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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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