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Go Far West, Young Startup: SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan in $20M Fund to Bring U.S. Entrepreneurs There

Kara Swisher — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:00:58 +0000

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan said they had created an unusual $20 million fund to help U.S. startups break into the Japanese market, while also upping a presence in the U.S.

The partnership between Japan’s largest Internet company — which is also a joint venture with Yahoo — and the venture arm of the giant SoftBank Corp. will invest in companies from early-stage funding to later-stage expansion and focus on mobile applications, social media, e-commerce, online advertising, gaming and cloud computing.

The new funds for that are being put into SoftBank Capital’s $100 million Technology Fund ’10. As part of the deal, Toshiaki Chiku will become head of U.S. operations in Manhattan. SoftBank Capital also recently announced a $250 million PrinceVille Fund, aimed at growth-stage startups in Asia.

Among the firm’s recent exits: Bluefin Labs went to Twitter, Buddy Media to Salesforce.com, Huffington Post to AOL, Hyperpublic to Groupon and OMGPOP to Zynga.

Now, it will be focusing even more on helping U.S. startups in Asia.

“Japan can be challenging for many U.S. companies, and given our scale and affiliation with SoftBank Corp., we’re in a great position to help them grow and succeed,” said Chiku in a statement.

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan used performance display advertising company Criteo as an example of a successful investment, in which it also helped the company enter the Asian market (although, technically, Criteo is HQed in France).

Silver Lake Finally Announces New $10.3 Billion Tech-Focused Fund

Kara Swisher — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:42:00 +0000

Silver Lakes Partners, the high-profile private equity firm which has been a big player in the tech space, has finally closed a new $10.3 billion large-cap technology investment fund. The firm said its Silver Lake Partners IV Fund was oversubscribed, surpassing a $7.5 billion target. Silver Lake now manages over $23 billion and is involved in a range of digital deals — most prominently of late, in the private takeover of Dell Computer.

Jerry Yang Is Back (And Investing More Than Ever)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:39:49 +0000

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.”

Menlo Ventures' Pishevar and Goldman's Stanford to Found Sherpa, a Startup Aimed at Making New Startups

Kara Swisher — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 02:07:40 +0000

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.

Ribbit Capital Raises $100 Million With the Goal of Modernizing Money

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:06:03 +0000

Ribbit Capital is a new Silicon Valley fund focused on making investments in anything to do with money — from lending to tax preparation to mobile payments.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company is officially announcing a $100 million fund today. It will target the financial services sector, which has seen a flood of startups over the past couple of years as companies try to create new ways for customers to pay using online and mobile services.

Several companies have sprouted up to challenge incumbent providers, such as Square, but many other large institutions, like PayPal and Google, are also interested in making transactions digital.

Ribbit is critical of the amount of innovation that has occurred to date. Fittingly, Ribbit’s motto is, “It takes money to change money.”

Today’s announcement by Ribbit is its formal launch, but since getting off the ground last year, it has made four early-stage investments. They are:

Borro: The U.K.-based startup provides financing to high-net-worth individuals who want cash for their fine arts, antiques, vintage cars and jewelry.
Fuze Network: A U.S.-based payments company that provides merchants with new ways for their customers to make payments at banks and retail locations nationwide.
ContaAzul: The company provides accounting and invoicing solutions to small and medium-sized businesses in Brazil.
Capital Access Networks: A non-bank lender to small businesses.

The fund was founded by Meyer Malka, who goes by the name Micky. He has been an active entrepreneur in the space — he co-founded Lemon, a mobile wallet company, and Bling Nation, a mobile payments company — and currently serves on the board of Wonga, an alternative lender for consumers and businesses.

Malka has a global perspective, having lived all around the world, including stints in Venezuela and Brazil, where he witnessed more than half of the banks fail.

Ribbit’s investors include Spanish banking group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Silicon Valley Bank, and various institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.

Redpoint Ventures Raises Another $400M Fund

Liz Gannes — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:01:02 +0000

Redpoint Ventures said today that it has closed a $400 million venture capital fund to invest in early stage startups, a direct parallel to the fund of the same amount it raised three years ago. Some of the Sand Hill Road firm’s recent investments include Path, Electric Imp, Pure Storage, Zendesk, Stripe, Sonos and Kabam.

Small Is Beautiful: Greycroft Partners Raises $175 Million in Third Fund

Kara Swisher — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:54:29 +0000

Greycroft Partners has closed a $175 million fund, its third since it began investing in consumer Internet and media companies in mid-2000.

In a press release, the New York- and Los Angeles-based venture firm said the fund was oversubscribed. But general partner Alan Patricof noted that Greycroft capped the amount and kept it small compared to other VCs, in order to maintain its focus on investing in early-stage capital-efficient start-ups.

“It’s always been our philosophy not to overfund the companies we invest in,” Patricof said in an interview. “It’s sometimes been hard in an environment where there is a lot of money available to entrepreneurs, but we are looking for start-ups that understand that it’s important to maintain the right balance of funding.”

The concept of a small fund is important to Greycroft, which has only three general partners and three venture partners, said general partner Dana Settle. The firm typically invests from $500,000 to $5 million, with more of a focus on online media, mobile and video, and also has a small seed fund.

