Posted: June 3rd, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil:
· The Industries Federation of Parana in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Private Equity & Venture Capital will be holding the first Southern Brazilian Investments Forum on July 12 in Curitiba. 24 Southern Brazilian businesses, of various industries and sizes, will be making pitches to investors.
o http://bit.ly/iu31Py
· RBS Group acquired a stake in Hi-Midia. Hi-Midia is a six year old digital communications company. The acquisition advances RBS’s strategy to increase their presence in internet and mobile spaces.
o http://bit.ly/iu31Py
· Possible Worldwide, a WPP Digital company, has bought a majority stake in Gringo, a Brazilian digital agency. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it is noted that Gringo founders will join the Possible Worldwide team.
o http://tcrn.ch/ije1pe
· Sieve has been experiencing tremendous growth after winning the Campus Party 2011 entrepreneurship contest. Sales revenue has increased seven times over. Sieve will open a Sao Paulo office soon.
o http://bit.ly/kfK9tq
· Samba Tech, the largest video streaming platform in Latin America, won the Rising Star Award at Chinese tech conference CHINICT. Samba Tech is raising its second round of funding for an estimated R$ 10M. The funds would support its international expansion.
o http://tnw.co/lf7NmM
United States:
· Groupon filed for IPO and has released its financials. Its revenues grew at 22,000% in the last year, but the company is unprofitable. The company aims to raise $750MM.
o http://tcrn.ch/jG6lA9
· Pandora has modified its IPO papers, now indicating a share price of $7-$9 per share. The company aims to raise as much as $141.6MM at a $1B valuation.
o http://tcrn.ch/lpVb83
· Twitter has changed the Twitter ecosystem with its new photo sharing capabilities. Twitter consulted and entered into deals with some companies in the photo sharing space such as Photobucket, which will host the images for Twitter.
o http://tcrn.ch/ijcjVM
· Twitter has added a “Follow” button, a potential rival to the Facebook “Like” button. Websites can now further integrate with Twitter and its users.
o http://tnw.co/jKgolS
· Enloop, a business plan generator, has entered into public beta. Enloop generates the text for a company’s business plan and a performance score that measures the probability of a business succeeding.
o http://rww.to/laTmOk
· Rovio, the Angry Birds developer, has acquired longtime partner Kombo. The acquisition was made to strengthen its in-house animation production capabilities.
o http://bit.ly/iits4Z
· Planely, a mobile social networking service, has integrated with LinkedIn. Planely facilitates networking at the airport and on flights by showing which users will be on the same flight or nearby flights.
o http://tnw.co/mUpFsz
· Social gaming company RockYou bought Australian social game developer 3 Blokes. 3 blokes will operate independently, focusing on building strategy and combat-driven Facebook games.
o http://tcrn.ch/koVI2S
VC/Industry:
· Researchers from Berkley University, Stanford University, and some accelerators published a paper called the Startup Genome. The work aims to identify the key features of successful entrepreneurs and startup companies.
o http://bit.ly/koW4wi
· StartX, Stanford’s Student Startup Accelerator, held its first demo day on Wednesday. Nine startups were showcased and eight others were demoed.
o http://tnw.co/jCDaij
· Paul Graham of Y Combinator, disclosed that the total value of YC companies is around $4.7B, signifying a massive return given that YC only invested $5M for a 2-10% stake in the companies.
http://tcrn.ch/in3Ows
Posted: May 27th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil:
- Dafiti, a Brazilian Zappos, launched recently. Consumers buy clothes and shoes online and can exchange them or receive their money back within 30 days. The closest competitor Netshoes had sales over R$ 200MM in 2010.
o http://bit.ly/lcNM1Z
- Cielo bought Braspag (100%), a payment solutions and financial services firm, from the Silivio Santos Group. Braspag’s value was not released. Braspag is used for about 65% of the e-commerce transacted in Brazil. The move increases Cielo portfolio and power in the space.
o http://glo.bo/k1SSK8
- Redpoint Ventures & General Catalyst invested $17.8 MM in Viaja.net, an online travel company. The company had sales over $30 MM in 2010 and employs over 120 people. The funds will expand product offering, improve site experience, and advance growth plans.
o http://bit.ly/iwq8WJ
o http://bit.ly/kchqiF
- FINEP is hosting its first Angels Workshop. It aims to teach investors the necessary knowledge and tools for prospecting, valuating, negotiating, and choosing an investment. The event is May 27, at the BM&F Bovespa auditorium.
