StrictlyVC, LLC

Michael Chasen’s New “Billion-Dollar Idea”
Michael Chasen speaks a mile a minute, and maybe there’s a reason why. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has discovered his next calling – providing location-based connections for young, mobile users. It’s a well-worn story at this point, but Chasen may just be the one to make money in this space.

If Chasen’s name sounds familiar, it’s likely because of Blackboard, an education software company that he cofounded with his college roommate in 1997. Blackboard went public in 2004 before it was acquired in 2011 by Providence Equity Partners for $1.64 billion.

Needless to say, Chasen never has to work again. But while visiting colleges during his Blackboard days, he realized his latest idea – connecting people who are in close proximity to each other through their phones – might be an even bigger opportunity than Blackboard. As a result, he quickly put together a 20-person company and, in June, closed on $12.5 million from NEA, Grotech Ventures, and a long line of celebrity entrepreneur-investors, including Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, and Dave Morin. He could have raised more. (“We actually had over $20 million in interest for the $12 million round,” Chasen tells me at at a San Francisco coffee shop. “We had investors we said no to, and we had to scale people back.”)

Investors were presumably taken with Chasen’s track record. But Chasen also argues that his company, SocialRadar, which is based in Washington, D.C., is a billion-dollar idea. Its objective: to cross-reference the location beacons in our pockets – our smartphones – with the now two billion social profiles online, to create real-time information about the people around us, whether they’re 300 feet or 50 miles away.

“With SocialRadar,” says Chasen, “you can walk into a room, and we’ll tell you there are 10 people here who you know: five coworkers, three people you went to college with, and two people who live on your street. Beyond that, we’ll tell you that your one college friend recently got his MBA and another was recently married.” Adds Chasen, “Right now, people might think, Why do I need to know who’s around? But it’s about having that information at your fingertips. You might not act on it, but maybe you will. It all depends on the context.”

SocialRadar is still in beta, with plans to launch by year end. (Chasen says the team is still working on all kinds of features, including around privacy, so that if you want to see who is around you but don’t want to be seen, you can list yourself as “anonymous” or use the app completely invisibly.)

Once it scales, SocialRadar intends to make money through directed commerce, by presenting location-aware offers and the like. But Chasen says the focus is very much on growing the business first — something he thinks he can do quickly by leveraging location information from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google to show users who’s around, regardless of whether those acquaintances already have the SocialRadar app.

The strategy isn’t without huge risks. The location-based landscape is filled with the bones of entrepreneurs who’ve tried to make money off seemingly useful services and failed. More, some of these services might object to SocialRadar monitoring their users’ data. If Facebook, in particular – the veritable 900-pound gorilla in this space – decides that it doesn’t want to play nice, SocialRadar could find itself in a very tight position.

Then again, Chasen has proven that he can make money in a tough space. The number of investors who’ve made money in education is minuscule, and yet he succeeded twice, first in taking the company public, then in selling it to a major private equity firm. Chasen also seems realistic, the product of his many years as an entrepreneur, no doubt. As he puts it: “Just like mapping software has fundamentally influenced the way that people use technology and get around, this technology has the same potential. Five to 10 years from now, everyone will have this technology and use it on a daily basis — whether or not it’s SocialRadar.”

Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

Related articles
- Dropcam, the $50M Startup That Should Keep ADT Awake at Night
- StrictlyVC: October 3, 2013
Connie

October 23, 2013

Entrepreneurs, Startup

Blackboard, Michael Chasen, SocialRadar
StrictlyVC: October 22, 2013
Top News in the A.M.

Microsoft is testing prototypes for its own Web-connected eyewear.

Marc Andreessen: Stories About Silicon Valley “Crack Me Up”

Silicon Valley has been receiving a lot of unfavorable media attention in recent months, from Valleywag to New York magazine to the New Yorker. Last week, during a sit-down with Marc Andreessen at the Sand Hill Road offices of his firm, Andreessen Horowitz, we discussed some of that coverage, and what he makes of it. Part of our conversation, lightly edited for length, follows. For more of our chat, visit StrictlyVC.

There’s a lot of hand-wringing in the media lately over whether or not Silicon Valley takes into mind the broader economy. Do you think some of those criticisms are valid?

The stories crack me up. There’s sort of two criticisms. One is that Silicon Valley is the new elite, the new one percent, the new oligarchy, and that all the billionaires don’t give a shit about society and [welcome a] Mad Max dystopian wasteland of no jobs [as] technology takes everything over.

The other argument is that technology produces nothing of value; it’s all just Snapchat apps so 14-year-old girls can send selfies to each other. I have a hard time reconciling the two arguments.

What of the argument that the Valley is building technologies that are primarily of value to a subset of people who can afford to use them?

That I don’t agree with. I think that’s almost just Uber, or the early-delivery services.

If you’re a journalist and come to Silicon Valley and you want to find three startups [whose services] only 25-year-olds and single people with discretionary income are ever going to use, you can do that, congratulations. If you want to come to Silicon Valley and find companies that are really going to open up access to transportation or education or financial services to people who haven’t had access to those things before, you can also do that.

These stories are very well-written and they’re entertaining, but they’re typically written by someone outside the Valley who wants to reach a certain conclusion to make them and their readers – in my view – feel better. I think it’s very reassuring, especially to people in New York right now, to think the Valley is just a bunch of kids farting around. But it’s only one slice.

Another widespread criticism is that tech entrepreneurs don’t give back enough. As a philanthropist, what do you think?

With tech — and you see this with a lot of these new entrepreneurs — they’re 25, 30, 35 years old, and they’re working to the limit of their physical capability. And from the outside, these companies look like they’re huge successes. On the inside, when you’re running one of these things, it always feels like you’re on the verge of failure; it always feels like it’s so close to slipping away. And people are quitting and competitors are attacking and the press is writing all these nasty articles about you, and you’re kind of on the ragged edge all the time. So to try and figure out how to find the time to intelligently allocate philanthropic capital, like, it just does not compute. It’s a timing issue.

Many founders I know, including a lot of really young founders, fully plan to give the vast majority away. They just plan to do it when they have time to do it properly. You could make the reasonable argument that the world would be better off if they gave the money away faster; it just begs the question of how, which is a harder question to answer. Even Warren Buffett couldn’t figure out how to do it without just giving it to Bill Gates. Maybe the answer is just give all the money to Bill Gates!

