May 2007

First Round Capital stumbles upon first big exit [Posted on May 31, 2007 - 9:54 PM]

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The wave of momentum that's been building up over the past year in First Round Capital's portfolio hit a crescendo this week with the announcement of its first significant... Continue Reading

Adios Magellan, Looksmart, Mahalo, whatever your name is [Posted on May 31, 2007 - 1:31 PM]

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Jason Calacanis' new venture, Mahalo, has launched to mixed reviews. The human-edited search engine endeavors to offer users better results for the 10,000 most popular search terms, which account... Continue Reading

eBay buys StumbleUpon for no discernible reason [Posted on May 30, 2007 - 7:13 PM]

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I love acquisitions where the acquirer spends millions of dollars of shareholders' money but won't deign to explain why. eBay seems to be on the buy side of many... Continue Reading

Index Ventures burnishes reputation further with Last.fm exit [Posted on May 30, 2007 - 4:58 PM]

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One year after raising an undisclosed amount of funding from Index Ventures, Last.fm has hit the jackpot. The $280 million sale to CBS marks another major Web 2.0 exit... Continue Reading

LaNetro Zed considers InfoSpace; TerraLycos Part Deux? [Posted on May 29, 2007 - 4:30 PM]

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Apparently the moratorium on Spanish companies buying American Internet companies has expired. In the wake of Terra's awful purchase of Lycos, cross-border activity died down for a while. Today,... Continue Reading

Fatdoor launches - another local play DOA? [Posted on May 29, 2007 - 1:48 PM]

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I know that one of these startups targeting local markets will succeed eventually. But, because it's so tough to transfer success from one market to hundreds of others, I'm... Continue Reading

A professor ruins Fred Wilson's great week [Posted on May 26, 2007 - 8:31 PM]

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It had been quite a week for Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson. First, WallStrip, an online finance video startup that Wilson had invested in, was sold to CBS just... Continue Reading

The danger of Facebook's new strategy [Posted on May 25, 2007 - 11:32 AM]

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It's hard to argue with the logic behind Facebook's decision to open up its social network to outside applications. It means its users will spend more time on the... Continue Reading

Couldn't Sequoia find a better real estate startup than Trulia? [Posted on May 25, 2007 - 10:29 AM]

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Sequoia Capital's $10 million Series C investment into online real estate information site Trulia is a smart move for the firm. Growing company. Rich market in flux. Very high... Continue Reading

Accel and Norwest VCs share strategies for targeting teens [Posted on May 24, 2007 - 4:09 PM]

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With $195 billion in spending power, its no wonder so many venture capitalists and corporations are targeting the 13-18 year old market. I moderated a panel yesterday at an SDForum... Continue Reading

Facebook and Apple dominating teen technology usage [Posted on May 23, 2007 - 9:06 PM]

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Judged against most of the student entrepreneurs in attendance at today's Teens in Tech conference, I was a major slacker in high school. It was quite shocking to see what... Continue Reading

Join me tomorrow at SDForum's Teens and Tech conference [Posted on May 22, 2007 - 11:55 PM]

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I'll be moderating a panel tomorrow morning at a half-day SDForum event called Next Generation Tech: Teens Plugged In. The main topic of discussion will be how best to invest... Continue Reading

CBS buys Wallstrip for the technology, not the content [Posted on May 22, 2007 - 3:44 PM]

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When I first heard last week that CBS was in the process of buying Wallstrip, I thought it was just the latest example of a stupid purchase by old... Continue Reading

IVP will continue to focus on late stage with new fund [Posted on May 22, 2007 - 3:10 PM]

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While some firms struggling to adjust to the new venture capital market have thrown in the towel or reflexively focused on consumer Internet investments, Institutional Venture Partners has gone... Continue Reading

Safeguard Scientifics still paying for the Internet bust [Posted on May 21, 2007 - 4:32 PM]

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When most people hear about Safeguard Scientifics, they think back to when the publicly traded venture capital firm was worth billions of dollars owing to its stake in Internet... Continue Reading

TechMeme's founding myth [Posted on May 17, 2007 - 3:40 PM]

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It's common practice for entrepreneurs to promote their company by talking about an amazing Eureka Moment that caused them to establish their companies in the first place. eBay founder... Continue Reading

Dawntreader Ventures MD on social shopping trends [Posted on May 15, 2007 - 3:30 PM]

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Dawntreader Ventures managing director Ed Sim views this week's sales of social shopping sites Cork'd and dreview.com as more evidence that e-commerce companies are looking to build content and... Continue Reading

AOL's Third Screen Media buy benefits a pair of smaller VCs [Posted on May 15, 2007 - 2:51 PM]

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TD Capital Ventures and Blue Chip Venture Co. are two of the main beneficiaries of AOL's purchase of mobile phone advertising startup Third Screen Media for an undisclosed amount... Continue Reading

TheLadders.com is growing [Posted on May 11, 2007 - 5:10 PM]

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It looks like Matrix Partners' investment in high-end job site TheLadders.com is developing nicely. It may be the complementary beers that I consumed last night at the TheLadders.com/GigaOm party... Continue Reading

54 seconds of fame [Posted on May 10, 2007 - 8:35 PM]

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Actually, my contribution lasted closer to 10 seconds. But, I enjoy public radio and was happy to participate in a 54 second report on Apple's shareholder meeting today. I... Continue Reading

Intel Capital CEO Summit highlights [Posted on May 10, 2007 - 3:12 PM]

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Intel Capital remains the most significant corporate venture capitalist by a longshot. So, its CEO Summit in Carlsbad this week is garnering a lot of attention. Aside from announcing... Continue Reading

Merger mania: Google, eBay, Yahoo, Fox [Posted on May 9, 2007 - 6:02 PM]

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Six months ago, it was a fair question to ask where the Web 2.0 exits were? Because for all of the ink spilled and money invested on them, profitable... Continue Reading

Google buying a vertical search startup? No way [Posted on May 4, 2007 - 5:43 PM]

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A research analyst is reporting that Google is in negotiations to purchase job search engine SimplyHired, according to a blog post today on Alarm:Clock. Call me SimplySkeptical. I don't... Continue Reading