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.

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.

Overall the amount invested in consumer information services was off 42% in the first nine months as the difficulties of newly public Internet companies such as Facebook and Zynga cast doubt on the business models and valuations of social media companies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In its second acquisition of a well-known political figure, Andreessen Horowitz has brought in former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty as a part-time “Special Advisor.”

The appointment comes after the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm added former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers last year in the same capacity.

Fenty — who lost his job as mayor after only one term, in part due to blistering opposition to major education reform he pushed for in Washington’s troubled public schools — will focus on helping Andreessen Horowitz make investments in the online education arena, as well as advising on city-related issues.

In an interview, Fenty said that, since he left office last year, he had become increasingly interested in tech and entrepreneurs.

“I’ve been migrating more and more to the area and was impressed with the great work Andreessen Horowitz was doing,” he said. “I got the bug in me.”

Fenty added that he thinks of himself as a disruptor in politics, which is why he has been attracted to start-ups.

“It is fun for me to do on the business side what I was doing on the political side,” he said. “There is an education disruption volcano that is really just starting to circulate.”

Boom.

Here’s the Andreessen Horowitz blog post on the Fenty appointment:

Former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty Joins Andreessen Horowitz as Special Advisor

This is a guest post by Margit Wennmachers, partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

Today we broaden our firm’s expertise with the appointment of our second special advisor, Adrian Fenty. Adrian is best known as the iconic former mayor of Washington, D.C., who threw out entrenched rulebooks to reform the public school system with unheard-of success.

Adrian joins renowned economist Larry Summers in his advisory role at the firm. (http://bhorowitz.com/2011/06/29/meet-our-new-special-advisor-larry-summers/)

What does Adrian bring to the table?

To answer this question, it’s helpful to understand more about his tenure as mayor in D.C. On his very first day in office, at a time when D.C. test scores and graduation rates were among the lowest in the country, he introduced legislation to vest mayoral control of public schools. Through efficiencies and a spotlight on accountability, student achievement rose 14 points in reading and 17 points in math since 2007, unprecedented gains in D.C. history and unparalleled nationwide. Not to mention that SAT scores rose 27 points, graduation rates rose each year, and 72 percent of District students took the PSAT. Measurable results in record time.

Adrian did all this in the face of tough opposition from about every corner in the system. He also did it at a great cost; he was voted out of office in the following election. Long-term gains that necessitate tough decisions are often obscured by unpopular short-term pain. In the fullness of time, Adrian will be on the right side of the issue; the results are evident. We admire someone with the courage and the stomach to take on the status quo, in particular on a topic as fundamental as the education system in this country.

His education chops are only a small part of what Adrian brings to the firm. He will advise us and our entrepreneurs about the ins-and-outs of navigating state, local and federal government. He’s uniquely qualified to help companies understand everything from striking effective city partnerships to navigating regulatory issues. With more technology companies disrupting traditional businesses, they will benefit from leaning on someone who’s well-versed in how local governments operate.

Adrian’s bold, he’s progressive, he’s tech savvy, and he’s a disruptor with a track record to prove it. He’s already hit the ground running with our CEOs. We’re excited to see the kind of impact this reformer will have on our portfolio.

Criteo, the performance display advertising company, just nabbed about $40 million in additional venture funding.

The Series D round, led by SoftBank Capital, gives the Paris-based company an $800 million valuation, according to sources, although Criteo declined to comment on the figure.

Previously, Criteo had raised just over $23 million from investors that include Bessemer Venture Partners and Index Ventures.

In an interview, CEO J.B. Rudelle said the money would be used for growing its footprint in the U.S., as well as Japan and Asia, more quickly.

The company has seen quick growth here and the market has already become profitable. But Rudelle said, “This funding is obviously a big step. We are going to use it to accelerate our efforts in key markets.”

Criteo now operates in 32 countries, he said, and it hopes to extend its global footprint as more companies are looking for better performance from online advertising.

“The need for performance to drive display advertising is enormous,” said Criteo president Greg Coleman, referring to “personalized retargeting,” which delivers highly targeted ads to consumers.

Ad tech such as Criteo has become a hot arena of late with larger companies such as Yahoo and Facebook interested in acquiring assets in the space.

For now, at least, it looks like Criteo filled its kitty to stay independent.

Here’s the official press release from Criteo:

Criteo completes €30 million Series D led by SoftBank Capital
Syndicate of investors includes Yahoo! JAPAN, SAP Ventures, Adams Street and Bessemer

NEW YORK — 26 SEPTEMBER 2012 – Criteo, the global leader in performance display advertising, today announced a €30 million round of financing led by SoftBank Capital to support the company’s hyper-growth trajectory.