New Fundings

Blue Rooster, a 13-year-old, Seattle-based enterprise software company focused on interactive design and development, has raised $3 million from Fujitsu subsidiary PFU Limited. The money is part of a larger investment that has yet to be completed, reports TechCrunch.

Comprimato, a young, Prague-based company behind a newer, faster video compression technology, has received 200,000 euros in seed funding from the Czech seed fund Credo Ventures and corporate venture arm of Czech tech company Y Soft. Comprimato is a spin-off of CESNET, the Prague-based research institute.

Docurated, a two-year-old, New York-based startup whose cloud-based software helps companies organize their data in a more easily searchable way, has raised $3.75 million from Rogers Venture Partners, a nearly two-year-old, $150 million venture firm in Palo Alto. The company had previously raised $1.6 million in seed funding.

Kona Medical, a four-year-old, Bellevue, Wash.-based company that develops treatments for hypertension, has raised $10 million in Series D financing from Morningside Group, an investment firm with a big presence in China. Just last year, Kona raised $30 million in Series C funding led by an unnamed “large-cap medical technology company,” which was joined in the financing by existing investors Essex Woodlands, Domain Associates, Morgenthaler Ventures and BioStar Ventures.

Soylent, a young San Francisco-based startup whose signature drink ostensibly addresses every human nutritional need, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from investors, including Lerer Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. (It’s the kind of “fringe” investment that AH will still back at the seed stage.) Other investors in the company include investors Alexis Ohanian, Harj Taggar, Garry Tan, and Jack and Sam Altman.

Sqrrl, an 18-month-old, Cambridge, Mass.-based company behind a scalable, NoSQL database that’s used by the NSA, has raised $5.2 million in Series A financing from Atlas Venture and Matrix Partners. The same two firms had provided Sqrrl with $2 million in seed funding in August 2012. TechCrunch has an interesting piece on the company here.

Superpedestrian, a four-year-old, Boston-based company that was spun of MIT, has raised $2.1 million in Series A funding from Spark Capital and Tumblr founder David Karp. The company produces a very neat wheel technology that can turn any bike into an electric hybrid. Boston Business Journal has much more here.

Telly, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup has raised $3.4 million, according to an SEC document spied yesterday by VentureBeat. Telly’s video platform shows users videos based on what their friends have enjoyed, and the company has previously raised $6.5 million, including from Azure Capital, Draper Fisher Juvetson, and Siemer Ventures. More here.

Unbound, a young, London-based online platform that invites authors to pitch their ideas and visitors to choose which get written, has raised $1.82 million in seed financing from DFJ Esprit, Cambridge Angels Group, and Forward Investment Partners.

United Capital Financial Partners, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based company with offices around the country, has raised $38 million in growth financing led by Sageview Capital, which was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners and Grail Partners. United Capital Financial runs a fast-growing registered investment advisory (RIA) firm that, since 2005, has grown through dozens of acquisitions of smaller RIA firms. BVP and Grail have participated in previous rounds of financing for the company.

—–

IPOs

Varonis Systems, an eight-year-old, New York-based data company that helps organizations manage and analyze their unstructured data, has filed to go public, in an offering expected to raise around $100 million. The company plans to list on Nasdaq. Among its biggest shareholders are Accel Partners, which owns 25.6 percent of the company; Evergreen Venture Partners, which owns 23.1 percent; Pitango Venture Capital, which owns 17.1 percent, and JPMorgan, which owns 9.1 percent.

Renaissance Capital observes that “with printed jet engines, cakes and even organs on the horizon, excitement for 3D printing is climbing quickly. The latest public 3D printing player” — VoxelJet, a maker of large industrial-use systems that counts numerous German VCs as principal shareholders — “had the second best debut of the year for a US IPO, jumping 121.5%” last week. More from Renaissance about that offering and others here.

—–

Exits

FlexyCorp, a Rennes, France-based company behind an Android performance boosting app called DroidBooster, has been acquired by Google for undisclosed terms, report both TechCrunch and France’s L’Expansion.

Tellabs, a 38-year-old, Naperville Ill.-based telecom and optical networking equipment maker that went public in 1980, is being acquired by the private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners for $891 million in cash, a 4.3 percent premium over its October 18 closing price. As columnist-investor Om Malik notes, the amount is “less than [the] quarterly sales it logged during the heyday of telecom” during the go-go ’90s.

—–

Happenings

Apple‘s highly anticipated event — in which new iPads, iMacs and more are expected to be featured — is happening today in downtown San Francisco. Plan accordingly if you work in SOMA. And if you’d rather not catch every detail over Twitter, you might be interested in signing up for CNet’s live event blog.

What? In Abu Dhabi, you say? Then you might want to tune into Nokia’s Innovation Reinvented event, where half a dozen new devices are expected to be unveiled. The U.K.-based gadget site Pocket-lint is already out there and evidently sweating to death in order to provide readers up-to-the-minute details, so if you can’t make it, just check out its feed here.

—–

People

Renowned tech columnist David Pogue is ditching the New York Times for Yahoo.

Lane MacDonald becomes the head of private equity investments at Harvard Management Company in December. In April, longtime PE head Peter Dolan left the position. MacDonald, who attended Harvard College, joined the unit in 2008. Reuters has much more here.

—–

Job Listings

Lighter Capital, a 3.5-year-old, Seattle-based firm that loans tech startups anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000 in exchange for a percentage of their future revenues, is looking for an associate who doesn’t mind being a jack of all trades. (Because the firm is small, you’d be helping on the investment side, as well as assisting with marketing, biz dev, and even software development input and testing.) Requirements include an undergraduate degree and two to three years in investment banking or private equity/venture capital.

—–

Essential Reads

Unaccredited investors may finally get the go-ahead to fund startups during an open meeting at the SEC tomorrow.

Most VCs do just fine, but they aren’t “insanely rich,” according to these calculations.

—–

Detours

Can we, as a nation, take one more minute of Keith Olbermann? GQ investigates.

Fully 86 percent of college students are texting throughout their classes, reports a new study.

These powerful ads use real google searches to show the scope of sexism worldwide.

Thirty Hollywood stars who started out in horror movies! Mmmwhahaha.

—–

Retail Therapy

Have $48 million to spend on a New York penthouse? We’ve got just the place for you.

Witness: A muscle shirt with built-in padding to make you look buff. It is not a joke. Do not, under any circumstances, buy this alarming product. If you do not heed this advice, at least do not, under any circumstances, wear it on a date with someone who might be inclined to unbutton your shirt unless you secretly hate this person.

