Lithium’s Eye-Popping $53.4 Million
Last week Lithium Technologies announced completion of its D round of financing valued at $53.4 million. You can read the press release to get the details but the big question I have is what’s going on in the industry? Lithium is not the only company in the last six months to pull in sizable sums [...]
Areas of Investment Interest for 2012
Happy New Year! After a nice break, as I head back to the office I thought I’d provide you with my views regarding the overall environment we expect to face in 2012, as well as the areas we will be looking to invest within a two of our focus sectors: adtech/Internet and SaaS. Data (big [...]
When Capital Isn’t Scarce
For a long time VC’s and other investors bemoaned SaaS. I head more than one say that nobody would ever be able to raise as much money as Salesforce did to IPO–$70M–so you just had to figure out how to do it much more cheaply than Salesforce had. This morning I read that Marketo has [...]
CRM Idol
The CRM Idol competition starts this week. If you aren’t aware here’s the basic rundown. It’s the brainchild of Paul Greenberg who is no stranger to the speaking circuit and a believer in making CRM entertaining. Idol, as the name implies, is a competition focused on emerging companies and its purpose is to identify one [...]
Strong Results during 2Q11 for our SaaS Portfolio
Despite the macro trends that continue to be challenging for the US economy, concerns about Europe and Greece’s impact on the continent’s economy, and the continued impasse for an agreement that will raise the US debt ceiling, SaaS companies have been reporting strong performance results for 2Q11. I got a good feeling for the quarter [...]
Enterprise 2.0 and the VC Industry
Enterprise 2.0 came to Boston this week and it provided an interesting snapshot of an emerging market. At the same time Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) released a study that calls for a more robust IPO market. I see connections. First, E2.0 as it is abbreviated, made its annual visit to Boston. [...]
Founders: The Bubble Clock is Ticking
The incredible valuation of the LinkedIn IPO can only be interpreted as one signal: the Bubble Clock has started ticking. So long as it continues to run, we will live in a reality distortion where valuations are insanely high, capital is cheap, and smart businesses can leverage that to hyper growth. When it stops, we’re [...]
Mixed Results during 1Q11 for our SaaS Portfolio
Back in January I had read some reports indicating that after a strong 4Q10, the US economy was showing the signs of a slowdown. During January and February in particular businesses slowed their investment activities. These sobering reports were counterbalanced with more upbeat reports that small and larger enterprises continue their switch to SaaS solutions [...]
So, Mr. Bootstrap took venture funding, huh?
Longtime readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of bootstrapping. Instead of putting together a pretty pitch deck and hitting Sand Hill Road (or 300 W. Sixth Street, as the case may be) I’ve long preferred the model where you open up the IDE, build something valuable, find a few people [...]
Spanning Cloud Apps Raises $2 Million Series A Round of Venture Funding From Foundry Group
Spanning Cloud Apps, the makers of Spanning Backup for Google Apps, today announced that the company has secured $2 million of funding from Foundry Group, a Boulder-based venture capital firm. Launched in September 2010 and spun out of Spanning Sync, Inc., Spanning Cloud Apps will apply the resources to continue to build on the company’s [...]
