If truth be told, Jerry Yang never really disappeared from the Silicon Valley scene, even though he did leave Yahoo rather suddenly just over a year ago — resigning from the board and all other positions at the iconic company he co-founded with David Filo in 1995, and then going very quiet.

When I met him last week at the airy and newish office space of Ame Cloud Ventures, off Camino Real, he politely declined to talk about that Yahoo tenure and departure, although Yahoo and he are inextricably linked in the history of tech.

That’s because the former Chief Yahoo has moved onto the next stage of his career, which perhaps could be called Jerry 2.0 — a term he’d hate (and give me a hard time for using).

Still, in many ways, Yang has launched a new digital life by focusing on what made him interested in tech in the first place: Entrepreneurs.

“I feel like the thing I missed the most is what really early entrepreneurs were doing,” he said of his latest efforts, which have been well known among techies, even if Yang has never been one to toot his own horn much in general. “I’m not sure at all that I’m any good at this mentoring/investing business — that’s why I’m using my own money, and that’s why it’s not a career.”

Yet. Yang is calling his nascent investment business — he’s more than an angel, but not quite a VC — a “work in progress” that might morph into something more.

“There are no LPs — just me, myself and I,” said Yang. “I invest in things for the long term and have a long horizon and the flexibility.”

That said, via Ame — which means rain (雨) in Japanese and happens to be the acronym of the names of his wife and kids — Yang has already invested in about two dozen startups in which he has typically puts in $100,000 to $500,000.

Explaining the name, Yang said: “Without rain, there is no life.”

And it’s clear that Yang has been very busy dousing the startup sector with a wide range of interesting investments, including:

• dotCloud, an application platform for developers
• AeroFS, a private file syncing and sharing service
• Impermium, an Internet security offering
• Jetpac, a travel app for the Apple iPad
• Lex Machina, IP litigation data and analytics
• Tomfoolery, which is aimed at improving mobile enterprise apps

Yang said what informs his investment choices centers on the activity around mobility, sensors, cloud and big data that is enabling the next generation of computing.

“The main investing premise is the idea that devices are more and more network connected,” said Yang, who noted that data that is being collected is now at another order of magnitude than ever before. “The cloud has become the next-generation supercomputer, and the smartphone has provided the revolution to spur its use.”

To select from the companies he sees, Yang has only one young associate, Nick Adams, who codes, helps on deal mechanics, interacts with entrepreneurs and also has had extensive experience in Asia.

That has been important, since Adams also leads business development for China’s Cloud Valley, which is run by Edward Tian, one of Yang’s strategic partners there. It was with Cloud Valley that Evernote, the hot productivity app in which Yang is also an investor, partnered to create a business there.

Still, Yang is not completely alone. He has weekly meetings with another former Yahoo, Ash Patel — who started the $10 million micro-venture fund Morado Ventures, which means “purple” in Spanish, and has a lot of ex-Yahoos as investors — as well as individual angel and former Yahoo CTO Farzad Nazem.

The trio trade ideas and deal flow, sometimes making bets together and sometimes not. Most of all, they leverage their time in the tech sector, both good and bad.

“I might not have better ideas, but I think my experience is unique and helpful [to entrepreneurs] and there is a value to my network,” said Yang. “I think what I have to contribute, besides money and a network, is that I am very candid about the experience I have had.”

That is indeed the case, because it is clear that Yang has a lot of wisdom to impart from his long and eventful history at Yahoo, as well as his stature as one of the Internet’s most important pioneers.

And, having covered the often circumspect Yang for much of that time, I would have to say that these days he looks about as energized, excited and enthusiastic as I have ever seen him.

“I’m truly humbled by the talent that’s out there, and at the same time recognize it’s a very crowded space,” said Yang. “It is not a career yet, but I’m having a lot of fun, and we’ll see.”

Well-known Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Shervin Pishevar of Menlo Ventures and Goldman Sachs tech banker Scott Stanford are starting a new company that will focus on formulating a new model of how startups are created.

Pishevar confirmed his move, but Stanford did not respond to a query about the new effort.

That said, sources said he is poised to leave the investment bank and partner with Pishevar in a new venture called Sherpa, which has two parts.

One is called The Foundry, which is being funded by a number of major strategic corporations, who are presumably looking to gain a digital edge. It will also include well-known entrepreneur partners, but no investors or venture capital firms.

There will also be a fund related to invest in the new companies created, which will also include assets added in from the larger companies.

It’s not exactly an incubator or accelerator, said Pishevar in an interview, given the mixed record of those efforts to create startups. He would not give any more details as yet.

Pishevar will remain as a venture advisor to Menlo, as part of the change, and has also been named a strategic advisor to Uber, the fast-growing car service.

Said Pishevar: “I’m incredibly excited to announce my new endeavor, Sherpa and The Foundry. This is the biggest idea I’ve ever pursued. I’m also so excited about my new role as strategic advisor to Uber and very honored to stay as a venture advisor at Menlo to continue the epic work we have done together.”