——-

Addendum: StrictlyVC was told by several readers that the hand-sewn penny loafers we featured yesterday were awful. One reader specifically asked that we “do a man-check on some of this stuff first.” Point taken.

——

Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for the newsletter, visit strictlyvc.com.

Related articles
Connie

October 22, 2013

Morning Summary
Marc Andreessen: Stories About Silicon Valley “Crack Me Up”
Silicon Valley has been receiving a lot of unfavorable media attention in recent months, from Valleywag to New York Magazine to The New Yorker. Last week, during a sit-down with Marc Andreessen at the Sand Hill Road offices of his firm, Andreessen Horowitz, we discussed some of that coverage, and what he makes of it. Part of our conversation, lightly edited for length, follows.

There’s a lot of hand-wringing in the media lately over whether or not Silicon Valley takes into mind the broader economy. Do you think some of those criticisms are valid?

The stories crack me up. There’s sort of two criticisms. One is that Silicon Valley is the new elite, the new one percent, the new oligarchy, and that all the billionaires don’t give a shit about society and [welcome a] Mad Max dystopian wasteland of no jobs [as] technology takes everything over.

The other argument is that technology produces nothing of value; it’s all just Snapchat apps so 14-year-old girls can send selfies to each other. I have a hard time reconciling the two arguments.

What of the argument that the Valley is building technologies that are primarily of value to a subset of people who can afford to use them?

That I don’t agree with. I think that’s almost just Uber, or the early-delivery services.

If you’re a journalist and come to Silicon Valley and you want to find three startups [whose services] only 25-year-olds and single people with discretionary income are ever going to use, you can do that, congratulations. If you want to come to Silicon Valley and find companies that are really going to open up access to transportation or education or financial services to people who haven’t had access to those things before, you can also do that.

These stories are very well-written and they’re entertaining, but they’re typically written by someone outside the Valley who wants to reach a certain conclusion to make them and their readers – in my view – feel better. I think it’s very reassuring, especially to people in New York right now, to think the Valley is just a bunch of kids farting around. But it’s only one slice.

Another widespread criticism is that tech entrepreneurs don’t give back enough. As a philanthropist, what do you think?

With tech — and you see this with a lot of these new entrepreneurs — they’re 25, 30, 35 years old, and they’re working to the limit of their physical capability. And from the outside, these companies look like they’re huge successes. On the inside, when you’re running one of these things, it always feels like you’re on the verge of failure; it always feels like it’s so close to slipping away. And people are quitting and competitors are attacking and the press is writing all these nasty articles about you, and you’re kind of on the ragged edge all the time. So to try and figure out how to find the time to intelligently allocate philanthropic capital, like, it just does not compute. It’s a timing issue.

Many founders I know, including a lot of really young founders, fully plan to give the vast majority away. They just plan to do it when they have time to do it properly. You could make the reasonable argument that the world would be better off if they gave the money away faster; it just begs the question of how, which is a harder question to answer. Even Warren Buffett couldn’t figure out how to do it without just giving it to Bill Gates. Maybe the answer is just give all the money to Bill Gates!

Photo courtesy of BusinessWeek.

Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

Related articles
Connie

October 22, 2013

Entrepreneurs, Firm Dynamics

Andreessen Horowitz, George Packer, Marc Andreessen, New Yorker
StrictlyVC: October 21, 2013
Top News in the A.M.

Tablet shipments are expected to grow a whopping 53 percent this year.

Apple debuts its first iPhone 5S TV spot.

Oops. An identity theft service that sold Social Security and drivers license numbers purchased much of its data from Experian.

—–

Andreessen Horowitz Backs Out of Seed Investing

There’s been a lot of back and forth in recent weeks about whether or not the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is dialing back on certain types of Series A investments. But cofounder Marc Andreessen suggests a bigger shift is the firm’s decision to get out of seed investing, except when presented with “fringe” opportunities.

Andreessen explained the firm’s thinking during a sit-down last week at his Sand Hill Road office. Our conversation — which we’ll run more of this week — has been edited slightly for clarity.

You think companies have to compete against themselves to stay innovative. How is Andreessen Horowitz continuing to innovate?

Probably the biggest change is that we’re pulling back significantly on the number of seed investments we’re making. We’ve had this policy, which all [venture] investors have, which is that if we invest in the [Series A or later] stage, we’re not going to invest in a competitive company, because that’s very damaging to an entrepreneur. For seed, we’ve always been explicit that if we’re putting in $50,000 to $100,000 [we can invest in competing companies, too].

Which can still create signaling issues, of course. Isn’t that why you’d launched a scouting program, using entrepreneurs to quietly seek out seed deals on your behalf?

We tried for a while to minimize [signaling damage] through the scout program; that was one potential layer of interaction that we thought would help. We also tried briefly to have this A16z seed brand and under that program, we could make multiple bets in one category.

Nobody can really do seed investing with a conflict policy because it’s all so uncertain at that point. You don’t have any idea what these companies are going to be doing in a year, much less whether you’re investing in the right one. And you’re putting very small amounts of money to work, so if you can only invest in one [startup per] category, you could never make many investments.

So what changed?

What we tell everybody is we don’t take the conflict policy with seed investments. But [entrepreneurs] don’t necessarily hear us, and it causes them problems anyway and makes them feel bad.

Also, the outside world doesn’t necessarily understand the difference. So we think there are more and more entrepreneurs at the seed stage who don’t want to talk with us because they think we’re already invested in a competitor. They think we’re conflicted out of the category. And they don’t differentiate between the seed and venture category. So we’re backing off of the number of seed investments we make basically to prevent that problem from getting worse.

What will happen instead?

One, we’re going to work even more closely with a bunch of the top-tier seed firms to be an even better source of deal flow for them. There’s also stuff we’ll do with seed companies to help them out without actually having investment stakes. We’ll kind of do favors, build a relationship [with them].

What we will back is fringe, where you couldn’t even conceive that there will be a competitor. So something that looks really nuts becomes very attractive for that program, which, arguably, is the best thing to invest in at the seed stage, because the whole point of the seed investments is to learn. ‘Here’s a brand new idea: Is it going to work. Is it not going to work? Is this person for real or are they crazy?’ You kind of want to figure that out before you write the big check.

New Fundings

Everest, a year-old, San Francisco-based startup behind a mobile app that reminds users of their personal goals, is raising a $500,000 round of funding, according to an SEC filing. TechCrunch reported earlier this year that the company has already received some financial support from investor Peter Thiel; according to the Form D, Everest, listed as EVRST, has already raised $50,000.