o http://bit.ly/l81SlK
- On June 8th and 9th, Manaus will host the Second International Innovation Workshop of Amazonas. It is free to the public and aims to incentivize innovation in companies and to unite business with universities and research firms.
o http://bit.ly/izmaZk
- Parana-FIEP is promoting a contest: Challenge C2i Innovative Entrepreneurs. The mission of the contest is to get entrepreneurs to use business plans as a tool for raising funds. The prizes include R$ 25K in funding, R$ 100K in consulting, advancement to national contests, and more.
o http://bit.ly/m3gB9L
United States:
- Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and J.P. Morgan Chase have launched services that let people use their checking accounts to send each other money with an e-mail address or cellphone number, taking aim at Paypal and its peers. Currently the service is free.
o http://on.wsj.com/ikHoBM
- Kohort revealed that it is a community and group management platform. Kohort’s structure is ideal for hierarchical groups. Kohort’s revenue comes from sponsored groups and premium groups. The first sponsor is American Express OPEN Forum.
o http://bit.ly/kqG2B3
o http://tcrn.ch/iiscnT
- Google launched Google Wallet, a digital wallet that allows people to make purchases and get deals (Google Deals integration) by using their smartphones at the the point of sale in San Francisco and New York City. Google receives revenue only from adverting and its Offers discount system.
o http://on.wsj.com/iCJxS1
- Accel Partners led a $12 MM round for Supercell, a year old Finnish social gaming company. The company is focused on making games that are bigger in scope than most social for a more hardcore audience.
o http://bit.ly/mM2DuP
- Multiple sources indicate that Zynga is ready to file for an IPO next week.
o http://bit.ly/jktxhE
- Ron Conway’s SV Angels has entered into a formal partnership with Lerer Ventures in New York to invest in one another’s deals. The funds are still separate and everything is still at the entrepreneur’s discretion.
o http://tcrn.ch/ksDMwN
- Groupon and Foursquare are considering a distribution deal. Groupon deals would be targeted to Foursquare’s check-ins. This would utilize Groupon’s strength at recruiting customers and Foursquare’s strength at building loyalty and retaining customers.
o http://bit.ly/kVBXHn
- DFJ backed Altly is trying to become an alternative to Facebook. Poor Facebook privacy controls and on overblown social graph are the official motivators for its creation.
o http://tcrn.ch/jmwj0L
- ProjectSlice launched this week after raising $9.4 MM in a Series A led by DCM and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company aims to help users organize their online shopping by analyzing their inbox. It is a currently available as a free app for Yahoo Mail.
o http://tcrn.ch/kpkP5f
VC/Industry:
- Eduardo Vassimon and Fernando Reinach have founded a VC fund named Pitanga. with R$ 100MM from eight total investors. The fund seeks to invest in 10-20 companies in any sector. Reinach is a biologist so med tech could become a focus.
· http://bit.ly/mO3oXQ
- Redpoint Ventures & General Catalyst’s recent investment in Brazil (see Brazil section) highlights the growing trend of American VCs getting serious about Brazilian VC. The biggest challenge cited is finding experienced local talent in a small entrepreneurial and venture community.
· http://bit.ly/iwq8WJ
- InvestorRank released VC funds rankings. The criteria is based on the connections between VC firms, not past returns. List: 1) Andreessen Horowitz, 2) Sequoia Capital, 3) Accel Partners, 4) Benchmark Capital, 5) Union Square Ventures, 6) General Catalyst Partners, 7) NEA, 8) Kleiner Perkins, 9) Khosla Ventures, 10) Greylock Partners
· http://tcrn.ch/jwN70k
- TinyCo (mobile gaming), backed by Andreessen Horowitz launched a new $5 MM investment fund, TinyFund, to help support mobile game developers. TinyFund will give up to $500K per title.
· http://tcrn.ch/iDcgJG
Posted: May 20th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil
· ArpexCapital became a partner in Site Blindado. Site Blindado said that the move consolidates Site Blindado as the leading web security company in e-commerce and structured to act in new markets such as Latin America.
· On June 15th there will be a Startup Meeting in Rio de Janeiro. It is promoted by Assespro-RJ and Cemp (of PUC-RJ). NascenTI will be the VC speaker with Gustavo Reis of HelpSaude as the entrepreneur speaker.
· The growth of Facebook may bury Orkut; as part of Google’s defense of Orkut, the social network has changed its logo. It is more “mature, daring, and thicker”.
