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.”

Keith Rabois, the former Square COO who left the company in the midst of unproven allegations of personal misconduct, is weighing an offer to join Silicon Valley venture firm Khosla Ventures, according to sources close to the situation, and is currently leaning toward accepting the job there.

But, that could change. In an interesting twist, the longtime entrepreneur and investor has also been in discussions with Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky to become COO or president there.

Both the VC and the startup have been doing reference checks on Rabois, news of which has gotten out in the ever-chatty Silicon Valley scene. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that Rabois had been in talks with the San Francisco-based online housing rentals company.

But sources with knowledge of the situation said that Rabois — who has played the No. 2 to a string of high-profile entrepreneurs, including Peter Thiel at PayPal, Max Levchin at Slide and, most recently, Jack Dorsey at Square — seems “99 percent” ready to move into a more formal investing role.

Of course, there is still that one percent chance he might not, underscored by the eternal lure of the hot startup for serial entrepreneurs like Rabois. That said, he has also been an active angel investors for many years, with a wide-ranging portfolio, and is on many boards, including Yelp’s.

The choice of two very attractive alternatives is in stark contrast to the more tense situation for Rabois just a month ago, after accusations of sexual harassment arose related to a relationship he had with a Square employee.

Rabois has denied the allegations aimed at him and at the San Francisco payments company, which have not yet turned into a lawsuit, and has thus far been backed by Square. Rabois called the accusations by the employee “fiction” and a “shakedown.”

That said, due to the controversy around the serious workplace issue, he stepped down from his job as COO.

“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 at the time in an interview with me. “As we looked at it, it was going to become a distraction that was going to hurt the company.”

This cataclysmic inevitability was brought to my attention over the holidays by my 6-year-old son. Far off though it may be, he believes our solar system’s imminent demise is cause for alarm sooner rather than later. (For him, that means sooner than getting a flu shot — but later than downloading the most recent service pack for Minecraft.)

Of course, I recognize my 6-year-old is thinking too far ahead. Too big.

But he did get me wondering, are the rest of us thinking big enough? Especially those of us who develop — and invest in — new innovations.

If not for being stuck on an antiquated United Airlines plane unequipped with Wi-Fi (is there any other type?), I may not have found the time to commit this thought to paper — I would likely have been overwhelmed by the next flurry of emails or meeting requests. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. In fact, as I survey the current startup landscape and consider the kinds of companies attracting VC dollars, it seems like the investing community isn’t thinking of the big picture at all.

Today, investors are less interested in transformative companies and more interested in trendy ones. Funding is flowing — and flowing fast — toward “quick-response startups.” These companies, more often than not, are launched during all-night hack-a-thons. They’re the wired brainchildren of eager coding buddies and Costco-like volumes of Red Bull.

Do many — or even any — of these startups, still in incubation, believe they can create a billion-dollar company on the heels of a market that’s already matured? No. And we don’t expect them to.

Because typically, companies like these aren’t founded to solve big problems — but rather immediate, narrow (and sometimes trivial) ones. For example, we now have dozens of VC-funded apps that help friends share photos, plan their weekend activities and order drinks more quickly in a bar. Yes, the first mobile photo-sharing app leveraged the social graph in unique ways and was — without a doubt — transformative. Three years later, however, startups continue to evolve the concept, but to what end?

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a cool app as much as the next guy. But we can’t continue funding the companies that produce them at the expense of companies that produce truly breakthrough technologies and experiences. It’s bad economics, and, to the extent that this mindset pushes out true long-term transformative thinking, bad for humanity as well.

Indeed, these quick-response startups reflect — and perhaps are causing — a new and worrying trend: As a recent article in the Economist — “Has the ideas machine broken down?” — points out, today’s inventions are producing far less “economic impact” than inventions of the past. Progress actually appears to have slowed since the early 1900s.

It seems, in short, that we have reached a plateau when it comes to the more recent megatrends that stimulated great innovation: Games, social, local and mobile. Now that these digital revolutions are maturing, we’re just tinkering around the edges. Making marginal improvements. Tweaking the charger ports on our iPhones.

