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October 31, 2007
Vmix Changes Biz Model Away From Destination Site. Now Powering 190 Social Networks
VMix has made the age old transition from a consumer destination site to a white label platform. The consumer site did well enough but that never satisfies investors.
San Diego-based Vmix says today that is it powering more than 190 white label social networks that reached an aggregate 60M monthly unique visitors. That was sufficient for it to close $16.5M in a new round of funding. New investors JK&B Capital and ATA Ventures joined existing investors Mission Ventures and Enterprise Partners.
We really appreciate what Ning has done and have heard good things about Kickapps. So It would seem that Vmix will need to do some very special things to pull up.
View - site
Press Release Source: VMIX
VMIX Secures $16.5 Million in Venture Funding
Wednesday October 31, 9:00 am ET
VMIX powers UGC, premium video and social networks for more than 190 Media Brands and Web Sites
SAN DIEGO, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VMIX, the leading interactive media, video and social networking company, today announced the closing of a $16.5 million equity financing. New investors JK&B Capital and ATA Ventures joined existing investors Mission Ventures and Enterprise Partners in this round. The funding will be applied to extending the company's lead in supplying the VMIX CORE software platform to companies and organizations across the globe. VMIX was represented by Revolution Partners in the transaction.
This financing follows a period of remarkable growth for the company. "VMIX has contracted with some of the largest media and information companies in the U.S., covering over 190 websites with an audience reach in excess of 60 million monthly unique visitors," said Greg Kostello, chairman and CEO of VMIX Media. "Our customers today, including Tribune Interactive, Media General, Lee Enterprises, are leveraging their brands by integrating video, rich media and social networking features into their websites, and the VMIX CORE platform allows them to do so quickly and easily."
Tom Neustaetter, Partner with JK&B Capital adds, "The VMIX team has successfully created a one-stop shop for clients who want to turn their online media properties into rich and engaging communities, particularly for hyper-local news."
"Media consumption habits are rapidly shifting, and audiences are demanding more interaction with content. VMIX is helping media companies to quickly adapt to these changes, helping clients attract, engage, and retain their audience while driving growth in advertising revenues," said Hatch Graham, Managing Director with ATA Ventures.
About JK&B Capital
Founded in 1996, JK&B Capital is a Chicago-based venture capital firm with more than $1.1 billion under management which focuses on the communications and software markets. JK&B has established a track record of generating exceptional returns through its unmatched technology and operational expertise and its rigorous research and investment approach.
About ATA Ventures
ATA Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on seeking out early stage private companies which appear to offer above average prospects for capital growth. With over $350 Million of capital under management, ATA Ventures focuses on Information Technology (IT) and provides seed capital and early stages of financing to these companies.
About VMIX
VMIX is the leading provider of software and services that enable organizations to deliver video, rich media, social networking, user-generated content, and interactive community features to their online audiences.
The VMIX CORE software platform provides a turnkey solution for media management of videos, audio, photos, and slideshows, along with social networking and community features. In addition to powering over 190 partner online media properties, VMIX CORE is the backbone for the VMIX.COM destination website.
Since its inception, VMIX has been a dedicated innovator and on the leading edge of the online media, user-generated content and social networking technologies. The company is the trusted partner for news and entertainment companies like Tribune Interactive, Media General, LIN Broadcasting, and Warner Bros/Telepictures. For more information, visit http://core.vmix.com.
Contact:
Jennifer Juckett
858-792-8649, ext. 117
VMIX
Posted at 07:48 PM | Posted to Video | TrackBack
eCrush's Clark Benson: Where Is He Now?
The eCrush network comprises three major sites: eCRUSH.com, eSPINtheBottle.com and HighSchoolStyleBoard.com. The network was acquired by Hearst Media on December 31, 2006. The eCRUSH site was launched on Valentine's Day, 1999 in Chicago by Clark Benson making it one of the original social networking sites. eCrush did $1.4M in profit in 2006. Hearst Media paid a rumored $8-12M for the eCrush network.
Clark Benson
These days Benson is living in LA where he is launching two startups. The more mature is Almighty Institute of Music Retail.
Benson's other startup in formation is a pre-name venture also based in LA which says it has raised "$1M in seed financing with access to plenty more." Here's how they describe the stealth mode venture:
"Concept involves social networking but is NOT a "Myspace for
Benson has brought in Eleanor Blattel as a founding exec. She was Vice President, New Media and Digital Business Development at Sanctuary Records Group.
Read - Startup Review Post On eCrush
Posted at 07:09 PM | Posted to Where Are They Now | TrackBack
NYC Casual Gamer Rebel Monkey Takes First Round
VCs continue to show interest in casual games startups. They are drawn by a mix of low risk as casual games cost so little to create and if they are any good enjoy great viral spread.
Founded in January 2007, Chelsea NYC-based Rebel Monkey has called down $255K of a $1M Series A round from Redpoint Ventures.
Margaret Wallace is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rebel Monkey. Before Rebel Monkey, she co-Founded and was CEO of Skunk Studios makers of Gutterball, QBeez and Tamale Loco..