Gremln, a four-year-old, St. Louis, Missouri-based startup that makes social media management software, has collected roughly half of a $962,000 round it’s raising, according to an SEC filing. Gremln raised $700,000 late last year from a St. Louis accelerator program called Capital Innovators.

Insightra Medical, a 12-year-old, Irvine, Calif.-based company whose products serve the hernia repair market, has closed an undisclosed amount of Series C funding from Baird Capital and Tekla Capital Management. Others of its previous investors include Manipal Group, Samos Investments, and Vision Sciences.

K2 Learning, a nascent, Bangalore-based education startup with both software and hardware components (it plans to make specialized tablets), has raised $1.3 million in angel funding from Radheshyam Agarwal, founder and director of Calcutta Tube India.

M-DAQ, a three-year-old, Singapore-based financial tech startup whose platform allows users to price and trade exchange-traded products in more than one currency, has raised $11.7 million in Series B funding led by GSR Ventures and Citi Ventures. With its previous rounds, the company’s total capital comes to roughly $24 million.

Panorama Education, a three-yeard-old, Boston-based data analytics company designed to give school districts information about their students and teachers, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Startup:Education, A-Grade Investments, Yale University, Softech VC and Google Ventures.

Panoramic Power, a four-year-old company that’s headquartered in Kfar Saba, Israel, and makes real-time energy management software for commercial businesses, has raised $8 million in funding. The round was led by Marker, a year-old fund launched by Rick Scanlon, cofounder of Crescent Group. Other participants in the financing included Greylock Partners, Israel Cleantech Ventures Funds, Clal Energy, and Qualcomm Ventures.

OKPanda, a new, New York-based startup that produces digital products to help users learn English, has raised $1.4 million, including from Resolute Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Kapor Capital and 500 Startups. You can learn more here.

Swift Biosciences, a four-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company whose technologies examine disease-related genes and help enable tools for managing cancer, has closed $7 million in Series B financing. Fletcher Spaght Ventures led the round with participation from Renaissance Venture Capital Fund, the Mercury Fund, Michigan Accelerator Fund and several Michigan-based individual investors. The company had raised a $3 million Series A in August 2010.

TapStream, an 18-month-old, British Columbia company that makes app marketing software, has raised about $680,000 in seed funding led by BDC Venture Capital, which was joined by unnamed individual investors.

Teads, a two-year-old Paris-based company that has developed a platform for video advertising, has raised $5.15 million in Series A funding from Partech Ventures and Elaia Partners.

—–

New Funds

The investing team at Felicis Ventures in Palo Alto, Calif., has raised a separate, $7 million fund called Clover Fund, according to an SEC filing, which lists Felicis Ventures’ founder Aydin Senkut along with his partners Renata Streit Quintini and Sundeep Peechu.

Turn/River Capital, a San Francisco-based, tech-focused firm is targeting $2 million for a side venture fund, according to a new SEC filing. Turn/River was founded by Dominic Ang, who held junior roles at Plumtree Software, Advent International, and Vector Capital before taking over an apparel site in 2008 and later selling it in 2010 to the women’s media network Popsugar for undisclosed terms. Turn/River registered paperworkwith the SEC last year to raise a separate $10 million.

Versant Venture Capital, a 14-year-old Sand Hill Road venture firm, is looking to raise $250 million for its fifth fund, judging by a new SEC filing. Versant raised its last fund, a $500 million pool, in 2008. Robin Praeger, the firm’s CFO, is listed on the form, along with just six of the 10 managing directors who are featured at its site: Brad Bolzon, Sam Colella, Ross Jaffe, William Link, Kirk Nielsen, and Charles Warden. Versant invests in medical devices, biopharmaceuticals and other life science companies.

—–

IPOs

Nimble Storage, a five-year-old, San Jose-based data storage company has filed to go public.The number of shares to be sold and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, but Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been selected as book-running managers for the offering. The company has raised more than $80 million to date, with early investors Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Ventures Partners poised to see the biggest returns. Accel and Sequoia each own 20.9 percent of the company; Lightspeed owns 15.8 percent of its shares.

Paylocity, a 16-year-old, Arlington Heights, Ill.-based online payroll and human resources software company, has picked Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank and William Blair to lead an IPO for the company that could come next year, sources tell Reuters. The offering could reportedly raise around $100 million. The company raised $9.5 million from Adams Street Ventures in 2008.

TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, a 10-year-old, Malvern, Pa.-based biopharmaceutical company whose drug is being tested for treating colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, and blood cancers, filed to go public on Friday, for an offering of up to $103.5 million. The company hasn’t yet generated any product revenue. HealthCare Ventures, Novitas Capital, Quaker BioVentures, Latterell Venture Partners, Clarus Life Sciences, Hatteras Venture Partners, and Pfizer each own 5 percent or more of the company’s outstanding shares, says its filing.

—–

Happenings

The Variety Entertainment and Technology Summit kicks off today at the Marina Del Ray Ritz Carlton in Southern California. Here are some details about the lineup.

The Wolfram Technology Conference gets underway in Champaign, Ill., today. More details here.

—–

People

Dennis Crowley, founder and CEO of Foursquare, is a happily married man. He was wed this past Saturday.

Edward Nadel has joined Lowenstein Sandler‘s Investment Management Group as Senior Counsel. He was previously general counsel and COO at Star Mountain Capital and, prior to that, was the Director of Alternative Investments at Credit Suisse.

—–

Job Listings

Google is looking for a Corporate Development Associate to work at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The role involves working collaboratively across the company’s legal, finance and people operations to find and evaluate acquisition and investment opportunities. To apply, you need at least two years of relevant work experience in corporate development, venture capital, private equity or investment banking. An MBA or other advanced degree is preferred.

—–

Essential Reads

Does Twitter have a patent problem?

Sure, Android is open — except for al the good parts.

The “road show” for star running back Arian Foster initial public offering has gotten off to a lousy start.

—–

Detours

Google’s latest terms and conditions are harder to comprehend than both Beowulf and War and Peace, say scientific researchers at the University of Nottingham.

Kings of the Dot.Com Bubble: Where are they now?

The man who forgot everything.

We couldn’t stop reading this excerpt from Mike Tyson’s autobiography.

Kai Rysdall of Marketplace is also a pretty fascinating guy.