This trend, by the way, is not all that different from what happened in the late 90s — when the spread of the Internet was followed by VC investment in every dot-com commerce play imaginable, including dozens of pet-related dot-com startups. (In retrospect, one may have been too many.) In some ways, the early aughts saw a dearth of fresh ideas, too — right after the Web 2.0 innovations hit the market.

Now, we seem to be trapped by the narrowness of our own thinking again. And we have to ask ourselves: What will it take to buck this worrying trend, to push past this period of creative stagnation?

The answer? The same thing it took in the 90s and the early aughts: more companies like eBay, Google and Facebook — startups that brought to life world-changing and enduring ideas.

These companies may have been founded by “hacks” like the ones portrayed in “The Social Network.” But they were hacks that created massive waves of innovation, as did the founders of Yahoo!, Amazon and Twitter. They pioneered at the front end of huge emerging trends, from Web to commerce, from social to mobile.

Today, there aren’t enough of these front-end innovators. Years after these companies created new markets and experiences, we still have startups paddling out into the surf, hoping to catch the big tsunami that long ago passed them by.

What we need, in other words, are more wave-makers. More pioneers. More Yangs, Bezoses, Zuckerbergs, Brins and Pages, not to mention more Jobses, Fords and Edisons.

And make no mistake, the investor community — especially the VC investor community — has a role to play in encouraging that level of genius. In many ways, we just have to return to our roots.

It used to be that venture capital was the most ambitious kind of capital there was. Investors like me would fund startups, and not expect to see the payoff until five to 10 years down the line. We did so because we chose companies of extraordinary promise that trafficked in big ideas — businesses that, with enough time and money, could create products that changed the way humans interact on a day-to-day basis. Microsoft, Google and Apple — these are companies built with long-term VC investment. And they gave rise to the Age of Information.

So, going forward, let’s be as ambitious and smart with our capital as we once were. Let’s take more risks and be more encouraging of big ideas and bold leaders. We can’t get trigger happy with our funding dollars and settle for a quick fix or a “me too” idea.

Let’s also remember that innovation can benefit those living in the developing world. After all, innovation brought automobiles to India that cost less than $2,000 — and stoves to Africa that also charge cellphones.

And, most importantly, before we invest, let’s ask ourselves some crucial questions:

• Will this startup change the world — not just my world? Is the problem it solves large enough and its appeal wide enough?
• Does this company meet a critical, unmet need — or does it just bring simplicity or efficiency to an already-tackled issue?
• How difficult is the problem I want to solve? And is my solution unique, based on strong intellectual capital or a patentable idea? Or is it a piece of Web functionality that could be easily and quickly cloned, copied and resold?

In the past, investors haven’t always asked these questions. But if we start now — and answer them honestly and correctly — then we can unleash a new era of greater creativity and better returns.

If my tenure at Foundation Capital has taught me anything, it’s that investing in truly meaningful companies pays off. There are startups with world-changing ideas out there. And discovering what they are — and bringing their ideas to life — will require each of us to slow down and devote some time to big thinking.

If my 6-year-old son can do it, so can we.

Charles Moldow is a general partner at Foundation Capital, focusing on consumer Internet companies. He was previously a founding executive at TellMe Networks and at @Home.

Institutional Venture Partners led the round, with existing investors RRE Ventures, SAP Ventures and First Round Capital also participating.

To date, the New York-based company has raised $75 million in equity, and even more if you count the $100 million in debt it secured from Goldman Sachs and Fortress Credit in August.

On Deck said it will use the capital raised today to fund additional growth, which includes new product development and getting the word out to more merchants about the company.

On Deck lends between $5,000 and $150,000 in short-term loans to small businesses, ranging from auto repair shops to bridal boutiques. It vows that the loan application process can take as little as 15 minutes because it uses technology on the back end to evaluate a company beyond its credit scores.

Other lenders provide loans online, but most are targeting other online entities. For instance, some of the companies that have entered that space include Kabbage, which has raised $56 million in capital, and more recently, Amazon.com.