View - site
Posted at 04:33 PM | Posted to Games | TrackBack
Car Sharing's ZipCar Merges With Flexcar
Zipcar is merging with rival Flexcar. No financial terms were disclosed. The greater entity will be known as Zipcar with Zipcar's CEO Scott Griffith as CEO and will retain Cambridge, MA as its HQ.
This seems like good timing for such a deal:
+Car sharing has proven that it has legs but the sector has nowhere near reached its potential.
+ The merged Flexcar and Zipcar may make it the biggest player in the sector and enable it to raise further funds to grow faster than the competition.
+ The new Zipcar claims 120K members and 3,500 vehicles in more than 35 cities, including Boston, NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC, Vancouver, Toronto and London.
+ Competition from Avis and Hertz may well come. Uhaul has already launched a rival program.
If you haven't tried car sharing, it works like this: You pay your monthly dues to join the Zipcar club. With that you get a smart card that you can use to get into Zipcars which are parked in small numbers around a number of larger cities. Via Zipcar's web site or using your mobile phone you can reserve a car for an hour or a day. You then have the freedom to get groceries or drive out to the beach for the day without having to own a car and pay for parking. You can drive from $7.44/hr & $55.25/day.
Zipcar has raised around $38M in VC funding from Benchmark Capital, Greylock and Globespan. Flexcar's owner -- investment firm Revolution LLC, controlled by AOL co-founder Steve Case -- will be the largest individual shareholder in the new company.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Zipcar and Flexcar, leading car sharing providers, announced today the companies will merge. Together these two companies will represent an international network able to deliver new member benefits and accelerated growth to the burgeoning car sharing industry. The combined company will operate under the Zipcar brand and be headquartered in Cambridge, MA, under the leadership of Zipcar's chairman and chief executive, Scott Griffith.
Zipcar and Flexcar currently operate car sharing programs, providing members with on-demand access to a diverse fleet of vehicles conveniently located throughout major metropolitan areas. To use the service, members reserve a vehicle online or via a mobile device, use a smartcard to open the doors, take their trip, and then return the car at the end of the reservation. A simple hourly or daily fee covers gas, insurance, maintenance, parking and 24-7 emergency service.
The merger will come at a time when car sharing is increasingly acknowledged as a smart urban lifestyle choice and transportation alternative. Today, with growing competition within the industry, and more than 30 independent car sharing companies operating in the U.S. alone, the combined Zipcar will have a stronger base from which to compete, particularly against leading car rental firms' product introductions targeted at the car sharing industry.
"This merger will be a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts," said Scott Griffith, CEO, Zipcar. "The combined company will provide our members with increased benefits and improve our ability to expand into new markets. The management and employees of both companies are proud to be contributing to the progression of the industry, and we believe as a combined company, we will be more effective in making car sharing a mainstream form of transportation in cities throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe."
Zipcar currently operates in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto and London while Flexcar operates in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Both companies provide car sharing on college campuses where traffic congestion and limited parking are frequent challenges.
"When we acquired Flexcar in 2005 our goal was to bring car sharing to more people in more places," said Steve Case, Chairman of Revolution LLC. "The Zipcar merger will accelerate this effort, and we look forward to continuing our commitment to this important industry."
"With very little geographic overlap, the combined company will serve its members by taking the best attributes and features of each company and making a great service even better," said Mark Norman, formerly Flexcar's CEO, who will assume the roles of president and COO of Zipcar at closing.
Upon merging, member benefits will include: -- Award winning technology: Members will access the vehicles through Zipcar's Z3D, industry-leading technology. The proprietary platform fully connects the information flow between vehicles, members and Zipcar.com -- Universal membership: The Zipcar membership will enable the self- service reservation of any vehicle in any city in the combined Zipcar, Flexcar network simply by using the Zipcar.com website or mobile interface. -- Premium insurance: All members will be covered under an industry leading insurance plan with limits of $300,000 per accident. -- More convenience: Especially in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco (markets where both companies currently operate), the combined fleets will give existing members of each service hundreds more locations from which to choose. In addition, members will now be able to reserve cars in more cities. -- Green options: Both companies have a commitment to environmental responsibility, and now members will have access to more hybrid vehicles.
Car sharing programs are proven to have significant positive environmental and social impacts. National studies show that each shared car replaces up to 20 privately owned vehicles. Car sharing members report driving significantly less and are more likely to walk, bike, and use public transportation. Members also report savings of $500 or greater per month compared to the average cost of owning and operating a car in the city, and businesses have saved thousands of dollars by eliminating company fleets or augmenting their transportation offerings with car sharing programs.
All media are invited to join a telephonic press conference today (Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007) at 12:00 p.m. EDT. Please visit http://www.zipcar.com/press/press-call for details on this and additional information surrounding this announcement.
