Despite the fact that the state is constantly teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, California remains at the top of the venture capital heap churning out the most deals with the most dollar volume in the second quarter of 2010. A new report from private company research firm CB Insights reveals that California companies took more than 50 percent of total venture dollars in the second quarter with financings breaking the $3 billion funding mark and more than half of those funds going toward health care and Internet companies. In addition to California, two other states–Massachusetts[....]
Archive
Tag: venture+capital
A New York-based start-up called ZocDoc aims to expand its service of online doctor and dentist appointment bookings with a $15 million Series B venture round led by the Founders Fund. Existing investor Khosla Ventures also contributed. The money will be used primarily to help ZocDoc expand geographically. Currently operating in New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, the company is soliciting users to vote on what its fifth city should be (the options include Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle). But expanding requires complicated groundwork: ZocDoc aggregates[....]
The e-mail message that wound up in the inboxes of Jim Breyer's Facebook friends. (Credit:Gmail/Caroline McCarthy) With Facebook’s security and privacy standards under fire from all sides, suffice it to say that this is not a good time for one of the company’s investors to fall for a Facebook phishing scam. On Saturday evening, a Facebook event invitation was sent to some of the over 2,300 friends of Jim Breyer, the Accel Partners venture capitalist who sits on Facebook’s board of directors, asking “Would you like a Facebook phone number?” As it turned[....]
The e-mail message that wound up in the inboxes of Jim Breyer's Facebook friends. (Credit:Gmail/Caroline McCarthy) With Facebook’s security and privacy standards under fire from all sides, suffice it to say that this is not a good time for one of the company’s investors to fall for a Facebook phishing scam. On Saturday evening, a Facebook event invitation was sent to some of the over 2,300 friends of Jim Breyer, the Accel Partners venture capitalist who sits on Facebook’s board of directors, asking “Would you like a Facebook phone number?” As it turned[....]
Green tech is growing up. Billions of dollars have been poured into green-tech start-ups over the past eight years, but now promising young companies–and their investors–are looking to transform into durable, profitable enterprises. A number of companies in green tech plan to go public this year, which would allow them to raise money and to scale up their commercial operations. How well they do this year could go a long way in determining how investors view the entire sector. Stephan Dolezalek, VantagePoint Venture Partners One company that’s deeply invested in the[....]
Green tech is growing up. Billions of dollars have been poured into green-tech start-ups over the past eight years, but now promising young companies–and their investors–are looking to transform into durable, profitable enterprises. A number of companies in green tech plan to go public this year, which would allow them to raise money and to scale up their commercial operations. How well they do this year could go a long way in determining how investors view the entire sector. Stephan Dolezalek, VantagePoint Venture Partners One company that’s deeply invested in the[....]
You’re going to be seeing search ads on Twitter after all. Adding to the whirlwind of announcements leading up to the company’s first annual developer conference, several news outlets late Monday posted interviews with Twitter executives to unveil a search ad program that will put brands’ messages into users’ Twitter streams. Early Tuesday, Twitter unveiled the program, “a simple service we’re calling Promoted Tweets,” heralding it with a short FAQ on the Twitter blog to give a sense of what’s coming with the company’s new[....]
You’re going to be seeing search ads on Twitter after all. Adding to the whirlwind of announcements leading up to the company’s first annual developer conference, several news outlets have posted interviews with Twitter executives to unveil something called “Sponsored Tweets,” a search ad program that will put brands’ messages into users’ Twitter streams. It’s formally slated to debut on Tuesday. Early advertisers in the program include Starbucks, Virgin America, and Bravo, all of which have already been using Twitter’s reach to promote their[....]
Private company research firm CB Insights (formerly known as Chubby Brain) on Tuesday released new venture investment data for the first quarter of 2010. Overall, the news is very positive with strong growth in the number of deals from 687 in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 731 in the first quarter of 2010. The first quarter of 2010 saw $5.9 billion invested across 731 deals, a marked increase over the year-ago quarter when $3.9 billion was invested across 483 deals. “The psychology and sentiment of entrepreneurs and venture capital investors continues to improve, albeit[....]
New data released from the National Venture Capital Association shows evidence of a rebounding acquisitions and IPO market for venture-backed companies in the first quarter of 2010. According to the Exit Poll report (PDF) by Thomson Reuters and the NVCA, Q1 2010 ended with nine venture-backed initial public offerings (IPOs) and 111 merger and acquisition transactions. Additionally, there were 31 disclosed venture-backed M&A exits averaging $180.2 million, 21 percent higher than the total average disclosed transaction value for all of 2009. As the chart below shows, the funding-to-exit[....]