The parting with Menlo appears to be amicable. “Menlo is excited to see Shervin’s new model come to fruition while continuing to work together in his role as a venture advisor,” said Menlo’s Shawn Carolan. “As anyone who knows him can attest, his talents in spotting great ideas, connecting and evangelizing are exceptional and his venture advisor role allows us to continue to collaborate on finding and creating value together.”

Indeed more than many in the tech scene, the incessantly networking Pishevar is perhaps well suited to such an ambitious effort like Sherpa. He’s has worked closely with a lot of Web 2.0′s hottest startups, such as Uber, Fab and Warby Parker, while also leading Menlo’s investment in Tumblr.

An active angel investor, he has also started a number of companies, such as the Social Gaming Network, which was merged with Mindjolt.

And Stanford is equally well known in Silicon Valley, having shepherded a wide variety of high-profile deals for the banking giant, while heading its global Internet investment banking business from San Francisco as a managing director.

He’s been at Goldman for a dozen years and has been involved in investments in Facebook, Zappos and LinkedIn. Before banking, he worked at pioneering search company, LookSmart.

Sitting in front of a spectacular view of San Francisco at his home this afternoon, former Square COO Keith Rabois looks spent.

He is just recovering from a bout of pneumonia, which would be bad enough, but it’s clear from his tense and unusually — for him — disheveled appearance that the sexual harassment claim made by a current male employee at the San Francisco payments startup has taken its toll on the typically hard-charging exec who is not known for suffering fools.

But, now, given a judgement he made to continue in a personal and physical relationship with that unnamed junior staffer after he was hired at Square, Rabois feels both foolish and also angry.

“At the end of the day, this is personally embarrassing to me, because when anyone’s life is exposed to a public forum, it creates quite a damaging situation,” said Rabois. “As we looked at it, it was going to become a distraction that was going to hurt the company.”

It appears as if he wanted to stay — he shrugs when directly asked about it, though he will not say so explicitly. But, Rabois finally agreed with Square’s top management, including CEO and founder Jack Dorsey, that is was better that he leave.

“It was very clear once this outrageous demand was made, instead of building great products, it would be all about that,” he said.

That said, after an internal investigation, the company is backing him in the expected filing of a lawsuit from the employee, who has threatened a panoply of explosive allegations against him and the company that Rabois said again are a “fiction.”

He declined to show me any texts or emails between the two, but did recount the relationship in a blog post on Tumblr earlier today.

Richard Curiale, outside counsel for Square and also Rabois, said that the company had been approached about two weeks ago by New York lawyer Steven Berger, claiming the company knew of and did nothing to stop sexual harassment by Rabois and demanding a multi-million dollar settlement.

Curiale said he found no evidence in his investigation so far of anything except a “welcome” relationship that ended. He had even agreed to make Rabois available for a deposition with Berger, but the offer was refused.

I have an email into Berger for comment, which has thus far been unanswered. But Square has said it will fight any lawsuit filed and is currently supporting Rabois.

“I have not as yet found any conduct that is illegal and therefore there is no adverse relationship between Keith and Square,” said Curiale. “We don’t pay for claims that have no merit to them, because it amounts to extortion.”

Perhaps so, but it also amounts to a very juicy story — the second such major blowup in Silicon Valley in a year. The other — now a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination and retaliation, and a countersuit — between the well-known venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins, and former partner Ellen Pao, is ongoing.

The particulars of the Rabois situation, per his side of the story, which he claims is supported by much evidence, is of a social and physical relationship with a man he met several years ago.

While he would not call their relationship dating, it was close and personal, including taking this man out with him to social events.

The problem came when he recommended this man for a job at Square and he was hired. The company was much smaller then, about 30 people, but as it grew Rabois insists he had no direct oversight of the employee and also did not treat him differently from others he managed at the company.

Rabois claims he gave him advice, as he did other employees, but neither helped or hindered the man in his efforts to advance.

The man and Rabois were still seeing each other socially until December, when the relationship cooled.

And then came the lawsuit threat two weeks ago, which Rabois said “stunned” him.

Square says that it was not aware of the personal relationship until the threat of the lawsuit; the employee has never made any complaints about Rabois to management.

Spokesman Ricardo Reyes said that “what we have here at most is bad judgement and we will defend ourselves.”

In this Rabois agrees, as he fields emails of support from his wide range of friends and colleagues in tech, where he is well known as an entrepreneur and angel investor.

“I have several good ideas of what I want to do next,” he said.

In mid-November, longtime entrepreneur, active angel investor, iconoclastic blogger and hardcore New Yorker Chris Dixon told the tech world something it least expected — that he had taken a job as a venture capitalist at one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful firms, Andreessen Horowitz.

Well, he’s arrived finally, and moved himself to San Francisco and his office to Sand Hill Road for real — even though he is still keeping his apartment back East.

It’s been a long and winding road to here for Dixon, who was CEO and co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, as well as recommendations engine Hunch, which was bought by eBay a year ago.

He is one of the founding members of Founder Collective, an East Coast-based seed-stage venture firm run by entrepreneurs, making a lot of investments in companies such as Skype, Invite Media and OMGPOP. Previously, he programmed financial algorithms at a high-speed options trading firm, and has also worked at Bessemer Venture Partners.