“I think we are very hands-on helping our companies, but you don’t have to always do that in the traditional way most VCs do,” Settle said. “We want to maintain focus on giving our companies the right kind of advice, and let the entrepreneur take the lead.”

In fact, Patricof and Settle stressed, Greycroft does not often take board seats on the start-ups it invests in, and typically invests with other VCs in syndicates, which sometimes means the firm has less equity.

So far, Greycroft maintains that its system has worked. Its first fund of $75 million was raised in 2006 and has invested in 34 companies, with 11 sold and 130 percent of committed capital returned to partners; its second fund of $131 million, in 2010, put investments in 32 companies, several with valuations over $100 million.

Patricof noted that “the sale of our companies is usually our goal,” rather than an IPO event.

Exits include Vizu, acquired by Nielsen Holdings, Huffington Post (AOL), Babble (Walt Disney) and Buddy Media (Salesforce.com). More recent investments include Klout, Pulse and Maker Studios.

Most previous Greycroft investors have re-upped in the latest fund, the firm said, including J.P. Morgan, BlackRock Private Equity Partners, Fairview Capital and Invesco Private Capital. It also added new investors including Hall Capital, Hamilton Lane, Greenspring Associates and Cambridge Associates.

Khosla Ventures Hires Ex-Yahoo Mojgan Khalili as Comms Partner

Kara Swisher — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:12:39 +0000

Mojgan Khalili

Another prominent venture firm has stepped up in the marketing arena and hired well-regarded former Yahoo communications exec Mojgan Khalili as an operating partner.

In an interview yesterday, Vinod Khosla said that the move was part of the Silicon Valley firm’s motto of “venture assistance.”

Like many top VCs these days, Khosla said that helping build the start-ups it invests in is a key part of its offering. It already has partners specializing in recruiting and finance.

“We are building an operating organization and communications is an important part of that to help the companies we invest in,” said Khosla. “Obviously, other firms are using this function to promote themselves, but as a fund we don’t need more publicity.”

Khosla noted that Khalili’s job would be almost entirely focused on helping start-ups. But the latter part of that quote was referencing the boom in comms hiring by prominent VC firms — such as Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital — some of which are getting a lot of press attention, too.

Khosla acknowledged the importance of good marketing — even some entrepreneurs, such as Square’s Jack Dorsey, are PR naturals.

“He is someone who does press well,” he said. “But 90 percent of start-ups need help to do this function, which is increasingly critical.”

Khalili is a longtime comms exec, who most recently headed product issues at Yahoo, working with top execs there.

“Working with great partners at Khosla Ventures and assisting awesome companies in so many different industries like, tech, big data, health, food and energy makes this opportunity perfect,” she said. “I am really excited to dig in.”

Exclusive: Digital Chief Jon Miller Leaving News Corp.

Kara Swisher — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 19:00:00 +0000

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp.’s Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller will soon be leaving the media giant.

It seems to be a cordial, although perhaps inevitable, parting — sources said Miller will remain an adviser to chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, as well as COO Chase Carey and deputy COO James Murdoch, for a year after his departure in late September.

Update: News Corp. confirmed the departure in a press release, which is embedded below.

His leaving brings into focus the fate of News Corp.’s overall digital strategy in an upcoming new structure. Miller was hired in 2009 to turbocharge the company’s long-troubled digital assets.

But I had noted in an article in July that the well-known Internet exec was not likely to continue at News Corp. in the wake of a complex transaction that will ultimately break the company apart into two separate entities — an entertainment company and a publishing one.

That’s a very different situation from when Miller was hired by the media giant to lead its tech and online initiatives and make digital a priority across its many divisions.

Not for lack of trying or access to powerful News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch — it has been a mixed bag for Miller in his tenure.

That’s due in no small part to a problem faced by many execs like Miller: The difficulty of successfully pushing digital initiatives inside a large traditional media organization.

His job has encompassed everything from a failed effort to revive its once mighty Myspace service to selling it and other properties off to working to improve its Hulu partnership, where he serves on the board.

It is not clear who will replace Miller as one of the News Corp. directors at the complexly-owned premium video service, which had been for sale and then not recently.

One of the brighter Miller accomplishments for News Corp. has been forging decidedly better relationships with key Internet companies, both large and small, as well as with venture investors in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

That was most pronounced and visible between Apple and News Corp., which struck a number of deals to work together, some of which worked and some that had much less success.

Miller has also been active in China, working on several digital investment opportunities for News Corp. there. That included a recent $70 million investment in Bona Film Group.

He was key to a recent $45 million investment by the company and others in the company that sells the Roku video streaming device.

He also worked on various New Corp. efforts on creating channels on Google’s YouTube, including WIGS, a drama series. The jury is still out on these kinds of creative endeavors, of course, especially to a company with much more lucrative traditional film and television assets.

There was a possibility that, in his leaving, Miller might form a separate investment fund to focus on digital publishing and media, funded by News Corp. or even by the Murdoch family, who control the company.

But that has appeared not to have worked out, said sources.

