Categorie: Venture

The Story of Skout: From Deadpool’s Door to $22M Led By Andreessen Horowitz

apps, mobile, Skout, social, Startups, TC, Venture

niklas-christianEighteen months ago, it looked like the location wars were over. Foursquare had just closed a $20 million Series B round and rivals like Gowalla, Loopt and Brightkite weren’t having the same buzz or traction. Meanwhile, Christian Wiklund’s company Skout was down to a skeleton crew of three people after burning much of the $4.6 million it had raised since being founded in 2007.

“We were close to going under. We had no traction,” Wiklund said. “But we were really stubborn and there was no way we were going to let that happen.”

A first-time entrepreneur, Wiklund and his co-founder Niklas Lindstrom put their heads down. In 2009, they changed the app to focus on a new demographic: young people who wanted to meet strangers and singles who wanted to flirt.

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Pinterest Co-Founder Paul Sciarra Is Now EIR At Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz, pinterest, social, Social Media, TC, Venture, venture capital

Paul SciarraMore developments for Pinterest co-founder Paul Sciarra, who we reported yesterday was leaving Pinterest as Ben Silbermann officially took helm as CEO. Sciarra is going VC and joining Andreessen Horowitz as entrepreneur-in-residence.

The move follows the bigger trend of startup execs/founders getting snapped up by the VC firms, to help them get a bit smarter in how they work with their portfolio companies. Just yesterday, First Round Capital hired Scribd’s Jack Leidlein as head of talent.

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SoFi Reinvents College Loans With Alumni Funding

social, Startups, TC, Venture

sofiAs the cost of a college education continues to rise, a startup called SoFi is offering a way for alumni to offer students financial assistance and more.

Co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney describes the current student loan system as a “classic market failure,” resulting in students who are stuck with high interest rates and heavy debt that they struggle to pay off. He says that if you can remove government from the equation (specifically government loans) and replace it with alumni, then “you create a very virtuous cycle.”

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SoFi Reinvents College Loans With Alumni Funding

social, Startups, TC, Venture

sofiAs the cost of a college education continues to rise, a startup called SoFi is offering a way for alumni to offer students financial assistance and more.

Co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney describes the current student loan system as a “classic market failure,” resulting in students who are stuck with high interest rates and heavy debt that they struggle to pay off. He says that if you can remove government from the equation (specifically government loans) and replace it with alumni, then “you create a very virtuous cycle.”

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The Market Curve: The Life Cycle Of New Technology Markets

Doug Pepper, ecommerce, market trends, social, Startups, TC, Venture

healthy_marketEditor’s Note: This guest post is written by Doug Pepper, who is a General Partner at InterWest Partners where he invests in SaaS, mobile, consumer Internet and digital media companies. He blogs at dougpepper.blogspot.com.

Everyone expects startups, even successful ones, to undergo a cycle of hype, disappointment and ultimately growth on the way to a sustainable business. But what about new technology markets themselves? Does the growth of a new market follow a similar pattern?

Fred Wilson recently wrote about the twists and turns that startups face (expanding on Paul Graham’s astute “Startup Curve”). I’d like to take those ideas further and describe the “Market Curve” — a similar path that new markets take on the path to sustainability.

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The Market Curve: The Life Cycle Of New Technology Markets

Doug Pepper, ecommerce, market curve, market trends, social, Startups, TC, tech markets, Venture

healthy_marketEditor’s Note: This guest post is written by Doug Pepper, who is a General Partner at InterWest Partners where he invests in SaaS, mobile, consumer Internet and digital media companies. He blogs at dougpepper.blogspot.com.

Everyone expects startups, even successful ones, to undergo a cycle of hype, disappointment and ultimately growth on the way to a sustainable business. But what about new technology markets themselves? Does the growth of a new market follow a similar pattern?

Fred Wilson recently wrote about the twists and turns that startups face (expanding on Paul Graham’s astute “Startup Curve”). I’d like to take those ideas further and describe the “Market Curve” — a similar path that new markets take on the path to sustainability.

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SocialShield Acquired By German Security Company Avira

Europe, social, Startups, TC, Venture, venture capital

socialshield logoAvira, a security company headquartered in Germany, just announced that it has acquired social monitoring startup SocialShield and will be adding the service to its lineup of free security products.

“Avira is broadening our security focus from safe-guarding computers to now protecting the people who use them, and that requires us to look beyond viruses and worms and Trojans,” Avira Products and Markets COO Sascha Beyer says in the press release. “The acquisition of SocialShield not only brings child safety technology into Avira’s portfolio, but it also enhances our knowledge of social networking security and our awareness of the risks within the ‘cloud.'”

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Google Ventures-Backed Kibits Lets You Share With Real-World Micro-Networks, Raises $1M

mobile, social, Startups, TC, Venture

KibitsHomeDoes the world need another mobile social app? A new startup called Kibits thinks it does, and its investors (including Google Ventures and Charles River Ventures) seem to agree.

The company’s iPhone (and iPod Touch) app is launching today. At first glance, it may look like another variant on group chat, but co-founder and CEO Matt Cutler says that even though he’s “an active user of multiple group messaging apps,” Kibits is doing something different.

For one thing, it’s designed to “complement real-world interactions.” That means you can form groups based on things like Facebook friendships, calendar appointments, and most interestingly, physical proximity.

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Confirmed: Canadian VC Firm OMERS Ventures Takes $20M Stake In HootSuite At $200M Valuation

Fundings & Exits, Hootsuite, social, social media monitoring, TC, Venture, venture capital

hootsuite logoAllThingsD has reported, and we have confirmed, that OMERS Ventures, a Canada-based VC, has taken a $20-million investment in HootSuite, the social media management platform, with the company now valued at $200 million.

The investment is a secondary one, and will be coming in the form of purchases of equity from HootSuite’s existing shareholders. These include employees as well as existing investors. That list includes Blumberg Capital, Hearst Ventures, Geoff Entress and Millennium Technology Value Partners, who collectively have invested $4.9 million into the company: $3 million in debt and a $1.9 million capital investment.

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Campalyst Raises Seed Round To Measure Social Media ROI

Europe, social, TC, Venture

campalyst logoSocial media analytics startup Campalyst is celebrating its first birthday today, and its big present is a new seed round (of undisclosed size) from Amsterdam-based venture capital firm HENQ.

The company was co-founded by former business school classmates Jevgenijs Kazanins and Dalia Lasaite as part of Garage48, a European boot camp where startups are created in the course of a weekend. During last year’s beta testing period, Kazanins says more than 250 marketing agencies and brands signed up to use the product. Campalyst closed the beta period in January and started converting those sign-ups into paying customers.

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