Tuesday, December 28, 2004

MetaCarta



"MetaCarta is the pioneer in geographic information retrieval systems.

The company was founded by a team of MIT researchers in 1999 to bridge the gap between text search and GIS (Geographic Information Systems). MetaCarta Geographic Text Search (GTS) systems index large collections of structured and unstructured documents, finding references to places even if they are expressed in natural language. MetaCarta then enables searches for all the documents that refer to a particular place, a capability that in many circumstances is astonishingly useful."

Seems to be a bit of search, GPS/LBS, EII s/w all rolled into one, And they target the energy sector. MetaCarta is part of the Red Herring 100 and backed by Sevin Rosen, ChevronTexaco, Chisholm Private Capital among others. Most likely will be raising a few more rounds of financing in the future.

Savage Beast

MercuryNews.com | 12/28/2004 | Second funding helps soothe Savage Beast

Savage Beast Technologies, a software company providing music navigation and recommendation technology, raised $7.7 million in a second round of funding led by WaldenVC with investments from Labrador Ventures, Selby Ventures and MediaWin Partners."

Craigslist

Craigslist costs Bay Area newspapers 'untold millions,' report finds - 2004-12-27 - Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal

Craigslist, the community Web site that generates more than 1 billion page-views each month, has cost San Francisco Bay area newspapers $50 million to $65 million in employment advertising revenue, according to a new report by Classified Intelligence, a Florida-based consulting group.

Craigslist, Tribe.net, and others will take even more market share away from traditional classified listings in the future. eBay acquired a 25% stake in Craigslist last summer at a pretty good discount I'm guessing. They also recently acquired rent.com for a price north of $400M. Smart move (maybe).

Monday, December 27, 2004

Sightspeed

Seeing the family over the Internet / Videoconferencing attracts growing number of users

Overview: Provider of video phone services for consumers and small businesses. The company's solution delivers voice and video at 30 frames per second over broadband and Wi-Fi without delay, providing clear, precise, natural communications.

Funding: Roda Group, BR Ventures led a round in June 03. 17 employees. Company was founded in August 2001.

Competition: Company competes directly with iChat / Mac, Logitech, AOL, Yahoo, MSFT.


"In order to compete against free services offered by such giants as Microsoft and AOL, Treat's engineers have tried to put together a package of easy-to-install software applications. The company also offers detailed information on videoconferencing hardware, including Webcams, microphones and speakers for the PC.

Unlike the free services, Sightspeed's software application isn't cluttered with advertisements, Treat said. The firm also doesn't offer public chat rooms where strangers can meet, which is common among instant messaging services.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Bug Me Not

Not a hot startup, but Bugmenot was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times).

Amabuddy feedback from users

Amabuddy: ideas and gripes

Amabuddy comments and feedback link...

Thursday, December 23, 2004

FastClick IPO Commentary - from Fool.com




Fool.com: The Next Dot-Com IPO [Motley Fool Take] December 23, 2004

Though the wildly successful stock market debut of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) earlier this year got investors excited about the promise of the online advertising sector, don't expect to be similarly blown away by Wall Street's reaction to Fastclick.

Fastclick is also growing nicely. Revenues through the first nine months of the year have more than doubled to $39 million from $18 million a year earlier. The bottom line hasn't followed suit, with year-to-date earnings dipping from $3.9 million to $3.3 million yet the reason for the dip in profitability is that Fastclick's income is fully taxed now. Pretax profits paint a more accurate picture, climbing 27% higher so far this year."

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

FastClick files for IPO


First they raise $75M in their only institutional round of financing from Oak, Highland Capital, Steamboat in November. And now the company has filed for IPO only 2 months later. Lead on the deal is CSFB and Citi.

Company has $49M in revs, $5M net income. Company is a provider of online advertising and services. The company's online advertising services provide progressive direct response and branding opportunities to online and off-line clients.

PhotoWorks


PhotoWorks Inc. (OTC BB: FOTO), a Seattle-based provider of online photography services, has negotiated a $6.5 million recap round that includes financing from Sunra Capital Holdings, Orca Bay Partners and Madrona Venture Group. The deal still must be approved by shareholders.