Before he came to News Corp., Miller ran an investment fund with former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn called Fuse Capital. He also was chairman and CEO of AOL under its Time Warner ownership and was a top exec at IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Miller has remained an active angel investor, funding a range of start-ups such as Maker Studios, Voxer, Science, Solavei, Personal.com, as well many as others.

He is also chairman of OpenX and serves on the boards of Shutterstock and TripAdvisor.

Clearly, this is a world Miller will return to easily and it’s likely he’ll be starting something sooner than later. (Maybe bringing the band back together with Levinsohn?)

JonathanMillerAug23.2012

(Full disclosure: This Web site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned — in turn — by News Corp.)

Dear Internet IPO Investors: So Very Sorry! (But Not Really, After You See Our Next Fundings.) Signed, Silicon Valley

Kara Swisher — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:11:55 +0000

If you invested some of your money in the series of big, splashy IPOs that Silicon Valley has largely funded and churned out over the last year, you might be a little irritated.

Even irked. Possibly quite out of sorts.

And you would have good reason if you looked at the performance of many of the freshmen companies that have come out since early last summer.

That’s because of all of them, only three — business network LinkedIn, enterprise software start-up Jive and the recently debuted travel site Kayak — are your friends, up 9.8 percent since its May 27, 2011, debut; 26 percent since a December 15, 2011, opening; and about six percent since an IPO last week, respectively. In addition, video services company Brightcove is up a small 2.7 percent since its February 21, 2012, IPO.

Not so much for the other four, which have been much rockier, in order of their public offerings: music streaming site Pandora, down 29.6 percent since its June 24, 2011, IPO; Groupon, down 72.3 percent since the daily deals site’s November 7, 2011, IPO; Zynga, down 46.6 percent since its December 19, 2011, IPO; and Facebook, down almost 23 percent since its May 18, 2012, IPO.

But the stock weakness — as social networking giant Facebook preps to release its first earnings report as a public company tomorrow, after Zynga’s disastrous Q2 results from its online gaming business earlier today — does not seem to have stopped the frothy valuations for private start-ups from being even more foamy.

Along with a $2.6 billion new mega venture fund from New Enterprise Associates, comes a Wall Street Journal report that online storage company Box is raising a new round at a $1.2 billion valuation and hopes to IPO at a $2 billion to $3 billion one next year; and online payments start-up Square is looking at a $3.25 billion-valued round, according to the New York Times, which is 13.5 times higher than just two years ago.

Caveat: While there have been some good returns to private investors in the M&A space of late, such as social enterprise network Yammer’s recent $1.2 billion sale to Microsoft, not everyone is going to get such deals.

And definitely not public investors for whom hope either springs eternal — or just springs a leak.

New Enterprise Associates Announces Mega Venture Fund of $2.6 Billion

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 05:30:28 +0000

New Enterprise Associates, or NEA, is officially announcing a $2.6 billion fund, one of the largest venture capital funds ever raised. It marks the Washington, D.C.-area company’s 14th time at bat, and its third consecutive fund totaling more than $2.5 billion. The megafund is part of a larger consolidation trend in the industry, in which 10 VC firms now account for nearly one-third of the dollars in the space.

Tech Companies Rejoice! IVP's New Jumbo Fund Totals $1 Billion.

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:00:49 +0000

Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) could be considered an old-timer in the world of venture investing, especially by today’s youthful Silicon Valley standards.

At 32 years old, the venture firm has backed more than 300 companies and has witnessed 90 companies go public. Some of its better-known deals include comScore, Dropbox, HomeAway, Kayak, LivingSocial, Netflix, Twitter and Zynga.

Today, it is announcing that it will continue its legacy, having raised its 14th fund, totaling $1 billion. In total, it now has $4 billion under management.

In an interview, IVP’s General Partner Dennis Phelps said the fund is the firm’s largest to date, exceeding its current fund of $750 million.

Despite a larger fund this time, Phelps said it will be business as usual. The plan is to invest about $10 million to $100 million in 10 to 12 companies a year, or 25 to 30 companies over the fund’s 10-year life. The one thing that will change is the average deal size, which will get slightly larger.

“We’ve had the opportunity to make larger investments, but we didn’t have the fund size to support it,” Phelps said. “Companies are choosing to remain private longer, but it doesn’t change our investment model.”

In general, the company’s sweet spot is later-stage companies with roughly $20 million in annualized revenue in the Internet and digital media, enterprise technology, and mobile and communications sectors, he said. But he noted that they do not invest in life sciences or clean technology. Currently of IVP’s active portfolio companies, more than half have revenue of $50 million or more, and a third of them are profitable.

“We feel like our deal flow is as strong as it’s ever been,” he said. “We’ve had amazing momentum in the marketplace, and view us as a firm on the ascendancy.”

Other firms to recently pocket a lot of cash include Andreessen Horowitz’s monster $1.5 billion fund, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ $525 million fund for early-stage companies.

IVP has six general partners: Phelps, Todd Chaffee, Norm Fogelsong, Steve Harrick, Jules Maltz and Sandy Miller.

