VentureBeat

updated

VentureBeat has just raised a seed round, and I wanted to be the first one to let you know. The news is beginning to leak after we filed a regulatory document.

VentureBeat has grown steadily since launching more than a year ago. We’ve been hiring writers and we have record traffic. I’ve bootstrapped the company thus far, and while it’s been rewarding, there’s just so much more we’d like to do. We’ve been pretty much in the black since I launched, and I’ve hired writers as cash afforded. Now that we’ve got our feet on the ground, its time to get to the next phase.

We’ve raised $320,000 cash from a number of angel investors, including Georges Harik, a very early employee at Google and manager of several of its early products; Aydin Senkut, another early Google employee who is now running a small angel fund called Felicis Ventures; Mike Brown, an investor at Foundation Capital, but who invested on his own accord; Philippe Cases, an investor specialized in open source; MHS Capital; Amidzad; and Elliott Donnelly’s White Sand Group among others.

Obviously, with investors come potential conflicts. Each one of the investors is aware of VentureBeat’s determined focus on independent reporting, and we won’t be changing that. If we write about a topic where we feel we have a conflict, or a perceived conflict, we’ll disclose it clearly in a story.

Update: We’ve just seen a piece published by PEHub, which suggests our traffic is falling. The reporter who called me up just now didn’t even bother to ask me about it. Too bad, because our traffic hit a record high last month, and it’s been growing strongly. That’s confirmed by all our direct-measurement stats, from Google Analytics to FM’s page tracker. We’ve got syndication deals, too, plus growing RSS feeds. Alexa and Compete, the sites PEHub cites, are notoriously unreliable, especially for relatively small sites (read this), because they rely on non-direct methods. Wow, now even I know how it feels to be raked over the coals by an aggressive reporter. Though he’s a competitor, so I guess we should expect that.

VentureBeat is starting an experiment today: When we mention venture capital firms in our articles, we’ll also point to VC firms’ profiles provided by The Funded.

When we write about VC firm Draper Richards, for example, you’ll see an Ajax box pop up when you hover over that firm’s name (see how it works by hovering over the link above). The box will display comments about the firm provided by users on The Funded’s site.

By working with The Funded, we hope to promote more open, straightforward communication between entrepreneurs and VCs.

The site has been controversial in the past. Most entrepreneurs don’t receive the funding they think they deserve, so there’s a natural reason for them to be upset with VCs. In fact, we’ve previously criticized the site because some entrepreneurs have used it to anonymously and unfairly to attack VCs who we know to have high integrity.

However, over the past several months, we’ve watched TheFunded go from being “the site for VC hatchet jobs” to a more balanced community. Many VCs have joined into conversations on the site, rebutting criticisms and inviting friends — including other entrepreneurs — to provide positive reviews.

Open, opinionated community conversations are a pillar of what makes online media valuable. Social news sites like Digg, Slashdot and Y Combinator’s Hacker News, blogs and other web sites provide a wide range of independent voices that, in aggregate, reveal insights that traditional media misses.

The Funded, as long as it continues to be a forum for constructive debate, is a good fit with our mission of bringing high-quality reporting to bear on the intersection of money and tech innovation. The relationship is something we’ve been thinking about for a some time, and we’re finally taking the plunge.

That said, let us reiterate: This is an experiment in providing our readers with another source of valuable information.

If we discover that links to The Funded end up misinforming our readers or are otherwise vulgar and inappropriate, we’ll stop the experiment. We’re also sensitive to the possibility that Ajax links may strike some readers as clutter on the page, so we welcome your feedback in that regard as well.

Please let us know what you think. Leave comments below or contact us directly at venturebeat@gmail.com.

Starting today, Silicon Valley’s newspaper, the Mercury, News has kicked off a weekly column in its print edition featuring VentureBeat’s most compelling content.

VentureBeat is delighted with the deal. It extends our distribution considerably, to an additional 230,000 paid daily subscribers of the Mercury News.

For those who have asked about our relationship with the Mercury News, here’s where it stands: VentureBeat is entirely independent of the Merc. However, the Merc pays to syndicate VentureBeat’s content, has been running it online, and sporadically has placed VentureBeat news items in the print edition. Today’s column extends this relationship, simply bringing VentureBeat content into the print edition in a more organized way.

Thanks for reading.

We’ve just launched the VentureBeat JobBoard.

You might say, oh, yet another job board?!

The VentureBeat JobBoard is different because it is the only start-up oriented job board focused exclusively on high-end jobs — those paying $100,000 and up.

It’s relevant because the job market is the tightest it has been in years — and getting tighter. Good employees are hard to find. Employers continue to express frustration with general boards like Craigslist and Monster, because they get flooded with unqualified candidates.

You’ll find more than 100 jobs listed already, including openings at some of the valley’s stealth start-ups like Palo Alto’s Spock, to name just one.

There are listings at companies backed by the valley’s top venture capital firms. There are listings at venture firms themselves, including Sunil Paul’s new clean-tech effort.

The VentureBeat JobBoard focuses on the high-end jobs of its readers. VentureBeat readers are entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, veteran developers and architects, and other technology professionals.

That’s why it makes sense to limit this job board to the high-end. And companies willing to pay $200 will do this only for serious jobs.

The tech start-up sprit of Silicon Valley has gone global, and this job board will follow and serve the geographical constituency of its readers.

Finally, we’ll give good play to the job board on our homepage, via a widget that scrolls through the listings. See image here for example.

Update: We’ve just seen listing for a job less than $100,000, and we’re taking it down. Yes, we’ll be tracking this closely. If you apply for a job, and it turns out to be less than the threshhold, please let us know.