· The Startup Lessons Learned Conference in San Francisco will be available via live video stream in eight Brazilian cities: Floranopolis, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Recife, Brasilia, and Belo Horizonte.
United States
· The LinkedIn IPO was the news of the week; the company doubled in value in its first day of trading, signaling strong investor appetite for social media companies.
· Eventbrite raised a $50MM round led by Tiger GlobalCore. The money will go to growing the startup's product and engineering teams; spreading Eventbrite's reach internationally–roughly 20% of its sales come from outside the U.S. already; ramping up its customer service and support efforts for ticket sales; and lastly, acquisitions.
· Sequoia Capital led a $3MM Series A round for Onavo. Onavo provides data management apps for smartphones and tablets. It essentially compresses the data to save consumers on their data plans.
· Insight Venture Partners led a $31MM round for Dealfind. It is a Groupon rival in 40 US and 28 Canadian cities. The funding will allow further expansion.
· Uma has raised $1.1MM from various European investors. Uma has released new semantic web (Web 3.0 tech) technology, specifically a display product for digital content.
· Zynga bought San Francisco-based DNA Games, Zynga’s 14th acquisition in the last year. The DNA team will form the core of a studio creating new games.
· Jibe raised $6MM in a Series A round. The social recruiting company leverages, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for finding the best jobs. The funds are for personnel, expansion, and product development.
· Zarrly has launched. It is a real time Web and mobile location based platform that uses itself, Facebook, and Twitter to be a local commerce facilitator. Cash or the Zarrly integrated payment system.
· BilltoMobile is now global with over 200 mobile carriers in 60 countries. The company is a mobile payments provider that has partnered up with leading mobile payment companies to expand in a fragmented market.
Industry Trends & News
· Khosla Ventures is raising $1B for its fourth fund (the same size as its third fund).
· According to MasterCard’s survey, 63% of 18 to 34 year olds would be comfortable using mobile phones to make purchases. This is an improvement from last year, validating more moves toward Near Field Communication (NFC).
· SAP AG has placed mobile apps at the center of its new growth strategy. SAP is launching a revised Sybase platform and 19 mobile business apps.
Posted: May 14th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil:
· UOL, the principal portal in Brazil, bought a majority stake in Boa Compra, an electronic payments tool specifically designed for games. This adds to UOL’s stakes in the electronic payment market as it already owns PagSeguro.
· Brazilian startup Organizze hired Fabio Seixas (founder of Camiseteria) and is the inaugural deal for StartupBase Ofertas (
see Weekly News May 6). The company is a Brazilian Mint.com.
· At FEEC (Computer Electric Engineering College) in Campinas there is a Startup Weekend. The purpose of the event is to energize and strengthen the regional ecosystem. Speakers and one minute company pitches will drive the event.
· Dr. Leandro de Lemos of PUCRS (University in Rio Grande do Sul) has launched EDGE, a new investment fund for emerging companies that is based in TechnoPUC, an incubator.
United States:
· Cake Health is a startup aspiring to be the ‘Mint for health insurance’. The service plans to recommend insurance plans, monitor claims, and recommend certain health services. It is still in private beta, as it attempts to work through the highly fragmented healthcare landscape.
· Claratics, cloud-based analytics firm, has raised $1.5M. The company provides a suite of social analytics applications that essentially organizes and prioritizes the mountains of social data companies have on their consumers. The company will soon switch from private beta to open.
· Gobble launched its Bay Area beta this week. The company creates an online marketplace linking consumers to the best neighborhood chefs. The company has raised $1.2M from Greylock’s angel fund (led by Reid Hoffman) and others as it expands.
· Tabbedout has raised $5.75M from New Enterprise Associates. The Austin company developed an app that lets users view and pay bar and restaurant tabs via a smartphone. The app is free and expanding.
· Pageonce, a mobile finance app, closed $15M in a round led by Morgenthaler Ventures. The service is similar to Mint, but it has more of a budgeting focus.
· Branchout, the professional networking service for Facebook raised $18M in Series B funding. Branchout does permit “professional profile” to avoid too much overlap between the professional social graph and the personal social graph.
· OpenTable co-founder Chuck Templeton has launched OhSoWe. OhSoWe is an online version of a block association, a network for neighborhoods. For now, the site lacks Facebook integration.
Venture Capital Industry:
· The National Broadband Plan has failed to be significantly realized in Brazil up to this point, with multiple setbacks. No municipalities have been linked to the public high speed internet. The first six cities slated to be linked: Brasilia, Samambaia, Pirineus, Bandeirantes, Morrinhos.