—–

Retail Therapy

When it comes to cool, we think this $1.2 million, 42-foot-long J Craft Torpedo Boat, made in Stockholm, is very hard to beat. Supple leather, handcrafted cabinetry, a handsome Nardi steering wheel. Drool.

Sunglasses by Persol. For outings on your J Craft Torpedo Boat.

You’ll also need shoes (yes, also for the the boat). You could go with a nice pair of top siders, but as long as you’re already channeling Dickie Greenleaf, we kind of like this pair of hand-sewn penny loafers.

——-

Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for the newsletter, visit strictlyvc.com.

Related articles
Connie

October 21, 2013

Morning Summary
Andreessen Horowitz Backs Out of Seed Investing

There’s been a lot of back and forth in recent weeks about whether or not the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is dialing back on certain types of Series A investments. But cofounder Marc Andreessen suggests a bigger shift is the firm’s decision to get out of seed investing, except when presented with “fringe” opportunities.

Andreessen explained the firm’s thinking during a sit-down last week at his Sand Hill Road office. Our conversation — which we’ll run more of this week — has been edited slightly for clarity.

You think companies have to compete against themselves to stay innovative. How is Andreessen Horowitz continuing to innovate?

Probably the biggest change is that we’re pulling back significantly on the number of seed investments we’re making. We’ve had this policy, which all [venture] investors have, which is that if we invest in the [Series A or later] stage, we’re not going to invest in a competitive company, because that’s very damaging to an entrepreneur. For seed, we’ve always been explicit that if we’re putting in $50,000 to $100,000 [we can invest in competing companies, too].

Which can still create signaling issues, of course. Isn’t that why you’d launched a scouting program, using entrepreneurs to quietly seek out seed deals on your behalf?

We tried for a while to minimize [signaling damage] through the scout program; that was one potential layer of interaction that we thought would help. We also tried briefly to have this A16z seed brand and under that program, we could make multiple bets in one category.

Nobody can really do seed investing with a conflict policy because it’s all so uncertain at that point. You don’t have any idea what these companies are going to be doing in a year, much less whether you’re investing in the right one. And you’re putting very small amounts of money to work, so if you can only invest in one [startup per] category, you could never make many investments.

So what changed?

What we tell everybody is we don’t take the conflict policy with seed investments. But [entrepreneurs] don’t necessarily hear us, and it causes them problems anyway and makes them feel bad.

Also, the outside world doesn’t necessarily understand the difference. So we think there are more and more entrepreneurs at the seed stage who don’t want to talk with us because they think we’re already invested in a competitor. They think we’re conflicted out of the category. And they don’t differentiate between the seed and venture category. So we’re backing off of the number of seed investments we make basically to prevent that problem from getting worse.

What will happen instead?

One, we’re going to work even more closely with a bunch of the top-tier seed firms to be an even better source of deal flow for them. There’s also stuff we’ll do with seed companies to help them out without actually having investment stakes. We’ll kind of do favors, build a relationship [with them].

What we will back is fringe, where you couldn’t even conceive that there will be a competitor. So something that looks really nuts becomes very attractive for that program, which, arguably, is the best thing to invest in at the seed stage, because the whole point of the seed investments is to learn. ‘Here’s a brand new idea: Is it going to work. Is it not going to work? Is this person for real or are they crazy?’ You kind of want to figure that out before you write the big check.

Sign up for our morning missive, StrictlyVC, featuring all the venture-related news you need to start you day.

Connie

October 20, 2013

Firm Dynamics

Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Andreessen, Ronny Conway
StrictlyVC: October 18, 2013

Top News in the A.M.

Google bounces back from a disappointing second quarter.

Growth in China is picking up.

And, if you live in the Bay Area, be warned: BART workers are now on strike.

Marc Andreessen: We’ve “Kicked Around” Doing a Hedge Fund, Too

This week, I headed to Sand Hill Road to sit down with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, who is expert in keeping the media on its toes. His willingness to engage with the press – which has probably generated more public interest in venture capital than ever existed previously – is meant to crush the competition. As he told me years ago in a separate sit-down, “We like counter-programming. If there are three networks showing cop drama shows on Thursday at 9 pm, then what you want to do is put on a comedy.”

Next week, I’ll feature excerpts from our hour-long chat in which Andreessen touched on other ways Andreessen Horowitz is trying to out-innovate its venture peers, so be sure to tune in. In the meantime, here are two quick snippets from our conversation. In the first, Andreessen and I chat briefly about Twitter, a company that will make Andreessen money both personally and professionally. (Andreessen was among Twitter’s earliest individual investors, participating in the company’s $5 million Series A. As a firm, Andreessen Horowitz elbowed its way into Twitter in early 2011 by purchasing $80 million worth of secondary shares; Twitter was valued at roughly $3.7 billion at the time.)

Andreessen Horowitz prides itself on being fairly transparent. Yet you’ve tweeted twice – once, more than six years ago, to write “Twittering,” and about three years later to add, “I’m back – did anything happen while I was gone?” Why don’t you use it?

[Laughs.] I don’t know that I even have a good reason for it. I was a very active blogger at one point. I’m actually very active on Hacker News. I was very active on Quora for a while. So I just kind of bounce around, do different things.

At this point, at this firm, it’s more interesting for the other people to become more well-known, rather than me becoming more well-known. So it’s not a big priority for me to elevate my own brand. Plus, I’ve always thought it’s kind of funny.

Funny in what way?

[Laughs.] I don’t know. It’s just really funny. I was one of the first investors. And then I tweeted. And then I didn’t tweet. [And 900 days later], I tweeted again.

You have something like 18,000 people following you, waiting for your next tweet.

18,000 people. Two tweets. [Laughs again.] It’s just kind of funny.

In this next snippet, Andreessen shares that his firm has more recently contemplated starting a hedge fund.

You’re managing $2.7 billion at this point, but it’s been a couple of years since you raised your last fund. Will we see a new fund in 2014, and might we see a $2 billion or $3 billion fund?

[We’ll probably raise a new fund] next year. [As for that range], I don’t think so. We’ve kicked around a couple of ideas. We’ve kicked around doing something on the public side like a hedge fund, but we’re not going to do it.

Why contemplate it?

First of all, there are public companies we greatly admire…that we feel are undervalued or misunderstood. Also, in the venture fund, we’re trying to go long in the future, and so the other side of that would be to go short in the past, or to short the people who are not long in the future. So if we’re doing e-commerce in a category and think there’s a retailer that will suffer as a consequence of e-commerce becoming bigger, there’s another trade you could do on the hedge fund side if you’re private.