It might not be getting as much coverage as the geolocation wars, but the battle for dominance in online daily-deals sites has been brewing ever since some start-ups decided they wanted a piece of leader Groupon‘s success. The latest development is that a second-tier player in the space, LivingSocial, announced Thursday that it’s raised $25 million in a Series B funding round geared strictly toward growth and expansion. The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners with participation from Grotech Ventures and Revolution, the firm chaired by former AOL CEO Steve Case. The goal with[....]
Anyone who has ever been involved in a venture financing deal knows what a headache term sheets can be. Term sheets, which describe the terms of the financing deal being negotiated, tend to have a laundry list of oft-confusing conditions that has to be met before financing can occur. And while lawyers experienced with venture financings are a dime a dozen (make that $450/hour each) in Silicon Valley, negotiating the terms of your deal is fraught with anxiety and occasionally peril. The one thing you can be assured of is that the lawyers will take a nice chunk of your financing. Based on[....]
MIAMI–Walk around the Future of Web Apps event in South Beach this week, and you’ll see loads of eager young entrepreneurs and developers proudly displaying the names of their fledgling companies on their conference badges. Aaron Patzer, who founded personal-finance site Mint.com and sold it to Intuit for $170 million last year, might tell them that the company name might be the first place to make changes. “Choose something with meaning, even if it’s expensive and difficult to acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you’re going[....]
The head of Intel wants to see the U.S. more competitive and has proposed a $3.5 billion investment to help achieve that goal. Intel CEO and President Paul Otellini (Credit:Intel) Intel President and Chief Operating Officer Paul Otellini has announced plans for a new alliance to invest $3.5 billion in fledgling U.S. technology companies over the next two years. The Invest in America Alliance plans to supplement state and federal funds by investing in businesses and individuals working on innovative, new technologies. Led by Intel, other corporations, and venture capital firms, the[....]
It might finally be happening–no, really this time! According to Twitter head of product management Anamitra Banerji at an Interactive Advertising Bureau event on Tuesday (recapped by MediaPost), the company is finally seizing upon its status as the Web’s hot spot for brands and marketers and is testing a formal advertising platform. GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram says he’s heard Twitter “may” be launching that platform in conjunction with a host of both traditional and new media companies at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, the Austin, Texas confab[....]
MIAMI–Walk around the Future of Web Apps event in South Beach this week, and you’ll see loads of eager young entrepreneurs and developers proudly displaying the names of their fledgling companies on their conference badges. Aaron Patzer, who founded personal-finance site Mint.com and sold it to Intuit for $170 million last year, might tell them that the company name might be the first place to make changes. “Choose something with meaning, even if it’s expensive and difficult to acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you’re going[....]
Social games behemoth Zynga denied Monday a rumor that FarmVille, its wildly popular Facebook-based game, would be switching from a free to a subscription-based model at the end of March. A fan site called FarmVilleFreak.com–yes, that’s how popular this game is–re-posted an alleged e-mail received by a reader that announced FarmVille would be moving out of beta and into an expanded version on March 31. It would cost $5.99 per month and would feature new levels and achievements. That would, of course, make the first day of the allegedly non-free FarmVille to be April[....]
With investors getting smarter and start-ups getting bought, the mood is brightening ingreen tech. But the high-profile companies seeking to go public this year have some industry watchers talking bubbles. For proof, investors point to the spate of planned initial public offerings, including electric carmaker Tesla Motors, solar company Solyndra, and biofuel make Codexis. Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks and biofuel maker Amyris are rumored to be on deck. Long-term trends may favor innovative green companies, as concerns about energy resources and the environment grow. But that[....]
LensVector, a start-up in Mountain View, Calif., that hopes its optical components using solid-state electronics will replace moving parts in consumer camera technology, said Thursday that it’s raised $30 million in a third round of funding. Institutional Venture Partners led the funding round, joining existing investors Menlo Ventures, Samsung, Silicon Valley Bank, Mitsui, and Kodak. IVP general partner Norm Fogelsong has joined the LensVector board, the company said. “This financing will allow us to scale our manufacturing capacity and better serve this growing demand[....]