Quid makes million-dollar maps of technology’s past, present… and future
Iraqi insurgency groups and Silicon Valley startups may not appear to have a lot in common, but according to Quid‘s Chief Technical Officer Sean Gourley, the mathematics underlying innovation and conflict are not that different.
“The dynamics of an insurgency are actually quite similar to startups disrupting an established market,” says Gourley.
Data analysis is becoming ever more important within tech companies but Quid allows corporate strategists to manipulate a data-driven “map” of an entire … Continue Reading
Google quarterly report reveals $151M Zagat purchase, 54 other buys
Google paid $151 million in cash for restaurant review company Zagat, only one of the 54 acquisitions the company made in the first nine months of 2011.
The numbers were revealed in a quarterly report submitted by the company to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In order to become more vertical, Google snaps up relevant companies around it, often supplementing programs or products already in the Google roster. Most recently, Google purchased German site DailyDeal … Continue Reading
Google considers financing a deal for Yahoo buyout
Google is the latest company to be connected to a potential buyout of troubled Yahoo Inc. The search giant has talked to at least two equity firms about helping it acquire a chunk of Yahoo, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which sites an unnamed source close to the matter.
The talks are said to still be in the early stages, and no serious offers have been made, but the play would … Continue Reading
Groupon buys Zappedy for $10.3M
Daily-deal site Groupon bought Zappedy, a mystery company, for at least $10.3 million, according to a Form D filed with the SEC today.
Brad Williams, an internal spokesman for Groupon, confirmed the purchase and explained in an interview with VentureBeat that the move is not a taboo one during a quiet period. The SEC imposes quiet periods to ensure information about a company filing to go public isn’t disseminated selectively to potential investors.
“We’re not … Continue Reading
New rules for the new internet bubble
(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This is an edited version of a longer story that originally appeared on his blog.)
We’re now in the second Internet bubble. The signals are loud and clear: seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky; hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble and investors are starting to … Continue Reading
The acquisition landscape has changed — are you ready?
[Stefanie Dhanda is senior vice president at Boston-based Stonebridge Associates, LLC, a FINRA/SIPC registered investment bank.]
While acquisition activity among medium-sized companies is returning to near-normal levels, today’s transaction landscape has undergone epic changes. The dynamics have shifted as buyers aggressively hunt strategic acquisitions; they’re making more unsolicited offers, looking to close deals quickly, and scoping out attractive companies that can be acquired without a competitive process.
Corporate buyers, having streamlined costs and preserved profits … Continue Reading
Twitter cofounder Biz Stone to advise AOL
Internet behemoth AOL announced today that it has hired Biz Stone, cofounder of white-hot microblogging service Twitter, as a “social impact advisor.”
The move, which comes a week after AOL closed its deal to acquire popular blog and news aggregator The Huffington Post for $315 million, is just one of many AOL has made to revamp its image.
Stone (pictured) is currently creative director at Twitter, where he oversees new product development, vets and proposes … Continue Reading
Silicon Valley VCs reach highest confidence levels in two years
Venture Capitalists are increasingly optimistic about the immediate future of investing in Silicon Valley. Their confidence registered 3.75 on a 5 point scale, with 5 indicating high confidence and 1 indicating low confidence, according to the quarterly Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index released today.
The index polled 35 San Francisco Bay Area venture capitalists in December 2010 about how they viewed the high-growth venture entrepreneurial environment in the San Francisco Bay Area over the … Continue Reading
Google snags Twitter movie recommender Fflick for $10M
Search behemoth Google is back on the prowl again, today snapping up microblogging Twitter recommendation service Fflick for around $10 million, the companies confirmed this morning, one being an unnamed source at Google.
An official Google spokeswoman refused to comment, saying, “We don’t comment on speculation, as you know.”
Fflick uses Twitter to show you what movies the people you follow are recommending as well as what movies they’ve commented on positively or negatively. It … Continue Reading
Exit activity leapt 25% in 2010, but is 2011 the "Year of the IPO?"
Successful exit activity for venture-backed companies rose 25 percent in 2010 from the previous year, reaching levels close to those seen before the recession and netting $39 billion in liquidity for 514 companies, according to a study released today by Dow Jones VentureSource.
However, although the amount of successful exits was up, they are still lagging in size dollar-wise, as “blockbuster” events stayed largely out of the headlines because VCs are holding onto the companies … Continue Reading
A New Year's resolution for Google: Buy MySpace, stat!
