March 2007

Rating the SF Beta March startups [Posted on March 30, 2007 - 6:34 PM]

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Startups were displaying their wares last night at the SF Beta mixer held at San Francisco's 111 Minna gallery. They ran the gamut from established privately held companies such... Continue Reading

Photobucket overreaches with $300 million buyout price [Posted on March 29, 2007 - 6:33 PM]

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Online photo sharing startup Photobucket is in play and there's a debate about its worth. This reminds me of the MetaCafe takeover speculation late last year where a high... Continue Reading

Best Buy provides liquidity to Speakeasy VCs [Posted on March 29, 2007 - 1:10 PM]

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Best Buy's $97 million deal for pioneering broadband service provider Speakeasy Inc. provides an exit for its host of long-standing venture investors that injected about $50 million into the... Continue Reading

Vinod Khosla's complete portfolio of 26 renewable energy startups [Posted on March 29, 2007 - 12:22 PM]

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Vinod Khosla's investment activity in renewable energy startups is very deep. While speaking at the Management of Technology Lecture Series earlier this month at the Haas School of Business... Continue Reading

Mitchell Kertzman's 3 levels of VC risk mitigation [Posted on March 28, 2007 - 3:56 PM]

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Hummer Winblad's Mitchell Kertzman participated on the venture capital panel at SDForum's Platform 2.0 conference yesterday in Santa Clara. Much of the discussion with fellow VCs from Morgenthaler Ventures,... Continue Reading

NEA chalks up fourth 2007 exit with Glu Mobile IPO [Posted on March 27, 2007 - 2:42 PM]

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New Enterprise Associates is following up a strong 2006 with an equally impressive 2007. In three months, the venture capital firm has achieved four liquidity events. Granted, the firm... Continue Reading

Join me tomorrow at SDForum's application development conference [Posted on March 26, 2007 - 7:56 PM]

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I'll be moderating a panel tomorrow afternoon at the Platform 2.0: The Next Generation conference organized by SDForum. Representatives from Microsoft, SAP, Sun, Salesforce.com, Google and others will spend the... Continue Reading

Partech on its RockYou investment [Posted on March 26, 2007 - 3:20 PM]

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With its diversified approach to Europe and the US as well as balancing between IT and life sciences, Partech's careful move into Web 2.0 investments is hardly a surprise.... Continue Reading

Redpoint, CRV and Meritech poised to profit from BigBand IPO [Posted on March 22, 2007 - 5:08 PM]

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Eight years and $100 million later, most of BigBand Networks' venture capitalists are still waiting. But, they're a lot closer than they were earlier this year. The triple play... Continue Reading

Matrix Partners' David Skok profits again; this time from Tabblo [Posted on March 22, 2007 - 1:18 PM]

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Despite having a small portfolio of Internet companies relative to its systems and software startups, Matrix Partners has managed to exit one of them. Hewlett Packard said today it... Continue Reading

Benchmark, Sequoia, DFJ top most active Web 2.0 VC list [Posted on March 21, 2007 - 3:53 PM]

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Benchmark Capital, Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson have made the most investments in Web 2.0 companies, according to statistics released today by VentureOne. The data also showed that the... Continue Reading

BooRah expands reach, prepares VC fundraising [Posted on March 21, 2007 - 8:30 AM]

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BooRah, an innovative restaurant review startup, unveiled today a slew of new enhancements. This is important news because the company that I rated number two out of 62 at... Continue Reading

VC Rating: Zopa raises $12.9 million to take on Prosper [Posted on March 20, 2007 - 4:24 PM]

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Company: Zopa Description: Person to person online lending Competitors: Prosper Location: London Amount Raised: $12.9 million Round: Third Date Announced: 3/19/07 VC Firms: Bessemer Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital, Wellington... Continue Reading

VCs reflect on Web 2.0 milestones [Posted on March 20, 2007 - 3:14 PM]

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I'm not sure if it's the last day of winter or something else, but a couple venture capitalists have decided today to philosophize on the state of Web 2.0... Continue Reading

Emergence Capital preparing second fund [Posted on March 19, 2007 - 1:30 PM]

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Emergence Capital Partners, a venture capital firm focused on technology-enabled services startups, is preparing to raise a second fund targeting $175 million, $50 million more than its first fund.... Continue Reading

How to measure VC contribution to a portfolio company [Posted on March 16, 2007 - 2:02 PM]

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The Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business treated me and a couple journalists to a nice breakfast at Il Fornaio earlier this week.... Continue Reading

Vinod Khosla's 5 Rules [Posted on March 14, 2007 - 7:27 PM]

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Vinod Khosla kicked off the Management of Technology Lecture Series this afternoon at the Haas School of Business in Berkeley with more details about how he's built his investment... Continue Reading

TellMe the next Benchmark and Kleiner company to sell [Posted on March 14, 2007 - 4:35 PM]

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Microsoft's acquisition of TellMe for what GigaOm is reporting to be between $800 million and $1 billion provides a respectable, if not spectacular, return to a large group of... Continue Reading

Another qualitative VC Ratings service launches [Posted on March 14, 2007 - 3:05 PM]

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When I conceived VC Ratings last year, it was supposed to be more than just a blog. As the title suggest, the service was supposed to actually rate VCs.... Continue Reading

Sequoia and NEA win big with Sourcefire IPO [Posted on March 12, 2007 - 2:51 PM]

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Already sitting on two of the best VC exits of 2007, Sequoia and NEA did it again last week when Sourcefire completed an IPO on Nasdaq. The two firms... Continue Reading

Scale VP closes $400 million fund without BoA [Posted on March 8, 2007 - 6:43 PM]

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BA Venture Partners somehow has continued on as an intact venture capital firm despite launching in the inauspicious venture year of 2000 and then being abandoned by its sole... Continue Reading

VC Rating: Kleiner Perkins backs online map community, Platial [Posted on March 8, 2007 - 1:35 PM]

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Company: Platial Description: Online mapping community Competitors: Plazes, Google Maps, AskCity Location: Portland Amount Raised: $2.4 million Round: First Date Announced: 3/6/07 VC Firms: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,... Continue Reading

John Battelle's Federated Media tries to put itself in play [Posted on March 8, 2007 - 2:15 AM]

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Federated Media, the advertising agent to blog stars, is pondering its exit. Founded less than two years ago by former Industry Standard publisher John Battelle, the startup raised an... Continue Reading