Since 2008, On Deck says, it has deployed $400 million to thousands of small-to-medium-sized businesses.

In a letter on its website, Payvment said that it and its companion site, Lish.com, will be closed as of March 1.

Over the next month, Payvment’s customers, which operate 200,000 storefronts on Facebook, will be able to transfer their accounts to Ecwid, a San Diego-based Facebook storefront provider.

Payvment’s CEO Jim Stoneham confirmed the changes in an email, but dodged questions about what happens next to the company. Technically, he said, Payvment is not going out of business.

“I can’t comment on the company our team is joining, other than to say it’s not Ecwid,” he said. “They are partnering with us to give our customers an immediate way to keep selling. We’re committed to making sure that our customers can carry on easily.”

Update: Intuit confirmed today it is acquiring at least some of Payvment’s employees. In a statement, the financial software provider said: “Intuit has acquired a team of highly skilled developers who will be of great value to the social teams at Intuit.”

In 2011, Payvment launched a mall on Facebook at which social network users could shop among thousands of retailers and add items to a shopping cart without ever leaving the site. Last August, it launched Lish.com, which was a site off of Facebook that allowed people to shop for the products that were currently trending on the social Web.

Stoneham explained the move in October.

“Social product discovery and social commerce have very little in common with the considered purchase process … social commerce is better at delivering discovery-driven impulse purchases,” he said. “Products or services you weren’t necessarily looking for come to your attention in your social stream, you check them out and if you’re interested, you click buy.”

Now, without knowing Payvment’s exact fate, it’s difficult to speculate on why it is closing down shop on Facebook.

But Facebook’s increasing interest in retail must be one deterrent. Gifts is the social networking site’s retail initiative, which it introduced in September as a way to send physical and digital goods to any of your friends on Facebook, and it was pushed heavily over the holidays.

But despite a lot of effort, social commerce is still very much in its infancy — people aren’t primarily using Facebook or Twitter to make purchases, even if friends are influencing what they buy.

Payvment has raised almost $8 million in capital from Sierra Ventures and BlueRun Ventures.

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/20130123/greg-mcadoo-exits-sequoia-capital/ http://allthingsd.com/20130123/greg-mcadoo-exits-sequoia-capital/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:00:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=287683 Longtime Sequoia Capital venture capitalist Greg McAdoo will be leaving the Silicon Valley firm. McAdoo, who will stay aboard for a few more months to smooth the transition, has made a number of significant investments as a VC over the years, including in Airbnb, DailyBooth and Y Combinator. Said Sequoia’s Doug Leone: “We’re grateful for Greg’s many contributions to Sequoia over the last 12 years. His wikipedic knowledge, quick wit, and uncanny ability to connect seemingly unrelated ideas made him a joy to work with.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130123/greg-mcadoo-exits-sequoia-capital/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130122/ribbit-capital-raises-100-million-with-the-goal-of-modernizing-money/ http://allthingsd.com/20130122/ribbit-capital-raises-100-million-with-the-goal-of-modernizing-money/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:06:03 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=287456 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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130122/ribbit-capital-raises-100-million-with-the-goal-of-modernizing-money/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130108/chartboost-secures-19m-from-sequoia-to-help-mobile-games-attract-more-players/ http://allthingsd.com/20130108/chartboost-secures-19m-from-sequoia-to-help-mobile-games-attract-more-players/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2013 12:30:23 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=283248 Chartboost, which has developed technology that enables developers to promote each other’s games inside of their apps, has raised $19 million in capital. Sequoia Capital led the round, and existing investors TransLink Capital and SK Telecom Ventures, also participated. The San Francisco company said its platform is now being used by more than 12,000 games from companies like Crowdstar, Gameloft, Kabam, Gree, TinyCo and more.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130108/chartboost-secures-19m-from-sequoia-to-help-mobile-games-attract-more-players/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130104/education-start-up-focused-on-making-flashcards-mobile-raises-9-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20130104/education-start-up-focused-on-making-flashcards-mobile-raises-9-million/#comments Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:00:16 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=282233 StudyBlue, which has more than 2.5 million students using its free apps to create flashcards and quizzes, has raised $9 million in a first round. Great Oaks Venture Capital led the round, with participation from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The Madison, Wis.-based company was founded three years ago by Chris Klundt while he was at University of Wisconsin at Madison.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130104/education-start-up-focused-on-making-flashcards-mobile-raises-9-million/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130103/expedia-invests-in-room-77s-big-30-million-round/ http://allthingsd.com/20130103/expedia-invests-in-room-77s-big-30-million-round/#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:24:29 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=282136 A number of high-profile names in the travel industry are betting on Room 77, a three-year-old start-up in the hotel-booking business.