About Zipcar
Zipcar is the world's leading, with more than 120,000 members and 3,500 vehicles in major metropolitan areas and colleges campuses in more than 35 cities, including Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Vancouver, Toronto and London, England. As a leading urban lifestyle brand, Zipcar provides a convenient and cost effective transportation alternative for individuals, businesses and universities throughout the United Kingdom and 18 North American states and provinces. For more information, visit http://www.zipcar.com/.
About Flexcar
Flexcar founded the U.S. car sharing industry and has operations in more cities (15) across the U.S. than any other provider. By the hour or by the day, members can reserve and drive any of these cars whenever and wherever they need to, without filling out complicated paperwork or paying for insurance, gas or repairs. Flexcar Business Memberships enable companies to augment or replace their fleet with Flexcar vehicles. Flexcar's University programs enable campuses to address parking and mobility issues for faculty, staff and students. Flexcar's fleet includes environmentally-friendly hybrid sedans, utility vehicles (including pickups, minivans, and SUVs), sporty cars (including MINIs, Miatas and Scion tCs) and luxury vehicles (Lexus). Flexcar is a portfolio company of Revolution Living, an operating unit of Steve Case's investment firm Revolution, LLC. For more information, visit http://www.flexcar.com/.
Contacts: Kristina Kennedy Zipcar 617.995.4304 kkennedy@Zipcar.com John Williams Flexcar (206) 625-0075 jwilliams@scovillepr.com
Zipcar
Copyright © 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved.
Posted at 11:12 AM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack
BestBuy Invests in Video Storage's Mydeo
Big box retailer Best Buy plans to launch an online service where its customers can store and share home movies and videos on the Internet through a partnership with Mydeo. BestBuy also took a stake in Mydeo.
Mydeo provides quality global streaming video hosting for home and business users. The site provides online tools that help users upload and distribute streaming videos as well as live statistics to track how popular videos have been.The cheapest plan from Bestbuy will retail for $6.97 per month and will allow up to 100 minutes of video hosting and a 30-minute time limit on the lengths of any one video, and 5K views of videos.
Wimbledon, UK-based Mydeo was founded in November 2003.
Mydeo CEO Cary Marsh gives us 11 reasons why they are not YouTube (does that sound defensive?)
1. We are not a destination site – our members’ videos are private and we don’t show them anywhere on our site. The user controls where the videos are viewed.
2. Our videos open in the standard Windows Media Player – so the user is not sent to a website for viewing where other content may not be appropriate.
3. Quality – we offer true high quality streaming video (not progressive download) at any resolution the user chooses. Youtube compress the videos to lower resolution to save bandwidth costs.
4.You can upload video up to 90 minutes in duration – youtube limit is 10 minutes. So you can stream the entire speaker, conference, training video
5. We can stream video captured in widescreen:
http://www.mydeo.com/videorequest.asp?XID=5747&CID=83612
Youtube compress to a standard viewing size meaning widescreen is lost. Most people are capturing and editing in widescreen these days.
6. We don't claim any rights to users’ videos (you grant all distribution rights to YouTube on upload).
7. We run no adverts on or around our members’ videos.
8. We put no logo or watermark on our members’ videos.
9. We are customer service focused – real people and fast customer response times. Youtube take around a week to get back to members’ queries.
10. We have built a trusted brand.
11. Small businesses can use Mydeo. (YouTube terms prohibit uploading videos for business purposes)
In short, we offer quality video hosting for people with content they value. Our membership is 50:50 consumers and small businesses and our users are mostly aged 30-50.
Read - WashingtonPost
Posted at 01:29 AM | Posted to Video | TrackBack
Mobile Classified's Gumiyo Raises 2nd Round
LA-based Gumiyo is a mobile online marketplace that uses cell phones to connect live buyers and sellers. Using any mobile phone, sellers can capture images or video of an item, attach the image to atext message, and send them to Gumiyo where the item will be listed. Gumiyo then places these listings on other Web sites including Froogle, Oodle and elsewhere.
Buyers can the search and browse items from mobile phones, get alerts to their mobile phone or email when new items become available, and contact sellers directly through a cell-to-cell connection, text messages or email.
Today, Gumiyo says it raised a 2nd round of financing, although its not saying how much.
Read - announcement
Posted at 01:14 AM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack
Get Your HDTV Over The Net With Grid Networks
Grid Networks wants to stream TV shows and films in HD and high-fidelity sound to your computer or TV using the Internet to get it you. Grid is not saying much but it looks like they will use P2P tech and partner with cable companies so that an additional box is not required.
Seattle's Grid Networks has raised $9.5M in its first round led by Panorama Capital and "two strategic investors to be disclosed in the future."
Grid's CEO Naughtin and several other GridNetworks execs were co-founders of Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP ).
Read - announcement
Posted at 01:00 AM | Posted to Video | TrackBack
FORA.tv Update: Adobe Joins Will Hearst In Funding C-SPAN Knock-off
Last April, the a:c was first to report that Fora.tv had been funded by Will Hearst and others. The San Francisco-based startup wants to marry CSPAN content with the Internet. Today, Fora.tv goes public with its funding, adding that Adobe Ventures is among the funders. Fora.tv, however, still is not disclosing the amount of funding, nor has is it saying much about its traffic and traction.
