more flexible debt facility of $370 million that allows for the purchase of either new or used aircraft on a global basis. So far they have raised $3 billion to fund their operational infrastructure, fleet, and global expansion. (To see more Abu Dhabi investors like Aabar check our investors directory) Their full press release follows

  • Qatar firm launched $200 million film fund

    1 Nov 2009 | 8:02 am
    Alnoor Holdings, a Qatari media group, yesterday launched a $200 million fund to finance and produce up to 15 features for the international market in the next five years. The Fund intends to take advantage of the challenging conditions in the capital markets and the film industry to invest in high quality film projects involving Hollywood talent generating the best potential returns. Alnoor Holdings will invest $40 million into the fund directly, with the remaining coming from private investors across the Gulf region - Variety is reporting. Their full press release follows
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    VentureDig

  • Monetizing Social Networks: The Four Dominant Business Models and How You Should Implement Them in 2010

    VentureDig
    1 Nov 2009 | 9:45 am
    The business models within the social media realm are much different than traditional businesses. In social networking, they’re ever-changing, backed by eye-opening revenue and have very little documentation. Reason: as soon as someone sits down to outline ways social networks can be monetized, another model emerges, and another model ceases. For this reason, this piece will be routinely updated with new models and new feedback from your comments. Below are the Four Primary Business Models in the social networking space that I’ve experienced–they primarily are concerned with…

  • How To Calculate Number of Shares to be Offered to Existing Investors

    VentureDig
    14 Aug 2009 | 5:00 am
    I attended a venture finance event a while back in Palo Alto, which was put on DLA Piper. They had a nice segment on legal aspects of venture finance and law. While this post is geared towards the investor, venture capitalist and angel, if you’re an entrepreneur, you will obviously gain value from understanding this overall concept. Calculation of Number of Shares To Be Offered to Existing Investors Pursuant to Preemptive Rights: To determine the number of shares to be offered to a current shareholder pursuant to preemptive rights to maintain ownership percentage, you must first…

  • How Questions Give a Glimpse Into One’s Mind

    VentureDig
    12 Aug 2009 | 5:00 am
    The concept of “listening” is thrown around quite frequently in everyday life. Some old greybeard will declare, “It’s all about listening in business,” or, “I’ve been married for 50 years because I learned to listen.” Certainly true; yet, many fail to follow this action up with the most important thing: asking intelligent questions. Below is a picture where you can view how prefacing your questions statistically indicates smarter questions: [Click to enlarge...]

  • The 9 Rules For Successful Investing

    VentureDig
    3 Aug 2009 | 5:00 am
    I can’t even count the number of investing books I’ve read. The problem with most investing books revolves around the fact that they’re, well, books. The stock market can be extremely confusing. It suddenly becomes much more clear when you set aside a certain amount of money and just invest. Of course, you don’t want to go in blind. Thus, if you decide to go all in (with a small pot), check out these nine tips: Don’t invest like a hedge fund manager Don’t quit when you get back to even There’s always a chance for take-overs Don’t let short-term…

  • Facebook Layouts: How To Change Your Facebook Background

    VentureDig
    22 Jul 2009 | 9:48 am
    While Facebook has clearly become the ideal social network for those wishing to stay in touch with their friends, one thing has always been missing: the ability to change your facebook background with layouts. Some protest, “But I don’t want any backgrounds–I don’t want to sacrafice speed and simplicity.” That’s fine. You don’t have to change; however, the lack of ability to actually style your facebook experience is ridiculous. And, finally with PageRage, the ability to style your facebook is now achievable. I’ve personally looked through a…
 
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    Unstructured Thoughts by Taylor Davidson

  • The Local Loci of Control

    Taylor Davidson
    3 Nov 2009 | 12:50 am
    A short note about how feedback loops and communication standards impact the loci of control. Judith D. Schwartz, What Jane Jacobs Can Teach Us About the Economy: Jane Jacobs was an advocate of decentralization; her belief that economies function on a regional, as opposed to national, level has helped spur recent interest in launching local currencies. But her suspicion of bigness was pragmatic rather than ideological: In her view, the larger and more complex the institution or economy, the less accurate the feedback it provides. And accurate feedback is crucial for a system to self-correct.

  • Making Yourself Uncomfortable

    Taylor Davidson
    2 Nov 2009 | 12:37 am
    The details behind the panel discussion “Making Yourself Uncomfortable” at TribeCon 2009 last week in New Orleans, LA. Last week at the inaugural TribeCon, a conference about the power of communities, I got the chance to participate on a panel called “Make Yourself Uncomfortable: How to Rawk a New Community” with Sloane Berrent, Shannon Lane and Carl Nelson: You want to expand your professional circle, transition into a new career, learn something new, or go to a new city and meet the locals. But how? By introducing yourself to new online and offline communities to…

  • Think big by starting small.