Today, the company is announcing its third funding round, totaling $30.3 million, with Expedia as the notable headline investor.

Others participating include Sutter Hill Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Concur Technologies and Felicis Ventures, as well as a number of travel industry vets, including Expedia’s founder Rich Barton, former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford and Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff.

The Mountain View, Calif., company first launched in 2010 as a way for travelers to see the actual view from a hotel room, but in late 2011, it rolled out hotel searching capabilities, which work like searches conducted on Kayak.com. Consumers visiting Room 77 can search across several travel sites, including Expedia, Booking.com and Orbitz, to compare prices.

The investment comes at a time when the travel industry is clearly heating up.

Over the past couple of months, Expedia acquired a 62 percent stake in a German travel site, Trivago, for $632 million; Liberty Interactive bought most of Barry Diller’s stake in TripAdvisor for $300 million; and Priceline acquired Kayak for $1.8 billion, shortly after the hotel-and-flight search site went public.

Room 77 allows U.S. consumers to book hotels all over the world, but the company plans to use the funding to expand globally, including to other English-speaking countries. To date it has raised $43.8 million.

In a release, Expedia’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, “We believe metasearch is an increasingly important model and complementary to our travel transaction businesses. The level of innovation and depth of content at Room 77 excites us about its future role in this important customer acquisition channel.”

Since Room 77 launched its hotel-search platform a year ago, it said its bookings and revenue have accelerated dramatically. Although it wouldn’t provide specific numbers, the company said that over the past nine months alone it has booked “hundreds of thousands of room nights,” which has resulted in significant month-over-month growth.

The company said it would also use the funding to expand its team of 25 employees, continue investing in product development and step up its marketing efforts.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130103/expedia-invests-in-room-77s-big-30-million-round/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121219/kamcord-gets-backing-from-top-investors-to-record-mobile-game-play/ http://allthingsd.com/20121219/kamcord-gets-backing-from-top-investors-to-record-mobile-game-play/#comments Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:30:44 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=279129 Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures and Tencent are just three of the investors backing a small San Francisco start-up called Kamcord, which is enabling gamers to record their play on mobile and share it to social networks.

Wikipedia

The interest in the six-person company shows how significant recording game play has become over the past year as other sites like Machinima and TwitchTV have become phenomenal hits within the gamer community.

What’s different about Kamcord is that it is recording mobile games, whereas other companies in the space have so far been focused on console gaming and PC gaming.

Matt Zitzmann, CEO and co-founder of Kamcord, said the company is announcing a seed round today totaling $1.5 million. Other investors in the round include Merus Capital, Y Combinator, XG Ventures, Digital Garage, Plug and Play Tech Center, iVentureCapital, GVA Capital and Netprice.

Kamcord is distributing its software to game developers via a software development kit, which records what’s happening on the phone’s screen while someone plays a game. After a level or game is completed, the gamer has the opportunity to watch the video and then share it to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or email — which they very well might do if they achieve a new high score.

So far, the free SDK is live in more than 57 games on iOS, and is creating an average of seven videos per second. While that’s a lot of video, the number could be deceiving, since developers often automatically record game play regardless of whether a user ends up sharing or watching it. The video is stored on the phone until it is shared.

Zitzmann hopes to monetize the technology by helping developers drive downloads to their games. For example, last month he said that Kevin Rose, a partner at Google Ventures, tweeted a link to one of his videos. Afterward, 20 percent of the viewers clicked through to either the App Store or Google Play to see more info on the game (it’s unknown how many people downloaded it).

