Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

New Funding Puts Domo’s Value at $310 Million

A few more details have come to light about the $60 million Series B round of venture capital funding announced yesterday by the business intelligence startup Domo led by GGV Capital, Greylock Partners and Bezos Expeditions, among others.

Domo, based in Lindon American Fork, Utah, and founded by former Omniture CEO Josh James, has in the last two years become famous for the fundraising prowess of its popular CEO.

Sources familiar with the deal’s terms tell AllThingsD that the funding round announced yesterday values Domo at $310 million post money.

Many of these investors are betting primarily on the reputation of James, a likable CEO with a knack for pulling silly stunts, like a contest to guess the company’s name, and a “funeral” to kill the old one, in order to gin up publicity for his company.

Stunts aside, there’s a lot of faith percolating in the Valley for James. AllThingsD reported in 2011 that after leaving Adobe, which had acquired Omniture, he was raising an unusually large seed round of betwen $5 million and $8 million. At the same time, he was also raising what eventually turned out to be a substantial A round that already included Benchmark Capital.

One venture capitalist who asked not to be named said that he convinced his firm to write James a check in this round after having lunch with him recently. “He said to me ‘Oh, by the way I’m raising another round,'” this person said. “I went to my firm and said we should get it in on it, just because it’s Josh.”

With total capital raised now $125 million, the list of investors who’ve bet on James is substantial. GGV Capital was the lead investor, with Greylock and Bezos Expeditions also joining in. Others include Workday co-CEOs Aneel Bhusri and Dave Duffield, who have made personal investments.

From there the list gets even longer: Founders Fund, Mercato Partners, etc. IVP, which joined with a $20 million investment in the extended A-round, also participated, as did Sorenson Capital’s Fraser Bullock. Then there’s Cougar Capital, the VC fund run by Brigham Young University.

Domo also named lots of angels in its press release. There’s Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff; Lars Dargaard, founder and CEO of Successfactors; Marc Gorenberg of Hummer Winblad Ventures; John Pestana, James’ co-founder at Omniture; and John Thompson, the former CEO of Symantec.

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Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work