NYTimes: Venture Investors Wrap Up an Unusually Bleak Quarter

"So far this has been a challenging year for companies hoping to go public. But it has been even rougher on venture capitalists who were hoping to get a big payday from such an offering."
"In the second quarter of this year not a single company backed by venture capitalists has gone public. It is the first time that has happened since 1978, according to a venture capital industry group.
General weaknesses in the financial markets have kept many companies from taking the plunge. But venture capitalists say they have started to back technologies like alternative energy that take relatively long to gestate before they are ready for the public market.
Some other venture capitalists say the industry is struggling to find its direction and has never fully recovered from the dot-com bust.
That may come as little surprise to the well-heeled individuals and institutions that give their money to venture capitalists seeking big returns. Some of these investors have criticized venture capitalists for failing to provide substantial returns on a broad basis since 2000.
Public offerings serve a critical role for venture capitalists by giving them a way to sell, at huge profits, stakes in the start-up companies they invest in and build. So the offering drought is being taken very seriously by the venture capital industry. The National Venture Capital Association, an industry group, said it planned to discuss the issue on Tuesday in a media blitz on television news outlets.
“It’s a big story,” said Emily Mendell, a spokeswoman for the group. She declined to discuss the problem further, saying that the industry would release its official analysis on Tuesday, after the end of the quarter."

NetworkWorld: Meru, Aruba top researcher's 802.11n rankings

"A recent, multidimensional evaluation of 802.11n wireless LAN vendors compiled by ABI Research reflects the complexity facing IT departments as they conduct their own assessments of enterprise-class 802.11n prospects. In what was more or less a photo finish, Meru Networks edged out its fierce rival, Aruba Networks, as the leading vendor in ABI’s latest Vendor Matrix, released last week. Motorola took the No. 3 spot.

Note that while these vendors received the highest overall rankings, criteria were weighted, and other companies excelled in certain areas in their own right. So, depending on what’s important to you, you might wish to weigh certain factors differently and, thus, come up with the same or different “winners.”"

NewVeeTee: Chad Hurley: How We Did It

"YouTube CEO Chad Hurley, not known for being especially candid (especially now that he’s under the lock and key of Google PR!) gave an unusual address last night at a startup dinner in Palo Alto where he detailed the story of YouTube. We caught the talk on video. It’s too long for our YouTube account, so we’ve posted it on blip.tv."

Notes (I left out some of the already well-known parts):
-- Chad and Steve’s original ideas were video for online auctions and ways for people to connect with each other, but realized they needed to generalize and create a video upload community along the lines of Flickr.

-- YouTube didn’t have PowerPoint, just product and stats, when it made the rounds on Sand Hill Road.

-- ServerBeach had two pipes, one for redundancy, and YouTube was using one and a half of them, with rest of its customers limited to just half of the one left. ServerBeach had a great plan, $129 month for unlimited data. “They weren’t necessarily prepared for a service like YouTube.”
Before closing the round with Sequoia had 8-10 people working for them for free. “We told them we would work it out.”

--When Nike soccer video took off on the site, Hurley, Steve Chen and investor Roelof Botha went to Nike HQ in Oregon — nothing came of it but that was the beginning of thinking about commercial solutions beyond personal use, helping people reach a mass audience.
One of first companies to automate DMCA — the press misses this, according to Hurley — one of various examples of solutions YouTube has built that set examples for its industry. “What people miss is we built a true community around video. These hundreds of competitors are dealing with the same problems but they’re not having the same growth.”

--Hit 1 million video views a day when still working in Sequoia’s offices, built long-term architecture to handle 30 million video views a day but blew past that. “We serve hundreds of millions of videos a day on our system, and receive over 13 hours of video every minute, and we’re still in the process of growing.”

UK: Goodbye Gates

"In a corner office on Microsoft's leafy, low-rise campus in suburban Seattle, a bespectacled, slightly portly middle-aged man has been packing up his belongings. Bill Gates logs off today after 33 years in day-to-day control of the world's biggest software company.