    Taylor Davidson
    20 Oct 2009 | 4:35 am
    A short note originally written on the Insight Community (and lightly edited here) as a response to Implementing Big Ideas During A Recession, which includes a number of thought-provoking responses well worth a click and a read. Recessions ground large organizations. Locked in groupthink and the inability for individuals to drive or commit to risky change for fear of change, big companies under-innovate and focus on reducing risk and maximizing current revenue from existing lines of business. Thinking about (and investing for) the future dries up. But recessions provide opportunities for…

  • My First Twitter Lists

    Taylor Davidson
    17 Oct 2009 | 12:03 pm
    Yes, Twitter lists are coming (already here for some, soon for others). Yes, they’re going to change things a bit. But hopefully some things will stay the same. No, I can’t create a list yet. But when I can… my first Lists will be “people that make best hashtag jokes”, “people that tweet best drunk”, “people that don’t take twitter too seriously” (link) more eventual Lists “people that routinely spill DMs into public”, “people that you won’t understand unless you also follow their bots” (link) Just…

  • Still-Simmering Conversations

    Taylor Davidson
    16 Oct 2009 | 7:41 am
    A post is just the start of a conversation; highlighting comments from still-simmering discussions. I write in public because it helps me learn; the process of writing forces me to develop ideas a bit clearer, and publishing these thoughts in public helps me learn from variety of people and communities. On that note, I wanted to highlight a couple of conversations still alive here: On The Passing of the Polymath, one of Matthew Ward’s comments: … business cycles don’t match generations anymore. If you only consider technology (and factor out globalization, restructuring,…
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    The North Blog

  • 9 Ways Your Business Could Be Using Social Media, But Probably Isn’t

    North Blogger
    3 Nov 2009 | 4:36 pm
    This just in, consumers are now spending more time on social networks than any other form of website, including porn. The time is now to make the most of this newly emerging opportunity to connect with your consumer, to shape your brand, and develop long-term customer relationships at a fraction of ‘above the line’ media costs. In 9 Ways Your Business Could Be Using Social Media, But Probably Isn’t, the team at North Social outlines all of the ways that you can leverage social media to achieve your branding and business goals. Happy Reading. Share this on FacebookTweet…

  • Top Custom Brand Facebook Pages

    Brody
    3 Nov 2009 | 10:59 am
    Customfacebookpage.com is a great resource for anyone that is in the process of figuring out how to make their brand’s facebook presence more impactful. Whether you’re a developer, designer, brand manager, or social media strategist, you can learn a lot from this site. It’s a great opportunity to explore, comment upon, and interact with some of the best custom Facebook Pages out there. In addition, if you’ve had a hand in developing or designing any kick-ass Facebook applications, custom pages, or campaigns, just click on the submit a page button and they’ll post…

  • A Guy Walks Into A Pool Hall With Harpoon Gun…

    North Blogger
    3 Nov 2009 | 10:31 am
    Okay, we talk about this a lot but it bears repeating. No company or brand can be successful if the product or service offered isn’t first attractive to the target consumer. Then we look at four key questions for a winning product to answer; 1) Does it have the ability to scale to a large consumer market?; 2) Does it solve a significant consumer pain?; 3) Does it create the opportunity for additional sales revenues for follow on transactions (ongoing consumer relationship)?; and 4) Is it within the consumer’s comparative threshold for pricing? Well, in the case of this new venture called…

  • Skating Toward The ‘Sports Gene’

    Brody
    30 Oct 2009 | 10:20 am
    The new North venture Athleticode was featured in today’s San Francisco Business Times. Excerpt: Athleticode will scan the genetic code in a sample of a player’s spit to test for myriad characteristics. They hope to indicate whether an athlete has a high propensity for concussions, heat stroke, heart arrhythmia, torn tendons or other injury. It also plans to identify whether the player has genes associated with advanced agility, endurance, nutrient absorption or flexibility. Armed with this information, athletes can tailor workouts to minimize chances of getting hurt while boosting…