And, perhaps most intriguingly, Dixon has also blogged a lot about what needs fixing in the VC industry (a lot, according to him).

Yesterday, I motored the Mazda 5 down to Andreessen Horowitz’s office to talk about the move with the always clever Dixon, who is hoping to focus on a range of consumer-focused investments, and perhaps cast his freshly monied net more widely.

Here’s the video of the interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130125/go-west-young-geek-chris-dixon-on-why-he-became-a-silicon-valley-vc-at-andreessen-horowitz-and-more-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121217/tasty-foodydirects-gets-3m-as-former-goldman-banker-turns-entrepreneur/ http://allthingsd.com/20121217/tasty-foodydirects-gets-3m-as-former-goldman-banker-turns-entrepreneur/#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:01:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=278386

For a long time in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, Brad Koenig was one of Silicon Valley’s top investment bankers, shepherding deals such as Yahoo’s IPO and a plethora of others.

That’s no surprise, given that he was the managing director and head of global technology investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Goldman, as well as Morgan Stanley, led many of the big-name, big-money transactions for the digerati.

But no matter how you slice it, Koenig’s job was on the sidelines as a facilitator rather than as a participant.

No longer. After retiring in 2005 from Goldman and doing a bunch of advising work, Koenig decided to jump into the fray, putting his money into a new start-up called FoodyDirect.

Simply put, the service ships food from iconic restaurants, bakeries and other specialty food outlets, adding in a variety of information about the products and also making it easier for those businesses to ship.

Some of the offers being coordinated include well-known — among foodies, at least — fare from places such as Anderson’s Frozen Custard in Buffalo, N.Y.; Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart, Texas; Sable’s Smoked Fish in New York City; and Hancock Gourmet Lobster in Cundy’s Harbor, Maine.

I tried both Anderson’s and Sable’s and they arrived on time and fresh — as well as delicious — which is presumably the selling point that FoodyDirect pitches to merchants.

While many of these restaurants do this on their own, Koenig is hoping that the systems FoodyDirect creates are easier and more efficient, from packaging to shipping.

Of course, FoodyDirect faces a lot of competition — from big online retailers like Amazon to smaller ones like Gilt Taste — as well as an uphill battle to acquire frequent customers.

But Koenig believes in the concept so much — which he is doing with his brother, who has been in the restaurant biz for 25 years — that he invested his own money in the initial effort.

Now, along with more money from him, a bunch of angel investors and venture interest, FoodyDirect is getting $3 million more to see if the concept pans out.

Here’s Koenig talking about his new life on the other side of the table:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121217/tasty-foodydirects-gets-3m-as-former-goldman-banker-turns-entrepreneur/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121213/along-with-flickr-mail-and-homepage-yahoos-board-will-also-get-a-refresh/ http://allthingsd.com/20121213/along-with-flickr-mail-and-homepage-yahoos-board-will-also-get-a-refresh/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:05:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=277476

In the last week, Yahoo has redone its powerful Yahoo Mail, refreshed its Flickr photo-sharing service and is also set to release a spanking new homepage design.

It’s part of a series of changes made since new CEO Marissa Mayer arrived this summer from Google, including detailed employee performance reviews, free food, new smartphones and a hunt for innovative mobile properties to scoop up to improve Yahoo’s creaky Silicon Valley reputation.

Now, according to sources close to the situation, that rejiggering will extend to Yahoo’s board too, with an effort to add more Internet savvy members as directors.

That’s actually be an aim for a while, including a board appointment for longtime entrepreneur Max Levchin, which sources said will occur soon.

In fact, Levchin has been mulling the Yahoo board job for a while, having long been intrigued by the company’s troubles and seeing it as an opportunity rather than a liability.

The wooing of Levchin is also not new. As I wrote in February, he had been pegged for a board seat by then-activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point — who is now on the board after winning his fight with Yahoo and ousted former CEO Scott Thompson. But Levchin, as well as SurveyMonkey CEO David Goldberg, did not want to be part of a dissident slate against Yahoo co-founder and then-board member Jerry Yang.

I had written in September that the board was again looking at Levchin, for a seat designated under an agreement Yahoo had made with Loeb.

The hedge fund investor, who owns a large chunk of Yahoo, had the right to nominate a mutually agreed-upon fourth director after the company settled the proxy fight with him earlier this year. The other directors he nominated previously were Michael Wolf and Harry Wilson.

The thoughtful and cerebral Levchin (pictured here) is best known as a top exec at PayPal. He then founded Slide, a then-hot start-up that made apps — then called “widgets” — for Facebook, including some that let you toss sheep (remember SuperPoke!?!).

(I had been hard on Slide back then, noting that the idea of a “Widget IPO” was ludicrous: “It’s a sign to me that suddenly makes the scene feel very bubbly, given that Slide certainly has traffic, but no proven track record to continually make money.”)

But Slide, which Levchin considered a disappointment despite a huge funding valuing the company at $550 million, was sold to Google for $180 million in mid-2010.