But…

There are two really big issues with a firm like ours doing anything public. One, we think the insider trading risk is just off the charts. I saw that Mark Cuban just got off for the Mamma.com trade, and I’m very happy for him, but it’s a good illustration of how dangerous an environment it is for people who are kind of in the middle of things to take stock positions right now. There are just tons of prosecutions – the whole SEC thing – there’s just tons of scrutiny.

The other issue is we have this whole corporate briefing program, where you have 1,200 management teams from big companies coming through here every year and we run these big conferences. We just held out big CIO/CMO conference last week, with 150 top CIOs [and] CMOs, and it’s an amazing program and they’re really open with us about what their challenges are and what they’re working on and trying to do, and so, if we started to short their stocks…[laughs]…right? We’d basically blow that program up. So we decided we can’t do a hedge fund.”

New Fundings

Accela, a 14-year-old, San Ramon, Calif.-based company that sells enterprise software to federal, state, and local government agencies — including the cities of San Francisco and New York — has raised $40 million in funding led by the Bregal Sagemont, a New York-based growth equity fund.

Anaqua, a nine-year-old, Boston-based that helps law firms and the like better manage the intellectual property assets of their clients, has raised $25 million in funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The funding comes just months after Anaqua raised a $100 million round from Insight Venture Partners.

Bambeco, a four-year-old, Baltimore-based maker of environmentally friendly home décor and furniture, has raised $4.6 million in equity, rights and securities, according to an SEC filing. In addition to the company’s founders, Thanasis Delistathis of New Atlantic Ventures is listed on the filing.

Biodesy, a 13-year-old, Burlingame, Calif.-based company focused on protein structure monitoring, has raised $15 million in Series A financing. Investors included 5AM Ventures, Pfizer Venture Investments and Roche Venture Fund.

Breathometer, a year-old, Burlingame, Calif.-based company that makes a smartphone breathalyzer app, has closed on $1.54 million in seed funding from Structure Capital VC and Dillon Hill Capital, as well as all five investors on the TV show “Shark Tank,” including Mark Cuban.

Chukong, one of China’s largest mobile game developers, has raised $50 million led by the Chinese private equity fund New Horizon Capital. The company has raised $83 million to date, including from GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital, Steamboat Ventures and Northern Light.

Luxa, a three-year-old, Tokyo-based startup that manages a members-only discount e-commerce platform, has raised 330 million yen ($3.3 million) from KDDI Open Innovation Fund, a fund operated by the Japanese telcommunications company KDDI. The company had previously raised a round of funding from JAFCO.

Minted, six-year-old, San Francisco-based online marketplace for independent design and art, has raised $41 million in Series C funding, led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Allen & Company and existing investor Benchmark Capital also participated in the round, along with numerous individuals, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. Minted has raised $49 million altogether.

Mode, a months-old company that’s building an online repository for data science work, has raised a $550,000 seed round led by Yammer founder David Sacks, who was joined by other former and current Yammer executives. Mode’s CEO, Derek Steer, had worked at Yammer until August of this year.

MyBuys, a seven-year-old, San Mateo, Calif.-based company whose software aims to helps its retail customers improve their marketing effectiveness, has closed on a $4.5 million subordinated venture loan from NXT Capital‘s Venture Finance Group. The company has raised $33.8 million in equity to date, including from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures.

ParStream, a five-year-old, Cologne, Germany-based big data analytics platform company, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by Khosla Ventures. The company had raised a $5.6 million Series A round a year ago from Khosla Ventures, Baker Capital, Data Collective, CrunchFund, and Tola Capital.

SolarVista Media, an outdoor billboards company based in Beijing, has raised an undislosed amount of Series D funding led by Nokia Growth Partners. China Ease Management Limited, Northern Light VC, Tuspark Ventures and FnH also participated in the funding.

TextPower, a young, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-based company focused on improving text messaging for enterprise alerts and security authentication, has closed a $525,000 Series A financing round. Investors included Tech Coast Angel’s ACE Fund and other, Orange County-based angel investors.

Viridis Learning, a four-year-old, New York City-based company behind an online training and hiring platform, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Comcast Ventures, ULU Ventures, Expansion Venture Capital, CNF Investments and Dauk/Wagner Investments.

Wilocity, a six-year-old, Caesarea, Israel-based wireless chipset developer, has raised $35 million in funding led by Vintage Investment Partners and Jerusalem Global Ventures. Three years ago, the company raised a $20 million round from Benchmark Capital, Qualcomm Atheros, Tallwood Venture Capital and Sequoia Capital, all of which reportedly participated in Wilocity’s new funding.

—–

New Funds

Data Elite, a new Silicon Valley-based venture lab and fund, was unveiled yesterday. The outfit will provide startups that are focusing on big data with three months of workspace, mentorship, and $50,000 for roughly 6 percent of the company. It will look to fund between five and ten companies, and it’s backed by Social+Capital Partnership, Andreessen Horowitz, Formation8, investor Ron Conway and former Amazon executive Anand Rajaraman, among others. Reuters has much more here.

Female Founders Fund may be New York’s latest micro fund. The outfit is raising $5 million — and has secured $1.5 million toward that end — according to an SEC filing that lists just one executive: Anu Duggal. The serial entrepreneur has founded, among other things, the niche, flash sales site Exclusively.In, which raised $16 million in venture funding from Tiger Capital and Accel Partners and sold to Myntra, a large Indian e-commerce business last November. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but on Duggal’s LinkedIn profile, she says the sale returned 7x for the company’s angel investors.

—–

Exits

Compendium, a seven-year-old, Indianapolis-based content marketing platform, has been acquired by Oracle. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Compendium had raised just $2.8 million in angel funding. TechCrunch has much more here.

The popular torrent site isoHunt, is shutting down as part of a settlement with Hollywood’s major movie studios, which had sued isoHunt in 2006 and on whose side the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided earlier this year, finding that the site was promoting copyright infringement.

PinReach, an outfit that was focused on providing Pinterest analytics and influence metrics to customers, has been acquired an Oklahoma City-based competitor called Tailwind. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed, but the deals marks the second time that PinReach is being acquired. According to news reports, PinReach was acquired last year by the New York-based marketing and technology firm Nervewire, which has since decided to focus its energy on its core business of digital marketing and public relations.