Zitzmann said Kamcord is playing off a number of trends that are currently hot, which is likely the reason for investor interest.

“We are riding a few waves: The rise of mobile gaming, plus app distribution changing and the popularity of recording and sharing,” he said.

Along with the potential for others to enter the space, Applifier, with offices in Finland and San Francisco, has developed a service called Everyplay that allows users to post their game play to social networks. The company recently raised $4 million, according to Inside Social Games.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121219/kamcord-gets-backing-from-top-investors-to-record-mobile-game-play/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121213/khosla-ventures-brings-in-condoleezza-rices-firm-for-strategic-role/ http://allthingsd.com/20121213/khosla-ventures-brings-in-condoleezza-rices-firm-for-strategic-role/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2012 11:30:50 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=277675

In yet another instance of a Silicon Valley venture firm bringing in big government guns to class up the place, Khosla Ventures said that it had signed the international consulting firm run by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to “bring global and domestic insight to Khosla’s portfolio companies, helping them achieve their strategic goals in industries such as technology, energy, security and healthcare.”

In other words, strategery plus!

That will presumably be provided by Rice and her partners at RiceHadleyGates, which has offices in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., in an undisclosed financial arrangement with Khosla. RiceHadleyGates also includes former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former State Department official Anja Manuel.

In an interview yesterday, Manuel said that the goal was to help in areas that VCs might not be as familiar with, from Internet freedom laws in India to the challenges of moving into emerging markets.

“There are a lot of policy issues that entrepreneurs will be facing and we will try to be helpful as they sort through them,” she said. “We love working with innovative companies and want to make their global experience better.”

Khosla partner Samir Kaul said the firm was still figuring out how they will work together, but that Rice’s team would serve as “strategic advisers on an as needed basis.”

“What [RiceHadleyGates] does fits in very well with a lot of our themes as investors in energy and security, for example,” said Kaul. “We want to offer the companies we invest in as much help as possible and this is a real win in that regard.”

It’s certainly a high-profile move, although Khosla has done this before, signing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on as a strategic adviser in 2010.

In addition, Andreessen Horowitz brought in former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, as well as former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, to lend its portfolio companies additional expertise.

Rice’s firm certainly has a lot of that, especially related to thorny international issues. Rice, who was once the provost at Stanford University, was also the National Security Adviser in the administration of former President George W. Bush, before moving to the State Department.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121213/khosla-ventures-brings-in-condoleezza-rices-firm-for-strategic-role/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121211/prioritizing-growth-over-profits-one-kings-lane-raises-50-million-in-capital/ http://allthingsd.com/20121211/prioritizing-growth-over-profits-one-kings-lane-raises-50-million-in-capital/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:00:50 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=276642 One Kings Lane, which sells home decor at a steep discount online, just raised its most significant round of capital yet.

The $50 million round brings the company’s total raised to date to $117 million. Institutional Venture Partners led the fourth round with existing investors, with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners and Tiger Global Management also participating.

Also joining the round was strategic investor Scripps Networks Interactive, which owns TV networks, including HGTV and Food Network. Scripps and One Kings Lane became familiar with each other this winter after One Kings Lane ran its first-ever TV advertising campaign.

One Kings Lane CEO Doug Mack says the funding follows a strong year of growth, which was fueled by aggressive — and expensive — expansion plans in 2012.

Today, the online retailer employs 350 people, including the addition of four new executives to its management team. The growth necessitated getting new offices in San Francisco, where it now occupies 52,000 square feet of the Market Square building, and in Los Angeles and New York. As mentioned above, the company also kicked off a pricey advertising campaign, which cost millions of dollars in the fourth quarter alone.

But, Mack says, all that spending has been offset — at least partially — by top-line revenue growth, allowing it to cut its losses by a third compared to 2011. This year, One Kings Lane is on track to record $200 million in revenue, or double what it achieved last year.

Mack declined to discuss the company’s valuation, although he said it has gone up since the company raised money a year ago. However, one glaring milestone left for the company to achieve is profitability, which he believes could occur in the next year or two when the company hits $400 million in revenue.