CSPAN viewers will recognize FORA.tv's content partners: C-SPAN; the Chautauqua Institution; the World Affairs Councils of Northern California, Dallas, Oregon, Philadelphia and Connecticut; The Brookings Institution; Hoover Institution; the Cato Institute; New America Foundation; The Heritage Foundation; The Aspen Institute; The Commonwealth Club; The New School; The Long Now Foundation; the Museum of the African Diaspora; Asia Society; Hong Kong’s Civic Exchange; University of London; Chatham House in London; Cambridge University; the Transatlantic Institute in Brussels; The Royal Institute for International Relations - EGMONT; and many of the America’s top independent booksellers.
Read - Will Hearst Angel Funds CSPANish Fora.tv (the a:c)
Posted at 12:05 AM | Posted to Video | TrackBack
October 30, 2007
Virtual Worlds Meet Trading Cards At Hidden City Games
Seattle fantasy game maker Hidden City Games has raised $15M+ in Series B from Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Ventures. The startup currently operates three virtual worlds that are built around collectible trading card games.
Bella Sara trading cards are horse-themed fantasy cards for girls. Each card comes with code that activates a virtual version of the horse pictured on the card at the Bella Sara web site. There, children can brush, feed, and water their virtual horses in their online stable, read stories about their horses
CEO Peter Adksion also operates Gen Con Indy, a larges games convention. He was previously founder and CEO of Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro).
View - site
Posted at 04:10 PM | Posted to Games | TrackBack
Stuck In Owner Manual Hell? OwnerIQ Funded
Here at the a:c, we have been having a hell of a time getting our universal remote to work. So we turned to the Internet and like magic we found the manual. We may have OwnerIQ to thank. It operates sites like LaundryManuals.com, CarAudio.ManualsOnline.com, TheUserManualSite.com, .ManualsOnline.com, KitchenManuals.com, PortableMedia.ManualsOnline.com and Audio.ManualsOnline.com.
OwnerIQ has raised $2M from Atlas Venture, CommonAngels and the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation. The company operates a network of Web sites that helps people find user manuals and other self-support information for consumer products. The company makes a living by selling advertising manufacturers and brand advertisers.
OwnerIQ was founded by some of the management team from Bitpipe, an IT network that was sold to TechTarget (Nasdaq: TTGT) in late 2004. The OwnerIQ network has grown to more than 700K unique monthly visitors every month who come to access self-support information from more than 2,200 manufacturers.
Posted at 01:14 PM | Posted to | TrackBack
Real Estate/Foodie Blog Network Curbed Raises $1.5M From Angels
NYC-based Real estate blog network Curbed.com, has raised $1.5M in financing to expand into new cities from its base in New York, LA and San Francisco. Curbed was launched by former Gawker Media Managing Editor Lockhart Steele, the network’s publisher, Steele says that traffic on Curbed is growing 10% per month.
Gawker Media's Nick Denton, Zach Nelson (CEO of NetSuite), and Brad Inman (publisher of the real estate news service Inman News). are among the angel investors in Curbed.
The curbed sites are great looking and it enjoys strong writing. Curbed also publishes companion sites for each city called Eater, devoted to food reviews.
Read - NY Times
Posted at 11:56 AM | Posted to Media | TrackBack
Private Label Video SocNet Vitrue Raises $10M
Waterfront Media's WhatToExpect.com is a pretty cool site that takes advantage of user submitted video as companions to lessons from the book that helps teach new parents how to deal with their arrival of their babies. Waterfront didn't build the site, but used a video social networking platform built by Atlanta-based Vitrue.
Vitrue creates white label video-centric social media sites that enable consumers to create, edit and submit videos and content. It competes with other social network building startups like Ning, which also has video.
Vitrue has closed a $10M Series B round led by Dace Ventures, with return backers Comcast Interactive Capital and Turner Broadcasting and General Catalyst Partners. ViTrue also owns the video sharing destination site Sharkle.
Read - announcement
Posted at 11:35 AM | Posted to Video | TrackBack
October 29, 2007
Shipwire Founder Writes The Supply Chain Manual
Damon Schechter wrote the book: Delivering the Goods - The Art of Managing Your Supply Chain (Wiley, 2002). Then he founded a company to put the book's lessons into action.
With Shipwire, online merchants can outsource the process of receiving, warehousing and shipping merchandise. Shipwire works with small- to medium-sized business to give them access to a national warehouse network with bundled pricing. Shipwire currently claims more than 30K online stores use Shipwire technology. Monthly fees range from a low $29.95.
Today, Sunnyvale-based Shipwire announced that it has raised $4M in Series A round, led by Meakem Becker Venture Capital. The VC firm is run by the co-founders of FreeMarkets, which was acquired by Ariba in 2003.