—–

Data

The NVCA and PricewaterhouseCoopers published some new data this morning that shows VC activity is up 12 percent on a dollar basis and 5 percent on a deal basis, compared with the second quarter of this year, when $7 billion was invested in 956 deals. Software received the most funding, garnering more than $3 billion ($3.6 billion to be exact) for the first time in 12 years. The SJ Merc has more here.

—–

People

Mike Hopkins is Hulu‘s new CEO. Hopkins was formerly Fox Networks’ distribution chief. Andy Forssell, who has been Hulu’s interim CEO since March, is leaving the company with Hopkins’s appointment.

Jessica Steel, a former Pandora executive, has joined the venture-backed babysitting marketplace UrbanSitter as president; she also joins the company’s board. Steel had long served as Pandora’s executive VP of biz dev; she stepped down last year.

J.J.Hirschle, a former Google ad exec, has just been hired as Twitter‘s head of retail.

R.J. Pittman is EBay‘s new chief product officer of its eBay Marketplaces business, the company announced yesterday. Pittman joins the company from Apple, where, since April 2010, he has been responsible for the design, product management and development of its worldwide e-commerce platform.

—–

Job Listings

The Walt Disney Company is looking for a senior manager of business strategy to join the company’s mobile app/digital product team. The position is responsible for (among other things), identifying and optimizing revenue opportunities, developing, managing and executing marketing and promotional plans, and identifying and executing new business development opportunities. Seven years or more in a business strategy or development role are required; an MBA is preferred.

—–

Essential Reads

Last week, we asked: Does Jeff Bezos need a wingman? Turns out he cycles through them systematically, according to this interesting Bloomberg account.

It’s contagious! People who know entrepreneurs are much more likely to become entrepreneurs, finds a new survey by Kauffman Foundation fellow Paul Kedrosky.

Behind the VC numbers: Higher prices, less control.

—–

Detours

New research finds the presence of security cameras prompts people in a crowd to help those in need.

It’s looking like a mystery bidder who spent $866,000 on the James Bond Lotus submarine from “The Spy Who Loved Me” was James Bond-like entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Homes in several San Francisco neighborhoods are up a stunning 51 percent(!) over this period last year.

Here’s why it’s important to teach kids to relax and just daydream.

—–

Retail Therapy

Nothing screams, “I’m single,” quite like an aquarium bed.

GoPlates. They might look absurd, but do you know of a better way to eat, drink, and obsessively scan your phone while standing?

——-

Corrections: Yesterday’s StrictlyVC inadvertently stated that Stitch Fix, an online shopping platform, had raised $12 billion; it wishes it raised $12 billion. (Kidding.) It raised $12 million, and we apologize for the error. StrictlyVC needs to catch up on some sleep this weekend.

Related articles
Connie

October 18, 2013

Morning Summary

Top News in the A.M.

An 11th hour Senate fiscal deal may be in the works! Woo-hoo!

Apple gets its “spaceship” campus approved.

——

Silicon Valley’s Most Famous Rug Dealer Forms a New Fund

Pejman Nozad, Silicon Valley’s best-known rug dealer, has launched a new, low-flying venture firm.

According to SEC filings, Nozad began raising $20 million for the new firm, Pejman Mar, a couple of months ago; his cofounder in the venture is serial entrepreneur Mar Hershenson.

The new effort isn’t exactly top secret. Nozad has himself mentioned it in social media forums, and Hershenson’s LinkedIn profile reflects that she’s been co-running Pejman Mar since May. Still, Nozad isn’t discussing the effort publicly just yet. (When I’ve asked to meet about it over the last couple of months, he has politely declined each time, suggesting that we sit down at an unspecified future date.)

The firm will be the second that Nozad has cofounded. In 1999, Nozad partnered with Saeed and Rahimi Amidi, whose rug-dealing father had given Nozad one of his first jobs as a salesman soon after the Iranian native arrived in San Francisco with $700 in his pocket. Silicon Valley lore has it that Nozad so successfully formed relationships with the rug gallery’s well-heeled clients — including Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone – that the Amidis and Nozad formed Amidzad Partners to seize on those ties and the investment opportunities that come with them.

Some VCs would kill for the track record that Nozad has established since, with past investments that include the mobile computing device company Danger, acquired by Microsoft in 2008; the online contest site Bix, which Yahoo purchased in 2006; and the online movie service Vudu, bought by Walmart in 2010.

None were huge home runs for investors, but Forbes estimates that Nozad is “worth in the ballpark of $50 million,” suggesting those many base hits have added up. More, Amidzad is an early investor in other, flashy companies that have yet to exit, including Dropbox, which Nozad himself reportedly introduced to Sequoia. (Dropbox closed its most recent round of $250 million a year ago, at a $4 billion valuation.)

It isn’t clear whether Nozad will continue to invest with Amidzad, on whose Website he remains featured. Rahimi Amidi didn’t respond to related questions.

Either way, he seems to have a hard-charging partner in Hershenson, a Stanford engineering PhD who has cofounded numerous companies, including, most recently, the mobile commerce company Revel Touch. The 2.5-year-old startup, since renamed Tocata, has raised more than $10 million from investors, including Nozad. (Hershenson left the company in November 2012.)

The duo has already placed numerous bets in recent months, including on a still-stealth startup called Solvvy; on Sensor Tower, whose tools help developers track and increase their app rankings within app stores; and on DoorDash, a food-delivery company whose funding was led by Khosla Ventures and Charles River Ventures.

The question now is whether investors will be as charmed with Nozad as the many industry friends he has made over the years. At least one VC who has co-invested alongside him thinks they will. Nozad’s credentials may not look like everyone else’s, the investor told me, but it’s all about track records. And “Pejman,” he said, “has a good reputation.”

New Fundings

1366 Technologies, a Bedford, Mass.-based maker of silicon solar cells, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Tokuyama Corp. Previous investors North Bridge Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, VantagePoint Capital Partners and Energy Technology Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised roughly $64 million to date.

7signal Solutions, a year-old Akron, Ohio-based company that aims to make wireless LAN networks work more reliably, has raised $4 million in funding from Allos Ventures and Mutual Capital Partners Funds. North Coast Angel Fund, which helped provide 7signal’s $250,000 in seed funding, also participated in the new round.

CounterTack, a nine-year-old, Waltham, Mass.-based security software firm, has $12 million in Series B funding from investors including Goldman Sachs and existing investor Fairhaven Capital. The company has raised $21.5 million to date.