· ComScore revealed that 7.1% of the entire US mobile phone population uses check-in services. Check-in usage is much more common with smartphones and is expected to rise as smartphone use grows and the early adopter segment matures.
· Y Combinator has accepted an unusually large group, 60 startups, for its summer round of investments.
· Venture Capital has shifted from business-oriented tech startups to consumer oriented. Consumer Tech investments tripled while business oriented investments rose less than 25%.
Posted: May 6th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil:
· Brazilian company HotWords is an advertising company capitalizing on the viral effect. Its new product, HOTSocial allows for unique interactions between the audience, the ad, and social networks. It urrently has 30,000 partner sites, hitting 30M monthly users.
· StartupBase, the Brazilian version of a startup crunchbase, is launching a discount deals component. The deals will be products and services aimed at the entrepreneurial community, but may also feature products from those very same entrepreneurs.
· Globo entered the collective buying market by buying 40% of ClickOn. ClickOn plans to branch out into more Brazilian cities. The collective buying market is expected to pass R$1B in 2011.
· Global Entreprenuership Monitor says Brazil is the most entrepreneurial country of the BRIC and the G-20. Brazil breaks trends by having the balance in favor of young entrepreneurs (18-24).
· Google is trying to stop the bleeding at Orkut. The social network now has two new features: Administration History and Orkut Live. Administration History allows moderators to see the history of all executed actions in a community. Orkut Live is a channel featuring exclusive live interviews. This channel allows users to win prizes and talk with the interviewees.
· Peixe Urbano, Brazil’s largest daily deal site (Groupon is a close second), has closed a “significant growth capital” investment from General Atlantic and Tiger Growth Management.
United States:
· The Foursquare team has created a new service Subscribe To IT. It costs $1 per month to become a part of the service, but it only offers a leaderboard and nothing else. Purpose TBD.
· Palantir Technologies raised $50M. The company analyzes a full range of data types. Revenues have doubled for the last three years and the company is aiming for a $1B valuation.
· GroupMe, group messaging app leader, bought small application developer Sensobi. The move will incorporate Sensobi’s contact ranking and alert technologies into GroupMe and add talent.
· Cardcloud app has revamped itself as a program that turns LinkedIn profiles into business cards sent by phone. Users can then add the card information into their mobile phone address book. The app will have more event integration in the near future.
· Facebook is growing ahead of estimates and is on track for $2+B in EBITDA for 2011 with a profit margin of 50%. Ad revenues should exceed $4B. Due to this investors expect a $100+B IPO next year.
· Michael Tseng (formerly at Foursquare) is raising money on Kickstarter for a location based mobile game company Turf Geography Club. At the core it is a mobile gaming company with intention to monetize via Foursquare like promotions and virtual goods.
· Zynga is blocking attempts by former exec Andy Trader to sell $12.8M of private shares. Zynga has been giving technical reasons for the block. No Zynga shareholder can sell until 180 days after the company’s IPO.
Venture Capital/Industry News:
· Google Voice cofounder Craig Walker has set up Firespotter Labs, an incubator for new startups. The company has $3M from Google Ventures and hopes to quickly get 4-6 companies started.
· Chris Sacca, founder of Photobucket, has shifted Lowercase Capital to later stage investments. He has called seed rounds too crowded for fair valuations and does not see it stopping soon.
· The LatAm Silicon Valley is still TBD. Mexico’s Monterrey, Argentina’s Palmero Valley, and Chile’s Santiago (boosted by Startup Chile program) are all candidates to be LatAm’s SV, with Chile as the strongest of the three. Brazil’s activity may be too spread out to have a single SV — Sao Paulo-Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and others all have strong, independent innovation communities.
Posted: April 29th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil
· Resotrando.com, an online restaurant booking service, closed a new round of investment led by Atomico. The company operates in Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires and will soon expand to other markets. The company receives bookings for restaurants 24 hours a day.
o http://dlvr.it/PJ3cx
· Vostu has signed a partnership agreement with Universal. This allows for virtual items based on their movies to be put in Vostu’s games. Moreover, there will be some cross-promotion with the films being studied.
· There were a lot of StartUp events in Brazil this week. Brasilia and Recife had a Startup Meetup. Vitoria had the Startyouup (discussed in previous weeklys). There was the Mega Start-up Lab in BH and then in Sao Paulo the long awaited Geeks on a Plane startup event. On May 13-15 there will be a Startup Weekend in Campinas at Unicamp.
