Amid turmoil and news of $700B federal bailout, is the sky falling for venture capitalists and start-ups?
We’ve asked some prominent players in venture capital and start-ups about where the venture capital industry and start-ups are headed over the next year, given the economic turmoil.
The $700 billion federal bailout plan still being negotiated by Congress and the Bush Administration may restore confidence, but it looks like uncertainty will last for months. Many people believe we’ll be in a prolonged recession. In the latest news, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last… Continue Reading
Sportgenic raises $10M for sports ad network
Sportgenic, a company that claims to provide high-value market reach to sports advertisers and marketers, has raised $10 million in a second round of funding.
The company targets specific groups of sports enthusiasts based on their predilections, from country club members to outdoorsmen and team athletes. It claims to have 350 publisher sites that it places ads on.
Adams Street Partners led the funding round, with participation from previous investors Alsop Louie Partners, KPG Ventures and Greycroft… Continue Reading
Social network Redux raises $3.5M
Updated
Redux, a Berkeley, Calif.-based social networking site (or, as the company calls it, a “discovery network”), has raised $6.5 million in a second round of venture funding, according to PE Hub. Backers include Alsop Louie Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
[Update: Nathan Dintenfass, the company's vice president of marketing, says it raised $3.5 million, not $6.5 million.]
Redux was co-founded by Darian Shirazi, an early Facebook employee who also created mobile photo-sharing site Fotodunk, and David McIntosh…. Continue Reading
Ribbit, “Silicon Valley’s first phone company”
Ribbit is a remarkable new company, and it knows it: It calls itself “Silicon Valley’s first phone company.”
That sounds like marketing overreach for a young company barely launched, but when you look at what it’s doing, you can see why they can get carried away.
Ribbit, based in Mountain View, Calif., has developed technology, built on years of prior work of its founders, that lets a developer insert phone software into any Web application. The developer… Continue Reading
Justin.tv raises money, lets users broadcast themselves live
Justin.tv, a site that features streaming videos of personalities running around with live cameras, has launched tools to let anyone play their own live broadcasts on its site.
It has also announced an undisclosed round of funding from Alsop Louie Partners.
The San Francisco-based company began letting users participate in May [update, see comments: selling them its proprietary backpack of video hardware]. It is now offering users a path to fame through any a computer with an… Continue Reading
Cake Financial tracks your stock portfolio, rates your performance
Cake Financial is a new service for helping any stock market investor better manage their own performance.
The San Francisco company lets you import all of your financial data from online brokerage firms into your Cake profile, then compare your performance against other investors using the service.
Cake shows you the historical performance of your portfolio going back as far as ten years, as well as monthly and yearly performance data. You can compare yourself versus friends… Continue Reading
FlickIM, a better chat for iPhone
FlickIM is a new lightweight chat feature designed specifically for the iPhone.
It’s more nimble than competitors, and lets you exchange YouTube videos and Apple movie trailers.
More significantly, it’s the first feature produced by a group of nine young developers led by two former UC Berkeley students, Darian Shirazi and David Macintosh, both 20 years old. Their company, Next3, seeks to make communications easier for the 20-something generation, and has just raised $1.6 million in a… Continue Reading
Ex-CIA investor Gilman Louie makes first secretive investment: Duality
Gilman Louie, who used to run In-Q-Tel, the indepedent venture arm of the CIA, appears to have made his first investment since leaving that group.
Louie, who has teamed up with former NEA investor, Stewart Alsop at a firm called Alsop Louie Partners, has invested $2 million in Duality, a Mountain View provider of “virtual mobile enterprise” communications services for small and medium sized business and for units within large organizations. PE Week first reported the… Continue Reading