Not sure the specifics of the recap but this may be a good PIPE investment for the VC investors (Madrona was an early investor in Amazon.com.)

PhotoWorks currently trades at 4.72M market cap and had $22M in revs last year. AND, they were profitable.

Stock took a nose dive today as a result of the recap, but look for it to rebound, IMO.

VC investments in VoIP

Venture Capital Journal Venture capitalists have dramatically ramped up their VoIP investments this year, putting more money to work than they did in the previous two years combined. As of Nov. 10, they plunked down $355 million for 18 companies, according to the MoneyTree survey.

The most active investor in the space this year has been 3i Group, which put money into three VoIP-related deals: Kineto Wireless Inc., Sonim Technoligies Inc. and Vonage Holdings Corp. Another five firms have done two deals each in 2004: Accel Partners, BCE Capital, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital and Storm Ventures."

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Kayak raises money from Sequoia



Kayak.com, a travel information web site, has completed a $7 million series B financing round led by Sequoia Capital, a California-based venture capital firm.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based parent company, Kayak Software Corp., has now raised a total of $15.5 million. The additional funding will be used to further product development and expand marketing, according to the company."

The Web site was founded by the creators of Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity in January
2004. Chief Executive and Co-founder Steve Hafner also helped found Orbitz in 1999, while Chairman Terry Jones helped found travelocity.com.

The company is not releasing revenue and traffic numbers at present, but Hafner said Kayak is "very pleased with traffic."

Look for them to compete head on w/ all the online travel sites. Anyone know what's up w/ Sidestep.com?

More Porn on Youtube




Beon Media is the developer of the GalleryPlayer, a digital home gallery service that transforms any flat panel TV into a digital canvas for museum-quality art and photography.

Company competes head on with EyeTide, DreamCity and to an extent Webshots. According to venturewire, company is raising between $5- $15m.

Bad news: Beon Media's GalleryPlayer technology will no longer be part of the Tuesday launch of Windows XP Media Center, one of Microsoft's most anticipated product debuts this year.

Cisco pays $65m for Protego

Cisco yesterday announced a deal to acquire security start-up Protego Networks for approximately $65m in cash.

Protego's line of security monitoring and threat management appliances will be used to bolster Cisco's security portfolio. Cisco said the "ability of Protego's products to detect, correlate and mitigate threats in the network extends Cisco's Self-Defending Network initiative".

Very good exit for A investors, Miramar VP, Global Alliance, AsiaTech and individuals. ~$6.2M into the round so with preferences and all mixed in this is likely a ~10 bagger for investors.

This is Cisco's 11th acquisition this year.

Motion Computing


Motion Computing Inc. said it has raised $25 million in Series C funding that will help it step up sales of its wireless tablet PCs in Europe and go after new customer sectors. IVP came in as a new investor. Existing investors NEA and SVB participated most likely pro-rata.

Tablet computing has not take off as expected in the US. Why pay for a tablet pc when you can buy a laptop with twice the functionality at half the cost? Even wearable computing (NASD: xybr) seems to be selling better than the tablet stuff. Good thing MC is targetting Europe first and continuing w/ their traction into the healthcare vertical.

mFormation



mFormation snags $9M fourth round

Mobile device management firm mFormation Technologies today secured $9 million in fourth round financing. The round was led by Intel Capital with participation from previous investors including Battery Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Kingdon Capital, and North Bridge Venture Partners. MFormation's technology allows carriers to manager handsets and devices running on their networks through over-the-air (OTA) updates and through device service management software. The company's solution can work on a number of mobile devices, including Symbian, Microsoft, Palm, BlackBerry, and OMA DM compliant cell phones, as well as on a variety of networks including GSM/GPRS, CDMA, and UMTS. MFormation has raised a total of almost $35 million to date.

The mobile management space has not taken off as expected. It's a rather small market w/ a few leaders, namely Sybase, Xcellenet (middleware), and now Wavelink with the acquisition of AirPrism.

mFormation's initial customer targets were enterprises, but now having switched over to target carriers, the company seems to have better positioned themselves.