United States
Spotify continues to promise to come to the US and is in negotiations with Facebook. More importantly Spotify, like YouTube, is in talks with major movie studios over offering early access to streaming movies.
· Pixable secured a $36M Series B led by Menlo Ventures. The company enables users to manage their online photos with one set of features centered on search, aggregation, editing, and product creation. It will scale its team and infrastructure and integrate into more platforms.
· Evolv has raised a $15.75M Series C round led by GGV Capital. Evolv has an algorithmic-based SaaS solution for hiring and management purposes. With funds, the company will ramp up global expansion, development, and sales and marketing.
· Pixelpipe raised $2.3m this week. The company has created tools that allow users to distribute content to more than 100 social networks, photo-sharing sites, and blogs at once.
· Storify, a tool that enables professional and citizen journalists to craft multimedia narratives by utilizing various social networking sites onto one embeddable page, has entered into public beta. All of this follows the company’s February Series B and it has been growing quickly.
· Facebook stock fever has cooled down. It has been reported that current attempts to sell a $1B worth of stock at a $70B valuation is finding no takers. This is due to mediocre projected revenue and EBITDA ($4B, $2B). Facebook is set to roll out a new ad system for news feeds.
· Facebook has now entered the deals space. Still, it is not a deep discount deal service, rather one more focused on social deals. Products that many users will want to do with friends. Margins and other details are undisclosed. Users pay with Facebook credits or a credit card.
· Facebook released the “send” button. This lets users share content with their friends, but only to specific users. It is on 50 partner sites.
· Milk, Kevin Rose’s mobile development lab, has raised $1.5M from a bunch of big SV names. The company then hired four new people and is now set to remain a skeleton team and roll out the ambitious mobile product promised at its launch last month.
· Visa recently invested in Square, the mobile payments start-up. Visa declares that they do not compete with each other. Moreover, Square will bring Visa access to segments that previously never used credit cards. Finally, Visa’s participation signals a trust in Square’s security features.
· Foursquare is trying to raise $20M to $40M at a $500M valuation by early June. The financing will likely be more difficult than for other high-growth companies such as Groupon, Twitter and Facebook.
· Sparkfly raised $2.5m for its mobile engagement platform, SparkQuest, connects consumer deal redemption with merchant point-of-sale technology. Consumers can now get instant and repeat rewards at the merchants they frequent most. It also has game-like quests that are connected to merchant deals. These tap into social networks.
Venture Capital/Industry
· Yuri Milner has disrupted the VC community with his open wallet and big bets. Recently, a glimpse into that wallet shows that Mail.ru (Russian site founded by Yuri) has minority investments in Silicon Valey worth $2B.
· There has been an uptick in large corporations acquiring graduates of accelerator programs; the acquisitions tend to happen after VCs have sunk $3-$5M into the young companies.
· Square’s Keith Rabois spoke out against websites and called for mobile as the true future. He sees native applications built for specific devices over a mobile website as the necessary course. Moreover he downplayed the geo-location hype, calling it only a piece of the mobile picture.
Posted: April 22nd, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Brazil
· At The Future of Payments conference in Sao Paulo last week, John Donahoe (CEO of eBay) affirmed that Brazil is the company’s top priority. This is not only big for Mercado livre, but for all PayPal competitors. Donahoe highlighted that PayPal succeeded in getting installment payment agreements with Visa and Mastercard (important for Brazilian market).
· Power.com has shut down. It launched in August 2008 for Orkut users and publicly in November 2008. The service lets users log into multiple social networks simultaneously. It also lets users move content from one network to another easily, and contact people across all of their social networks. The company had frequent litigation with Facebook and others.
· Raphael Lullis is the latest Brazilian on TechCrunch, with his creation SalaryShare. It is a site where users create a closed off “salary pool”. From there invited users may register and anonymously share their salaries. High level of synergy with Raphael’s other job website Job4Dev, a jobs site for developers.
· Astella Investimentos has entered into HelpSaude. The company will help the entrepreneurs in managing their growth and services expansion. HelpSaude is a health professionals and cures vertical search engine.
· Espirito Santo is starting to focus on start-ups. At the end of each month there will be workshop events. Furthermore, FUMNET was established. FUMNET aids Esprito Santos’ start-ups and pays for one entrepreneur to go to Silicon Valley at the end of the year for a pitch presentation.
