BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
Posts Tagged ‘Venture Capital’
January 18 2011
by Scott Johnson
Mobile Monetization 2.0
Mobile monetization 2.0 is going to happen in 2011. Marketing budgets against mobile are showing up in the hundreds of millions, some new monetization schemes (CPL and CPD) are paying good eCPMs, 4G is coming, and this is all really great news for entrepreneurs and mobile app publishers as everyone everywhere taps into mobile apps. ...
December 3 2010
by Scott Johnson
“Do Not Track” – Some Predictions to Guide Investment
Congress has proposed an opt-out capability for user tracking. Much has been written about Do Not Track, and I won’t rehash all of that. I will simply say I think it is a good idea, and in general expecting that any industry will effectively police itself is naive. What has not been widely discussed is: ...
November 30 2010
by Todd Hixon
The Back Waters of eCommerce
Internet retail sales are up 20% yr/yr for the four days after Thanksgiving, 2010. Mobile web and commerce have unprecedented momentum, argues Mary Meeker in yet another excellent Internet Trends presentation. [What a regret, by the way, that she is becoming a VC; it's like Alice Rivlin joining Fox News.] This has produced high-intensity conflict ...
November 17 2010
by Scott Johnson
Expanding “Opt In” to include “Claw Back.”
My partner Thanasis wrote a thoughtful piece about the trade-offs between privacy and convenience. Since I am a table pounding “opt-in” zealot, I felt compelled to weigh in. Opt-in is why Pontiflex is taking share so rapidly from legacy “email list brokers”. Opt-out is the reason Facebook got kicked in the gut when they launched Beacon, and how ...
October 18 2010
by Todd Hixon
Europe Lags In Mobile
I’m just back from 12 days in Europe, visiting Positano and Rome, Italy and Munich and Frankfurt, Germany. I’m struck by how much Europe lags the U.S. in mobile. This is a small arbitrary sample: 3 major cities and an upscale beach resort in 2 countries. But, the visible difference is stark. 1. The data ...
October 12 2010
by Scott Johnson
Why I Invested in Fashion Playtes (Again)
Fashion Playtes recently announced an oversubscribed up round led by our friends at Fairhaven Capital. The company has a platform enabling custom clothing design by tween girls (ages 6-12). It is a simple concept really. Girls can go on the web and choose different embellishments to be sewn onto dresses, shirts, pants, bags, etc. ...
September 24 2010
by Todd Hixon
Robots Romp at MIT: Notes From EmTech10
MIT held its annual Emerging Technologies conference this week. It’s an MIT conference rather than a venture conference: many of the the speakers were from major tech corporations (Qualcomm, Microsoft) or academics. Innovations from corporate labs, university labs, and start-ups had equal prominence. It was not about raising money: no explicit pitches, few VCs there. ...
July 14 2010
by Scott Johnson
The Six Step Venture Capital Investment Process
Every venture firm has pretty much the same six step process. It is not hard to understand, and every firm puts their own spin on it. But you can pretty much count on these six steps occurring in sequence before you will see any cash in your bank account.
June 16 2010
by John Backus
Venture Capital Carried Interest Tax Debate – A VC’s Perspective
HB 4213. Much has been made of late of the Venture Capital Carried Interest Tax Hike Bill. It carries the gallows-humor title of the “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010.” Charlie Rangel, the Congressman from Harlem (seen here relaxing on one of his properties which triggered his current ethics investigation) is the ...
June 11 2010
by Todd Hixon
The View From The Dark Side #2: Participating Preferred
Entrepreneurs often dislike participating preferred stock. It can be a contentious term at investment time, and I often sense resentment at exit time when investors “get $XX million off the top”. “Participating preferred” refers to convertible preferred stock with a special liquidation right: preferred stock holders receive return of their investment, and then they share ...