More on eHarmony

Matchmaker EHarmony.com Attracts Nearly $110 Million in Venture Funding: "Matchmaker EHarmony.com Attracts Nearly $110 Million in Venture Funding"

TCV also came into the round. Company expects to IPO sometime next year. According to venturewire, the company has seen its user base double (from 2.4M 11/03 to 5.8M 11/04) and its revenue triple. Company is profitable and is one of the top five dating sites.

Too bad the service didn't work for the Batchelor.

Friday, December 17, 2004

AdBrite - The Internet's Ad Marketplace



Based in San Francisco, AdBrite is already profitable and well financed by Sequoia Capital, the lead investor in online advertising pioneers Google and Yahoo!, among many other world-class companies in their portfolio.

Another stealth ad marketing company, apparently run by Philip Kaplan over at FuckedCompany. I doubt this one will get fucked.

Witness Systems to Acquire Blue Pumpkin Software

Witness Systems to Acquire Blue Pumpkin Software: "Witness Systems to Acquire Blue Pumpkin Software"

Internet is more porn net






splunk > ers

A band of entrepreneurs and partners from August Capital and Sevin Rosen Funds descended 165 feet today to explore the deep chambers and passages of the California underground. The team emerged from its venture capital presentation with a $5M investment in their new company Splunkรข„¢ Technology.

Splunk Technology is building a disruptive new approach to managing IT infrastructure. The market for IT management products is one of the largest software markets in the world, but is currently stagnated with old, out-dated technologies and solutions รข€“ it is ready to be reinvented.

Hmm. Uphill battle with an IT dept not set on switching IT management products.

ObjectVideo Raises $11M C Round

ObjectVideo

ObjectVideoรข„¢, the leader in intelligent video surveillance software, today announced it has appointed to its Board of Directors Jack Kemp, Founder of Kemp Partners and the 1996 Republican Vice Presidential candidate; Mario Morino, Special Partner, General Atlantic Partners; and E. Scott Beattie, Chairman and CEO of Elizabeth Arden, Inc. The company also raised $11 million in a Series C round led by Novak Biddle Venture Partners.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Conor Medsystems Announces IPO

Zero revs. Company is still in clinical trials. Last round raise of ~$39.95M was at a post of $150M in August 04. This Dec 04 IPO values the company at $486M. That's a 3x in 4 months on the VCs -- Highland Capital, Radius, Aperture -- last round of investment

Monday, December 13, 2004

Mazu

Mazu Networks Closes $12 M in Series C Round of Financing
Mazu Networks, the leading provider of network-wide intrusion prevention systems for the enterprise, today announced the closing of its Series C round of funding. The new round, which totaled $12 million, included participation by Symantec Corporation as a new strategic investor in Mazu. Also participating in the Series C round were Mazu's existing venture investors, including Greylock, Matrix Partners, Pilot House Ventures and StarVest Partners.

Symc has not made many private investments (it's usually CSCO or Intc capital doing most of the investments). Must be fairly strategic to them..

Reconnex

Reconnex, a leader in safeguarding enterprises against information security breaches originating within their organization, today announced it has raised $5.8 in Series B funding, bringing the companyรข€™s total financing to $11.3 million.

According to a venturewire article, the Company is now valued at $50M (4x its value 1 year ago). Existing investors Norwest VP and Outlook co-led the round. Ex-Cisco CTO joined their BoD. Seems like a company worth tracking.

Light Reading's Top IPO Candidates

Fortinet, Atrica, Airespace, BigBand, Force10, Huawei, Starent among the companies that will IPO or be acquired on its own terms within the next 12 months.

Eliyon

Eliyon Reports Record Third Quarter 2004 Growth
Eliyon is a people search database company aimed at HR, sales, VC related customers. They are a cross between linkedin, spoke, venturesource, hoovers. The data is retrieved through a proprietary search technology, which frankly, does not work too well. Sequoia, Yahoo, even Google are listed as customers. Venrock, Vulcan Ventures, are investors. Might be a good company to track given the customer traction and growth rate quarter to quarter (per their press releases).