Here’s a visual snapshot of the firm’s history:

Accel, Breyer Capital and Polaris Join Harvard-Area's Experiment Fund

Kara Swisher — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:56:29 +0000

Accel Partners, Breyer Capital and Polaris Venture Partners became the newest partners in the seed-stage venture fund aimed at entrepreneurs in the Boston area.

The Experiment Fund, which already includes New Enterprise Associates, is “anchored” and was launched at Harvard University, although the famed school is not one of its funders.

New advisers were also added to the Experiment Fund, including former Harvard Law School professor and former director of the Berkman Center John Palfrey, Facebook co-founder Andrew McCollum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Hugo Liu, as well as an ex-officio post created for the current president of Harvard Student Agencies.

The fund, which AllThingsD wrote about previously, was created earlier this year by the dean of the Harvard School of Engineering.

The early-stage incubator planned then to award funding to four to six start-ups, in amounts from $250,000 to $500,000, focused on the Cambridge, Mass., area around Harvard, which includes many other schools such as MIT.

The point has been to foster innovation around the Boston area, rather than watch those start-ups head west to seek funding. In other words, to keep the next Facebook — which was born there — from moving away to Silicon Valley.

In other words: Stay east, next young Mark Zuckerberg!

The new partners are contributing more funds, although they declined to specify the amount. Breyer Capital is the personal investment company of Accel’s Jim Breyer.

As part of adding the new partners, Breyer and Polaris’ Alan Crane will become “experts-in-residence” at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Breyer and Crane, by the way, both got their MBAs from Harvard.

Index Ventures' Volpi Talks About New Fund and the State of the VC Market (Video)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:30:26 +0000

Yesterday, Index Ventures said it had raised $442 million in its sixth venture fund.

I talked to Index’s partner Mike Volpi about the new investment money and more, which it will be aiming at early-stage investments in the U.S., Israel and Europe.

We talked about a range of issues, including the future of start-up investing, and the innovation climate going forward.

Here’s the video of the interview I did with him:

[ See post to watch video ]

Index Ventures Raises $442 Million in New Fund

Kara Swisher — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 04:21:20 +0000

Index Ventures said it had raised 350 million euros ($442 million) in a new sixth venture capital fund, which will be aimed at early-stage investments in the U.S., Israel and Europe. The London-based Index, which raised its last fund in 2009, opened an office in San Francisco last year.

Not So Scott Free? Yahoo's Other Big Shareholder -- Cap Re -- Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.

Kara Swisher — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:56:57 +0000

One of Yahoo’s biggest long-term investors, Capital Research and Management, which owns more than 10 percent of the company in two different funds, is leaning toward voting for the slate proposed by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point, in the wake of the controversy around the botched bio of its new CEO Scott Thompson.

“Having a CEO with that hanging over his head is really a problem going forward,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “It’s hard to pretend this is not a problem.”

While sources said Yahoo’s longtime institutional investor — which currently holds large stakes via its Capital Research Global Investors and Capital World Investors funds — is not likely to go public with their voting choice until close to the annual meeting, which will take place sometime this summer.

But its fund managers have told key Yahoo board members of their grave concerns over the situation.

Ironically, in the last proxy fight showdown with Carl Icahn, Capital removed its support of Yahoo’s slate too and was an important influence to many major changes at the company.

Such a move is problematic for Thompson, since the rejection of another big shareholder at its upcoming annual meeting will keep the unusual issue and right in the middle of a noisy proxy fight.

A special committee of the Yahoo board is investigating the situation — in which a fake computer science degree somehow got on the resume of the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit and later into official Yahoo regulatory filings.

The problem was uncovered last week — unfortunately for the Silicon Valley Internet giant — by Loeb, who has been banging away on Yahoo since.

A trio of independent Yahoo directors is looking into the mess, with a focus on how that happened, whether anyone at Yahoo knew of the inaccurate bio and how it got there in the first place.

Also of great concern, is how Thompson could have not seen the error in the many years it was on the Web site of eBay and also how he approved a bio that had the inaccuracy in it when he was hired by Yahoo in January.

Worse still, in a 2009 interview, he clearly did not say he did not have such a degree in with a radio show host when directly asked about it.

“It’s a little hard believe an executive of this level would have missed such a thing, when he had so many opportunities to fix it,” said one source. “And, if he did overlook it that many times, that’s a problem too.”

In fact, according to a report earlier today by Business Insider that I also confirmed, Thompson told employees today in two separate meetings that he did miss the error since it was placed there — inexplicably — in 2004. In the meeting, he blamed a low-level headhunting staffer who added it incorrectly, an error that then proliferated.

Thompson also said he did not provide a resume to the company in his hiring process — say whaaaat, but true — although this still does not absolve him from the original error.

As to the interview: Thompson said he did not want to be rude and correct the host of TechNation, Moira Gunn, after she clearly asserted to him he had a computer science degree as part of a question on his qualifications. Others present at the meetings said he said he did not hear the question.

But, in an video interview with me yesterday, though, Gunn said she and Thompson discussed a computer science education in a way that left the clear impression that he had obtained one.

While Thompson’s excuse may beggar the imagination of some, it’s his story and he’s sticking to it. In all seriousness, his complete lack of willingness to take responsibility for the error — even if it was not his fault — itself is a little startling.