Read - announcement
Posted at 07:35 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack
Worktopia Raises $5M For Expedia Meets Meeting Places
NYC-based Worktopia, a booking engine for meeting space in hotels and airport lounges, has raised $5M led by DFJ Gotham Ventures with Milestone Venture Partners and High Peaks Venture Partners. We gave it a whirl and it definitely seems like it is a valuable service, it just needs some more filling out with more listings.
Worktopia currently claims about 2K small meeting spots listed
Visit - site
Read - announcement
Posted at 07:25 PM | Posted to Search | TrackBack
Shawn Of The Dead: Snocap Perishes. imeem Prospers.
Within a mile of each other in San Francisco, digital music Snocap is in the dead zone while another digital music startup imeem is in 24 hour party mode. Snocap was founded by Napster founder Shaun Fanning has cut its head count by 60% and is looking for any buyers. Meanwhile another digital music startup imeem just signed another major record label, EMI, which joins the imeem's growing partners base of record majors who are cool with imeem's ad supported music sharing rollout.
The ironies are thick here as Fanning's first startup Napster could easily have morphed into iMeem but the record companies at the time refused to take Napseter off their s*#t list. Moreover, this time around imeem relies on Snocap to protect the record companies via Snocap's fingerprinting tech.
The demise of Snocap must came as a great surprise to its founders: people like super angel Ron Conway as well as Morgenthaler Ventures and WaldenVC. With so many digital music startups flourishing how did Snocap get is wrong? It seems that the money is either being made by iTunes, which doesn't use Snocap or by ad supported music sharing services like iMeem and LastFM. Fanning and company learned from their mistakes at Napster and are paying a price for that as the music landscape has shifted again.
Read - iMeem/EMI announcement
Posted at 01:49 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack
SAP's Departed Golden Boy Shai Agassi Raises $200M For Electric Car Startup
Shai Agassi startled everyone at SAP when he left the company. Only 39 years old, Agassi was expected to some day take over the helm at SAP. At his departure from SAP Agassi indicated that he would be focusing on alternative energy in Israel.
Now news is breaking that Agassi has raised $200M for his startup called Better Place. The startup has raised $100M from Israel Corp. as well as funding from VantagePoint Venture Partners, a large New York investment bank that wasn't immediately identified, and angel investors including Edgar Bronfman Sr.
Agassi plans are to shake up the business model for electric vehicles. It will sell or lease electric cars to consumers in packages with monthly service fees (Agassi uses the cell phone plan as an analogy). Better Place will also operate networks of charging locations and service stations. One of the problems with electric vehicles is that you can't make it too far from your home base before you run out of juice. Better Place stations will just replace your battery so you can get on your way. Agassi plans to pilot the project in a few countries next year and begin mass deployments in 2010.
Read - BusinessWeek
Posted at 12:14 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack
Intent MediaWorks Merges W/Beyond Media
Beyond Media has merged with Atlanta's Intent MediaWorks. No financial terms were disclosed. The new firm will apparently be called Beyond Intent. It will begin selling a P2P ad insertion platform. Here's their pitch: "Content owners will be able to track market demand across their entire catalog or a specific file - from terrestrial and Internet radio play to Internet search-and-discovery across the most popular file-sharing networks. Content owners can utilize the company's real-time market intelligence to target content to consumers based on location, demographics, content interests and past discovery and purchase behavior in order to improve campaign performance for new content or monetize the long tail of their catalog."
Intent MediaWorks has raised over $11M from Allen & Co., SoftBank Capital, Bertelsmann Capital Ventures, Greycroft Partners, and others.
Read - Announcement
Posted at 11:06 AM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack
Israeli Broadband TV Startup Imagine Communications Closes $15M Round
Israel's Imagine Communications has closed $15M in new funding and is on the verge of announcing a deal with a strategic partner with tens of millions of dollars, reports local newspaper Globes. With the $15M, Imagine has now raised $25M. Globes is led by a couple of techs who had worked at BigBand which was one of the bigger IPOs of an Israeli founded company in recent years.
Imagine says it is delivering 50%-100% more streams on existing network infrastructure over its mutliplexing gateway. It plans to offer more user personalization as well as ad insertion.
Posted at 02:28 AM | Posted to Video | TrackBack
Evergreen Solar Plans To Spin-out EverQ For IPO
Evergreen Solar (Nasdaq: ELSR) says it will spin off its EverQ unit in an IPO in late 2008 or early 2009. Marlboro, MA-based Evergreen Solar jointly owns EverQ with Norway's Renewable Energy Corp. and Germany's-Q-Cells.
EverQ makes photovoltaic panels for solar electric systems. In conjunction with the spin-ff announcement, investors say they have approved a 144M euro ($205.9M) investment in a new solar wafer, cell and module plant in Thalheim, Germany, which will increase EverQ's production capacity by 80%.
Read - Boston Biz Journal
Posted at 02:06 AM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack
Judge Denies $10M Bribe To CEO
Versus Financial is a pretty shady story that casts an ugly light on both its CEO and its VCs. Here are the facts.