Mack said this will be the company’s final round of private capital before going public.

“We weren’t really thinking we’d raise, but the consumer-based IPOs are not doing well, and we wondered if they weren’t doing well, if it would ripple back and affect us,” he said. “Basically, we got proactive because someday we might need it.”

Other e-commerce companies have had no problems raising capital recently, including Wayfair, another home decor site, which raised $36 million; flash sales sites like Zulily, which sells children’s apparel; and Fab.com.

Mack was reminded last month why it’s good to have a little more cash in the bank. During Hurricane Sandy, the One Kings Lane office in New York went dark for a week and a half. The staff had to scramble to take photos and write copy for the site from makeshift offices around town. “It was a good reminder — it can even be an act of God that can take you out,” he said.

Even with the difficulties that Sandy presented, Mack said the company is on track to surpass its goals for this holiday season. This year, consumers went “gangbusters” on Thankgiving, with 50 percent of the site’s visits coming from mobile devices (compared to the high 20 percent range normally).

Sales continued to be strong the week after Thanksgiving, fueled by a big Cyber Monday, to make the company’s best week ever, Mack said. The site isn’t focused on running promotions this holiday since most of its inventory is discounted anyway. Instead, it offered a greater selection, by updating the site twice a day instead of just once on Cyber Monday.

The new funds will go toward hiring more technology talent to help its mobile efforts and data tracking. Mack also plans to continue spending on marketing after seeing a huge return on investment from its TV campaigns, which not only brought new people to its site, but translated to more sales. It will also continue spending on its merchandising team, as it continues to add more product.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121211/prioritizing-growth-over-profits-one-kings-lane-raises-50-million-in-capital/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121204/green-throttle-games-raises-6-million-to-turn-phones-into-game-consoles/ http://allthingsd.com/20121204/green-throttle-games-raises-6-million-to-turn-phones-into-game-consoles/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:02:49 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=274642 Green Throttle Games, which is attempting to turn Android phones into videogame consoles that connect to the TV, has raised $6 million in a first round of funding. Trinity Ventures led the round with participation from DCM. The Santa Clara, Calif., company said it will use the cash to support internal and external game development for its platform.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121204/green-throttle-games-raises-6-million-to-turn-phones-into-game-consoles/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121204/poshmark-stitches-up-12-million-in-funding-for-its-iphone-thrift-store/ http://allthingsd.com/20121204/poshmark-stitches-up-12-million-in-funding-for-its-iphone-thrift-store/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:00:11 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=274657 Poshmark has raised $12 million in a second round of funding, making it one of the latest used-clothing marketplaces launched over the past couple of years to raise significant funding.

The company’s second round was led by Menlo Ventures, with all existing investors participating, including Mayfield Fund, Inventus Capital and SoftTechVC. To date, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company has raised $15.5 million.

Other companies putting a new twist on the eBay marketplace concept include San Francisco’s Threadflip and Twice.

Threadflip distinguishes itself by handling a lot of the hard work for sellers, such as figuring out shipping costs and sending sellers the correct box to their door. Similarly, Twice tries to make it easy by asking sellers to send the merchandise to its warehouse, where it handles all the photography and shipping.

In contrast, Poshmark is focused on mobile. In fact, sellers can list woman’s clothing and accessories to the marketplace only through the iPhone app, making it the platform’s virtual thrift store. Not until recently did Poshmark start allowing customers to buy from the Web site, and you still can list items only from the phone. Next year, the company plans to launch an iPad and Android app, using some of the funds it has raised.

The app also enables sellers to add Instagram-like filters to the pictures they take before posting items for sale. Poshmark also provides additional support, including sending sellers prepaid and pre-addressed boxes to their doorstep once their item has sold. Poshmark charges sellers 20 percent of each sale, and buyers must pay $7 for shipping.

Poshmark, which debuted about a year ago, reports that its customers are now posting $2 million worth of items to the marketplace every week, and that the average user visits the site seven times a day, for a total of 25 minutes.

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