Venture Capital

Dutch startup Scoutle marries different networking ideas to deliver what they call an “Automated Social Networking for Bloggers.” Scoutle operates via webcrawlers they call Scouts. Users create their own personal Scouts, for example one for their blog, another for their Facebook or similar profile, and the scouts “walk through the Internet,” by meeting other Scouts with similar interests or profiles, creating a contact between both. Results from the Scouts are constantly being compared, delivering a realtime guide that allows users to see which blog on a certain topic,…

Note: trust me, the picture makes sense once you read the quotes below. Sarah Lacy’s new book, Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (goes on sale on Thursday, pre-order here, get free autographed copy here) does a deep dive into the histories of a number of high profile web startups. But Lacy was also able to uncover a few stories that were never covered in the day-to-day press. One of my favorites: the story of a failed 2006 attempt by Al Gore’s CurrentTV to buy Digg: At the meeting Gore ran the room. He charmed…

Office productivity suite Zoho removed the need to create an account to use their services today - you can now log in to any of their products using a Google or Yahoo account. Sign in is completed via Yahoo’s and Google’s authentication APIs. I asked Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna why they don’t just adopt OpenID to handle authentications instead. He says they will, soon, but also want to integrate directly with the most requested third parties to address users immediate needs (and it is still a pain to log in with OpenID). Vegesna also says they may integrate directly with…

A week ago Wired Magazine voiced its displeasure over our syndication partnership with the Washington Post. Wired’s Betsy Schiffman wrote “We’ve got nothing against TechCrunch, but it seems crazy-crazy to us that the Washington Post, a paper known for the sort of reporting that can take down U.S. presidents, is publishing content written by a dude who invests in the companies he writes about. But what do we know.” When I read this I thought “WTF?” (with an emphasis on the “F”). Wired is a competitor to TechCrunch, but we’ve been on…

Dash Navigation is opening up its in-car GPS device to outside developers through an API program. The Dash already lets consumers create Yahoo map mashups on teh Web which theycan then send to their car. (Read my earlier review). Now, companies that want to create specific applications for the device, which includes a two-way data channel through GPRS as well as WiFi, can join the API program. The company’s API launch partners include: —Coldwell Banker (real-estate listings application) —Funambol (personal calendar access) —Mediaguide (identifies names of songs playing on the…

Amid exponential growth projected for the robotic catheter business, Newton startup Corindus Inc. has closed a major round of private equity financing to advance its technology in that market.

The partners of Delta Capital Management LLC have decided to shelve a third $50 million fund and instead will spend the next several years winding down the operation, hoping to get good returns on their final 15 investments.

A business plan that enables prepaid mobile customers to bank their online minutes took the $50,000 top prize in a business plan competition sponsored by Art Technology Group Inc., which raised eyebrows as a corporation sponsoring an event more often associated with universities.

Orion Investment Group, a new private equity firm in St. Louis, has made its first purchase, buying Accu-Therm Inc., a manufacturer of heating elements in Monroe City, Mo., for more than $5 million.

Oxford Immunotec Ltd., a British medical diagnostics firm, has quietly launched its North American headquarters in the Boston area to support U.S. sales of its T-cell test for tuberculosis.

Jerry White is the co-founder of Survivor Corps (formerly Landmine Survivors Newwork). His changed in 1984 when he lost his leg in a landmine explosion while visiting Israel. After this experience he has championed the cause of survivorship and became a leader in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In 1997 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Jody Williams for his efforts. He recently published a book called I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis. Question: What do people who are undergoing a life crisis need most? Answer: We crave empathy and support. We need…

In 2006 I wrote about Vyew and asked the obvious question: “Does the world need another web conferencing product?” I guess the answer is "yes" because the company is now profitable and has 100,000 registered users. Vyew combines real-time (synchronous) conferencing and desktop sharing with always-on (asynchronous) collaboration such as highlighting, drawing, text and sidebar comments and sticky notes. This allows groups to have a live meeting and also carry on a contextual forum discussion over time at their convenience. It's a browser-only cross-platform tool without the need for…

A few weeks ago I was in Charlotte to make a speech for Network Solutions, and I met Justin Ruckman. He handed me his business card--which I just loved. For once, a business card that cuts to the chase and is readable. Hallelujah! So I asked him to make business cards for me. Take a look at your business card: Can people really read the 8 point type? If you want Justin to make business cards for you, his site is here.

I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo this weekend. I had no idea these things are so popular--so much so that I gave up the first time and returned in the early evening when there was more parking and a shorter ticket line. Think: Macworld Expo meets Burning Man meets MythBusters meets Woodstock. Here are a mere fifty pictures to show you what you missed. One thing is for sure, the Faire could keep Stuff White People Like busy for a month or two. There was lots of bikes made up of various other vehicle parts. For example, this is a lawnmower bike. A skateboard/bike hybrid. And a…

Roger von Oech is the author a classic book about innovation called A Whack on the Side of the Head. Believe it or not, this is the twenty-fifth anniversay of the book. When I was young(er), this book was the rage for the personal-computer generation in Silicon Valley. Join me on Sun's site for an interview of Roger. In it he discusses twenty-five years of innovation and provides advice to today's newfangled Web 2.0 companies. Click here for the interview.

We're setting up a new web startup in the Valley, and I'm looking to contract a lawyer and a bookkeeper who have experience working with startups, are regarded well by VCs, don't overcharge, and can support us by making sure everythings done right from day one in expectation of future financing rounds; and won't fail to support us through intense negotiations and DD in the event of an exit. I humbly appreciate any recommendations you'd care to impart.

| Fund Rated 2.8 | 738 Chars in Private

| Fund Rated 3.8 | 487 Chars in Private

| Posted by Jyri Engeström | Fund Rated 3.1 | 345 Chars in Private

| Fund Rated 3.0I worked with Yechiel through the investment process. Yechiel proved himself to be honest, efficient and he can generate over $1M investment if necessary. My over all experience working with Xenia team this including Anat is very good!!