· Intel Brasil has chosen the projects that will go onto the International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles this summer. Some of the interesting projects for the tech sector is a Paulistano project that focuses on how video games assist those with ADHD and a Sulista’s project of a device that interprets commands via sound input.
· Restorando.com, the online restaurant booking service, announced that it has closed a new round of investment. The fundraising was led by Atomico, the venture capital firm founded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström.
United States
· NYC stealth startup Kohort raised a large seed round of $3M. ArpexCapital is one of the investors. CEO Mark Davis is well-known in the NYC VC world and has only said that Kohort is related to social media.
· Apple is now selling Square devices (mobile payment processor) online and in stores. With its $10 Square credit, Square is likely losing money on the deal, but an Apple boost could lead to more transactions on the service and more money in the long-run.
· News.me has launched on Apple’s app store and is ready for the iPad. It is a social news reading app that presents the news that the people you follow on Twitter are reading and then uses a program to filter it. Revenue model is a subscription fee.
· The social search engine has arrived – search engine company, Blekko has integrated Facebook into its program. Users can now log into Blekko with their Facebook information and have two results list, with one being a list of their Facebook News Feed as it pertains to the search item.
· Google Offers officially launched in NYC, the Bar Area, and Portland. It will alert consumers to local business deals. People can also get email alerts.
· eBay’s purchase of Where Inc is leading to an expansion of PayPal. Where is a location based mobile service and will be integrated into the PayPal unit. Now users of the WHERE mobile app can make payments via PayPal. Where can now see who saw the ad, clicked on it, and then bought it, all in a mobile context.
· Intuit (Square’s largest concern) has launched it’s iPad app. Intuit has only recently begun to target the lower end of the market, where Square is currently excelling. Intuit has the advantage of having relationships with 4.5 million businesses through its QuickBooks business.
· PlaySpan is launching UltimatePay, a payment system that allows companies to offer a fast, in-app and secured transaction system. It offers a wallet infrastructure and a monetization platform known as MaaS (monetization as a service™), with all the components of both online and mobile payment solution that a merchant needs in an out of the box.
· LocalResponse aggregates real-time social media check-ins from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and other services to provide a simple interface for local businesses to directly respond to the most influential customers. Will use the freemium model.
· Venuetastic (Y-Combinator project) has launched an alpha version. The company aims to make booking an event space easy and linking business that don’t specifically work in events with non-traditional commercial space. Initially Bay Area focused, large market, and monetization via booking commissions.
Venture Capital Industry
· Miami has begun a new tech startup culture as evidenced by firms such as Concierge (Voice Information technology), IncubateMiami, and the Miami Innovation Fund. Miami has long had ties to Latin America, so there tech startups should be no exception.
· El Dorado Ventures published the five key points for a successful Enterprise 2.0 startup. 1) Lead with the product, 2) Leverage cheap existing infrastructure, 3) Evolve your selling process, 4) Integrate personality with the product, 5) Lower costs.
· A lot of VCs are moving into the food investment sector. The reason for this surge is that all of the investments in this space all integrate social media features. Jay Jamison of BlueRun Ventures sees this area as a several billion dollar market with strong growth potential.
· Forrester Research estimates that the cloud computing market will hit $241B in 2020 (currently $41B-2011). Forrester estimates that when business move e-mail and other tech services to the cloud, growth will boom.
Posted: April 15th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | 2 Comments »
Brazil:
· Makaha (www.portalmakaha.com.br) is a new business that aggregates start up project that need investment, allowing VCs to scope out the Brazilian start-up scene. The projects will be filtered by an entrepreneur community and specialist partners. Makaha is itself a VC.
o http://bit.ly/fvwJgG
· 18 Brazilian states and the Federal District signed a protocol that changes the tax regime of online sales towards the tele-marketing tax regime. This allows them to split the ICMS tax which previously was exclusive to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The tax will be split between the originating and terminating sales states.
o http://bit.ly/dZA9e2
US & Europe:
· 500 Startups is creating a designer-centric fund named the d.fund that aims to have more startups co-founded by designers. After 50 big names, like Youtube’s Christina Brodbeck become mentors and/or contribute 50K it will then fund 50 designed centered startups.
o http://tcrn.ch/gHteRl
· Spotify, the European online music service valued at $1B a few weeks back has implanted new cuts. Users can now listen to only 10 hours per month (50% reduction) and the same track only 5 times. These are implanted in the user’s seventh month. This step echoes Pandora’s past.