Because what’s not clear is how the bio was miraculously correct in eBay’s official filings and also if it is plausible that he never saw the mistake.

Numerous communications execs at Internet companies told me that it was unusual for a high-level exec not to pay close attention to information that went out about them, especially in legal filings. In addition, just as many execs are made to check and swear on their bios that go into such documents.

In fact, it was Thompson’s job to make sure the things written about him were correct at all times. As CEO, as a major Silicon Valley player pointed out, he is required by federal law to personally certify Yahoo’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Violations of these rules carry financial and also potential criminal penalties.

Sources said the board is worried about that credibility issue too and it puts Thompson in an ever-dicier position. Noticeably, the board has yet to make a public statement of support for him on the issue.

Also a major worry for the directors is the mostly negative response to the situation from Yahoo employees, who are deeply upset that Thompson’s error was not caught and that he might not be treated in the same way as anyone else who turned in a false resume, whether it was by accident or not.

A Yahoo spokeswoman told me last week that there was also support internally for Thompson, but in many dozens of interviews I have done with Yahoo employees and a continued monitoring of internal bulletin board, the tone is not in his favor by any means.

Like I said, it’s a dicey time to be Scott Thompson right now.

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Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion

Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess

Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.

Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.

Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)

Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him

Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?

Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board

CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)

Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”

Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess

As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)

Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring

They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.

Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him

In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)

Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO

How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.

Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”

Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

Aileen Lee Launches Kleiner-Backed Seed Fund

Kara Swisher — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:14:36 +0000

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Aileen Lee is founding a new seed fund — still unnamed — that is focused on backing and helping develop early-stage start-ups.

Lee, who has been at the famed Silicon Valley venture firm for a dozen years, will remain a partner at Kleiner Perkins, although her full focus will be on the fund. While she declined in an interview this morning to say what the size of the new fund will be, most such efforts range from $10 million to $70 million.

Along with Kleiner, there will be several other unnamed investors and strategic partners, said Lee, who is in a quiet period of fundraising and could not give more details. It will be separate from Kleiner.

“I read a book that said you should make a big change every seven years, and this was an area of investing that I really have wanted to be in,” said Lee, who at Kleiner has backed companies such as One King’s Lane, Rent the Runway and Dollar Shave Club. “I really have become very interested at working with and helping entrepreneurs at the early stages of their growth.”

KP’s John Doerr said that while some VC firms are creating their own high-profile seed funds, he and Lee felt it was important for such an investment vehicle to be independent to be effective and also to work with other seed efforts that have exploded on the tech scene.

“But we wanted to invest in it, so it’s the best of both worlds,” he said. “It’s really important that start-ups at that stage get the kind of attention Aileen can give them.”

According to her bio on KP’s Web site, Lee worked at the Gap before her VC life, as well as Odwalla and the North Face. The MIT and Harvard Business School grad also worked at Morgan Stanley in technology mergers and acquisitions.

Why Wasn't SecondMarket Part of the SEC Pre-IPO Stock Attack? CEO Barry Silbert's Happy to Tell You on Quora.

Kara Swisher — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:42:19 +0000

It’s one thing to not be targeted in any regulatory action that strafed your competitors, but SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert used the opportunity to tout just why his company missed the bullets.

In an unusual and interesting post on social answer service Quora, Silbert gave a long answer to the question entrepreneur Jason Calacanis asked there: “Why wasn’t SecondMarket part of the SharesPost/secondary market SEC action today?”

That would be the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed charges, as Arik Hesseldahl wrote earlier this week, “against two managers of private funds that had raised more than $70 million to acquire and trade pre-IPO shares of Facebook and other tech companies with misleading investors and charging undisclosed fees. It also brought charges against SharesPost, saying it had engaged in securities transactions without being registered as a broker-dealer.”

The move was part of a year-long inquiry aimed at secondary markets, where firms trade privately owned shares and options of pre-IPO companies.

Silbert, who runs one of the biggest companies in this sector, apparently decided to make hay while the Feds shone (up). In the Quora post, he noted: “I am proud to say that SecondMarket is not among those investigated or charged, which only reinforces SecondMarket’s ongoing commitment to being the trusted, compliant and fully-regulated marketplace in the startup and private company ecosystem.”

If he does say so himself!

All kidding aside, it is actually a novel way to turn a story that could tarnish everyone nearby into a plus. (Plus, ABC — Always Be Closing!)

Among the reasons that Silbert said SecondMarket was not part of the government probe: “Fully regulated, soup to nuts, from the start” (the company is a registered broker-dealer; “close coordination with private companies on all transactions” (“customized secondary markets,” he noted); “rigid accreditation process” of buyers; and “no disclosure of private company valuation and pricing.”

To Stanch Layoffs, Yahoo Has Been Shopping Its Ad Technology Platforms to Google, Microsoft and Others

Kara Swisher — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:04:23 +0000

In an effort to minimize the impact of massive layoffs that Yahoo’s top management has been planning, according to sources close to the situation, one of the latest ideas to save costs and presumably jobs by new CEO Scott Thompson is to sell off much of its advertising technology platform, including Right Media.