San Francisco – Sprout, (DEMO 08) software for creating and publishing multimedia information as Web widgets, today received $5 million in Series B financing led by Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, Mass. Mike Hirshland, general partner at Polaris, has joined Sprout’s board of directors. Existing investor Global Venture Capital and Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corp. Read more

Two weeks into the DEMO Tour and I’m noticing something surprising. When you get outside the broadband beltway, effectively that stretch of territory along the West Coast that runs from Seattle down through Silicon Valley, you begin to see a lot more women entrepreneurs. Read more During the last two months, I met exactly two women founders at my office in San Francisco – and one of them was visiting from London. Two weeks into the tour, and I’ve met smart women in Seattle, Boston, and New York, and I’m lined up to meet more in Austin and Tel Aviv.

New mobile content search engine Zodigo (DEMO 08), which spun out from Emmy-award winner Zodiac Interactive as an independent company in late April, is now deployed in trials in 1.5 million homes as a proof-of-concept of the mash-up between interactive television and mobile telephone marketing. Read more

Read moreRed Wahoo of Melbourne, Australia brings a unique perspective to B2B integration by creating a public directory of business Web services. The company’s Monterverdi Conductor is effectively the “Facebook” for companies, allowing companies to profile their businesses and their electronic trading capabilities.

Shares of video search engine firm blinkx, plc. (London AIM: BLNX) (DEMO 07) surged 50 percent on a U.K. stock exchange to a seven-month high on Friday, on rumors that Internet giant Google and media conglomerate NewsCorp may bid for the company. Read more

The chemicals business has gone through massive shifts in the past, and it’s high time for another one, according to Christopher Gann, the CEO of Genomatica, who recently left a cushy position at industry giant Dow Chemical for the startup. Chemical manufacturing is perched atop the much larger fossil fuel market, thus suffering from the same high prices the rest of the world does — but, says Gann, it can be weaned off hydrocarbons. Shifting away from oil and gas is one of the most common stories in cleantech, with numerous companies claiming that they can make transportation…

Here’s the latest action: Icahn considers his own proxy war for Yahoo — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn began buying massive amounts of Yahoo stock last week — up to 50 million shares — and now is thinking about using that influence. He is considering replacing some of Yahoo’s board members (not quite the full replacement Microsoft was considering) with those of his own choosing, according to CNBC. Such a move could potentially force Yahoo to sell to Microsoft. The problem? The Microsoft offer is no longer on the table, and there is still no indication that it…

Facebook’s latest move to open up its data is coming in the form of instant messaging. The company is working on a way to connect your list of Facebook friends on its new chat service to other instant messaging services, using an open-standard instant messaging technology called Jabber/XMPP. The significance is that application developers — and other instant message clients — will be able to integrate Facebook chat into their applications. According to the company’s developer blog post about it, users can: * Communicate with their friends * See which of their friends…

NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) has been pumping out amazing people into the NYC tech scene (and the worldwide tech scene) for almost 20 years now. I think ITP is one of the things that makes NY's tech/web community what it is. It's a combination of art/design/technology/media and it's a special place that turns out special people who do special things. Every spring they do a "spring show" that gives each student an opportunity to present their work to the public. It last for two days and is open to the public from 5pm to 9pm. Last night was the first night and…

Longtime readers know how much value this blog has gotten out of mybloglog (now owned by Yahoo!). I've had the mybloglog faceroll widget on this blog for several years and there are 2,613 members in the AVC community on mybloglog. You can see the faceroll widget on the left siedbar just a little bit below the fold. Today, Google has announced a service called Friend Connect. I spent a bit of time looking at Friend Connect this morning and this screen shot was the one I found most interesting. I'll have to play around with Friend Connect and understand how it fits between mybloglog and ning…

My daughter Emily was passed down the iPhone I bought when it first came out. It didn't work for me so I gave it to her. That phone developed a small crack in the screen last fall but she kept using it. The crack got worse, propagated, and yesterday she dropped it again. Now it's shattered, it's brains have been battered, splattered all over manhattan. Sorry about that, just couldn't resist a little Stones lyrics fun. So I asked her if she wanted another iPhone. Surprisingly, the answer was no. She wants the new crimson red Blackberry Curve. Fortunately, it looks like I can get an unlocked…

First, I'd like to be perfectly clear that our firm, Union Square Ventures, is an investor in Disqus. So I am clearly biased about what I am about to say. Second, I'd like to point out that the reason we made the investment is largely based on my experience as a Disqus user for the past 10 months and the result it has had on my blog/community. Sometimes seeing is believing and it certainly was in this case. So, with that disclosure out of the way, here are three reasons I think every blogger, certainly every serious blogger, should consider switching to Disqus. 1) Threaded discussions - When…

I am fond of saying that what happened in the US in the second half of the 20th century will take place in much of the rest of the world in the first half of the 21st century. The end result will be vastly more geographic balance of wealth and prosperity than we had at the beginning of this millennium. Today, in a NY Times article on Toyota (TM)'s annual profit guidance to wall street, I came across this comment by Toyota's President Katsuaki Watanabe:“Our profit structure has become more geographically balanced, with growing contributions from resource-rich countries and emerging…

Over a year ago when we first started thinking about personal financial management tools on the web, I had this OMG moment when I realized that a web based personal financial management service was going to be way more disruptive than just putting Quicken on the web. It was immediately obvious that the data buried inside everyone’s personal spending patterns could be an incredibly important asset. It was equally obvious that it was very personal and sensitive data and any company that wanted to aggregate that data would need to have a great deal of respect for their users privacy and for…

Over the last two years, our portfolio company Adaptive Blue has become known for its ability to automatically recognize things like books, movies, stocks, and wines on the web. By using semantic analysis to figure out the difference between The Da Vinci Code, the book and The Da Vinci Code, the movie, they are able to provide useful shortcuts that accelerate the experience of surfing the web. Last night, Adaptive Blue announced an initiative that compliments their top down approach with a drop dead simple bottom’s up approach that can be used by any publisher or blogger who wants to make…