  • Real-Life Lessons From Shark Tank

    North Blogger
    14 Oct 2009 | 10:26 pm
    North was recently quoted dropping some knowledge in the article, Real-Life Lessons From Shark Tank on Entrepreneur.com. Here’s an excerpt: Know when to pitch. Entrepreneurs with a well-developed product and proven financial success have the best luck with the “sharks,” says David Brody, a managing partner at the venture analysis firm North. “Nothing builds momentum like demonstrating you know how to make a cash register ring,” Brody says. Krinzman cited the entrepreneurs who failed to net funding for their “fun house” in Times Square as an example,…
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    Continuations

  • Don't Let the Funky Math of Convertibles Bite You

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:32 am
    Convertible notes tend to be a great way to raise money from angels.  They are easy to paper and don’t lock in a valuation or terms.  But they will impact the valuation of the financing that they convert into and in a way that’s a bit funky.The math of an investment when there is no converting debt is simple.  For the company as a whole it goes: Pre money valuation + total amount raised = post money valuation.  Ownership for each investor is determined as amount invested / post money valuation.  Consider a Series A financing of $3 million total on a $7 million pre.  The post-money…

  • Network Effects And Scale Economies (aka Spolsky vs. Heinemeier)

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:26 am
    David Heinemeier at 37signals published a post titled “Bug tracking isn’t a network-effect business” in response to a piece by Joel Spolsky in Inc. asking “Does Slow Growth Equal Death?”  Heinemeier’s post is a possibly intentional misreading of Spolky’s so as to make it seem more controversial than it might otherwise be, with sentences like “I don’t think Spolsky notices a difference.”  So here is why this is a non-debate: Spolsky is concerned about the impact of scale economies (in fact the word “network” never appears in his article nor any direct allusion to…

  • ad:tech Panel On State of Digital Economy

    4 Nov 2009 | 5:05 am
    I will be participating in an ad:tech panel this afternoon with the title “Digital Economy 2010: A Robust Recovery or Another Year of Trench Warfare?”  I have to admit that I am not entirely sure what that means, but in a prep call with moderator Mark Mahaney we came up with some fun questions.  The one that is most interesting is whether we may be facing a long-term decline in the percentage of GDP that is spent on advertising.  I am pretty sure that I saw a statistic to the effect that advertising as a component of GDP is the lowest it has been in a long time, but right now don’t…

  • Unemployment and Structural Change

    3 Nov 2009 | 3:53 am
    It is likely that the unemployment rate is going to hit 10 percent when the next monthly report comes out on Friday.  That is 1 in 10 people without a job (in fact it is worse because the official statistics significantly undercount).  Now we have had some growth in the economy last quarter, but a non-trivial portion of that was attributable to increased military spending and the cash-for-clunkers program, and, as Krugman points out, at a modest rate of growth it historically takes a long time to return to a lower level of unemployment. But I believe that there is an even deeper issue at…

  • Programmer-Archeologists Needed

    2 Nov 2009 | 4:51 am
    I love Vernor Vinge’s concept of a “programmer-archeologist” (A Deepness In the Sky, he also coined “programmer-at-arms”) as someone who digs through the layers of existing systems to understand why and how stuff works.  I was reminded of this over the weekend, as I worked through some old code of my own and that from a bunch of other developers on DailyLit. My exposure to “software archeology” goes as far as back as the first time I earned money from programming.  I was 17 and had just come back to Germany from one year as a high school exchange student in the US (Rochester,…
 
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    Startup Expedition

  • Patience

    stephens
    2 Nov 2009 | 5:43 am
    [This is part 5 in a 5 part series about the 5Ps of Entrepreneurship from my Entrepreneurial Journey lecture at Lawrence Tech Entrepreneurs must be patient. The more you are changing the world with your startup, the longer it will take to reach critical mass.I believe entrereneurs are born and not made. That said, I had to learn to be patient. In the beginning, I really felt my startup would take six months to reach revenue. That was 7-1/2 years ago. Mark Burnett, who changed the world with reality television, patiently waited a decade for his vision to reach critical mass. Howard Schultz,…

  • Persistence

    stephens
    30 Oct 2009 | 6:46 am
    [This is part 4 in a 5 part series about the 5Ps of Entrepreneurship from my Entrepreneurial Journey lecture at Lawrence Tech Entrepreneurs must be persistent on their startup expedition. The hardest thing in the world is to create something from nothing and change the world. Startups take time. Very few are overnight successes. With Speedraft, I endured over 1,300 rejections in a 5-1/2 year period before we got to the first “yes”. I am not alone in the persistence game. Mark Burnett changed the world of television programming with so-called Reality Television. It took him ten…