Profitable since 2009, Criteo has continuously delivered growth, exceeding all forecasts since the company’s founding. The company now serves more than 3,000 advertisers worldwide, with the US being the number one revenue generating market. This new investment will help Criteo to continue reinventing the online display advertising market, with a goal of making it as efficient as search marketing.

JB Rudelle, CEO and Co-Founder of Criteo said: “In a period of high-growth for Criteo, this new financing enables us to invest substantially in innovation, technology and people. In addition, we are very excited to leverage the knowhow and footprint of SoftBank and Yahoo! JAPAN for our expansion in Asia, a very strategic region for us. Overall, the fact that such a sophisticated syndicate of investors has decided to join us is a powerful validation of our unique model.”

Matt Krna, Principal at SoftBank Capital added: “We are delighted to partner with Criteo and help the company extend its leadership in the cost-per-click performance display advertising sector, particularly in Japan and throughout Asia. In speaking with Criteo’s clients and partners, it became clear to us that the company’s analytical, performance-based model offers clear advantages to the entire online ad ecosystem, including consumers.” Mr. Krna will join Criteo’s board as an observer.

Recently Criteo announced an exclusive partnership with Yahoo! JAPAN — in terms of cost-per-click personalized display advertising, it is the first time that a third party technology company has had access to its inventory. To support its growth, Criteo has also recently invested in a state-of-the-art 100,000 square foot R&D centre in Paris, France.

ShoeDazzle, the Los Angeles-based personalized style and retail service, is replacing its current CEO Bill Strauss with its founder Brian Lee.

In an interview, Lee said Strauss had “voluntarily resigned,” but did not give any further details of the departure.

Strauss joined ShoeDazzle last fall from a longtime stint running Provide Commerce, which has e-commerce sites such as ProFlowers and RedEnvelope.

“Bill has done some amazing things for the business,” said Lee, who has been serving as chairman of ShoeDazzle. “The company has so much potential and over the past year has grown tremendously.”

The start-up, which got its first burst of attention from its affiliation with famebot Kim Kardashian, recently announced that it would tweak its monthly subscription offering and it also added several new retail categories beyond shoes.

It has certainly gotten a lot of money to make it work, raising $60 million from a high-profile group of venture investors since it was founded in 2008, including from Polaris Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The reappointment means Lee will now have two CEO jobs — he has most recently been running The Honest Company, a monthly subscription service he co-founded with actress Jessica Alba and others that delivers bundles of eco-friendly diapers, wipes, skin care and home cleaning products.

Lee noted that Honest co-founder Sean Kane, who has been COO there, would be stepping up in helping run that start-up.

“These are two of the most exciting companies in L.A. and there are strong teams at both companies,” said Lee, who also co-founded LegalZoom.

To get an idea of the now multi-tasking entrepreneur, here’s Lee talking about Honest with Alba in a video interview I did earlier this year:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120924/exclusive-shoedazzle-replaces-ceo-with-founder-brian-lee/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120829/khosla-ventures-hires-ex-yahoo-mojgan-khalili-as-comms-partner/ http://allthingsd.com/20120829/khosla-ventures-hires-ex-yahoo-mojgan-khalili-as-comms-partner/#comments Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:12:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=245837

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.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120829/khosla-ventures-hires-ex-yahoo-mojgan-khalili-as-comms-partner/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/#comments Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:00:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=238514

In a big leap into a new but adjacent market, Silicon Valley digital education start-up Kno said it is entering the K-12 space, expanding from its college-only focus.

Its first step will be a partnership with major textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which provides nearly half of such content aimed at children from kindergarten through high school.

Enhanced digital versions of those textbooks cost $9.99 or less — Kno gets a piece of each sale — and can be used via an Apple iPad app and also on the Web. Kno said its platform will also be available soon on Google Android and Microsoft Windows 7.

I did a video interview today with Kno co-founder and CEO Osman Rashid at the global HQ of All Things Digital about the effort, which is a big jump for the company that started off trying to make its own tablet device.

Armed with a pile of venture funding, it has pivoted drastically — Apple and then Google completely blew its stillborn hardware efforts up — into creating an educational software platform.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has raised about $70 million from a range of prominent backers such as Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

It’ll need more deals to make up that tall valuation, of course. Kno said hopes to strike similar deals with the two other big textbook publishers, McGraw-Hill and Pearson, so it can offer most of the books used by schoolchildren.

It’s definitely an interesting time for electronic books in general and the education market in particular, as many efforts are being made to provide all kinds of educational tools online.

The e-book arena here is increasingly competitive, with big companies such as Amazon and even Apple interested in the important space.