Yesterday the New York Times ran an Op-Ed piece that led with the collapse of the effort to create a hand-held device for managing the 2010 census. The latest problem is the Census Bureau’s failure— after nearly four years and almost $600 million — to develop a reliable hand-held computer system for counting millions of Americans who are not counted by mail. Census takers will now have to use far less accurate paper and pencil. The full NYT Opinion piece is here. The AP story is here. This is more than a technology problem. It's a colossal screw up. But there is an underlying technology…

Google has unveiled App Engine and unlike some other recent Google efforts this one feels fully baked and well thought-out. For starters it includes all the elements that I had identified in my post calling for a new platform, such as a highly scalable DB using a simple storage model that maps well to the common use cases and even support for email processing. They even provide a fully featured local development environment. There is a lot here to digest and there may be issues hidden in the terms of service but this is a major milestone in making cloud computing a reality and potentially in…

Access to financial markets is fairly open. All it takes is a bit of money to set up a brokerage account and one can start buying stocks. Over the last decade the Internet has further opened up access by letting people trade from home (more recently even without commissions) and putting financial data, SEC filings and more at investors’ fingertips. The result of this accessibility of the markets is that many people try their hand at investing. Some of them turn out to be exceptionally good. Probably the most extreme example is of course Warren Buffett who has become the world’s wealthiest…

Web, Advertising, VC Wade Roush wrote: Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners is the lead funder in a $5 million Series B financing found for Sprout, a San Francisco- and Honolulu-based company that makes software for creating Web widgets, the venture firm announced today. Sprout’s widgets, which can be as complex as mini-websites with tabs, slide shows, and music, are mainly used for Web-based marketing and promotion. “Sprout has quickly established itself as the early leader for creating, launching and managing this fast-emerging content format,” Polaris general…

entrepreneurship, innovation, people Gregory T. Huang wrote: Attention entrepreneurs: it isn’t always about the technology. Often the real innovation lies in the distribution or business model. Take the problem of providing clean drinking water in developing countries. The technology needed to make individual water supplies safe isn’t rocket science—it ranges from purifier packets of chlorine to special containers that use sunlight to kill microbes. Yet, across the globe some 2 million people die every year from drinking contaminated water, the vast majority of them children…

VC, people, Biotech Robert Buderi wrote: After a months-long hunt, Fate Therapeutics, the superstar-laden, bi-coastal stem cell startup backed chiefly by Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners and Arch Venture Partners of Seattle, has named its CEO, the Seattle Times reported and company sources confirmed today. The CEO choice is Paul Grayson, previously of the San Diego arm of California-based Sanderling Ventures, which focuses on biomedical startups. Grayson’s appointment means Fate will be based in San Diego. Fates’s five scientific co-founders are based in the Boston,…

Roundup, deals, VC Rebecca Zacks wrote: New England’s corporate attorneys must have been working overtime, because the last week saw an unusual amount of deals activity—particularly in public and private stock offerings. —Citing market conditions, Elixir Pharmaceuticals pulled its IPO. The Cambridge, MA-based firm, which is developing treatments for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases, had already postponed the offering back in January. —Two other New England firms evidently missed the memo about those market conditions. Essex, CT, wind-power firm Noble…

photography, consumer, VC Wade Roush wrote: Frame Media, the Wellesley, MA-based provider of content for digital picture frames that we profiled last September, has raised an additional $3 million in what it’s calling a Series A-1 investment round. The round, led by Longworth Venture Partners and CommonAngels, brings the company’s total funding to $5.2 million. Digital frame owners can use Frame Media’s Web-based interface to select advertising-supported content channels such as news, sports, weather, and stock photos. Permalink | Share |

I'm in London this weekend on business, so its a shame to miss RecentChangesCamp in Palo Alto.  Hosted by Socialtext, the event is more than a Barcamp for wikis.  It draws people from afar with in interest in wiki spirit.  If you are in town, definitely stop by.

Slideshare, to which I am a big fan and advisor, just closed $3M with Venrock.  Here's an announcement: | View | Upload your own 1,000-squared words.

I twittered that Triggit was the coolest thing I saw at Web 2.0 Expo.  Later on, they won the Launch Pad contest.  I've been watching these guys since they started showing up a Barcamps.  They've hit upon making adding widget content and ads on a blog or site dead simple. By doing so, they make the act of placing an ad engaging.  When everyone is a publisher, the gestures they make empower influence which is far greater than basic impressions. So bear with me for a while I experiment.  It won't show up in RSS feeds, but basically I'm learning Blinglish on my blog.

I'm in London next Thursday and co-hosting a social software dinner with the good folks at Headshift.  If you can join us, here's the details: Pre-dinner drink and gathering at All Bar One, Shad Thames waterfront, from 18:30. Followed by dinner at Cantina, also Shad Thames waterfront, at 20:00. Map Nearest tube stops: London Bridge, Tower Hill, Bermondsey RSVP the old fashioned way by calling Lars at 020 7357 7358 Hope to see you there!