And among the possible buyers Thompson has been targeting in recent visits: Google and Microsoft, as well as Silver Lake, the private equity firm that had once been talking to the Silicon Valley Internet giant about making a large investment in the company.

(That particular deal has gone south, but there is always yet another scheme on the horizon at Yahoo!)

The concept behind such a sale, according to several sources inside and outside the company, is to turn a cost center into a revenue source, with Yahoo essentially outsourcing a business that was a cornerstone of its strategy. A negotiable number of employees affiliated with those units would then move over to the new owner.

The most ideal plan, said sources, would be to sell Yahoo’s whole advertising technology “stack,” including the Right Media Exchange, a marketplace for advertisers, publishers and ad networks to trade online ads. Yahoo bought it for $700 million in 2007.

According to info on the company’s site, it has “300,000 active global buyers and sellers and more than 11 billion daily transactions.”

Also part of the possible package is APT, a system Yahoo has built to make buying and selling online advertising easier. In addition, Yahoo’s technologies for display-ad serving have been mentioned as a possibility for sale.

It’s unclear what the potential sale means for the new ad strategy that U.S. boss Ross Levinsohn and his lieutenant Jim Heckman have been pursuing since last summer. That plan included its own acquisition of ad network Interclick and an attempt to sync up with rivals AOL and Microsoft in an effort to fend off Google and some third-party players, like ad networks.

But the reason for contemplating much a major move — which has been considered before, but never has been seriously offered — are obvious: While Yahoo once dominated this arena, it has steadily lost ground, especially to Google. The search giant has made almost all of its money in search-related ads, but has been moving aggressively via its DoubleClick and other ad-serving entities into higher-level ads.

Microsoft has also been trying to compete, as has AOL, but it’s getting to be an expensive race, and one where Yahoo would have to make major investments to once again gain momentum. Building up this business again had been the aim of co-founder Jerry Yang, who wanted to go big in the arena in a number of ways before he left the company earlier this year.

But those days seem to be over at Yahoo.

“A lot of what has happened so far under Scott [Thompson] has been trying to find more revenue anywhere it can be generated, and get out of businesses that are not growing,” said one person. “Right now, it’s a lot about what we shouldn’t do rather than what we should.”

That has meant visits to see both Google and Microsoft about possible deals by Thompson, with the involvement of CFO Tim Morse and Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.

Thompson (pictured here) has also recently been talking to Silver Lake about the ad-platform sale, in a deal that might include the Andreessen Horowitz venture fund. This would be a different kind of transaction, said sources, in which a separate company would be formed, with Yahoo owning a piece and contracting with the new entity to provide ad technology.

All this activity is related to the layoffs in the works of perhaps thousands of employees, which were to have been communicated to the company this week.

Sources said those have been delayed for some weeks for several reasons, including whether to consider more deeply if certain larger business units can be spun off, sold or somehow transformed. (To be clear: Major layoffs are still being planned, but now might take place in two parts, said sources, in what is a quickly changing and volatile atmosphere at Yahoo.)

Another area being looked at, said sources, is Yahoo’s search advertising partnership with Microsoft, which has not been as successful as had been expected. While Yahoo has been working with the software giant about improving the results, Thompson has apparently been contemplating other possibilities, including working with Google (calling all regulators!) and/or laying off up to 900 employees who work on the company’s search offering.

Any of these moves could, of course, cause a firestorm of controversy, which Thompson appears to not worry much about. He was the driving force in Yahoo’s patent lawsuit against Facebook earlier this week, which is largely attracting a negative reaction across the tech landscape.

A number of prominent voices have spoken out against the legal action, including well-known VC Fred Wilson, who yesterday penned a poisonous blog post, titled “Yahoo Crosses the Line.”

It ends thusly: “I am not writing this in defense of Facebook. They can and will defend themselves. I am writing this in outrage at Yahoo! I used to care about that company for some reason. No more. They are dead to me. Dead and gone. I hate them now.”

Ouch!

Also weighing in publicly via Twitter was former Yahoo director Eric Hippeau, who was one of the company’s first investors, which is embedded below:

Pathetic and heartbreaking last stand for Yahoo bit.ly/yirCcj It’s all over. I loved you very much.

— Eric Hippeau (@erichippeau) March 13, 2012

Double ouch!

All I can say is that Thompson certainly has a lot of gumption. That has actually been his M.O. from the start, said several sources, with the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit and dark horse cold-emailing his way into the Yahoo CEO job.

True story: He had not been among its list of possible candidates — largely because he had been placed in his job at eBay many moons ago by Heidrick & Struggles, which was conducting the Yahoo CEO search, and that’s a talent acquisition no-no to poach someone you placed.

That did not stop Thompson, who thought he might be good for the job and reached out directly to board members at the end of the selection effort, which then led to the search committee and soon enough to the job in what was a very quick vetting and secretive (although not secretive enough!) hiring process.

Since then, Thompson has been on a tear, from working on a restructuring to trying to assuage activist shareholder Dan Loeb to helping put the kibosh on its Asian stake sale talks to suing Facebook. And now this sale effort, too.

If the peripatetic Thompson — who might need a dose of Ritalin before this thing is over — wanted to get noticed by the tech powers that be: Mission accomplished!