Gates, 52, is retiring in order to spend more time giving away his $58bn (£29bn) fortune. In a glossy video produced by Microsoft to mark the occasion, he expressed quiet satisfaction: "We've really achieved the ideal of what I wanted Microsoft to become."

Later today, Gates will deliver a valedictory address to the software company's 90,000 employees with his right-hand man, Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer, by his side. Staff around the world will watch via a webcast."

Sequoia in the City

"From Sand Hill To San Francisco: The Reverse VC Commute Continues
“Menlo Park-based Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most successful venture capital firms, has agreed to lease the top floor of the office tower Tishman Speyer is building at 555 Mission St.….If completed, the deal would be the third major tenant Tishman has landed at 555 Mission St. at a time when the city's commercial real estate market has cooled considerably.”

“Sequoia would be the latest in a growing list of Sand Hill Road venture capital firms establishing presences in San Francisco or moving here altogether. In 2007, investor Sandy Robertson moved his $5 billion private equity group Francisco Partners to the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio. At 1650 Owens St. in Mission Bay, developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities has signed deals with four VCs, including Versant Ventures, Novo Ventures and Arch Venture Partners.”

UPDATE: From a plugged-in reader: "Sequoia's office in SF may validate the recent rumor of their extension into starting a "hedge fund like entity" in the group."

∙ Tishman Speyer tags Sequoia Capital for 555 Mission [Business Times]
∙ A Virtual Tour Of 555 Mission Street (And Downtown San Francisco) [SocketSite]

Rumormonger: Is Google about to swallow up Digg?

"But we hear Mayer is pushing hard for an acquisition of Rose's Digg, for a price below $200 million."

Valleywag: $300 million post for RockYou

"Online widgetmaker RockYou is still looking for another $5 million to $15 million in funding, even after it took $35 million last week, at a $300 million valuation. That money was for doubling its staff, moving to a larger office in Redwood City and acquiring more widgets — those annoying add-ons to social-network profiles — for its portfolio, RockYou CTO and founder Jia Shen told Silicon Alley Insider — but it's not clear what the extra cash is for. In March, rumor had it RockYou's lastest funding round would set its value near $400 million, but thanks in part to a sliding ad market and a developer-unfriendly Facebook redesign, investors are said to have turned skeptical, sending the startup's paper value down by $100 million to $150 million."

Valleywag: Facebook won't hire a Weiner

"Yahoos are still buzzing about Jeff Weiner's departure for the world of venture capital. Before he left, many of his coworkers thought he was a shoo-in for a CEO gig at Facebook. Now that he's an entrepreneur-in-residence jointly at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners — both investors in Facebook — the conspiracy theorists have changed their patter: Weiner's just in a holding pen until Accel and Greylock can boot founder Mark Zuckerberg, install Weiner as CEO, and take the company public. "Zuck is definitely out ... it's just a matter of time. It's clear as day," one tipster writes. Clear as mud, rather. It makes sense that Yahoos, bitter at Facebook's success and eager to have one of their own deliver a comeuppance to Zuckerberg, would be circulating this rumor. But here's what they don't know about Jeff Weiner and Mark Zuckerberg.
Weiner did meet with Zuckerberg over dinner to discuss a top position at Facebook — the COO spot that Sheryl Sandberg now occupies. But Weiner bombed, we're told, ordering a fancy bottle of wine (Zuckerberg's not a big drinker) and generally playing it slick. The two utterly failed to connect."

Tech Trader Daily: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Takes A Stake In Twitter

"Amazon.com (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos has taken a stake in Twitter, the red-hot microblogging service. Twitter announced the move in a blog post earlier today. Bezos made the investment through Bezos Expeditions, a vehicle for his personal investments. Also investing in the company is venture firm Spark Capital; partner Bijan Sabet will take a seat on the Twitter board. Twitter said previous investors Union Square Ventures and Tokyo-based Digital Garage exercised their pro rata rights to participate in the firm’s new investment round as well.
Twitter did not immediately disclose the size of the investment round."