JP Rangaswami, in a delightful read, muses on Drucker's quote "people make shoes, not money" and how information has no value until it informs a decision.  Our institutions value sharing, cooperation and trust -- but create cultures of hoarding for advantage and control out of fear.  Perhaps this is because we haven't learned to manage when information wants to be free.  JP notes that "Information is changing. And it is becoming more valuable to us all by becoming less valuable to any one of us."  But this except sparked a thought:Take a completely…

FireEye received $14.5 Million in series C funding from DAG Ventures, Juniper Networks, JAFCO Ventures, SVB Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. In total they have received $34.5 Million. FireEye provides solutions for botnet-related cybercrime. Technorati Tags: VC News venture capital fireeyeread more

Veodia received $8.3 Million in series A funding from Clearstone Venture Partners and the D. E. Shaw group. Veodia provides TV-quality live broadcasting and publishing software as a service. Technorati Tags: VC News venture capital veodiaread more

Giant Realm raised $2 Million in funding from Softbank. Previously Giant Ream Received $3.5 Million in March 2008, for a total of $5.5 Million. Technorati Tags: VC News venture capital giant realmread more

Jinni received $1 Million in series A funding from Start-Up Factory. Jinni is a TV and movie recommendation engine. Technorati Tags: VC News venture capital jenniread more

AppFolio received $22 Million in series B funding from BV Capital and others. AppFolio provides property management software as a service. Technorati Tags: VC News venture capital appfolioread more

Clearwire started out strong in its stock market debut with an opening price of $27.25, but the stock has started to slump in recent minutes with share

Microsoft Small Business Summit On Monday, March 19th at 11:00 am Pacific Time, I will be speaking on The Art of Innovation at the Microsoft Small Busi

Sneak Peek at Weekend Reading Here is sneak peek at a few links from my weekly Weekend Reading column at TheStreet/RealMoney:How Sears is being recast

Science Friday on Biofuels Good Science Friday this past week on biofuels. Have a listen. Discuss   |   Digg this  | 

Peak Pitch and Gondola Jumping My friend Om is hawking the idea of bringing west "Peak Pitch", an eastern VC thingie whereby entrepreneurs go skiing wi

PORTLAND, Ore.----Teseda Corporation, a leading silicon validation and failure analysis company, has closed a new investment round. This most recent round featured the addition of strategic investor KT Venture Group, LLC, the investment partner of KLA-Tencor Corporation .

OAKLAND, Calif.----BrightSource Energy, Inc., developer of utility-scale solar energy projects, has secured $115 million in additional corporate funding from its Series C round of financing, bringing the total the company has raised to date to over $160 million.

ASBA CEO Joan Koerber-Walker announced today that ASBA and Comerica Bank have joined forces to shine a spotlight on Arizona-based, second-stage companies that are generating new jobs and sustaining business growth.

SAN MATEO, Calif.----Emergence Capital Partners, the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services companies, today announced the addition of Jeffrey Stiefler as a venture partner.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.----MPM Capital, the largest venture capital investor dedicated solely to healthcare, announced today that it has made a $20 million investment in Sai Advantium Pharma, a leading chemistry-driven drug discovery and development service company headquartered in Hyderabad, India.

Todd Vernon, the CEO of Lijit, has written a great article on raising money from angels. I especially like his taxonomy of angels: “The Family Investor: The Family Investor is likely not really a classic Angel Investor at all but rather a supportive family member that “knows you”. Their motivation is likely out of support (sometimes guilt), but their basic investment thesis is they trust you. For me these are the worst type of investor because you likely have intimate knowledge of their financial situation and whether or not they ’should’ be investing. Likely,…

We usually quote other people’s genius in our Twitter feed but, once in a while, we throw in a microhack of our own. Here are a few of the popular microhacks: You don’t need permission to start a company. From investors, co-founders, or anyone else. Trying to recruit while you’re in “stealth mode” is like punching yourself in the balls (see picture). Better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Sales: Always be closing. Product: Always be releasing. (Sam Purtill replies, “Engineers: Always be coding.”) Advice is for learning, not…

A reader asks: “My question is how do we value a company with no sales? I understand it’s an arbitrary valuation but is there anything we can possibly base it on? Is there a “default” valuation for companies in a seed round?” We’ll answer this question with some questions (and answers) of our own: How much money do we need? How do we set a valuation from this budget? How do we express our valuation to investors? What’s the range for seed round valuations? How low do seed round valuations go? How much money can we raise in a seed round? How much…

Here are a few of the brave investors who have joined the Venture Hacks community. I’ve also included descriptions of the types of companies they’re looking for: Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital is “looking for companies that find new uses for existing data sets.” Mitch Lasky from Benchmark Capital says, “I still believe in mobile.” Marc Hustvedt, an angel investor, is “looking seriously at IPTV.” Aydin Senkut, an angel investor at Felicis Ventures, has a “focus on early stage consumer internet companies.” James Cham, from…

In 4 Things to Do After You Get Your First Term Sheet, Bill Burnham, a former partner at Mobius and Softbank Capital, writes, “I’ve recently been involved in helping a couple companies with their first major round of VC financing. It’s actually been pretty interesting for me because I have historically been on the other side of the table. In addition to generating several stories worthy of “The Funded” and getting a better appreciation of the trials and tribulations that entrepreneurs must go through when trying to raise money, I also gained a better appreciation for just how…

Experience Project: The San Francisco company has raised $3 million in a first round of funding to expand its anonymous social experience site.

A weak economy means fewer Wall Street offerings and lower prices in mergers and acquisitions. Generally poor returns are accelerating a shakeout in the venture capital industry, with more money flowing to the biggest firms. Quarter 1 chart

Lightspeed Venture Partners, flexing its success in the ongoing shakeout of venture capital business, announced Monday it had closed a new $800 million investment fund.

The recent downturn in the U.S. economy was accompanied by a modest decline in venture capital investments in the first quarter of 2008, with $7.1 billion going into 922 deals for U.S.-based companies. Quarter 1 chart

China is facing soaring inflation and its stock market has plunged, yet venture capitalists are still racing to invest in the Asian giant.

Venture ID: 667 N.B. The above and other venture listings are reserved for members (accredited investors) only. Register for free membership (Accredited Investors Only) http://www.vcaonline.com/showcase/register Login to Entrepreneur Showcase http://www.vcaonline.com/showcase/login Showcase Your Business Plan or Executive Summary to Accredited Investors Entrepreneur Showcase provides a fast, simple and cost-effective way to showcase your business plan or executive summary to every accredited investor of our network. This is the best way for accredited investors to see your venture. Post Your…

Venture ID: 669 N.B. The above and other venture listings are reserved for members (accredited investors) only. Register for free membership (Accredited Investors Only) http://www.vcaonline.com/showcase/register Login to Entrepreneur Showcase http://www.vcaonline.com/showcase/login Showcase Your Business Plan or Executive Summary to Accredited Investors Entrepreneur Showcase provides a fast, simple and cost-effective way to showcase your business plan or executive summary to every accredited investor of our network. This is the best way for accredited investors to see your venture. Post Your…

TechConnect Summit June 3-5, 2008, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA Organizer: TechConnect Click the above link to view this event.