+ Verus Financial Management sold to a British company for $325M in 2005.
+ CEO Richardson M. Roberts said in a lawsuit that he only agreed to the deal because he had been promised a $10M from Verus' backers San Francisco-based Financial Technology Ventures.
+ "Under his own admissions, (Roberts) extracted a payment from another shareholder in exchange for supporting, as CEO, an action that he otherwise did not think was in the best interest of the shareholders," wrote presiding Judge AletaTrauger who denied Roberts his claim to be paid $10M from Financial Technology Ventures.
+ Roberts argued that he needed the $10M to help finance his divorce from his wife, however, he stood to make $50M+ from the sale of Verus.
Read - AP story
Posted at 01:53 AM | Posted to Financial Software | TrackBack
October 26, 2007
Gamer PCs' Hypersonic Bought By OCZ
OCZ Technology Group plans to acquire Hypersonic PC Systems out of Great Neck, NY. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Sunnyvale-based OCZ designs, develops and manufactures memory and computer components while Hypersonic makes performance gaming PCs.
Read - San Jose Biz Journal
View - Hypersonic site
Posted at 12:16 PM | Posted to Hardware | TrackBack
Seattle's RealSelf Angel Funded
Seattles RealSelf has raised a seed round of funding. RealSelf is a resource for sharing real experiences about looking & feeling younger. Angels include Richard Barton, CEO of Zillow, Bill Gossman, CEO of Revenue Sciences, and Nick Hanauer, Partner at Second Avenue Partners. The firm is led by CEO
Tom Seery who was Director of Market Development at Expedia. He founded RealSelf in November 2005.
The site is geared for people interested in things like botox or hair restoration.
Read - Mashable
Posted at 11:00 AM | Posted to Social Networking | TrackBack
October 25, 2007
Webshots Packs Its Suit Case Again As CNET Sells It To American Greetings
CNET Networks has sold its Webshots subsidiary to American Greetings for $45M in cash. CNET has bought iin August 2004 Webshots for $70M. Webshots launched in 1996 as a professional photo screensaver/wallpaper site, but expanded into photo sharing in 1999. Excite@Home bought Webshots in 1999. Two years later Webshots' management team bought Webshots back from Excite for pennies on the dollar and then subsequently sold it to CNET for another big gain in 2004.
Why would CNET sell Webshots at this point and at a loss? Because CNET is the New York Knicks of online media. Webshots is one unit at CNET that has been showing success, with traffic up 25% from last year to 7.2M uniques in September. Hang on to Webshots at least another year and at least CNET doesn't take a loss on it. What's more CNET doesn't need the money. It just closed a $200M credit line. CNET's CEO says it was a tough decision and hints at upcoming strategic changes which will become apparent to us. Still we can't imagine they can give us a reason for panic selling on Webshots.
Read - anouncement
Posted at 05:44 PM | Posted to Photo Software | TrackBack
This Week in Euro Tech Ventures
Investments
+ Ekinops, a French optical networking startup has raised €20M from French VCs.
Dancer Turned VC Michael Flatley (seen here promoting The Lord Of The Dance, Feet of Flames
+ Kelkoo's co-founder Chappaz to finance best two minute video pitch.
News & Analysis
+ US vs. Euro VCs investment trend. The US went from investing 2.6x Europe in the first quarter, to 4.7x in the second, up to 5.1x the total amount invested in third.
Posted at 04:07 PM | Posted to Euro Ventures | TrackBack
Mozilla's Revenues Up to $66M
In 2006, Mozilla's revenues came in at over $66M, up 26% from 2005. CEO Baker says that most of its revenues come thanks to the search box in Mozilla Firefox, and the majority of that is from Google. In fact Google account for 85% of Mozilla's revenues.
Mozilla's CEO Winifred Mitchell Baker. Surely, the worst Hair-do In The World.
Read - Forbes
Read - The Register
Posted at 03:05 PM | Posted to News & Updates | TrackBack
The Spoils of M&A
BusinessWeek runs a slide show with snappy photos of company founders who recently enjoyed buyouts. The idea is for them to tell us how their lives have changed now that they have walking around money. Nobody sticks their neck out to say they plan anything lavish. Just more work.
Startups profiled range from Feedburner to Postini to Zimbra.
View - slideshow
Posted at 02:36 PM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack
S&P Calls Blogs The Next Big Takeover Target
There's really not much new in this report by Standard & Poors which calls blogging the next big takeover market. This trend has been apparent for a couple of years now if you are paying attention. Moreover, the conservative editors at S&P hedge by putting a question mark on their Title: "Blogs - The Next Takeover Target?"
"Blogs--especially the big-name brands such as TechCrunch, Gawker, GigaOm, Boing Boing, and the Huffington Post--appear to have attractive business models. This is good news for traditional media companies that are being marginalized online and off, and are hoping to catch up to--and cash in on--a rapidly evolving Web 2.0 world."