Top Venture Capital Funds LTM

Venture Capital
Top investors, 12 months rolling*
Rank
VC investor
No. of deals
1
New Enterprise Associates
42
2
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
27
2
Intel Capital Corp.
27
4
Accel Partners
23
4
Sequoia Capital
23
6
Foundation Capital
19
6
Polaris Venture Partners
19
8
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
18
8
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
18
8
Venrock Associates
18

Dow: Ex-Citi Executive Launches $1 Billion Clean-Technology Fund

"Over a year after his departure from Citigroup Inc. (C) , Todd S. Thomson has set his sights on an alternative energy and carbon offset fund targeting $1 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the fund.

His fund, the Carbon Opportunities Fund, will make investments in buyouts, project development and growth capital opportunities, according to the source. News of the fund was reported previously by VentureBeat.

(This story also appeared in Clean Technology Investor, a daily newsletter published by Dow Jones & Co.)

Joining Thomson in the venture is Christian Langaard, founder of Euro Latin Capital, and a former executive with Credit Suisse First Boston and Banque Paribas, according to the Euro Latin Capital Web site.

Thomson and his new fund join a slew of other financial heavyweights that are looking to make their mark on the alternative energy landscape."

AP: Visa business network boosts Facebook's ad efforts

"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Facebook Inc.'s quest to lure more advertisers to its popular online hangout is getting an assist from Visa Inc.'s marketing machine.
As part of a small-business network Visa designed for Facebook, the world's largest credit and debit card processor is paying for $2 million of advertising on the socializing site. Visa also will promote the new Facebook service in a multimedia marketing campaign beginning next month."

Biz line: Venture capital firm Walden to re-enter India

"San Francisco-based venture capital (VC) firm Walden International – better known for its investment in Bangalore-based IT firm Mindtree Consulting – is re-entering India after a five-year-long hiatus. "

"It has appointed Rajesh Subramaniam, the erstwhile Chief Financial Officer of BPO firm Firstsource Solutions, as Managing Director (for India) – reflecting the increasing demand from the VC industry for senior officials with operational knowledge from diverse industries. "

Updated Yahoo Exec Tracker: 114 Execs Gone in 18 Months

"I suspected that as soon as we published the data on the 50 ex-Yahoo execs that have left the company since January 2007 our readers would chime in with more data. We’ve now added the execs we previously missed, and the list has grown to 114 people. We’ve done our best to say when each exec left and where she or he is now.

These are senior directors up through CEO level - it’s impossible to track the thousands of more junior level employees who’ve left. We’ll continue to keep this updated, including on the original post, so just bookmark it if you want to refer back to current information."

bain capital linkedin - Google News

"LinkedIn networking site joins $1bn club
Financial Times, UK - Jun 17, 2008
... recruiting staff or finding new jobs, said it had raised $53m from a group of venture capitalists led by Bain Capital, taking the total raised to $80m ..."

All Things Apple: Apple 3G is here. FINALLY

"Steven P. Jobs, chief executive of Apple, introduced a new cheaper iPhone model that navigates the Internet more quickly, expanded its distribution overseas and displayed a range of new applications and services in order to establish Apple as a major player in the cellphone industry.""Apple, the maker of consumer electronics and computer equipment, had set a goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008, which would establish it as one of the major smartphone makers in the less than two years since it began shipping the original iPhone. Apple has sold six million phones globally since its introduction.Analysts said that Mr. Jobs, one of the world’s best product marketers, had largely accomplished what he set out to do and they welcomed the moves he outlined in a presentation before software developers on Monday."