EcoFactor, a seven-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.-based company whose software is designed to reduce customers’ home energy consumption, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by power company NRG Energy, with existing investors Claremont Creek Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, and Aster Capital participating in the funding. To date, EcoFactor has raised $23.9 million. GigaOm has a good overview of the company here.

Immatics, an eight-year-old, Germany-based biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development of new immunotherapeutic substances for cancer therapy, has raised $43.7 million in new funding from a syndicate that includes Wellington Partners and biotech billionaire Dietmar Hopp. FierceBiotech has more here.

Logi Analytics, a 13-year-old, McLean, Va.-based company that makes Web reporting and data visualization software, has raised $27.5 million from new investor LLR Partners, a private equity firm in Philadelphia that focuses on business intelligence companies. Logi Analytics has now raised about $45 million altogether, including from Updata Partners, Summit Partners, and Grotech Ventures.

mParticle, a new mobile data platform founded by former Yahoo ad executive Michael Katz, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Bowery Capital, with participating from Google Ventures and Greylock Partners. The company is based in New York.

Refinery29, the nine-year-old, New York-based fashion and lifestyle site, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from growth equity firm Stripes Group, bringing total funding since inception to $30.4 million. The company’s earlier investors include Floodgate, Lead Edge Capital, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and Hearst Corporation.

Sofie Biosciences, a Culver City, Calif., company that makes molecular imaging probes and devices, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Tata Industries. Existing investors MRM Capital and the Cycad Group also participated in the funding. The company had closed on a $2 million seed round in 2010.

StarMobile, an 18-month-old, Atlanta-based company developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by U.S. Venture Partners. Other participants included GRA Venture Fund and Atlanta Technology Angels. The company’s software aims to extend enterprise applications to users on any mobile device.

Thinking Phone Networks, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Mass., communications services provider, has raised $10 million in Series C follow-on funding from previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Advanced Technology Ventures. The company has raised about $30 million to date.

—–

New Funds

500 Startups, the Mountain View, Calif.-based investment firm, is in the market again, according to a new SEC filing, which shows 500 Startups III is targeting $100 million. Four investing partners are listed on the new filing: Dave McClure, Christine Tsai, George Kellerman, and Christen O’Brien. (TechCrunch has previously reported that the 30-person firm has empowered 10 employees to make investments.) The target is considerably higher the $44 million that that the firm closed on in July. As reported at the time, that second fund was nearly double the size of the firm’s first fund, but it fell short of its $50 million target.

CommonAngels, a well-known startup investing group of around 50 Boston-area angel investors, is looking to raise a $35 million new pooled fund, according to an SEC filing. The group has already collected $11.5 million, says the filing, which lists the group’s managing directors, James Geshwiler and Maia Heymann.

—–

Exits

Media Temple, a 15-year-old, L.A.-based Web hosting services company that largely serves professional developers and designers, has been acquired by the Web hosting giant GoDaddy, reports VentureBeat. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Media Temple will continue to operate independently, says GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. The acquisition marks GoDaddy’s sixth in little more than a year.

Optimal, a five-year-old, Palo Alto-based social media advertising and analytics platform is being bought by the social media marketing company Brand Networks for $35 million in cash and stock. Optimal had raised just more than $5 million, including from Neu Venture Capital, the Social Internet Fund and a long line of individuals.

—–

IPOs

Oxford Immunotec, a 13-year-old, U.K.-based medical diagnostics company, has filed to go public. It hasn’t yet listed a price range but it’s looking to raise $86 million. The company’s principal shareholders are Clarus Lifesciences, which owns 24.3 percent of the company; New Leaf Ventures, which owns 13 percent; Espirit Nominees Limited, which owns 10 percent; Imperial Innovations Businesses, which owns 7.9 percent; Invesco Asset Management, which owns 7.9 percent, and Wellington Partners, which owns 7.7 percent.

Aerie Pharmaceuticals, an eight-year-old, Bedminster, N.J.company that’s developing treatments for glaucoma and other eye diseases, announced the terms for its IPO yesterday. The company plans to raise $68 million by offering 5.3 million shares at a price range of $12 to $14 for a valuation of about $265 million. Aerie is predominately owned by VCs. Alta Partners owns 27 percent of the company. TPG owns 27 percent. Clarus Lifesciences owns 21.7 percent. And Sofinnova Venture Partners owns 19.3 percent.

—–

Happenings

Today is the last day of the O’Reilly Velocity conference in New York City.

MobileCon 2013, a conference that is “100 percent business and mobile IT focused” kicks off today at the San Jose, Calif., convention center. You can learn more here.

Job Listings

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is looking for a senior investment associate to help evaluate new investments. The ideal candidate has five to seven years of post-graduate experience in PE, banking or consulting. A graduate degree is also preferred.

—–

Essential Reads

Path, the social network, appears to be struggling. Valleywag reports that the San Francisco company laid off 20 percent of its staff yesterday and that it’s having trouble finding an investor to lead its next funding round.

Here’s why it’s so hard to climb Amazon’s corporate ladder.

Twitter will list on the NYSE as — what else — TWTR.

—–

Detour

Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who broke the NSA story, has left the Guardian to start his own “very substantial new media outlet.” Reuters’ sources say his financial backer is Pierre Omidyar.

Oddly, it was a Norman Mailer fan who later became his editor and, now, his authorized biographer.

Training young gentleman in the mollification of bullies. (“First, attempt to broker a détente…over cucumber sandwiches.”)

—–

Retail Therapy

Beard wash. It’s the least you can do if you’re planning to grow a long, smelly beard this winter.

A card case so soft you’ll regret throwing the last of your business cards into the fireplace last Christmas.

——-

Please feel free to send us any and all story suggestions (anonymous or otherwise) by clicking here. If you’re interested in advertising in our email newsletter, please click here. To sign up for the newsletter, visit strictlyvc.com.

Michael Chasen’s New “Billion-Dollar Idea”

StrictlyVC: October 22, 2013

Marc Andreessen: Stories About Silicon Valley “Crack Me Up”

StrictlyVC: October 21, 2013

Andreessen Horowitz Backs Out of Seed Investing

StrictlyVC: October 18, 2013

Marc Andreessen: We’ve “Kicked Around” Doing a Hedge Fund, Too

Can an ‘Airbnb’ of Outdoor Gear Take Off?

StrictlyVC: October 17, 2013

StrictlyVC: October 16, 2013

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles

Related articles