MaXXan

MAXXAN SECURES $29 MILLION IN LATEST FUNDING ROUND

BA VP led the latest round bringing the total financing to $113M.

Update 3.07:

MaXXan Systems has a new name and a new focus.

The intelligent storage switch start-up now goes by the name of CipherMax and is focusing on storage security solutions. To help with the transition, CipherMax has closed on a $10 million funding round, led by U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock Associates and Scale Venture Partners (formerly BA Venture Partners).

"The convergence of storage, security and networking has created the need for a storage security solution that can be deployed within SANs," said Ray Kao, chairman and CEO of CipherMax. "Our domain expertise in storage networking has given us unique advantages in developing a unified storage security solution that is scalable, reliable, cost-effective and easy to deploy for enterprise customers."

Jon Oltsik, security analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said CipherMax has developed "a storage encryption solution with enhanced scalability and flexibility that uniquely simplifies device and key management for encrypted data."

AudioFeast raises $10M - Worldview, Mayfield

MercuryNews.com | 12/13/2004 | Start-up gets funding
AudioFeast presents popular Internet radio stations, nationally syndicated shows and an assortment of independent media outlets and programs from around the globe in a ad-free radio format on selective MP3 players. It has over 400 music, news, sports and entertainment channels from more than 50 content partners.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Amabuddy - dont buy not knowing

Amabuddy - dont buy not knowing

1) Dial the number below

2) enter the ISBN number (for books)
or UPC number (for CDs) ( use # key if you need 'x')

3) listen for prices, reviews, and recommendations courtesy of Amazon.com


(617) 712 3574
------
Wonder if it works and if there really is a business model to this (a la tellme).
The service uses Plum Voice Portals and plugs into Amazon's api. Seems like it's only time until the e-tailers or comparison shopping sites start promoting technology like this.

Atrua

Atrua Technologies

Biometric fingerprint authentication and navigation for wireless devices. Competes with Authentec, UPEK, and others. Atrua is the future leader in the space.

Zuleikha Robinson Youtube Pilot

Youtube Dirty Sex

Friday, December 10, 2004

Google Suggest BETA

Google Suggest BETA V. Cool!

BitTorrent

Yahoo! News - 'BitTorrent' Gives Hollywood a Headache: "BitTorrent has proven to be resistant to some of the countermeasures the entertainment industry has taken to sabotage file-sharing, including a process known as file-spoofing in which incomplete or decoy versions of songs or other material are uploaded to discourage piracy. "

Arbor Networks

Arbor Networks: Internal Enterprise Security; Network Behavior Anomaly Detection
Company is backed by Battery, Cisco, and others. Lots of customer traction with wins at AT&T, Cisco, Sprint, Earthlink, etc. Cisco will probably acquire them given the companies interest in security (and in particular, at the network layer).

Akimbo

Akimbo Player review by PC Magazine Akimbo offers a tivo like device and delivers TV programs over the internet to your TV. Company is backed by DFJ, Kleiner, and others. Risky business model - subscription consumer, hardware box play

Airborne Entertainment Acquires Cellus USA

Airborne Entertainment Acquires Cellus USA; Acquisition Solidifies Airborne's Positioning in Mobile Storefronts, Personalization Content Publishing and Ringback Tone Provisioning

This space is fast consolidating. Airborne recently raised a substantial round of venture financing from Insight VP and others.

Feedster

Feedster receives angel funding

Feedster Receives Financing From Omidyar Network, Seeks First VC Round
By VentureWire Staff Reporters

12/10/2004 รข€“ In the midst of raising its first institutional round, Feedster Inc., a developer of a search engine for online content and Web logs published in RSS format, said it has received an undisclosed convertible financing from Omidyar Network, an investment firm started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Yavox

:: Yavox Latin America ::
o Intel Capital Invests In Cellular Technology Start-Up Yavox

By VentureWire Staff Reporters

Sao Paulo-based Yavox, a provider of cellular phone
technology, has raised an undisclosed amount of money
in its Series A round.