Here’s my chat with Rashid about it all, as well as some screenshots of the new offering:

And here’s the official press release:

KNO LAUNCHES K-12 DIGITAL TEXTBOOKS, EMPOWERING PARENTS

TO GO DIGITAL AT HOME

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Kno Partner to Introduce Enhanced K-12 Content at Introductory Rental Prices From $9.99 or Less

Santa Clara, CA — August 7, 2012 – Kno, a pioneer in education software, today announced that the company is entering the K-12 education market through a new partnership agreement with global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt [HMH]. Previously only available to college students, Kno will offer interactive K-12 textbooks for the iPad, the Web, Android and Windows 7.

The agreement marks a turning point for elementary and secondary education by giving children and parents the resources and power to supplement classroom learning through enhanced digital content at home. Just in time for the back-to-school season, parents can now rent digital textbooks for their children, including subjects aligned with Common Core standards, for a one-year rental rate of $9.99 or less per book.

“Even if the schools have not adopted digital textbooks, we wanted to give parents the option to have their kids’ same textbooks available at home,” said Osman Rashid, CEO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “With digital books priced at $9.99 or below, parents can now finally stop their kids from carrying their heavy backpacks to and from school for less than $60 for the school year by supplementing classroom materials with interactive textbooks that can be used at home and on the go.”

The Kno digital textbook app is available today for the iPad and Web and will be available for Android tablets and Windows 7 in time for back to school. With Kno’s app, parents can enhance their children’s learning experience with more than 70 interactive features that bring academic content to life, making learning more engaging and fun. All of the app’s features are engineered to help students retain information more easily and ultimately help improve their grades and comprehension of material.

“By offering digital access to enhanced K-12 content on the go and at home, this collaboration will empower parents to get more involved in their children’s education. We know parental involvement is an important factor in student achievement, and we’re proud to be the first content provider to bring Kno’s technology to the K-12 world,” said Tim Cannon, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Alliances for HMH. “HMH aims to make quality content available to the widest possible audience with the mission of changing people’s lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. This partnership with Kno supports that goal.”

The interactive features that allow students to engage with the content better and study more efficiently include:

* A digital Journal that automatically saves a student’s notes and highlights them in a study notebook.

* Automatic Flash Cards of key terms in a book to help students study more efficiently and better retain information.

* 3D models that bring difficult chemistry concepts to life to make them easier to understand.

* Quiz Me feature, which automatically turns any diagram in a book into a multiple choice quiz for easy self-quizzing before tests.

* SmartLinks that deliver instructional videos, images, and photos to formulas and concepts in a textbook in real-time for easy reference.

* Coming soon, an analytics feature that will enable active engagement between parents and students to better measure reading progress.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120716/the-marissa-mayer-yahoo-show-brought-to-you-by-dan-loeb/ http://allthingsd.com/20120716/the-marissa-mayer-yahoo-show-brought-to-you-by-dan-loeb/#comments Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:57:08 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=230619

The appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo earlier today was a definitively splashy move by the board of the troubled Internet giant.

And a key impresario of the showy hiring of the high-profile Google exec? None other than Yahoo’s former foe now turned driving force Daniel Loeb of the Third Point hedge fund.

It was classic Loeb style — brash, quick and done with an eye to the optics of the move as well as its impact.

The selection of the high-profile Mayer was unanimous among the Yahoo directors, who have now clearly gone in a product direction over a media one, represented by interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

The choice came down to Mayer or Levinsohn and, in this, there really was no choice to speak of given her much more honed tech and product pedigree.

Mayer was integral to the early days of Google especially, in charge for a long time over its search product. More recently, though, she had been working on local efforts.

But, it was notable to many inside and outside the company that she did not get one of the key senior vice president nods at Google in a major reorg of the company under new CEO Larry Page.

“She was pretty much voted off the island, even though she was critical to its earliest successes,” said one person close to the situation.

Recently, multiple sources said she had been quietly seeking an exit from the search giant, including considering several venture firms. She also recently joined the board of retail giant Walmart.

Loeb, who had met Mayer relatively recently, was one of the key forces in pushing the board to consider aiming for someone of her level.

In fact, multiple sources said that he has become an influential voice — perhaps the most influential — on the board. While there has been a search committee run by director David Kenny, Loeb has also been actively buttonholing prospects, including focusing his early CEO search efforts on Hulu’s Jason Kilar.

That did not pan out, as Kilar withdrew himself from contention, but sources said Loeb kept pushing for a big name who would burnish Yahoo’s bruised reputation.