"S&P equity analyst Tuna Amobi agrees that traditional media companies seem to be recognizing the potential usefulness of blogs in driving increased traffic and engagement to their sites, but he notes there are risks, including brand dilution and negative publicity. Though he expects larger media companies to consider relatively small acquisitions of blogging sites that could potentially leverage their core media and entertainment brands, he thinks more effort will be devoted to the launch of internal offerings at minimal incremental costs."
Read - S&P
Posted at 02:28 PM | Posted to Social Networking | TrackBack
Skinny On Zango's Buyout of SmartShopper
We reported yesterday on Zango's buyout of SmartShopper. We got some interesting skinny on the deal from a trusted source.
The story begins last June when Israeli adware firm Hotbar was sold to 180Solutions (Zango) for a reported $55M. As part of that deal, one of the founders, Oren Dobronsky, bought Smart Shopper (one of Hotbar's main products) for $250K back from Zango and by he became the 100% owner of the venture (he had a bit more than 10% in Hotbar).
Dobronsky sought to raise funding for SmartShopper without success. Fortunately, for Dobronsky Zango was interested in buying back SmartShopper from him and was willing to pay $9M for SmartShopper. So to underline the point, Dobronsky bought SmartShopper for $250K from Zango and a year and 5 moths later sold it back to them for $9M.
Posted at 12:18 PM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack
China's AirMedia Prices IPO
China's AirMedia Group said it expected its IPO to price at $9 - $11 per American Depositary Share. It plans to list its ADSs on the Nasdaq under the symbol AMCN.
AirMedia says it operates the largest digital media network in China dedicated to air travel advertising with over 95% of the digital screens that display advertisements in the 15 largest airports in China. Its programs combine advertising content with news, weather, sports and comedy.
For the six months ended June 30, AirMedia reported income of $3M, compared with income of $203K in the first half of 2006. Revenue for the period more than doubled to $16.7M from $7.1M in the prior-year period.
Read - Reuters
Posted at 11:54 AM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack
Taiwan VC Arrested For $3M Profit In Insider Trade
Wen Ko, chairman and founder of Taiwan's WK Technology Fund, was detained Wednesday with two other company execs for making profits of up to $3M that may have come thanks to insider knowledge of an M&A deal.
Jabil struck a deal last November to acquire Taiwan's Green Point Enterprise for about $880M. Ko bought shares in Green Point before the deal was made public and then sold them after the deal was revealed, says a prosecutor in Taiwan. WK Technology is Taiwan's largest venture capital company. The fund has invested in more than 240 startup companies, of which some 100 have gone public. Portfolio companies include Aruba Networks and Ruckus Wireless.
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Read - AP
Posted at 02:31 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack
Evite Rival Zoji Raises $1.5M
Evite has become the Xerox or the Kleenex of online invitations but that hasn't stopped rivals like MyPunchBowl and Soji to look at Evite and saying things like that "Evite is shooting themselves by not keeping their users happy." Investors seem to feel an Evite blood-bath as Socializr has raised $1.5M, MyPunchbowl and Renkoo have also raised funding and now Seattle-based Zoji has raised $1.5M from friends and family.
Zoji was founded in March 2004 by buddies Dan Chan and Kevin Tao. We like how they view their job: "After years of bullshitting, play time was over. Wanted to see if I really had what it took to build a datacenter and web application from the ground-up. OK OK not a real one, but a poor-man's datacenter, gimme a break. So I turned off the phone, heads-down for a couple years, no life.
Decided what my age group needed was a better Evite, with integrated picture sharing and scrapbook, restaurant reviews, and thus sprung Zoji.com. "
Read - Seattle PI
Posted at 12:39 AM | Posted to Social Networking | TrackBack
October 24, 2007
Facebook Indeed Worth $15B As MSFT Writes Check For $240M
$240M doesn't make much of a dent in Redmond's coffers, but surely it pains the bean-counters that they only get 1.6% of Facebook for that much. It's a great day for Facebook to be able to place the valuation peg that much higher. And it puts a lot more pressure on Facebook's Chief Revenue Officer Owen Van Nata to start bringing home the bacon.
In addition to the equity stake, MSFT secures its position as the exclusive 3rd-party ad platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally. With Google selling MySpace inventory and Microsoft now in control of Facebook's inventory it will be fascinating to see if MSFT can pull up to Goggle on its monetization's practices.
Read - WSJ post
Posted at 06:17 PM | Posted to Social Networking | TrackBack
This Land Is Your Land's JibJab Raises Further $3M; Launches eCards
Popular comedy site Jibjab has raised another $3M from Polaris Ventures and has raised $9.4M to date. The company was launched by brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis.
The JibJab Brothers Yuck It Up With Polaris Partner Jon Flint.
Today, JibJab also launched an eCard offering called JibJab Sendables.