Intel Capital and Brazilian investment group MCR
participated in the round, said Braz Lamarca, business
development manager at Yavox.

Bermai - assets acquired by DSP Group

DSP Group Pays $5M For Bermai, A Wi-Fi Chip Maker That Raised $34M

By Erica R. Davis

DSP Group Inc., which makes chipset products for
residential wireless connectivity, has acquired
substantially all of the assets of Wi-Fi chip company
Bermai Inc. for about $5 million in cash. Bermai had
raised $34 million in venture capital financing over
two rounds.

Pionics - Battery maker

Pionics Raises $15M

Japanese Battery Maker Pionics Gets $15M From Intel Capital, Others

By VentureWire Staff Reporters

Intel Capital said it and a group of investors have jointly invested a total of Y1.6 billion ($15 million) in additional funding in Japanese lithium polymer battery developer Pionics Co.

The move comes more than a year after the battery technology venture received $2.1 million, or about Y218.5 million, from Intel Capital and Jafco Co. in September 2003.

Tokyo-based venture capital firms Jafco Co. and NIF Ventures Co. are part of the latest group of investors.

The extra funding is further testament to the strong interest of Intel and the venture capital firms in funding technology that would enable extended battery
life for energy-hungry advanced notebook PCs and other portable digital devices such as mobile phones.

Intel Capital did not disclose the size of its investment in the latest round of funding. But it and Jafco were the lead investors, a Pionics official said.

Inspire Technology Resource Management Corp., part of a Tokyo-based management consulting and investment funds
management firm, also participated in this round of financing, Intel said in a statement.

Other investors in the group include Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd., a unit of Mitsubishi TokyoFinancial Group Inc., Orix Capital Corp., a venture
capital unit of Orix Corp., Shiga Bank Ltd., and Nikko antfactory, part of the Nikko Cordial Corp.

Pionics, which was established in 1997 and is led by industry veteran Tsutomu Sada, said it plans to use the
proceeds from the investment for product development and manufacturing capacity to allow volume production
of small, lightweight, large-capacity lithium batteries used in mobile digital gadgets.

Pionics is an attractive target for Intel and other investors, as it has already achieved product energy density - the energy obtainable per unit weight or volume - 50% higher than current lithium polymer
batteries. Energy density is one of the key elements in gauging battery performance, along with size, weight and response time.

Intel Capital expects Pionics will be able to at least double the energy density of existing conventional batteries.


"With this investment, we can finally move from a testing stage to a mass-production phase," said Junichi Inoue, a spokesman for Pionics.

He said the company will build a plant that will begin the volume production of lithium polymer batteries sometime in 2005. This means the firm is on track to meet Intel's original expectation to bring high
energy-density lithium polymer batteries to the market
in two years from 2003.



Another advantage of Pionics is its ability to offer tailor-made batteries according to clients' hardware
requirements, as it has the technical ability to
evaluate and develop battery materials. Such an
approach would give device makers a higher degree of
flexibility in designing their mobile gadgets.



For example, using Pionics' technology, batteries can
be placed behind computer screens, giving designers
more freedom to build smaller and thinner notebook
computers.



Commercially available notebook PC batteries generally
need to be recharged after about four hours of use,
though some of the new models have recently exceeded
that performance. Technically, lithium polymer
batteries alone can be stretched to operate a notebook
computer for as long as six to seven hours.



But battery-life requirements for mobile gadgets are
increasing much faster than manufacturers can trim the
power needs of such devices.

http://www.japan-pionics.co.jp/

Siemens acquires WLAN vendor Chantry - $85M

A source familiar with the negotiations tells Unstrung that the German vendor has forked out around $85 million for the deal. Financial details were not officially disclosed. Chantry differentiator was voWLAN, QoS, and their deep relationship w/ Siemens who invested $6M in March '04 and OEM'd their product.

Good return for the investors, Flagship, OneLiberty, VenturesWest who pumped in $25.7M total.