“He’s definitely someone who appears to have decided on shooting the moon with a lot of these actions,” said one person close to the situation, referring to the move in the card game of Hearts, which is a risky gambit to capture every penalty card worth 26 points in order to win. “I just hope no one loses an eye in the process.”

(That would be triple ouch, by the way.)

No comments all around, but everyone was certainly cordial on this rainy morning.

Auto Tech Is Target of Intel $100 Million Fund

Don Clark — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:20:40 +0000

When Intel wants to build or penetrate a market, it has a few favorite tricks–including putting up a hefty pot of money into start-ups that could become partners or supporters of its chip technology. The auto industry is the latest example.

The Silicon Valley company on Wednesday is announcing a $100 million venture capital fund to accelerate technology innovation in cars. Intel said it will also establish a product development center in Germany that will focus on the field.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Proxy Ho? Like Yahoo, AOL Could Face Alternate Board Slate From Irked Investor as Early as Today.

Kara Swisher — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:46:25 +0000

Have you never heard of Starboard Value?

Me, either!

But the New York activist fund is readying to make a splash as soon as today, several sources said, if it follows through on the expected naming of an alternate board to challenge AOL.

Saturday is the official deadline to nominate directors to the board of AOL, also based in New York, which will have all eight up for reelection.

Sources said Starboard has talked to several Internet types, but that it has plans to put up a slate made up more of Wall Streeters to present at the company’s annual meeting later in the year.

In a filing last week, Starboard said it had been in discussions with AOL management about its concerns, so it is certainly possible the investor and the company could come to some agreement over board seats and strategic direction before it gets Yahoo-ugly.

That would make it a kind of an East Coast proxy battle version of what’s been going on over at Yahoo and its tussle with Third Point’s Daniel Loeb. He recently followed through on long-expressed unhappiness with the Silicon Valley Internet giant, and named a slate of directors — including well-known media exec Jeff Zucker — to replace current ones there.

The same kind of thing has been in the works at Starboard, which sent a letter in late December to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, saying his much-touted strategy around content was not a good one for investors.

Like Loeb at Yahoo, Starboard is one of AOL’s largest shareholders, with a stake of just over five percent.

The letter signaled an increasing impatience with the pace of Armstrong’s turnaround efforts, which are still in turnaround. Meanwhile, AOL’s stock has rebounded from last summer’s lows of near $10 a share.

The stock is up more than 22 percent this year, to $18.44. But that’s still down almost 20 percent from when AOL spun off from Time Warner and went public in late 2009.

The grumpy (and opportunistic) Starboard entered the picture late last year.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

“Starboard, which focuses mainly on small-cap companies, was spun off from Cowen Group Inc.’s Ramius Capital LLC in March. In October, the fund successfully waged a proxy fight against hair-salon chain owner Regis Corp. when three of its director nominees were elected to Regis’s board. AOL, which was spun off from Time Warner Inc. in 2009 after a failed merger, is its most high-profile target yet.”

One of the investment fund’s bugaboos is Patch, the local news network that AOL has sunk a lot of dough into. Also under fire is Armstrong’s content efforts and the pace of its display advertising sales, including the high-profile acquisition of the Huffington Post and TechCrunch.

I have emails into all the bigs at AOL and Starboard, so we’ll see who calls back first, if at all.

Andreessen & Horowitz on Monster $1.5B Fund: Software (And Giant VCs) Ready to Chomp Everything!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:23:51 +0000

Memo to the world from Silicon Valley legend and power-VC Marc Andreessen: “I think that this is more of the theme that software is going to be eating all other industries.”

More like chomping through them with renewed gusto, with the announcement today that his venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has raised a huge new $1.5 billion fund to continue to fund “extending our capabilities to more disruptors,” according to Andreessen’s longtime partner Ben Horowitz.

And by capabilities, the pair means handing from $10,000 to $100 million to Internet entrepreneurs in all kinds of arenas — such as its previous investments in Airbnb, Pinterest and a plethora of others — from its new third fund.

This large amount brings Andreessen Horowitz’s total in just three years to $2.7 billion, which Andreessen said took about the same amount of time to raise as the previous one. The new fund is made up of largely the same limited partners.

“It is almost double, but it sets us up well,” said Andreessen, who said the LPs urged them to raise more. “Our first fund was, as it turns out, undersized in terms of the growth opportunity we found.”

The interest from the firms’ LPs aligned, said Horowitz, noting that he thinks their interest was because investors are becoming more selective about firms.

“I think a lot of LPs have begun to think that there are too many VCs not worth investing in,” he said. “Many of them want to then invest in what they consider the best, and if they can’t get in, to not invest at all.”

To be able to give them the kind of returns those investors are expecting, Andreessen said that the investments — which will still be pretty much limited to the Internet arena and in California — will be stepped up to keep the rate of innovation going.

“The opportunities continue to be very, very good, and we find that that continues to be true,” he said. “And there is a big supply of money, and that’s very good from a company standpoint.”

What Andreessen and Horowitz said they will do to continue to differentiate themselves will be to keep on focusing on backing founder/CEOs over all.

“We have a lot of respect for our peers, but we have a different philosophy,” said Horowitz. “The majority of the companies we fund will be run by their founders.”