[Peter Yared is the vice president of apps at Webtrends, which acquired Transpond, a social-apps developer he founded.]
For all the money Google has thrown at MySpace over the years, the search giant of Mountain View might as well have bought the troubled social network. For years, News Corp. CEO liked to brag that Google paid him more in its landmark $900 million search deal than he paid to buy MySpace in the first place.… Continue Reading
Xing snaps up event startup Amiando
German business social networking site Xing has acquired Amiando, an online event management and ticketing services company, for around 10.3 million euros, as the “German LinkedIn” attempts to engage its more than 10 million members more actively.
Xing is the leading business social networking site in Germany and offers integrated business event services ranging from organization to marketing, billing, and execution.
Amiando has been billed as the “Eventbrite of Europe,” in that it offers online event … Continue Reading
Does anyone want to tell Yahoo that AOL wants to merge with it?
AOL, at one time a leading Internet service provider, is looking to spin-off its dial-up operations and merge the remainder of the company with Yahoo, according to a report by Reuters.
This isn’t the first time rumors of a deal between Yahoo and AOL have cropped up. Just a few months ago, a number of private equity firms considered teaming up with AOL to purchase the search provider. Once again, Yahoo has yet to be … Continue Reading
Groupon spurns Google's paltry $6B offer, makes $2B every year
It’s official: Groupon makes a ridiculous amount of money. In fact, it makes more than enough to reject Google’s offer, worth somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion, to buy the daily-deal company.
Groupon has reportedly called off the massive buyout offer from Google and apparently makes $2 billion in revenue year, according to a number of reports. The reports also indicate the site could file to go public next year.
The daily-deal space has … Continue Reading
Group-buying startup LivingSocial starts living large with $175M from Amazon
Google’s not the only one getting into the increasingly lucrative online group buying business. LivingSocial has just scored a $175 million investment from Amazon.com, a deal whose possibility was first reported by VentureBeat last month.
The company is a major competitor to Groupon, the group-buying company for which Google reportedly bid $6 billion this week. Both sites sign members up to receive deeply discounted offers for services, meals, and group activities from local merchants looking … Continue Reading
Media mogul Barry Diller checks out of IAC (though he's still on staff)
Media titan Barry Diller said he is stepping down as CEO of media conglomerate InterActive Corp today.
This has been a long time coming. Diller initially made his name buying and selling properties, frequently reshaping his company’s focus, from movies and TV to e-commerce to search. But more recently, he appeared to lose his touch, with critics questioning his leadership: His moves in the acquisition market raised a number of questions about his ability to … Continue Reading
My, what a big balance sheet you have!
(Editor’s note: Jeff Bussgang is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners. This column originally appeared on his blog Seeing Both Sides.)
In undiluted tellings of the tale, the Big Bad Wolf devours Little Red Riding Hood before running off into the woods. That’s something worth remembering when considering the prospects for a wave of technology M&A that’s about to materialize.
Over the last few months, investment bankers have been eagerly reaching out to corporate … Continue Reading
Tech banker Frank Quattrone foresees lots of cross-industry mergers
Apple taught the tech world that going vertical — where a company owns many of the critical technology ingredients that it uses in its products — can result in big payoffs. Products like the iPhone and iPad are made with Apple software, chips, and hardware.
Because Apple succeeded so well with that vertical business model, other companies are following suit. Add to the fact that big tech companies are sitting on a lot of cash … Continue Reading
Are we nearing the end of the VC dog days?
(Editor’s note: David Millard is Chair of the Business Department of Barnes & Thornburg LLP. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
As with many other industries, the days since the 2008 crash have been “dog days” for the venture capital industry.
Racked by a dearth of attractive exit opportunities, venture capital returns over a ten year time horizon have fallen to sub-par levels and the venture capital industry has begun to shrink as a result. … Continue Reading
Google exec: Android was "best deal ever"
Buying Android Inc., the wireless-software startup founded by Andy Rubin, was Google’s “best deal ever,” said David Lawee, vice president of corporate development at the search giant.
Lawee made the remark at a panel at the 16th annual Stanford Accel Symposium, a conference organized by the university and venture-capital firm Accel Partners.
Lawee said that when Google buys a company, it’s up to the entrepreneurs behind that company to make it a success. Google quietly … Continue Reading