Look for more consolidation in the space :
He noted that several of Chantry's competitors already have limited partnerships in place, such as Trapeze Networks Inc. with 3Com Corp., Airespace Inc. with Alcatel and Nortel Networks, and Aruba Wireless Networks Inc. with Hewlett-Packard Co. "

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Silicon Optix

Red Herring Selects Silicon Optix for Prestigious Red Herring Top 100 Innovators Award; Award Recognizes 100 Companies That Embody Innovation

Silicon Optix Inc., a privately held fabless semiconductor company, is the leading supplier of advanced digital image processing integrated circuits focused on the capture, transmission, and display of digital visual information. Silicon Optix's highly patented IC products enable the convergence of digital image processing and optical system design, making possible a variety of new product categories that could not be economically realized with existing technologies. Silicon Optix is the first company to deliver high performance electronic components that optimize overall image processing/optical systems present in many existing and emerging applications."

The company just raised over $40M in Sept from Apax and Interwest. Very cool revolutionary technology.

Sequoia Communications Raises $15M

Sequoia Communications Raises $15 Million in Series D FundingSequoia Communications, the RF semiconductor company setting new benchmarks in multi-mode design and integration, announced the company has successfully secured $15 million in series D financing. Gabriel led the round. Also contributing to this over-subscribed round were all previous investors, including highly respected Nokia Venture Partners, Tallwood Venture Capital, Cadence Design Systems and Huntington Ventures. "

Accoona

Yet Another Search Engine Not that great of a search engine but with Clinton's backing and China's support, who knows?!

Intermix collects $4M for MySpace

Printer Friendly Article: Intermix collects $4M for MySpace:
Intermix collects $4M for MySpace
by Paul Bonanos Posted 03:38 EST, 8, Dec 2004

Internet media holding company Intermix Media Inc. of Los Angeles has turned to venture investors for funding that establishes social networking site operator MySpace Inc. as an independent subsidiary of publicly listed Intermix.
Redpoint Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif., supplied $4 million in funding to Intermix. In return, the firm received 1 million shares of Intermix stock, as well as warrants to purchase an additional 150,000 shares at $4 per share. Redpoint will be MySpace's minority owner, while Intermix will retain a majority stake. "

Check out the insider selling from the BoD memer on this: http://biz.yahoo.com/t/32/4232.html

Composite Software

Composite Software Gets $4.5M Equity Infusion In Deal With Cognos

By VentureWire Staff Reporters

Data integration start-up Composite Software has received a $4.5 million minority investment from
Cognos, a publicly traded business intelligence software company.Composite has raised $17.35 million, not including the investment from Cognos, over two funding rounds. The firm secured its most recent investment, a $12.1 million Series B round of funding, in late 2003. Investors include Lehman Brothers, Palomar Ventures, Apax Partners, Clearstone Venture Partners and Dot Edu Ventures.

Green said that Composite still has a considerable amount of Series B funding in the bank and will not be
seeking out new funding for a very long time. He did not say what revenue growth over the past year was or whether the company is profitable.

Rojo Networks

CorporateBackground - Rojo Networks: "Rojo Networks Inc. is pioneering a new way for people who consume media online to discover, organize, and share the broadest range of dynamic content ever available on the Internet. Rojo takes the growing wealth of RSS and Atom feeds published by web sites, blogs, discussion boards and various corporations and gives the user choice and control of all of these in one place. "

magink

Magink

Startup Magink's 'digital ink' may change everything from billboards to laptops"

Monday, December 06, 2004

Pluck


Posted by Hello
http://www.pluck.com/

Description: What TiVo did for television, Pluck is doing for the web. Pluck is an Internet command center that takes the web to a whole new level.

Space: Internet

Funding: Mayfield and Austin; $8.5M raise 9/04; Total raise: $9.5M

Location: TX

Comments: Found them through google adwords. Probably worth tracking. Neat tool. Not sure how similar/different they are from onfolio and others. The software is probably pretty good - co. has won a number of awards and amazon is a listed partner.

Exit: Probably get sold to either a search portal or get crushed by them.