WebGuild: Gartner Group's Top Ten Technologies

"The Gartner Group has suggested that the following ten technologies are those most likely to change the world in the next few years:

Multicore and hybrid processors
Virtualisation and fabric computing
Social networks and social software
Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
Web mashups
User Interface
Ubiquitous computing
Contextual computing
Augmented reality
Semantics"

Clickz: Monster to Shutter Tickle, Social Net and Quiz Aggregator; Layoffs Planned

"Monster will lay off an undisclosed number of staffers as it moves to shut down Tickle, the quiz aggregator and social net it acquired in 2004 for about $90 million. By way of explanation it said it wants to focus on core strengths, of which Tickle's focus on social networking was apparently not one. The recruiting giant has also begun to decommission Tickle's subsidiary brands Love Happens, a dating site, and Ringo, a photo and video sharing service."

Silicon Alley Insider: Slide Says It's Done Releasing New Facebook Apps

"Slide, the company that makes Facebook's most popular apps, says it's done making new ones for the social network. Keith Rabois, VP of strategy and business development, told us this week that the company wants to concentrate on making the existing apps like FunWall and Top Friends better -- and ultimately figure out how to generate real money from them.

To us, this sounded like Toyota announcing that it's keeping its current lineup stable, so it can make better Corollas. But we double-checked with Keith, to make sure we hadn't misunderstood him: Yup, he said -- we're going to work on improving our existing Facebook products, not making new ones.

Read between the lines here, and you can see a slightly different story: Slide is saying that the great Facebook app landgrab, which kicked off a year ago, is over. And it's ended up with the best property.

Wait a minute. Isn't there unlimited real estate in cyberspace? Sure, theoretically. But Facebook is going to launch a massive overhaul that will ultimately make it harder for new applications to get the same kind of traction their predecessors did, because it will be harder to “go viral.” Rabois insists that the redesign hasn't had an effect on Slide's thinking. But..."

NYTimes.com: Former Chief of Broadcom Is Indicted

"Henry T. Nicholas III, the flamboyant co-founder and former chief executive of the chip maker Broadcom, was indicted Thursday in California on fraud, conspiracy and drug charges, including allegations that he spiked the drinks of other executives with ecstasy.
One indictment said he also maintained several residences that were used to distribute and sell drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamine, and threatened to kill people if they talked about his activities.
A second indictment filed in the Federal District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., and also unsealed Thursday, charged Mr. Nicholas and William Ruehle, the former chief financial officer of Broadcom, of improperly backdating stock options, forcing Broadcom to take a $2.2 billion write-down.
Lawyers for both men said they were innocent of all charges.
Mr. Nicholas, 48, is a colorful character who, along with his former college professor, Henry Samueli, became a billionaire when he smartly timed the industry’s need for silicon chips that send voice and data over cable lines.
Mr. Nicholas turned himself in to the F.B.I. on Thursday morning and appeared in federal court in Santa Ana Thursday afternoon. A federal magistrate, Arthur Nakazato, ordered both Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Ruehle released, said a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office."

Sigma Partners Hires eDocs CEO

"Sigma Partners, an early-stage technologyventure capital firm founded in 1984, today announced the addition of KevinLaracey as a venture partner. With more than 20 years of experience as anentrepreneur and operating executive in technology companies, Kevinexemplifies Sigma’s philosophy that success as an entrepreneur is critical toachieving success as an investor in early stage companies. He will beleveraging his expertise and network to help entrepreneurs turn innovativeideas into successful companies.

Kevin’s operational experience includes being a founder & CEO, a softwareengineer, a marketing executive, and a general manager. Kevin foundededocs, a leading provider of self-service, online billing and payment solutionsused by many of the world’s largest telecommunications, financial services,and healthcare companies. edocs was a multi-year member of the Inc. 500 and Deloitte & Touche Fast 500 lists prior to being sold to Siebel Systems,now part of Oracle, in 2005.

“Kevin brings to Sigma an impressive operating background and a great dealof experience working with entrepreneurs in early stage technologycompanies," said Bob Davoli, a managing director in Sigma’s Boston office."He is a great asset to our firm and we are excited to have him on the team."