2008 Edition Now Available! VCPro Database 2008 (11th Edition) is a downloadable venture capital and private equity directory with complete profiles of over 3,700 venture capital firms worldwide. Compiled by a veteran VC researcher, VCPro Venture Capital Database is available in both Windows and Macintosh formats. (Newly updated for 2008) Click the above link to learn more.

Credit Crunch Summit: Where Do We Go From Here? July 22, 2008, Waldorf=Astoria, New York, NY Organizer: Thomson Financial Click the above link to view this event.

Don Rose, President, Global Media Fund In Don's career, he has successfully built and managed numerous companies and organizations. He has a strong combination of management, financial, entrepreneurial, business development, technology, and strategic skills. He has spent the last twenty-nine years in the areas of consulting, acquisitions, mergers, investor relations, developing public and private companies, growth financing and business development. Don was founder and CEO/Chairman of an Internet company that went through the IPO process and became public. Other successful companies that Mr.

Jeffrey M. Krauss, Managing Member, Psilos Jeffrey joined Psilos in March 2000 with a focus on investments in the healthcare services, healthcare information technology, specialty pharmaceutical and medical instrumentation segments. He currently serves on the Boards of Versamed, Valera Pharmaceuticals, HealthEdge, OneShield. Prior to joining Psilos, Mr. Krauss was a general partner at Nazem & Company, a New York-based venture capital firm, from 1990 to 2000, where he specialized in investments in the healthcare services and healthcare information technology segments. Prior to joining Nazem &…

Matthew Shaw, Managing Director, Sunrock Ventures a Florida native has been actively involved in the venture capital industry for the past 9 years. Prior to co-founding Sunrock Ventures he had been a General Partner and Managing Director for Crossbow Ventures beginning in 2002. Crossbow Ventures is a venture capital firm with a $170 million under management headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida. Similar to Sunrock, Crossbow is also focused on investing in the Southeast US. Mr. Shaw was the lead partner on a number of deals while at Crossbow and was responsible for a number of the firm…

Jung Yun, Senior Vice President, Global Media Fund Jung Yun has more than thirteen years experience in the areas of operations, finance, sales, consulting, and as an entrepreneur. She has been responsible for raising capital for public/private companies, mergers and acquisitions, financial strategy, business consulting, implementations and strategic alliances. During her career, she has also set up and managed Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards. She has served as President and Chairman of Global Life Line LLC, a telecommunications startup and President of Mindography Inc, an eduportal…

Howard Morgan, Partner (and Angel Investor), First Round Capital (and NY Angels) Howard Lee Morgan is President of Arca Group Inc. in Villanova, PA, a Director of Idealab the Pasadena, CA based creator and operator of internet companies, where was a founding investor in 1996 and served as President of idealab! New York, a partner with First Round Capital, and a member of the New York Angels. He received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University in 1968, and a B.S. in physics from City College of the City University of New York in 1965. He is helping to nurture a number of Idealab…

Here are pointers to the articles so far in this series: Preface MIT India:  Engineering Education Urja: Global Fashion Brand Lucid: K-12 Education MIT India and Urja have also generated a great deal of discussion, which I welcome you to read and participate in. Lucid is a new piece, and I expect, will generate similar discussion soon.

Hi - Last date for submitting entries for TiE Canaan Challenge has been extended to 25th May. We are seeing a good response. Also, CNBC TV18 has been roped in to feature the Winners and the working of Challenge in three series. Regards, Mukul

A nice little stat to chew on a sunday morning.    PS : “Transit” refers to Public/mass transit systems.

Another day, another idea. This time, it is TrendWatching. I define TrendWatching as a disciple where one observes (not sees), engages people in conversations (not interviews), identifies what is popular (not market research) and finally using these popular social objects to help businesses. Why TrendWatching? Market research as we know it is dead. I have huge reservations against the very premise of market research. If the respondents know that they are being researched, they more likely would come up with made up stories rather than answers. Then there is an entire issue about intelligence…

I recently did two interviews with two very different but passionate entrepreneurs: Deepak Shenoy, co-founder of Moneyoga and Dr. Girish Saraph of Vegayan Systems. Over the past year or so I have spent a fair amount of time talking to both of them and have followed their journey as entrepreneurs. Deepak and I have spoken at length about entrepreneurship, startup environment, Bangalore, etc over the phone, but never got around to meeting over that cup of filter coffee in Bangalore. Blame it on the messy traffic congestion in Bangalore that precluded me from going to his part of town! Deepak is…

The parties in the dispute over financing the $20 billion Clear Channel Communications Inc buyout reached an agreement in principle on Tuesday on settling the case and striking a new deal at a lower price, a ... via Reuters

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. said Tuesday it has hired industry veteran Bedi Singh as its finance chief and head fundraiser for upcoming films, a further sign it is ramping up efforts to produce its own movies. via PR-inside.com

Sprout , the startup behind an easy-to-use tool for creating Flash applications, has been having a very good year. via VentureBeat

Tidal Software, a leading provider of application scheduling and performance management software, today announced that they will demonstrate process automation for Facets and other TriZetto applications at the ... via Market Wire

"We are especially pleased to welcome Rho Ventures as an investor, whose history of long-term investments and wealth of knowledge in the communications sector will add real value to our business" Top-tier investors Rho Ventures, Genesis Partners, Cedar Fund and others demonstrate confidence in Celtro and its performance in the burgeoning mobile backhaul market Tel Aviv, Israel -- May 13, 2008 -- Celtro, ... via Total Telecom

Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd, the private equity investment vehicle of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., is planning to raise $1.2 billion for two funds to make investments in the infrastructure and other sectors, reports Bloomberg. Kotak will raise $1 billion in a new fund to invest in infrastructure sector, while it will raise an additional $200 million from overseas investors to its third private equity fund (at $440 million) closed last month, Nitin Deshmukh, CEO of Kotak Investment Advisors, told the wire agency. Kotak is aiming to have a total of $2.5 billion in assets under management by the…

Unitus Equity Fund II, the second fund of Unitus, a private equity firm focused on social investment and microfinance opportunities, with significant presence in India, has received $40 million funding from Dubai based Legatum Capital and Omidyar Network. UEF II will provide capital to growth-oriented MFIs. Legatum, a private international investment firm focused on sustainable development, last year invested $25 million in SHARE Microfin Ltd, and in other firms like Financial Information Network & Operations Ltd., A.Little.World, and Intellecap, which all work in the social…

Bharti Airtel will have another source of capital for buying out (or merging with?) MTN. The Blackstone Group has announced the launch of Blackstone Altius Advisors, a new event-driven strategy focusing on opportunities in the Asia Pacific region. This investment entity will seek opportunities created by corporate events including mergers and bankruptcies. The private equity group has hired Aaron Nieman, a Senior Managing Director, for heading up the new initiative. An investment team will be headquartered in Hong Kong, with additional professionals based in Tokyo, Mumbai, and New York.

At a time when two wheeler makers are turning four wheeler manaufacturers, here is a utility vehicle manufacturer intending to get into two wheeler space. Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), the country’s largest utility vehicle maker is reportdely in talks to acquire Kinetic Motors, the Pune-based, struggling two-wheeler manufacturer. According to The Economic Times, both companies are in the final stage of due diligence and M&M is expected to pick up a majority stake in the Firodias-owned company. Kinetic Motors is a public listed firm with a market cap of around Rs 60 crore…

Sunil Mittal may not be able to sweet-talk this deal through so easily. From an outright acquisition, Bharti Airtel’s MTN gamble is now taking the shades of a merger with cash and stock as major components of the deal. This deal would be the first of its kind for an Indian company which is looking to merge itself with an equal if not a larger foreign entity (steel magnate LN Mittal was adept at this game and his last deal with Arcelor was a similar one). Bharti is believed to be contemplating a South African listing so that it can issue shares or depository receipts of Bharti Airtel…

Xobni - is an organizer for Microsoft Outlook email. The beta is now available to the public. I have been using Xobni for 6 months and love it. Xobni is inbox spelled backwards. Xobni compiles a summary for each email sender, extracts phone numbers, photos, organizes attachments in several different ways, and ranks each sender by how many emails they send to you, and how many you send to them. People connected to the email sender are listed, along with email threads from each of them. See all the attachments associated with these people. Search is an integral part of Xobni and can be done in…

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Beebo, Plaxo, Orkut, and MSN Spaces are the biggest well known social network spaces. But what about the 800 other sites scrambling for audiences in the social network space? Can they generate $1M in advertising revenue per month? Will they ever be profitable? USA Today says "Social Network Sites Work To Turn Users Into Profits" and summarizes the problem with this quote; "Short of striking it rich with online ads or creating a new revenue stream, how can so many sites leverage their vast audiences? In many respects, it is the same query that dogged portal…

The blogosphere has changed a lot in the two years that I have been posting here. Blogs used to be like online diaries for individual people to share their thoughts and observations. They still are, but the popularity and reach of blogging has not gone unnoticed. The big media guys and corporate PR machines are using blogs in a big way. The StatBot blog, which is written by a smart high school kid, just published a list of the top 100 blogs on TechMeme. I was surprised to find my blog on the list at number 95. Individuals in the top 100? - In reviewing the list of the All-Time Top 100 Blogs…

Fred Wilson has a post today "Three reasons to use Disqus" which prompted this post "Three reasons to use IntenseDebate". For the uninitiated, Disqus and IntenseDebate are blog commenting widgets that manage comments in interesting ways. This week my  friend Brad Feld asked me to try IntenseDebate. A while ago another friend, Paul Graham of YCombinator fame, asked me to try Disqus. Hmm...what to do? Funny coincidence - Earlier this week I sent a note to Tom Keller, CEO of IntenseDebate, and asked him for reasons why I should use IntenseDebate. The three reasons he gave me were almost the…

John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Mike Moritz of Sequoia are giants in the VC world. They interviewed each other at the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) annual meeting this week. It was a humorous, nostalgic, and insightful discussion. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Pat McGovern, founder of IDG, and a VC legend in his own right. John Doerr started his career at Intel in 1974 as a salesman and later moved into marketing. He moved into the VC business in  1980 joining Kleiner Perkins. Mike Moritz was a writer for Time magazine before joining Sequoia in 1986. History of…

Here are pointers to the articles so far in this series: Preface MIT India:  Engineering Education Urja: Global Fashion Brand Lucid: K-12 Education MIT India and Urja have also generated a great deal of discussion, which I welcome you to read and participate in. Lucid is a new piece, and I expect, will generate similar discussion soon.

Hi - Last date for submitting entries for TiE Canaan Challenge has been extended to 25th May. We are seeing a good response. Also, CNBC TV18 has been roped in to feature the Winners and the working of Challenge in three series. Regards, Mukul

A nice little stat to chew on a sunday morning.    PS : “Transit” refers to Public/mass transit systems.

Another day, another idea. This time, it is TrendWatching. I define TrendWatching as a disciple where one observes (not sees), engages people in conversations (not interviews), identifies what is popular (not market research) and finally using these popular social objects to help businesses. Why TrendWatching? Market research as we know it is dead. I have huge reservations against the very premise of market research. If the respondents know that they are being researched, they more likely would come up with made up stories rather than answers. Then there is an entire issue about intelligence…

I recently did two interviews with two very different but passionate entrepreneurs: Deepak Shenoy, co-founder of Moneyoga and Dr. Girish Saraph of Vegayan Systems. Over the past year or so I have spent a fair amount of time talking to both of them and have followed their journey as entrepreneurs. Deepak and I have spoken at length about entrepreneurship, startup environment, Bangalore, etc over the phone, but never got around to meeting over that cup of filter coffee in Bangalore. Blame it on the messy traffic congestion in Bangalore that precluded me from going to his part of town! Deepak is…

Amid exponential growth projected for the robotic catheter business, Newton startup Corindus Inc. has closed a major round of private equity financing to advance its technology in that market.