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Posted at 02:04 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack
Yahoo's Pillar: It's Investment In China's Alibaba
It's hard to find evidence that Yahoo is kicking ass. Its investment in Chinese eCommerce firm Alibaba stands out. Today Alibaba reported that its IPO has been greeted with overwhelming interested by institutional investors who have flooded Alibaba with $100B in orders. The trouble is there is not that much stock available as Alibaba is raising up to just $1.49B in its IPO. Due to the strong demand, Alibaba raised the IPO price range to HK$12.00-HK$13.50 per share, up from HK$10.00-HK$12.00.
Read - Reuters
Posted at 11:35 AM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack
LA's Stealth Mode GetBack Media Raises Seed Funding For Music SocNet
LA's pre-launch GetBack Media says at launch it will target 35-55 year old music fans. The company has been funded by private equity firm Beringea and the founders of Rhino Records/ Shout! Factory. The company's President is Chris Dominguez who was SVP Business Development at IFILM (MTV Networks). His co-founder is former financial advisor FitzJohn Flynn.
Here's how the company describes itself:
"GetBack Media is a broadband entertainment community, content aggregator, and pop culture marketplace defining the spirit of the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. GetBack lets users rediscover popular entertainment, fashion, and pop-culture moments from their youth, and build community through easy to discover pre-populated content sets related to the music, film, TV and games of the era. Getback is also creating a marketplace for collectables, reissues, and new content from nostalgia artists. "
View - site under construction
Posted at 11:15 AM | Posted to Social Networking | TrackBack
"It Sucks" Says Judy's Book CEO On Startup's Closure
Judy's Book CEO Andy Sack is a decent guy so we feel bad for him that he is having to shut down the business. Judy's Book is a services recommendation site that had raised $10.5M.
Sack told the Seattle PI: "It was a good idea but it was just going to take too long. Our investors were tired. We were getting traction, but not enough traction. The board members said there wasn't enough terminal velocity to see the types of returns that they were looking for." Investors who didn't appreciate the slow pace were Ignition Partners, Mobius Venture Capital and Ackerley Partners.
Is there a lesson here? For us its just that we read about so many social networks that take off that it seems like a layup and that's just not the case. $10.5M in funding puts even more pressure on you to get big or go home.
Read - Seattle PI
Posted at 01:44 AM | Posted to Social Networking | TrackBack
NYC's Linkstorm Raises $4.2M From - Get This - 85 Angels
NYC-based Linkstorm has raised a 3rd round at $4.2M from 85 angels. That number is out of control, in our opinion. Big name backers include Esther Dyson and Bob Weissman (former CEO/chairman of Dun and Bradstreet.)
Linkstorm began as an Internet tools start-up, called Content Directions that focused on traditional print publishers but it has become an Internet advertising play.
Linkstorm helps companies increase their products' visibility, traffic & sales by deploying a "next-generation URL" developed by Internet pioneer Bob Kahn. This link can be placed on Web sites, within marketing brochures or emails, and on search engines where they float to the top of the relevance rankings. Linkstorm claims magical properties "that wherever these links go, they engender click-through rates of 30-50% and increase conversion rates (visitors-to-purchasers) by almost 2X. "
Linkstorm says its patent-pending technique turns a regular URL into a "multiLink" or linkstorm that takes the user directly to all destinations via a single menu: product details, where to buy, related products, reviews
That all sounds great, but who on earth wants 85 angel investors? It's hard to imagine that a startup can raise funding from that many investors and still not have great stuff but we are skeptical. We've seen Linkstorm in action and it doesn't impress. But we will be open minded about the potential for some secret sauce in the works.
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Read - announcement
Posted at 12:33 AM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack
October 23, 2007
Handheld Jettisons Hardware Biz And Starts To Hum
How did a handheld hardware company quickly become the fastest growing media company on the Web (Comscore September)?
San Francisco-based Handheld Entertainment launched 4 years ago with a mobile MP3 player called Zvue. It didn't go well as people seemed to prefer the iPod. Earlier this year, Handheld decided to switch tactics. It said goodbye to the hardware biz, hello online video. Handheld quickly bought 7 smallish online video companies in succession including eBaum's World and YourDailyMedia. Its sells advertising across the sites via its ad network - Zvue Networks. its ad sales team must now sell inventory across 25M unique monthly visitors.
The firms' CEO Jeffrey Oscodar says he expects Handheld to break even this year with revenue of $6M to $6.5M. Next year he wants to do $12M in revenues. To get there from here, Handheld has signed ad deals with contextual video ad server Scanscout as well as Doubleclick.
Handheld is a traded stock (ZVUE) but is relevant to our venture readers because we expect it to continue to snap up private video companies. Moreover, they prove that with good management you can make a switch from a struggling business to a new thriving one fairly rapidly.
Zvue - the old biz line
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Read - SF Biz Journal
Posted at 07:18 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack
Adware's Zango Buys SmartShopper
Bellevue, WA-based Zango (fka 180 Solutions) has bought Tel Aviv based SmartShopper for a reported $9M. Zango has raised $40M from Spectrum Equity in 2004. The company has been in the cross fires of various privacy groups who protest Zango's policies (Zango's distribution partners seem to be the trouble as they have skirted rules requiring end user consent before adware is do