Levchin quickly chafed at the search giant, after working on a variety of social efforts there, including clashing with Google+ leader Vic Gundotra. Levchin did not work that closely with Mayer while at Google, although they are friendly.

He eventually left the company in mid-2011, with Google shuttering Slide, and has since been working on a new start-up in San Francisco.

An active angel investor, he’s one of many entrepreneurs in the Web arena that young start-ups look up to, which is the presumable reason for bringing him onto the Yahoo board. Once added, he’d easily be the hippest director in the group.

The Yahoo board changes will also include the departure of some board members, including Weather Channel CEO David Kenny, who had once been considered as a possible CEO of Yahoo. Other rumors that had been raised included a change in chairman, but sources said that this is not the case for now.

When I emailed and texted him yesterday afternoon about the board changes I had heard were coming, Yahoo Chairman Fred Amoroso wrote me: “As a matter of policy, I don’t comment on rumors.”

Kenny also declined to comment yesterday, noting he was on a plane and was not reachable.

Presumbly, he was returning east from the Yahoo board meeting that was held earlier this week in Silicon Valley.

The Yahoo board moves echo similar changes that were made when former CEO Carol Bartz came into office.

The New York Times also posted on the changes, noting Intuit CEO Brad Smith was also leaving the board. Last year, Smith had become a very active board member, especially after Bartz and then Thompson were ousted, but his own board at the financial software company had been asking him to cut back.

Sources said other new directors might also be named to replace him, but that this was not going to be announced by Yahoo at this time.

Until the inevitable board news, here’s a video of one of many interviews I did with Levchin — this back in 2009 — to give you an idea of his stylings:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121213/along-with-flickr-mail-and-homepage-yahoos-board-will-also-get-a-refresh/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121212/cloud-media-start-up-plizy-raises-4-million-from-atlas/ http://allthingsd.com/20121212/cloud-media-start-up-plizy-raises-4-million-from-atlas/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:18:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=277208 Plizy, a San Francisco-based cloud media start-up, said it has raised $4 million in a Series A funding from Atlas Venture. The company, which recently launched a new version of its product on the Web and for Apple iPad, allows users to search, organize, watch and share online content, such as movies and television shows. Plizy, which had previously raised $1.2 million in an angel round, will use the money to expand its content offerings and build out to other platforms. In addition to the funding, Plizy said that PayPal President David Marcus will join Plizy’s board, along with Atlas’ Fred Destin.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121212/cloud-media-start-up-plizy-raises-4-million-from-atlas/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121119/confirmed-chris-dixon-becomes-seventh-investing-gp-at-andreessen-horowitz/ http://allthingsd.com/20121119/confirmed-chris-dixon-becomes-seventh-investing-gp-at-andreessen-horowitz/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2012 23:00:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=270976

Chris Dixon will indeed be the latest VC to join Andreessen Horowitz, as I had reported earlier was likely, starting in January.

Dixon is a lively and interesting choice for the high-profile Silicon Valley venture capital firm, having been a successful serial entrepreneur, a savvy angel investor and also a voluble tech scene commenter in blogs and on Twitter.

Perhaps most interesting is that Dixon, who is largely based in New York, will move to California to join what Marc Andreessen describes as a “single-office” firm.

In other words, Chris, get ready to be force-fed at Hobee’s!

In all seriousness, Andreessen said in an interview today that his big criteria for picking Dixon was because, “when the next Mark Zuckerberg walks into the room, we want them to say, ‘I want that person.’”

In addition, he noted that Andreessen Horowitz has a “bias for entrepreneurs … and Chris is the real deal when it comes to being an entrepreneur.”

Indeed, Dixon was CEO and co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, as well as recommendations engine Hunch, which was bought by eBay a year ago.

He is one of the founding members of Founder Collective, an East Coast-based seed-stage venture firm run by entrepreneurs, and is also an active angel investor, including in Skype, Invite Media and OMGPOP. Previously, he programmed financial algorithms at a high-speed options trading firm and has also worked at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Dixon, whose job at Bessemer was junior, said that he became interested in Andreessen Horowitz once he learned more about them after helping the start-ups he had invested in with fundings. He was especially struck by all the added help the firm provided in areas such as recruiting.

While he said his investing as a partner there would be “non-thematic,” he noted that it was likely he would “tilt more toward consumer” investments.

“I am going to try to pick the special bird,” he said, paraphrasing a quote by famed Sequoia Capital VC Mike Moritz. “And not the flock.”

Here is a blog post on the move by Dixon and one by Andreessen, in which he apparently thinks I leak for a living.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121119/confirmed-chris-dixon-becomes-seventh-investing-gp-at-andreessen-horowitz/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121117/new-york-techie-chris-dixon-in-talks-to-be-next-partner-at-andreessen-horowitz/ http://allthingsd.com/20121117/new-york-techie-chris-dixon-in-talks-to-be-next-partner-at-andreessen-horowitz/#comments Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:54:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=270553

According to sources, well-known New York techie Chris Dixon is in the final stages of discussions to become a partner at the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

While the deal is not yet complete, Dixon seems likely to become the firm’s latest addition. It’s not clear what his area of specialty will be, but it is likely to center on start-ups, given his experience.