The partners of Delta Capital Management LLC have decided to shelve a third $50 million fund and instead will spend the next several years winding down the operation, hoping to get good returns on their final 15 investments.

A business plan that enables prepaid mobile customers to bank their online minutes took the $50,000 top prize in a business plan competition sponsored by Art Technology Group Inc., which raised eyebrows as a corporation sponsoring an event more often associated with universities.

Orion Investment Group, a new private equity firm in St. Louis, has made its first purchase, buying Accu-Therm Inc., a manufacturer of heating elements in Monroe City, Mo., for more than $5 million.

Oxford Immunotec Ltd., a British medical diagnostics firm, has quietly launched its North American headquarters in the Boston area to support U.S. sales of its T-cell test for tuberculosis.

No Show This Week Tudou Received $57 Million for a Chinese Video Sharing Site Akoha Received $1.9 Million for an Online and Offline Social Game Pontiflex Received $2.5 Million for their Cost Per Lead Advertising Network Kongregate Raises $3 Million for User Generated Games and Community MOG Received $2.8 Million for a Music Community Site WorkLight Received $12 Million for Secure Web 2.0 Enterprise Soutions DocStoc.com Received $3.25 Million for Finding and Sharing Professional Documents Wishpot Received $1 Million for a Social Shopping Site Meebo Received $25 Million for Instant Messaging…

No Show This Week Geezeo Received $1.2 Million Red Bend Received $10 Million PrepChamps Received $1.2 Million Mediascrape Received $3.16 Million SaysMe Received Undisclosed Amount Silverpop Received $15 Million Jobster Received $7 Million Obopay Received $20 Million TeachStreet Received $2.25 Million MobiTV Received $5 Million Emphasis Search Received $1 Million HopStop Received Angel Funding MediaBank Received $30 Million Technorati Tags: VC News VC Shows venture capital podcastread more

Click here to listen to the Venture Capital Podcast GamerDNA Received $3 Million WaveMaker Received $4.5 Million EQAL Received $5 Million Collective Intellect Received $6.6 Million TripIt Received $5 Million Buddy Media Received $6.5 Million Bunchball Received $4 Million Angie's List Received $35 Million Move Networks Received $46 Million Federated Media Received $50 Million BuddyTV Receives $6 Million Technorati Tags: VC News VC Shows venture capital podcastread more

Click here to listen to the Venture Capital Podcast Mobango Received $5.7 Million Redux Received $6.5 Million Sellaband Received $5 Million RichRelevance Received $4.2 Million Qik Received $3 Million Jaxtr Received $6.4 Million Fon Received $9.5 Million iBloks Received $2.1 Million Ustream Received $11.1 Million Better World Books Received $4.5 Million Marketcetera Received $4 Million Marin Software Received $7.25 Million TargetRX Received $9.6 Million Covestor Received $6.5 Million Technorati Tags: VC News VC Shows venture capital podcastread more

Click here to listen to the Venture Capital Podcast Vlingo Received $20 Million Fishbowl Received $12 Million Coremetrics Received $60 Million Yardbarker Received $6 Million SheZoom Received $2 Million Fix8 Received $2 Million Attributor Received $12 Million Loomia Received $5 Million Reality Digital Received $6.3 Million Chumby Received $12.5 Million Technorati Tags: VC News VC Shows venture capital podcastread more

Update: Clear Channel issued a press release at 11:11pm, confirming the agreement. Our long Clear Channel nightmare may finally be over. My colleague Megan Davies is reporting that the company’s prospective financial sponsors and lenders have reached an agreement in principle to take the company private for $36 per share. None of this is set in stone — “fluid” is the word I keep hearing — but an announcement could hit sometime between now and the start of American Idol. If it does, expect talk about how the revised agreement won’t result in a private Clear…

Greenhill & Co. took a bite out of Lehman Brothers today, by poaching its private equity fund placement team. Lehman responded by shrugging its shoulders. This is something I should have seen coming in March, when Lehman hired former UBS placement chief Mark Bourgeois to serve as co-head of Global Institutional Distribution with a focus on alternative investments. It basically meant that Lehman’s Chris Kirsten got too keep his fancy title – global head of private fund marketing – but lost much of his actual influence. “Bourgeois will do whatever he feels is best, and not everyone…

Michael Butler is chairman and CEO of investment bank Cascadia Capital. He is writing a book titled Financing the Future and the Next Wave of 21st Century Innovation, and is serializing it here at peHUB. What follows is an excerpt from the fourth chapter. A decade ago, every ambitious and analytical business-school student dreamed of becoming a rock-star venture capitalist like John Doerr or Jim Clark. And why not? The returns were robust, the headlines and magazine covers were positive, and the personal wealth just piled up. There’s a very different kind of pile up today on Sand Hill Road,…

This morning I’m pleased to announce peHUB Across America: Five peHUB Shindigs on five consecutive nights in five different cities. I’ll be at each one, and hope you’ll join me. No content. Just cocktails and conversation with fellow venture and buyout professionals. We begin on Monday June 9 in Los Angeles, and then move on to Chicago (June 10), Washington DC (June 11), New York City (June 12) and Boston (June 13). That last one is at Fenway Park, which makes me kinda giddy. Space at each event is limited, and tickets cost $10 each. You can purchase them online, with all the proceeds…

* The Clear Channel trial is set to begin this morning, but everyone expects a settlement instead of opening arguments. Steve Davidoff sketches out what such an agreement may look like. I still want to know if shareholders will bite at the price cut, or if they’ll take up the “But we had a deal” mantle. * Anthony Ha defends the Sprint/Clearwire WiMax deal. Or at least defends its potential. * Q&A on Norman Pearlstine’s move from Carlyle Group to Bloomberg. Well, not with Norman, but with Bloomberg editor Matt Winkler. * Hank Greenberg says that AIG is “in…

Project Name: Patent Green Bio-antibiotics Investors have 3 options: 1. Shareholding 2. Collateral loan 3. Venture capital Investment made by project owner: RMB 50million Investment needed: RMB100 million (US$13.8 million) for new workshops, office buildings, etc. Collaterals: RMB120 million, including Land: RMB50 million, Plant and office building: 2000 m2, RMB40 million Intellectual Property including patent technology and medicine code: RMB 30 million Adu ...