Andreessen said that philosophy is a bit of a throwback.

“It’s kind of like venture capitalists were in the ’60s and ’70s, in a way,” he said. “We are operators who back operators.”

What Bubble? Andreessen Horowitz Raises $1.5 Billion Mega-Fund, Its Third.

Kara Swisher — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:05:53 +0000

How green is Silicon Valley? Very, it seems.

As expected, and as has been widely reported (including here), Andreessen Horowitz finally announced its latest venture fund, raising $1.5 billion for venture investments. The huge amount is the Silicon Valley firm’s third.

Its investments in its previous two funds have included such high-profile start-ups as Airbnb and Pinterest.

Here’s the official press release:

Andreessen Horowitz Announces $1.5 Billion Fund III
Continues Focus on Helping Great Entrepreneurs Build Great Companies

MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan 31, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) – Andreessen Horowitz ( www.a16z.com ) today announced that it has raised $1.5 billion for its Fund III, continuing its mission of helping great entrepreneurs build great companies.

“a16z’s Fund III is all about extending our capabilities to more disruptors and pioneers,” said Co-founder and General Partner Ben Horowitz. “We’re remaking the modern venture capital firm, and entrepreneurs are responding to our unique approach.”

a16z has raised $2.7 billion since its founding in June 2009 and currently has a portfolio of 90 consumer and enterprise technology companies across all stages, including Airbnb, Box, Fab, Facebook, Foursquare, GoodData, Lookout, Lytro, Magnet Systems, Nicira, Pinterest, Silver Tail Systems, Tidemark and Zynga.

“Software is the catalyst that will remake entire industries during the next decade. We are single-mindedly focused on partnering with the best innovators pursuing the biggest markets,” said Co-founder and General Partner Marc Andreessen.

a16z provides entrepreneurs with direct access to six general partners — Jeff Jordan, Peter Levine, John O’Farrell, Scott Weiss, plus Horowitz and Andreessen — all of whom are experienced operators and company builders. a16z also enables entrepreneurs to utilize expertise from operating partners who specialize in business development, technical talent, executive talent, market intelligence, and marketing and brand building, plus the economics expertise of Special Advisor Larry Summers.

Fund III is available to be deployed immediately. Further detail about the firm’s new fund is available on Ben Horowitz’s blog: www.bhorowitz.com.

Making Sure the Next Zuckerberg or Gates Stays Put at Harvard

Kara Swisher — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:40:11 +0000

Earlier today, Harvard University and New Enterprise Associates announced the Experiment Fund, aimed at making sure that future Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates can stay on campus and innovate without having to head West.

The irony of the pair of legendary entrepreneurs dropping out — decades apart — of the even more legendary university to start two of tech most significant companies, Facebook and Microsoft.

No longer, apparently.

The early-stage incubator, which will award funding to four to six start-ups in amounts from $250,000 to $500,000. It will focus on seed ventures in the Cambridge, Mass. area around Harvard, which includes many other schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Experiment Fund came from an idea born Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which involved NEA. Today, SEAS Dean Cherry Murray hosted an event that unveiled the initiative.

But, while faculty members will advise for the fund, Harvard has no financial stake.

In an interview NEA’s Patrick Chung said the intent was to enable talented students to “build a company here in Boston rather than have to go elsewhere.”

NEA will have full-time staffers working on the fund, investing in a wide range of companies. It has already backed a health app company, as well as a live Internet television offering.

“There has been an envy of the left coast, certainly,” said Chung. “Now, these talented engineers don’t have to leave when they reach the boundaries of the university where the ideas are formed.”

Added Chung: “They can walk right out of class and into a place that can make those start-ups real.”

In other words, let’s hope the third time’s a charm.

Here’s the map of exactly where the Experiment Fund is and official press release:

XFund press release

What Cash Crunch? Revolution Growth Raises $450M for Its First Fund.

Kara Swisher — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:30:09 +0000

Revolution Growth, a new investment vehicle led by former AOLers Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis, has raised $450 million in their first investment fund.

Originally, as I reported in March, the growth fund was going to be $400 million, but more was added due to investor interest.

The figure is a large one for a new venture and includes two dozen limited partners.

According to a letter to its partners, which I posted below in its entirety, Revolution said it will make 10 to 12 investments over five years in the consumer space of about $25 million to $50 million and mostly on the East coast, where its principals live and work.

The fund will focus on the “speed-up” stage — which is apparently just past venture stage and not yet in growth.

While both Leonsis and Case have done a lot of investing in the Web 2.0 space both together (Revolution Money) and apart (the Groupon and LivingSocial social buying sites, respectively), this is the first time the pair of well-known Web pioneers are creating a more formal investment partnership.

The pair are also investing $75 million of their own money in total in the Revolution Growth fund.

Revolution’s three partners said they will also be deeply involved with entrepreneurs at its companies.

“We are not just investors, but former CEOs and business builders who have the expertise and passion to be actively involved with the companies we back,” said the letter. “By making only a few investments each year, we will have the time to really help the entrepreneurs with whom we partner.”

Well, you can read about the Revolution Growth fund yourself here:

letter