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The Start-Up Whisperer: Michael Dearing Is the Hottest Angel Investor You've Never Heard Of

Kara Swisher — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:30:07 +0000

Anyone paying attention to the heated-up acquisition market in Silicon Valley knows all about AdMob, the mobile advertising start-up acquired by Google for $750 million last November.

Or Xoopit, the social email firm, which Yahoo (YHOO) bought last summer for $20 million.

Or Mixer Labs, creator of GeoAPI, which Twitter picked up in December.

And then, there’s last week’s purchase of social search phenom Aardvark by Google (GOOG) for a reported $50 million.

What a lot of people might not know is the prescient but very low-profile angel investor all these companies have in common: Michael Dearing (pictured here).

The former top exec at eBay (EBAY), who has worked at Bain & Company as well as Disney (DIS), is now a Stanford University professor.

But more to the point, Dearing has quietly become very successful at picking innovative winners from a wide range of mostly consumer Internet start-ups, mostly in Silicon Valley.

Along with his recent series of hits, other investments include Widgetbox, CafePress, DocVerse, FanSnap, Lumos Labs, Polyvore, Doostang, BloomSpot and MocoSpace.

He invests in all these start-ups via an investment vehicle called Harrison Metal, which he runs with another former eBay exec, Erik Rannala.

Harrison Metal is named after John Harrison, the inventor of the marine chronometer, which allowed for accurate measuring of longitude. According to its Web site, it “invests in early stage, technology driven businesses led by exceptional entrepreneurs.”

While I had a delightful lunch with Dearing recently, at which he nicely managed to convince me not to give him the BoomTown video treatment, he also politely declined to be interviewed for this piece.

Thankfully, his investees did not decline, and quickly sent large bouquets of gratitude when I asked for comments about Dearing:

Aaardvark co-founder Max Ventilla:

“Michael was among the very first angel investors to get behind Aardvark and stayed critically involved until the end, providing whatever the Company needed. Dearing is an 11 out of 10.”

AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui:

“MD is a great strategist and provided us with very thoughtful advice during some of the formative days of the company. It’s exciting to see him step more fully into the role of early investor/advisor with Harrison Metal.”

And, finally, Xoopit co-founder and CEO Bijan Marashi:

“Michael Dearing has the very rare skill of being able to quickly spot and render the core elements of strategy surrounding a project–the things that matter and those that don’t. In a matter of a few brush strokes, I’ve seen him help teams focus and evolve their activities into actions that generate tremendous value. Moreover, he’s a deep listener and an inspiring mentor. At Xoopit, he got behind the team and helped us stay on-point to our mission, which can sometimes be tricky for an ambitious startup in a big space.”

So, while he might not like the attention, Dearing is likely to be getting more if this record keeps up.

Rob Go wrote a sharp piece on Harrison and what he calls “Micro VC’s,” before the Aardvark deal–which I had not seen until someone on Twitter pointed it out to be, but which you can read here.

Aardvark Confirms It Has Been Acquired, but Not by What Company (But It's Google)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:20:44 +0000

Aardvark, the social search engine that has been the subject of much attention since it was founded in late 2007, confirmed that it has been acquired.

“We can confirm that we signed a deal to be acquired,” wrote CEO Max Ventilla in an email to BoomTown this morning.

But Ventilla would not reveal the buyer, which a report by TechCrunch earlier this morning said is Google (GOOG), for $50 million.

The Silicon Valley search giant has since confirmed that it is the buyer. “We have signed a definitive agreement to acquire Aardvark, but we don’t have any additional details to share right now,” said the company in a statement.

There have been other possible suitors along with Google, from Facebook to Yahoo (YHOO) to Microsoft (MSFT) to IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), which gave the San Francisco-based start-up a serious look-see to differentiate that company’s lagging Ask search service.

The 30-person Aardvark has raised a total of $6 million from August Capital and others to perfect and distribute its service.

It uses social networks, such as Facebook, to get relevant answers via email and instant messaging. It also has a Web version.

In many ways, Aardvark is yet another version of the iconic Six Degrees, mixed with Yahoo Answers or expert sites, a cup of Twitter-like sociability, and completed with a big dollop of algorithmic calculation.

Its founders, including Max Ventilla and Damon Horowitz, worked at Google and wanted to try to solve the problem of data that cannot be easily reduced to a keyword query.

At least that’s the goal of the innovative Aardvark.

Here is a recent video interview I did with Ventilla and Horowitz, in which they tried their best not to answer the potentially multimillion-dollar question about being bought.

The video also includes a tour of Aardvark, whose offices are, of course, called the Mechanical Zoo:

[ See post to watch video ]

Aardvark's Max Ventilla and Damon Horowitz Speak (Plus a Tour!)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:11:20 +0000

Earlier this week, BoomTown motored over to the San Francisco HQ of Aardvark, the social search engine that has been the subject of much attention since it was founded in late 2007.

While there, I got a tour of the 30-person start-up, which has raised a total of $6 million from August Capital and others to perfect and distribute its service.

Aardvark uses social networks, such as Facebook, to get relevant answers via email and instant messaging. It also has a Web version.

Its founders, including Max Ventilla and Damon Horowitz, worked at Google (GOOG) and wanted to try to solve the problem of data that cannot be easily reduced to a keyword query.

At least that’s the goal of the innovative Aardvark, unless it ends up selling itself off to any of a wide range of companies, from Google to Facebook to Yahoo (YHOO) to Microsoft (MSFT) to IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), to differentiate that company’s lagging Ask search service.

Or not.

Ventilla tries his best not to answer that potentially multimillion-dollar question in this interview with Horowitz.

The video also includes a tour of Aardvark, whose offices are, of course, called the Mechanical Zoo.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

The Mechanical Moo-Lah?

Kara Swisher — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:33:50 +0000

BoomTown has officially selected The Mechanical Zoo–a super-secret-shhh-onthedownlow start-up that already got tons of attention due to its passel of ex-Googlers and its mashup plan to mix social and search–as its next candidate for excessive Web 2.0 funding.

And, according to several sources, the San Francisco-based company is working on closing a mega-Series-A round right now, with all the usual big VC suspects in the running.

The Mechanical Zoo has already raised $750,000 in seed funding from angel investors and has access to other funding from institutional investors.

I am not sure as yet how much and at what valuation any new round will be pegged, but sources said it is likely to be larger than is typical this early in the game.

Why? Well, a hot concept and the fact that The Mechanical Zoo has the fancy team of pedigreed geeks–including former Google (GOOG) News product head Nathan Stoll and CEO Max Ventilla, another ex-Googler, along with other prominent techies.

Its first product offering is an invitation-only alpha version of a “subjective search” application that is inexplicably called Aardvark (see the graphic below; click on it to make it larger).

The motto on the site says: “Just ask. Someone knows. Aardvark connects you on the spot.”

It also notes:

“For information you can trust, a person is better than a webpage.

Tap into the knowledge and experience of the tens of thousands of people in your network–friends, people your friends trust, classmates and co-workers.

Send Aardvark a message by IM or Email and Aardvark will find the one person who can help you out, in the moment.”

The Mechanical Zoo site says its first product will be released this fall.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.