Dixon is one the more voluble and energetic tech players on the New York scene, as well as a serial entrepreneur with several prominent exits. He was CEO and co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, as well as recommendations engine Hunch, which was bought by eBay a year ago.

He is one of the founding members of Founder Collective, an East Coast-based seed-stage venture firm run by entrepreneurs and is also an active angel investor, including in Skype, Invite Media and OMGPOP. Previous to this, he also programmed financial algorithms at a high-speed options trading firm and has also worked at Bessemer Venture Partners.

In his bio on the Founder Collective site, Dixon said: “I think one of the reasons I can be helpful to entrepreneurs is I’ve worked in the trenches on both the startup side and the investor side.”

His selection by Andreessen Horowitz is an interesting one, since it is the first by the firm of a solidly New York-area techie, although it is not clear if Dixon will move to California or not.

He’s also not been afraid to tangle with VCs in his frequent blogging. In one post in July, titled “Shoehorning Startups into the VC Model,” he noted:

“A startup should raise venture capital (or ‘venture-style’ angel/seed funding) only if: 1) the goal is to build a billion-dollar (valuation) company, and 2) raising millions of dollars is absolutely necessary or will significantly accelerate growth. … Unfortunately, many of these startups graft VC-friendly narratives onto their plans and raise too much money. Short term it might seem like a good idea but long term it won’t.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121117/new-york-techie-chris-dixon-in-talks-to-be-next-partner-at-andreessen-horowitz/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121018/yahoos-marissa-mayer-in-talks-to-join-jawbone-board/ http://allthingsd.com/20121018/yahoos-marissa-mayer-in-talks-to-join-jawbone-board/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:59:29 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=261526

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is considering joining the board of Jawbone, the high-profile wireless gadget maker whose products include the Jambox speaker and the Up personal fitness wristband, according to sources close to the situation.

Mayer has been talking to the San Francisco-based company about becoming a director since before she become the top exec at the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

While the discussions of her becoming a director are in the late stages, sources cautioned it was not yet a done deal and that it still might not happen for a number of reasons.

That said, the move is an interesting one for Mayer and Jawbone.

The former Google exec is well known for her product chops and also her deep interest in tony aesthetics and high-level design — qualities that Jawbone is well known for.

And the addition of Mayer to the board of Jawbone would add someone with experience in scaling businesses from small to large as well as deeper technical expertise.

Mayer has been an active angel investor in start-ups and currently is on the board of Walmart Stores and is also on board of several cultural institutions in San Francisco and New York.

Jawbone has raised about $210 million in funding from such venture firms as Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital, as well as Deutsche Telekom, investor Yuri Milner and others.

One interesting note: Mayer and Jawbone CEO and founder Hosain Rahman attended Stanford University at the same time and have remained close friends since then.

Jawbone declined to comment and Mayer never calls me back, although I am still waiting by the phone — wearing my denim Jawbone Icon HD wireless headset, natch — in the vain hope that she might.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121018/yahoos-marissa-mayer-in-talks-to-join-jawbone-board/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120828/jeff-ma-talks-about-tenxer-raising-3-million-more-to-help-you-judge-yourself-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120828/jeff-ma-talks-about-tenxer-raising-3-million-more-to-help-you-judge-yourself-video/#comments Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:00:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=245687

On-the-job personal productivity start-up tenXer has raised $3 million in a Series B round, which it said it will use to accelerate growth outside its software industry market.

The San Francisco company, which was founded by longtime entrepreneur Jeff Ma, makes tools to allow a user or perhaps a company, track performance and progress using a number of different metrics. The presumable goal is to use social and gaming elements, along with this activity data, to help you do your job 10 times better.

Get it with the tenXer name now?

The new funding is led by True Ventures, and its partner, Puneet Agarwal, will join tenXer’s board of directors.

Radar Partners and Khosla Ventures, as well as angel investors, participated in the new round, for what the company describes as a “human capital management platform.”

Currently aimed at tracking the work of software engineers, tenXer integrates current tools such as GitHub, Pivotal Tracker and Jira.

Here’s a video interview with Ma — who gained fame for his gambling prowess as part of the MIT blackjack team, and also was one of the co-founders of Citizen Sports, which was bought by Yahoo in 2010 — about the new round, and also about where tenXer is headed next:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120828/jeff-ma-talks-about-tenxer-raising-3-million-more-to-help-you-judge-yourself-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120806/electric-boat-start-up-pure-watercraft-aims-to-become-the-tesla-of-the-waves-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120806/electric-boat-start-up-pure-watercraft-aims-to-become-the-tesla-of-the-waves-video/#comments Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:00:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=238094

Last week, I finally got to see up close the new start-up that longtime tech entrepreneur Andy Rebele has been working on quietly of late.

And I do mean quiet — he’s now unveiling an effort to create a company called Pure Watercraft, which will make and sell electric boats.

There are several such companies out there, in the wake of the many similar ones related to electric automobiles. But Rebele is doing it with his own money and sweat, to grow what will doubtless become an eventually large market.