Just before joining Sigma, Kevin was Vice President and GM of SiebelSystem’s Customer Self Service Group, where he helped the self-servicegroup grow revenues nearly 50% in its first year after the acquisition. Kevinhas also held senior management and operational roles at Elixir Technologiesand the Travelers Companies. Kevin earned a Master of BusinessAdministration degree from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management andreceived a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors from University of NotreDame.“The partners at Sigma have a track record of discovering greatentrepreneurs and helping them to turn their ideas into exceptionalcompanies by leveraging their own experience as entrepreneurs andoperating executives,” commented Kevin Laracey. “I am looking forward tobeing part of such a great team.”Kevin Laracey is based in Sigma Partners’ Boston office, one of three nationaloffices that invest in a variety of technology industry segments throughoutthe U.S. As a venture partner he will be exploring new investmentopportunities in a wide range of markets.

About Sigma Partners
Founded in 1984, Sigma Partners is a leading early-stage venture capitalfirm. The Sigma team uses their deep operational experience to provideentrepreneurs with practical strategic counsel through every phase ofcompany growth. With over $2 billion under management and bicoastaloffices, Sigma invests in innovative technology startups across the UnitedStates. The team is currently investing Sigma Fund 8, a $500 million fundraised in 2007. Some of the market leading companies in which Sigma hasinvested include Atria, Cascade, Clarify, EqualLogic, Internet SecuritySystems, KLA-Tencor, m-Qube, Octel, Topio, VeriFone, Vermeer, Vignetteand Virtusa. For more information, please visithttp://www.sigmapartners.com."

EarthTimes: Time Warner Inc. and GGV Capital Join Existing Partners in Fueling Online Game Leader's Growth

"Turbine, Inc. today announced that it has raised $40 million in equity financing. Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) and GGV Capital, a leader in expansion-stage venture capital investments in the U.S. and China, led the investment along with existing investors, Highland Capital Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures and Columbia Capital. The investment will be used to further accelerate Turbine's growth
as a global leader in online entertainment.

"This is truly an exciting time for Turbine. The addition of Time Warner, one of the world's largest media companies, and GGV Capital, one of the financial community's most sophisticated investors, adds a level of access, perspective and experience to Turbine that is singularly unique in the global online entertainment space," said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. "Turbine has an extraordinary team, incredible technology and a growing portfolio of games based on some of the most popular brands ever created. With this funding we are uniquely positioned to change the future of online entertainment as we bring new titles to market, expand the platforms we support and introduce new technologies to sustain self-evolving game worlds."

Reuters: More U.S. venture capital firms investing abroad

"Taiwan, Japan and Israel are just some of the emerging hotspots for innovation outside the United States, as venture capitalists continue to pour more dollars into global investments, a new survey said on Monday.
Nearly three out of every five of U.S. venture capitalists, or 57 percent, are now investing outside the country, compared with 46 percent last year, the 2008 Global Venture Capital Survey found.
The survey measured the opinions of nearly 400 venture capitalists from around the world, including 163 U.S.-based firms, and was conducted by Deloitte LLP and the National Venture Capital Association, a U.S. trade group."

New York Times#more-23655: A Letter to Facebooks Founder

"Memo

From: The Deal Professor
To: Mark Zuckerberg

I read with great interest your recent interview with Kara Swisher at the D6 Conference. I was particularly struck by your answer to Ms. Swisher’s question about whether Facebook, the popular social networking site you created, can be sold by your venture capital co-owners without your approval. Your response: “I don’t think so.”

Your answer made me think of something my own professor at London Business School once said to me: “The day you take a venture capital investment is the day you sell your company.” Venture capital firms are not Warren Buffett — they have limited-term funds and compensation mechanisms that encourage them to exit their transactions once a company reaches maturity.

So, is it true that your co-owners can sell without you or otherwise push through an initial public offering of Facebook without your approval as chief executive officer?"