U.S. venture capital goes to eastern Europe, Russia
Cisco, the giant networking company, has expanded its venture capital investments to central and eastern Europe, taking a majority stake in a 30 million Euro ($40 million) fund there.
It comes at a time of a flurry of investment activity in the eastern European and Russia region, an area that has so far been starved of venture capital. The region has a plentiful supply of well educated engineers, and so could be promising. Cisco started a… Continue Reading
Socialtext offers “social software” to big companies, raises cash
Socialtext, the early wiki company, has raised $9.5 million in a third round of financing.
Socialtext is one of a number companies loading delivering “social software” to large companies, helping employees collaborate in real-time on documents in ways they haven’t done in the past. It has recently expanded beyond mere wikis, or Web pages that multiple people can edit at the same time, and now offers multiple social networking tools, such as social bookmarking, where employees… Continue Reading
TrustedID raises $10M for credit fraud protection, though unclear how popular it is
TrustedID, a service that freezes your credit reports, so that fraudsters can’t open financial accounts under your name, has raised $10 million in a second round of funding after a prolonged period of looking.
However, the company has still not released any specifics about how it is doing. Co-founder Chief executive Scott Mitic has declined to say how many subscribers the company has, raising questions about how much traction the company has been able to get.
Opus… Continue Reading
Splashtop, lets you hit PC start button, and browse instantly
Splashtop is a newly released technology that lets you browse the Internet within 20 seconds of pushing a PC’s start button. It has just gotten $10 million in venture capital to help it get to market.
See video below about how it works (RSS readers will have to visit site).
The technology is owned by DeviceVM, a San Jose, Calif. company. It works by offering you features without fully booting the computer. See full announcement here.
The company… Continue Reading
Among venture firms, DFJ maintains global leadership
Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has been the swiftest to go global, has opened an outpost in Israel. It’s the latest move in an impressive empire-building that now includes 120 investors in 30 cities. It’s also a smart move, given strong growth in other parts of the world.
DFJ has teamed up with an Israeli firm called Tamir Fishman. The two will rebrand the Israeli firm’s next fund as “DFJ Tamir… Continue Reading
DFJ partners with Esprit in Europe, to form DFJ Esprit
Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Menlo Park, Calif. venture capital firm, has acquired a strategic stake in Esprit Capital Partners of Europe.
Esprit, which has offices in London and Cambridge, U.K., has rebranded as DFJ Esprit and is now DFJ’s exclusive partner in Europe, the firms said in a statement currently on Esprit’s home page.
DFJ Esprit is the latest addition to the DFJ Network of venture capital partnerships, which now includes 120 investment professionals in 30… Continue Reading
Venture firm DFJ enters South America with $40M
Silicon Valley venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson has long been angling for a way to enter South America, seeing it as the last major region to conquer with its global network.
DFJ has teamed up with FIR Capital Partners, an early-stage Brazilian venture capital firm, to invest a $40 fund in the South America region — making it DFJ’s 17th regional affiliate fund.
Later this year, they’ll launch a $100 million fund, to be called DFJ… Continue Reading
DFJ raises $434.5 million venture capital fund
Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, backer of companies like Skype and Baidu, has raised a $434.5 million for its ninth fund, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission cited by VentureWire (sub required).
It still plans to raise $600 million in total.
YouTube myth debunked, Google phone, Endoxon, iPhone, Perkins’ memoir & more
The latest roundup of Silicon Valley tech stuff:
YouTube myth debunked; idea really came from HOTorNOT — Remember the Pez dispenser story eBay fabricated to drum up a catchy media story about its founding? Turns out, the same thing happened at YouTube. The founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen told us and many others that their idea for YouTube came during a party, and their frustration at not being able to upload videos of it. Now Time… Continue Reading