Philippines Turn Key Call Center for Sale Inovize, Inc. is a turnkey call center solution. We are offering a complete solution to allow you to join the BPO industry with very little time and setup. We are offering the following in our package. • Incorporated Business(es) • Facilities • Equipment • Information Technology Infrastructure • Website • Vanity Toll Free Number • Intellectual Property • Business and Professional Contacts

please provide your insights.

We have several great film projects in our inventory, one in particular that already has an Academy Award nominated actor and two Golden Globe winners attached. We are seeking equity investors for this project. Does anyone have serious investors in their network that might be willing to act quickly to evaluate this project and if the answer is yes, provide the financing? We've had lots of people willing to read what we have, but none who are in a position to give a yes or no answer.

Greentech Media, a Cambridge-based, online media company covering green technology news and analysis, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $2.75 million in its second round of venture capital, which was co-led by EGORA Holding and The Massachusetts Green Energy Fund. Other investors in the deal include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Northport Private Equity, and King Hill Capital. Greentech Media was founded in February 2007. The company said it will use the funds to expand its team, increase focused coverage on key greentech markets, grow its product offering, and scale up its sales efforts…

Gomez, Inc., a Lexington-based web services company, announced late Wednesday that it has filed a registration statement with the SEC for an initial public offering of its shares. The filing said the company intends to raise up to $80.5 million. Gomez provides web services that allow customers to test their web applications during development and to monitor the applications after deployment. The company’s stock is expected to trade on The NASDAQ Global Market under the ticker symbol GOMZ. The company has received venture capital backing from AdAstra, ABS Ventures, Dolphin Equity Partners,…

InnoCentive, a Waltham-based company that has developed an online market for R&D, announced on Tuesday that it has closed $6.5 million in its second round of financing from Spencer Trask Ventures, a New York-based venture firm. InnoCentive has built an online community aimed at scientists, engineers, professionals and entrepreneurs who collaborate to provide research and development -- and solve technical issues -- for companies and organizations. Using InnoCentive, companies can submit challenges to its users, who are invited to solve the issue. If an adequate solution is provided, then…

Frame Media, a Boston-based wireless technology company, announced on Wednesday that it has secured an additional $3 million in funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $5.2 million. The funding was co-led by Longworth Venture Partners and CommonAngels. Frame Media's board members include Thomas Burgess, founder of Third Screen Media, and Mike DiFranza, president and founder of Captivate Network. Frame Media's platform allows digital frame owners to program the delivery of personalized content to their wireless picture frames, combining their own personal media with content…

Virtualization software developer Leostream Corporation has closed on $3 million in Series A funding. http://www.leostream.com

WebWorkerDaily — How reading RSS feeds for a week changed one woman’s life. OStatic – Five free apps to lock down your public Wi-Fi hotspot session. NewTeeVee — StumbleUpon’s video discovery service has added support for six different content sites.

Anyone questioning the need for more fiber or wireless backhaul, or even 4G wireless broadband, need only look at a recent survey from IDC that finds that a constant connection is becoming the expected norm for almost a fifth of the world’s population. Sure, the study was funded by Nortel Networks, a telecommunications gear maker, but I don’t doubt the general theme of hyperconnectivity at all. Some findings include: 16 percent of the global workforce is hyperconnected today, a number that will grow to 40 percent in five years. 64 percent of the workforce in Latin America is…

Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle infrastructure startup, Project Better Place, may be aiming to work with San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsom has been talking with the company about potentially building the infrastructure for a fleet of plug-in cars for the city, including parking meter charging stations and battery replacement stations. Newsom last week traveled to Israel to check out the company’s operations there, and was said to be “very impressed” with its team. Earth2Tech got the full scoop from the mayor’s office — check out the story here.

Nimbuzz, a little-known mobile VoIP company out of the Netherlands, has released a mobile client that not only allows users to conduct VoIP calls, but to engage in IM conversations and share media such as photos, music and video. Nimbuzz, which claims to have received an undisclosed amount of funding from Skype’s original investors, Mangrove Capital Partners, seeks to utilize cellular data networks and provide users with an inclusive application for mobile IM and SMS communication. With this service, Nimbuzz enters a market already dominated by established mobile VoIP clients Fring and…

No one knows exactly how big the market for mobile Internet devices will be, but the major chip makers are betting it will be huge (it’s one of the reasons they’re making chips for mobile devices at 45 nanometers.) We’ve covered efforts by Intel, Qualcomm, and Via Technologies to get their chips into devices sized somewhere between a smartphone and a PC, but Texas Instruments wants to play, too. TI formalized its MID effort, based on its own OMAP architecture, last month. It’s entering this market with its third generation of OMAP multimedia processors, which were…

Being an entrepreneur means figuring out how to survive and thrive when you often find yourself in way over your head.  An ambitious entrepreneur is always pushing and stretching beyond their comfort zone -- creating a company from scratch, evangelizing a new category, taking risks way out of any rational person's comfort zone.  They rarely want to admit vulnerability, particularly to their management team or board, and so sometimes cover up their anxiety with bravado.  This is the exact wrong way to approach this common situation. Believe me, I know the feeling.  In my…