Roundup: VC departure complications, Facebook ToS issues not stopping growth, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Pierre Lamond’s departure from Sequoia: It’s complicated — The famed venture capitalist left top investing firm Sequoia Capital earlier this week to join fellow investor Vinod Khosla — but his defection doesn’t appear to have been as amicable as it first appeared, and the relationship between Lamond and Khosla is still being sifted out, according to peHUB.
A bad new record — It’s official, the market has fallen further and faster than it did in… Continue Reading
Roundup: Yahoo flushes its “poison pill,” Crain’s goes out of print, WordPress goes 2.7 and more
Here’s the latest action:
Yahoo flushes its “poison pill” — One of the reasons Microsoft decided not to go hostile in its bid to buy Yahoo was that the company had a so-called “poison pill” plan in place in which hundreds of millions of dollars would have likely been due to employees who left due to their unhappiness with any Microsoft/Yahoo merger. A few Yahoo shareholders decided to sue the company to remove this plan, and today… Continue Reading
Source: P2P startup SkyRider has shut down
Troubled peer-to-peer technology startup SkyRider has shut down, a reliable source tells me. I’ve reached out to the company for comment but haven’t heard back.
Mountain View, Calif-based SkyRider took a round of bridge financing last winter, as we reported then; NewTeeVee subsequently unearthed a management shakeup.
Notably, SkyRider was a portfolio company of top venture firm Sequoia — the one that last week told its portfolio companies to cut costs as much as possible in order… Continue Reading
More details on Sequoia’s economic “inconvenient truth” meeting
Updated
Sequoia Capital, a premier Silicon Valley venture firm, held a meeting on Tuesday during which it told its portfolio companies to cut costs and prepare for an economic downturn that could last many years.
The presentation, one attendee tells me, was like the global warming wake-up call movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” But instead of Al Gore running through a bunch of slides about the environment, it was billionaire investors running through a bunch of slides about… Continue Reading
Sequoia has emergency meeting, tells startups to try to survive downturn
Leading Silicon Valley venture firm Sequoia held an emergency meeting yesterday to tell its portfolio companies to get ready for the worst, GigaOm is reporting and which we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. To drive the point home, startups were greeted at the gathering with a grave stone that said “RIP: Good Times.”
Many Silicon Valley companies have been wondering how — or if — the larger economic crisis may affect them. This is perhaps the surest… Continue Reading
The supreme reign of content at its end, top VCs back MEVIO with $15M, anyway
These days, even Wall Street analysts are acknowledging that content is no longer king, but MEVIO, formerly known as Podshow, has just received funding from some of the biggest names in the VC world. The company has raised $15 million round in funding, led by Crosslink Capital, along with Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia. Maybe online content is more of a wealthy prince.
MEVIO specializes in professionally produced content that it both creates itself and aggregates from… Continue Reading
Roundup: Six Apart launches ad network, Microsoft acquires Xobni…maybe and more
Here’s the latest action:
Six Apart evolves into an ad network — The blogging company behind MovableType, TypePad and Vox is offering a new advertising program which will give publishers more control over ads and revenue from their sites. The company claims its ad network will be better than the many others out there (with more popping up everyday) because it has the best experience with advertisements specific to blogs. The company also launched Six Apart Services… Continue Reading
Roundup: AMD falls, Sequoia expands, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Advanced Micro Devices is in a world of hurt — The Sunnyvale, Calif. chip company lost $358 million on revenues of $1.5 billion in the quarter. It cited a tough outlook for the computer market, but it is clearly hurting from Intel’s newfound competitiveness. AMD’s core business is microprocessors and graphics chips for personal computers. It has other businesses related to getting those chips into other devices, from consumer electronics to mobile… Continue Reading
Trulia booms amid a housing bust. Launches Google Street View integration
The real estate market is in serious turmoil and has likely thrown the entire economy into a recession, so you’d think a real estate search startup might not be a hot item. But you’d be wrong.
One such real estate search startup, Trulia, is not only doing fine, but usage of the site is accelerating as a result of the housing downturn, co-founder and chief executive Pete Flint tells us. Users are flocking to sites such… Continue Reading
Kenshoo, SEM analytics company, raises round from Sequoia
Kenshoo helps advertisers with search engine marketing campaigns more efficiently reach search users.
The Israeli company has raised several million from Sequoia.
Search engine marketing is an umbrella term for a variety of techniques designed to increase the visibility of your web site on search engine result pages. The best-known examples are Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter and Yahoo Panama.
Kenshoo automates the traditionally manual process of building search campaigns across these services and figuring out which keywords are… Continue Reading
Sequoia Capital to Yale: “Invest or else”
Sequoia Capital, arguably Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capital firm, is big-footing one of its most respected investors.
It brazenly demanded that Yale University invest in Sequoia’s risky adventures abroad in places like China, India and in later-stage investing. And when Yale refused, Sequoia ejected the university from access to its well-performing early stage funds — the ones that in the past have invested in companies like Google and Yahoo.
Sequoia’s aggressive handling of Yale came to… Continue Reading
Stumble Video, Seven, Panama, Skype 3.0, Venice Project & more
Here’s the latest round-up of Silicon Valley tech news:
Video launch of the day: Stumble Video — StumbleUpon, the site that lets you “stumble upon” other sites by offering up recommendations based on your perceived interests, has reportedly seen a spike in popularity. So it has launched a video version, Stumble Video. You stay on its home page, and it plays videos for you. You give thumbs up and thumbs down, letting it figure out your tastes…. Continue Reading
Qihoo raises $25M for new Web 2.0 search engine
Qihoo, a fast-growing but controversial Chinese search engine for Web 2.0 content, has raised $25 million more in a second round of venture capital from credible U.S investors.
This is significant because Qihoo has launched a new kind of search engine, dedicated to Web 2.0 content — focused on blogs and forums, for example — that has seen its traffic spike in China. Page views have grown from tens of millions of page views a day,… Continue Reading
Sequoia invests $12M in Indian cosmetics co, Paras
Sequoia Capital India has invested $12 million in over-the-counter drug and cosmetic maker Paras Pharmaceuticals, bringing the Indian company’s total raised to $54 million in just the past two months, according to VentureWire (sub required).
In October, U.K.-based Actis Capital made a $42 million commitment to Paras citing a current boon in the pharmaceuticals industry in India and strong product placement of at least two of Para’s 15 brands. Based in Ahmedabad, India, Paras sells… Continue Reading
Jajah grabs attention with free mobile calls
Updated
Jajah, a Mountain View VoIP start-up that began offering free phone calls in June, has gone one better. It is now allows free calls from your mobile phone.
It just launched the service at DEMO.
Jajah is a scrappy, quirky company. It can, without warning, cut off calls if you talk too long. But Jajah may be one to watch nonetheless — because it works so simply and for free. And it is raking in the dough,… Continue Reading