Rebele’s last outing was CityAuction, which he sold to IAC/InterActiveCorp for $54 million at the peak of the Web 1.0 action in 1999. He worked at Webvan, but has mostly been doing angel investing since.

It’s an interesting effort, with issues of batteries, cooling and more, as you will see from the video interview I did during a ride on the San Francisco Bay last week.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120806/electric-boat-start-up-pure-watercraft-aims-to-become-the-tesla-of-the-waves-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120710/blake-krikorian-joins-freewheel-board/ http://allthingsd.com/20120710/blake-krikorian-joins-freewheel-board/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:00:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=228581

Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Amazon board member Blake Krikorian is joining the board of directors of FreeWheel, the video tech start-up that helps entertainment companies manage content across digital platforms.

FreeWheel’s customers include NBC Universal, Vevo, Fox, Turner and ABC. It has raised close to $29 million in funding from a number of venture firms, such as Battery Ventures and Foundation Capital.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based company said Krikorian will help with corporate strategy and partnerships.

Krikorian was founder and CEO of Sling Media, the device maker which was acquired by EchoStar in 2007. He’s been an angel investor since then, and became an Amazon director last fall.

In an interview, Krikorian said that monetization and rights management have held back innovation in online video, but that content owners have recently released some promising products, such as Disney’s new Apple iOS apps for watching linear television programming.

“FreeWheel has built a trusted technology platform to manage the money flow for video content providers and distributors as their content is delivered across the Web and on mobile,” said Krikorian. “With these business and technology foundations in place, I can finally see the day coming when every media company will deliver all their programming online, in all of its forms including live linear TV.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120710/blake-krikorian-joins-freewheel-board/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120516/exclusive-japans-rakuten-wins-the-heart-of-pinterest-founder-in-funding-race/ http://allthingsd.com/20120516/exclusive-japans-rakuten-wins-the-heart-of-pinterest-founder-in-funding-race/#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 03:18:12 +0000 Liz Gannes and Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=209223 Rakuten, which runs the largest e-commerce site in Japan, is expected to be the lead investor in the much-contested next round of funding for Silicon Valley’s hottest start-up, Pinterest.

The funding is expected to be announced tomorrow morning.

(Update: Rakuten confirmed the deal in a press release, which is below.)

The Tokyo-based Internet giant will invest upwards of $50 million in a $100 million round that values the social bookmarking phenom at $1.5 billion.

There might be other individual investors in the new round, but those were still to be determined tonight by Pinterest co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann.

(Correction: We previously reported it was a $120 million round, but sources said it is $100 million. It’s possible more could still be added, as we heard conflicting accounts.)

While the latest round of funding for Pinterest has been the most hotly sought of late in tech circles, one source said Silbermann was looking for a global strategic investor and had talked to several large Asian companies.

Said one source on why he settled on Rakuten: “He just really liked them.”

The current investors in Pinterest, which is a social collection site where users can “pin” their interests via a handsome graphical interface, include Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital, as well as several well-known angel investors. That group had valued the company at $200 million last October, and are joining the new round pro rata.

Founded in 2008, Pinterest had previously raised a little under $40 million in funding.

It’s interesting that the latest round was not led by an institutional investor, since everyone and their mother wanted in on the deal. Sources said no new venture capital firms were included in the round and that is the way Pinterest’s quirky leadership wanted it.

Sources said Silbermann has been concerned with Pinterest’s global growth as well as fending off international clones, and was looking for a partner with which the start-up could work closely.

“Ben did not want any more VCs,” said one source. “He wanted an investor that moved the company forward.”

Rakuten will presumably help advise Pinterest on turning their pretty pictures into purchases, as commerce is already starting to emerge naturally on the site.

It’s a good choice of partners in that regard. Rakuten is one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world, with a flagship site Rakuten Ichiba. It was founded in 1997 and had revenues of $4.7 billion in 2011. Its CEO is Hiroshi Mikitani, whose nickname is Mickey.

One the richest men in Japan, Mikitani is one of the best known entrepreneurs there; he has been described as “Richard Branson meets Jeff Bezos.”

Earlier today, The Next Web reported that the funding was coming this week and said the company was looking at international partners, but it did not name Rakuten.

Rakuten Leads Investment In Pinterest

Global social commerce pioneer takes stake in online sharing service

TOKYO, May 17, 2012 – Rakuten, one of the world’s largest online marketplaces, today announced that it is leading a $100M investment in Pinterest, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, as well as a number of angel investors.

The funding will allow Pinterest to continue improving its service and expanding its community globally. The investment also marks the start of a strategic partnership between Rakuten and Pinterest to help expand in Japan and into Rakuten’s 17 other global markets.

Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten said: “While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining. We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.”

Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, said: “Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal.”

Rakuten ranks among the top 10 internet companies in the world. Among its numerous online properties, its flagship B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) model e-commerce site Rakuten Ichiba is the largest e-commerce site in Japan and among the world’s largest by sales. Its global presence has been reinforced through the acquisitions of leading online marketplaces Buy.com (US), Priceminister (France), Ikeda (now Rakuten Brasil), Tradoria (now Rakuten Deutschland) and Play.com (UK), and investments in Ozon.ru and AHA Life. Whereas other marketplaces may compete directly with sellers, Rakuten’s model seeks to empower merchants to deliver Omotenashi, a Japanese high service mindset, which helps sellers create lasting relationships with customers.