o http://bbc.in/hfiYrs
· PopCap Games Inc, the maker of popular Facebook game “Bejeweled” may IPO between Labor Day and Thanksgiving (beating Zynga and Angry Birds). The company has been profitable for 10 years with $100M in revenue in 2010 (80% is from digital sales, 20% from physical outlets.
o http://reut.rs/h9yldu
· Parks Associates claims that social gaming revenues may increase 5X to $5B by 2015 due to both advertising and virtual goods sales. Typically 1%-5% of players pay for virtual goods which in today’s maturing games are enough for significant profitability.
o http://bit.ly/eh3OnS
· Gartner reports that by 2015 50% of companies that manage innovation will gamify (make a non-game thing more game-like) that process. 70+% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified app. Gamification is useful for businesses via increased feedback and moral.
o http://bit.ly/e50ZzP
· FearSquare has launched in the UK and is a new play on location based services. The app looks at your last 10 check-ins on FourSquare and reports how many crimes occurred there. Moreover, users can see who lives the most dangerously (check-ins to high crime areas).
o http://ti.me/eSYbnp
· Taptu has launched an iPad app that allows users to bring in streams of content from social networks. It odens’t use RSS, it sues mobile serach technology to aggregate news sources. This app is an entry point with the next generation featuring premium, monetizing features.
o http://tcrn.ch/hd6frG
· ThinkNear premiered at NYC TechStars demo event this week. The company sets as another geo-location advertising company, but focuses on instant deals. Deals that companies put out only during slow times (30% fill rate). It can deliver discount offers in the form of banner ads inside apps, push notifications, or even text messages, depending on the app.
o http://tcrn.ch/el7Xtn
· Yobongo (a real-time group messaging app) updated their iPhone app and released a new “Pondering” feature. This a 15 character blurb that is akin to a Facebook status.
o http://tcrn.ch/hYWuY0
· Experienced entrepreneurs Jonathan Wegener and Benny Wong have created Friendslist. It is a listing service that utilizes your social network to connect buyers and sellers.
o http://tcrn.ch/eG7hes
· Tiny Speck Inc, an online game company, has secured a $10.7M Series B round from Accel and others, before launching its first beta version. Now has a valuation of $50+M. Founded by experienced entrepreneuers (Flickr founders).
o http://on.wsj.com/gwVzBT
· Stylistpick, a women’s fashion ecommerce solution, raised $8M in Series A round from Accel and Index. Upon entering the site users take a fashion survey that the site then uses to make clothing recommendations. All recommended items have flat-rate price of $65 (with shipping). Intends to expand geographically and categorically.
o http://bit.ly/f8XRET
· SocialFlow, a social media optimization platform, raised $7M in a Series A from Softbank and others. SocialFlow will use the funds to accelerate development. The company determines in real time the most engaged Twitter topics and then published the “best Tweet” for clients.
o http://bit.ly/f7EH0u
· Spot is a project by a Mount Holyoke student featured at the BASES event at Stanford. It is location based file sharing. In a certain “spot” people can allow for files to be accessed by other people in that same “spot” and accessed later there. Great for conferences and large events.
o http://bit.ly/hVskuT
· Flipboard has created an app for viewing social media on the iPad. The company raised $50M led by Insight Venture at a $200M valuation. The app makes it easier to browse a variety of social & online media by pulling together many streams and reassembling them as one stream
o http://bit.ly/hlHJqm
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Venture Capital
· The traditional VC model of waiting for the start-up to ask for an appointment , or to have younger associates design and attend university events is evolving and quickly. With many hot entrepreneurs leaving school and being very young (19 or 20) an emphasis on youth and social networking has emerged. Facebook, LinkedIn, and other mediums must be utilized by a young staff that form the base of a supply chain of projects to the VC managers via a company intranet.
o http://bit.ly/hT1V1H
· Both Arthur Patterson (Accel) and Brooks Zug (HarbourVest) believe that we are 3-4 years away from the peak of the current tech boom cycle.
o http://on.wsj.com/dKyIPf
· Sequoia Capital & Institutional Venture Partners invested #15M in Sugar Inc, a network of content and commerce sites aimed at women. The money will be used for international expansion and acquisitions.
o http://read.bi/hm3Vs8
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Posted: April 9th, 2011 | Author: Ted Rogers | Filed under: News | No Comments »
Going forward, we will be posting a weekly update on Brazilian and US venture capital news — check out what we think is interesting this week:
Industry News
There are increasing calls by heavyweights like Fred Wilson and Yuri Milner that "curation" is a next big thing. There are three major areas to explore: curation software, curated content platforms, and platform services.