  • People

    stephens
    29 Oct 2009 | 6:05 am
    [This is part 3 in a 5 part series about the 5Ps of Entrepreneurship from my Entrepreneurial Journey lecture at Lawrence Tech Entrepreneurs must have the ability to accurately and quickly read people. For me, this has been the hardest part of being an entrepreneur. I have wasted more time and spent more money on the wrong people. It is mission critical to separate the posers from the players. It took me seven years to find the right partner with the right stuff. Startups are very similar to the challenges of an Everest expedition. Without the right leaders and sherpas, the expedition will end…

  • Passion

    stephens
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:15 am
    [This is part 2 in a 5 part series about the 5Ps of Entrepreneurship from my Entrepreneurial Journey lecture at Lawrence Tech Entrepreneurs must have passion for their startup. My passion is automating engineering transactions for custom tooling. I am second generation tool and die. The business is in my blood. You have to be obsessed about your startup to survive. Startups are a grind. A tough grind. Most take six to 10 years to reach critical mass. You face less than a 1% chance of survival in the startup world. Passion is the fuel to keep you going mentally. Howard Schultz of Starbucks had…

  • Purpose

    stephens
    27 Oct 2009 | 6:43 am
    [This is part 1 in a 5 part series about the 5Ps of Entrepreneurship from my Entrepreneurial Journey lecture at Lawrence Tech Entrepreneurs must know their purpose. My purpose with Speedraft is to “eliminate RFQs”. Purpose needs to be boiled down to a two or three word mantra. Keep it clear, concise, and compelling. The purpose of the March of Dimes is to “save babies”. For Lawrence Tech, it is “make leaders”. For Google, at least in their early days is “relevant search”. Entrepreneurs need to have a singular focus on their purpose to rapidly…
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    VC Deal Lawyer

  • Should you Take Money from a Strategic Investor?

    Chris McDemus
    26 Oct 2009 | 10:56 pm
    The fact that anyone is offering you money is a good thing, at least in times like these.  But wipe the smile off your face and realize that you have some tough decisions ahead of you - you need laser focus!  Not all money is good money, or smart money for that matter.  This issue is not limited to strategics – there are good and bad angels, good and bad VCs, good and bad private equity players, and the list goes on.  The financing sector is a microcosm of life – you get all sorts and types.  So never dismiss money just because it comes from a strategic.  All things…

  • Being the First Mover or Having No. 1 Market Share Isn’t Everything

    Chris McDemus
    25 Oct 2009 | 7:28 pm
    I don’t care if your company is bigger than the competition or has what some like to call the “first mover advantage,” beating out the competition is all about differentiation and playing to your strengths.  What recently got me thinking about this was an older podcast I was listening to from Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leadership program.  The speaker was Greg Ballard, CEO of GluMobile, and his talk was titled “Confessions of a Serial Silicon Valley CEO.”  Amongst many of his other great points, Ballard made the following comment…

  • Hiring the Right Start-Up Lawyer – No Posers Allowed!

    Chris McDemus
    21 Sep 2009 | 8:04 pm
    If you are an entrepreneur or the founder of a start-up or emerging growth company, one of the most important decisions you will make is hiring the right lawyer.  Like all things in life, there are good lawyers and bad lawyers and telling the difference up front can be difficult.  The service they sell (advice) is, at its core, intangible.  It’s not a consumer product that you can pick up off the shelf and hold in your hand or a car that you can take for a test drive.  Lawyers trade mostly off of reputation (which, itself, can produce contradictory results).  Also, lawyers can be…

  • Intuit Buys Mint.com for $170M

    Chris McDemus
    14 Sep 2009 | 10:18 pm
    I was surprised today to hear that Intuit bought Mint.com for $170M.  Maybe surprised is the wrong word.  From a deal and synergy perspective, I can certainly understand why Intuit would want to do the deal.  Reportedly, Mint.com had 1.4M users, tracked $175B in transactions and $47B in assets and identified $300M in potential savings for its users.  So not only does Intuit get access to Mint.com’s fluid and simple design but also all of the data they’ve aggregated on people’s spending/savings habits.  That’s priceless. What did surprise me was the timing.  I…

  • Let’s Talk Angel Investors

    Chris McDemus
    30 Aug 2009 | 5:50 pm
    What are Angels?  Angels are individuals that invest their own personal money in private companies, typically at a very early stage.  They are generally Accredited Investors under Reg D of the Securities Act of 1933 (meaning they have a net worth of at least $1M or that they made more than $200k the past three years or more than $300k, together with their wife, the past three years).  Most angels made their money themselves as entrepreneurs or executives.  A few of them deploy old family money, rather than their own. What role do angel investors play in venture financing? Angels bridge…
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