And here’s a video of Kara pontificating away on the subject for WSJ.com’s “Digits” show:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120516/exclusive-japans-rakuten-wins-the-heart-of-pinterest-founder-in-funding-race/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120411/l-a-stories-scarfing-up-big-media-at-gobbler-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120411/l-a-stories-scarfing-up-big-media-at-gobbler-video/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:31:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=195374

Another very interesting company I stumbled across in a funky building in Hollywood on my recent trip to Los Angeles is Gobbler, which bills itself as a “high-speed file transfer & backup for pro audio.”

In other words, a hopped-up version of Dropbox’s media-in-the-cloud efforts for cool music folks.

Armed with just over $3 million from angel investors like Sky Dayton, David Goldberg and others, the start-up is aiming to help media creators who need a lot more firepower, including backing up, transferring and organizing hefty music, video and photo files.

CEO Chris Kantrowitz knows whereof he speaks, as a designer of big music shows, including Coachella, the annual festival which takes place this weekend and next. He co-founded Gobbler with his sister, former Myspace exec Jamie Kantrowitz.

Here he is in a video interview with me talking about the future focus of the company, as well as where cloud storage is headed — Kantrowitz is one hep dude, so listen up:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120411/l-a-stories-scarfing-up-big-media-at-gobbler-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120402/l-a-stories-hipswap-tries-to-take-the-creepy-out-of-craigslist/ http://allthingsd.com/20120402/l-a-stories-hipswap-tries-to-take-the-creepy-out-of-craigslist/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:56:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=191988

Last week, I visited Los Angeles to get a gander at some of the many digital companies that are doing some interesting things down south of Silicon Valley.

First stop: HipSwap, a community-based marketplace that is now in 14 U.S. cities after initial tests in Los Angeles and New York City.

Its goal is to de-creep the experience — because no matter how it’s done online, local buying and selling still has a lot of glitches. Using a visual approach (think Pinterest), with hipster social hooks (think Airbnb) and focusing on location (hmm, perhaps think Foursquare), complete with delivery in some cities, HipSwap is hoping to differentiate itself from big players in the space, such as Craigslist and eBay.

The app-heavy HipSwap allows anyone with stuff, including boutique merchants with quirky stuff to move, to quickly snap photos of items, price them and then — presumably — sell. Payment is made via PayPal or credit card, with HipSwap in between the buyer and seller, to ease the transaction’s typical awkwardness.

Because it is local, the items are varied, from trendy baby strollers to funky furniture to antique sewing machines. And, because it is in the L.A. area, HipSwap is also pushing celebrity fare, with a charitable “Shop My Closet” marketplace and video series, which recently included Kyle Richards from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

The Santa Monica, Calif. start-up recently closed $1.1 million seed funding from a number of prominent investors, such as Founders Fund, Greycroft Partners, as well as former Microsoft exec — and early Pinterest angel — Hank Vigil and Mahalo President Jason Rapp.

Here’s a video interview I did with co-founder and CEO Rob Kramer about the interesting retail concept:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120402/l-a-stories-hipswap-tries-to-take-the-creepy-out-of-craigslist/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120309/here-come-the-first-d10-speakers-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-entrepreneur-sean-parker-zyngas-mark-pincus-and-more-on-the-red-hot-seat/ http://allthingsd.com/20120309/here-come-the-first-d10-speakers-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-entrepreneur-sean-parker-zyngas-mark-pincus-and-more-on-the-red-hot-seat/#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:40:29 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=182153 Even though our D: All Things Digital conference always sells out well in advance every year without our announcing even one single speaker (like this one, too), it’s the action on stage that truly matters.

And in 2012 — which also happens to be the 10th anniversary of the confab of tech and media titans — it’s already shaping up to be another fantastic event in terms of programming, with a lineup of onstage appearances that is sure to make some news.

There are many more very big names to come, but Walt Mossberg and I are pleased to introduce the first group of interviewees, which will give you a glimpse into the firepower we expect at D10 in late May. It is again being held in Rancho Palos Verdes, just south of Los Angeles.

The initial speakers we have confirmed so far include: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; serial entrepreneur Sean Parker, who will appear with Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek; Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus; Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz; LinkedIn Chairman and VC Reid Hoffman, who will appear with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner; and Skype CEO Tony Bates.

It’s hard to imagine someone we have wanted to have onstage more than Michael Bloomberg, a man of many talents and interests. He’s known worldwide as the 108th Mayor of the City of New York. First elected in November 2001 (and again in 2005 and 2009), he is also one of the most compelling politicians in the U.S. today.

But Bloomberg is also a pioneer in terms of the business of digital news and information technology, having built a huge and groundbreaking media company and information service. Bloomberg (the company) has 310,000 subscribers to its financial news and information service, and more than 15,000 employees worldwide.

There will be a lot to talk about with him, from the upcoming presidential election to the state of our government to the future of innovation, news and technology.