o http://bit.ly/elVheZ
· On April 27 in Sao Paulo and April 28 in Belo, Start-Up Lab 2011 will be held. Entrepreneurs will make 5 minute pitches on their social impact projects and receive 5 minutes of feedback. Artemisia is responsible for the Paulista event while Virtu is responsible for the Belo Horizonte event.
o http://bit.ly/fJcvd4
· Ningo is a Brazilian start-up in incubation at CIETEC (USP) and has innovations in the works that deal with mobile, digital TV, and an integration with a heavyweight. Ningo is an aggregator for the best prices on a product and once a product is selected, makes the purchase occur at only one location, Ningo, instead of numerous re-directs.
o http://bit.ly/fZZ4js
· Poggled, a new deals site focused on nighttime drink and party packages, has raised $5.6M from NEA. Poggled has a more intense focus on tapping into social mediums and is counting on the nuances of nightlife to support Poggled’s smaller vertical. It’s only in Chicago, but with the new funding will expand on its cities and mobile apps.
o http://bit.ly/g339Ez
· StumbleUpon is a search engine where users identify interested categories and then “stumbleupon” the website. The company makes money on advertising via the local ad market. It has been surging in popularity due to social networks and mobile phone usage. Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, and August Capital have all invested.
o http://usat.ly/egqHXx
· E.life published their research that 44.8% of Brazilians who are engaged in social networks access the internet on their cell phones, up 10% since 2009. Of this same group, 74.3% buy goods online and favor Facebook over Orkut, 2:1.
o http://bit.ly/eaEmmR
· Tidal TV, a targeted advertising agency for mobile and online video, raised $30M from NEA and other VCs. The funds will be used to expand into new global markets and deploy new solutions for various applications. The founder appears to be taking a similar approach to his last project, Advertising.com which was sold for $500M to AOL.
o http://bit.ly/eMzf7L
· Quora has created new features designed to enhance and focus in on the legal and medical area. The most significant feature is revisions and/or creation of language that in no way allows for lawyers and medical professional to have liability for their answers.
o http://nyti.ms/f3QTzq
· Apperian, an enterprise application company, has raised $9.5M from KPCB, Bessemer, and others. The new funding will build its developer community and partnership programs as growth in the mobile device space ensures its continued success.
o http://bit.ly/dQzQBT
· Groupalia has raised $15M from Insight Venture Partners and other VCs. It is a daily deal site that is expected to have turnover of $150M this year (16X last year). The Spanish company will use the money for partnerships, acquisitions, and to solidify itself in its 8 markets (includes Brazil).
o http://bit.ly/hLzBeS
· At a valuation near $3B, Living Social raised $400M from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Amazon, and others. Living Social ought to hit $1B in revenue this year. The capital will lead to more employees, global expansion, and acquisitions (think foreign locations).
o http://on.wsj.com/dTidAQ
· Forrester Research criticized Facebook’s e-commerce potential, claim ing that Facebook has a 1% click-through rate and a 2% conversion rate. E-mail marketing has an 11% click-through rate and a 4% average conversion. Facebook cites that Facebook’s social ads are 6X more memorable and have are 4X more probable in resulting in a purchase.
o http://on.wsj.com/gwqpOJ
· Youtube is implementing many changes, one of them being live streaming of trusted users. Many channels are also slated to feature hours of professionally produced original programming. All of this combined with new social networking features will enable it finally reach profitability and relevance in a crowded market of the future.
o http://rww.to/eGa1Jl
o http://on.wsj.com/fs2pn0
VC News
· Less than six months after launching a $650M fund Andreessen Horowitz is launching a new $200M fund. The fund will only invest in prior AH investments.
o http://bit.ly/ibz8IA
· Insight Venture Partners officially closed two new funds on Monday. The first one is for $1.5B and focuses on software and Internet services. The second fund is for $450M is a coinvestment fund for larger deals. Wilkie Farr & Gallagher were the legal advisory providers.
o http://bit.ly/e6gO7L
· Bessemer Venture Partners has formally closed on a new $1.6B fund. The fund will invest in early-stage companies around the world, with 25% reserved for India. The fund is reported to have been oversubscribed by $1B.
o http://nyti.ms/h3BZVG
FYI
· A nice link to a picture that really attempts to link together all of the major activity in the tech VC world: http://bit.ly/h6Ndd9