Also sure to be voluble is Sean Parker, the legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has been on the cutting edge of innumerable important digital trends of the recent decade. In 1999, Parker co-founded Napster, the controversial and industry-changing music service, at the age of 19.

He followed up with early contact information service Plaxo, and then shifted over to his critical involvement as founding president of Facebook in its early days as a start-up, an experience which was dramatized in the movie “The Social Network.” Parker continued to found and also invest in companies, from Causes to Spotify to his most recent, Airtime, a social video company that he is doing with his Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning.

Parker will be appearing onstage with Daniel Ek, another serial entrepreneur and technologist, who started his first company in 1997 at the age of 14. The Swedish native later co-founded online music phenom Spotify in 2006, with Martin Lorentzon.

The former CTO of Stardoll and founder of Advertigo leads a company that is changing the way music is delivered and consumed by fans, against a backdrop of intense change in the industry, succeeding even as a plethora of other services have stumbled.

Also a groundbreaker is Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus, yet another serial entrepreneur, whose latest effort in the online gaming arena has finally resulted in his biggest success. It recently went public, and now has a nearly $10 billion market cap.

Before founding Zynga in 2007, Pincus had already started three other companies: Push start-up Freeloader in 1995; automated tech-support company Support.com after that; and early social networking site Tribe.net in 2003.

(I met Pincus when he was at Freeloader in Washington, D.C., while writing a profile of him for the Washington Post, so I have enjoyed tracking his progress since then.)

Pincus is also an avid angel investor, with early stakes in Napster, Brightmail, Twitter and Facebook.

Reid Hoffman was another early investor in Facebook, along with many of Web 2.0’s most successful ventures. Well-known in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur and VC, and recently dubbed the “start-up whisperer” by the New York Times (although I am not sure exactly what that means), he’s also chairman of LinkedIn, the business-networking service that also recently went public (at a $10 billion valuation, too).

He’ll appear with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who started out life in Hollywood, but soon made his way to Silicon Valley as a top exec at Yahoo. After running its media division, Weiner spent a short time at venture firms before going operational again at LinkedIn.

What it takes to build and maintain momentum as tech companies move into more mature stages, as well as how the social networking space evolves, are among the many topics on tap for the pair.

The evolution of a start-up phenom — in this case, Internet telephony service Skype — will be among the topics covered by Tony Bates, who is now a president at Microsoft, which bought it last year.

As such, he is responsible, says the software giant in its description of his job, “for overseeing the company’s direction, strategy and overall mission to become a global communications service that will eventually reach billions of users.”

That’s a tall order for Bates, who came to Skype from a top job at Cisco. Bates has deep roots (or maybe, routing?) in the guts of the Internet, having done backbone-engineering strategy for Internet MCI. The U.K. native also holds nine patents.

Lastly, given all the activity we expect will happen between government regulatory agencies and tech companies over the next few years, we felt it was key to bring in FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. He has been at the FTC as a commissioner since 2004, but was given the top job by President Barack Obama in 2009.

Among his priorities, according to his bio, is “promoting competition and innovation in the technology sector through law enforcement and policy initiatives; and protecting consumers’ privacy — especially while they are using the Internet.”

Uh-oh!

Leibowitz knows from regulation, having served as the Democratic chief counsel and staff director for the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee from 1997 to 2000, where he focused on competition policy and telecommunications matters, as well as a similar stint at the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology before that.

There will be a lot more speakers to come, of course. But, so far, we think D10 is off and running fast.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120309/here-come-the-first-d10-speakers-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-entrepreneur-sean-parker-zyngas-mark-pincus-and-more-on-the-red-hot-seat/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120307/jason-calacanis-has-one-miiiiiilllllion-dollars-to-give-out-to-start-ups-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120307/jason-calacanis-has-one-miiiiiilllllion-dollars-to-give-out-to-start-ups-video/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 20:38:22 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=181271

Last night, voluble entrepreneur and tech gadfly Jason Calacanis threw a party at dim sum palace Yank Sing in San Francisco, to kick off his latest LAUNCH Festival.

Several dozen start-ups will be debuting at the event today and tomorrow, showing off their wares before judges (I am one tomorrow afternoon) for eventual prize money in the form of investments or convertible notes from venture firms, like Charles River Ventures, and angel investors, such as Kevin Rose.

LAUNCH has gotten just over $1 million in commitments, which seems to be a nice, round, brag-worthy number.

Here’s Calacanis doing just that, and talking about the start-up scene with me in a video interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120307/jason-calacanis-has-one-miiiiiilllllion-dollars-to-give-out-to-start-ups-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/tastemakerx-raises-1-8m-for-mobile-social-app-platform/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/tastemakerx-raises-1-8m-for-mobile-social-app-platform/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172405 TastemakerX, a San Francisco start-up that is developing a social mobile platform focused on “targeted taste graphs,” said it had raised $1.8 million in funding from a variety of venture firms, including Guggenheim Partners, Baseline Ventures, True Ventures and Tekton Ventures, as well as angel investors. The company said it will release its TastemakerX Music mobile app as a private beta in early March.

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