It’s all part of a series of efforts by the New York hedge fund head — who has been spending a lot of time of late trying to learn the complicated byways of Silicon Valley — to be more than just a smash-and-grab money man.

Loeb now owns close to six percent of Yahoo and is intent on reviving its prospects and, more importantly, its moribund stock.

And nabbing Mayer — who often appears in glossy magazine spreads, part of an effort that she has promoted that has made her the face of the search giant over the last decade — fits into that strategy well.

Indeed, Mayer will now be charged with the difficult task of creating innovative products to win at Yahoo going forward and even competing with Google in some arenas.

It’s clear she will attract talent, and is reportedly considering several other current and former Googlers to bring on board at Yahoo.

It will take a lot of such deep expertise, given Yahoo’s dicey prospects of late, with problems ranging from its advertising technology to weak morale to, perhaps most importantly, the continued lack of a clear strategic direction.

Whether Mayer can stem the tide is unclear, with some comparing her task to an even bigger version of the massive challenges and slow turnaround another former Googler, Tim Armstrong, has faced at AOL.

“Is she the Tim show, part 2, or can she remake Yahoo into a successful narrative going forward?,” said one person close to the situation.

One thing’s for certain: Today, at least, it was also the Dan Loeb show.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120716/the-marissa-mayer-yahoo-show-brought-to-you-by-dan-loeb/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120710/blake-krikorian-joins-freewheel-board/ http://allthingsd.com/20120710/blake-krikorian-joins-freewheel-board/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:00:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=228581

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

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

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

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

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

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120710/blake-krikorian-joins-freewheel-board/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120626/accel-breyer-capital-and-polaris-join-harvard-area-experiment-fund/ http://allthingsd.com/20120626/accel-breyer-capital-and-polaris-join-harvard-area-experiment-fund/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:56:29 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=224432

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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120626/accel-breyer-capital-and-polaris-join-harvard-area-experiment-fund/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120618/index-ventures-volpi-talks-about-new-fund-and-the-state-of-the-vc-market-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120618/index-ventures-volpi-talks-about-new-fund-and-the-state-of-the-vc-market-video/#comments Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:30:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=221018 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:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120618/index-ventures-volpi-talks-about-new-fund-and-the-state-of-the-vc-market-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120502/exclusive-code-advisors-takes-a-25-million-investment-from-j-p-morgan/ http://allthingsd.com/20120502/exclusive-code-advisors-takes-a-25-million-investment-from-j-p-morgan/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 04:01:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=202845

Code Advisors is getting a $25 million investment from financial services giant JPMorgan Chase for a minority stake in the Silicon Valley-based boutique investment bank and advisory firm.

The influx of cash will allow Code to grow quicker, said Quincy Smith, one of the firm’s founders, which also include Michael Marquez and Fred Davis.

The non-exclusive deal, the two firms said, is the natural extension of a longer-term relationship that has been developing for a while.

“To the extent that the money means we are getting even closer together, that’s great,” said Smith in an interview earlier today. “This solidifies a partnership that has existed for some time.”

Plus, it presumably also gives each what the other cannot offer clients. Usually a big bank might try to kill or buy a firm like Code, so this move is unique.

“We are growing our business and getting access to next-generation entrepreneurs that Code knows well,” added Kurt Simon, co-head of Technology, Media and Telecom Banking at J.P. Morgan. “And it’s a sign of continued investment in our important West Coast businesses.”

Indeed, J.P. Morgan has been competing with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for a higher profile in Silicon Valley. It recently was selected with the pair as one of the lead bankers in the upcoming Facebook IPO. It has also worked recently with LinkedIn, Skype and Pandora.

Code has taken on smaller deals with a range of hot start-ups and entrepreneurs, which was one of the attractions for J.P. Morgan. That includes representing Spotify and LivingSocial, and making investments in Path and Flipboard.

“For J.P. Morgan, it’s like making an limited partner investment in another venture firm,” said Smith. “And for us, we can offer a lot more services to our clients as they grow.”

As part of the deal, Jes Staley, CEO of J.P. Morgan’s investment bank and a member of the firm’s operating committee, will become a non-voting observer on Code’s board.

Here’s the full press release on the deal:

CODE ADVISORS ANNOUNCES A $25 MILLION INVESTMENT FROM JPMORGAN CHASE

San Francisco May 3, 2012 — Code Advisors announced today that JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) has agreed to make a $25 million minority investment. Jes Staley, CEO of J.P. Morgan’s Investment Bank and a member of the firm’s Operating Committee, will also act as a non-voting observer at Code’s Advisory and Investor Board meetings.

“We are thrilled that JPMorgan Chase has decided to invest in Code Advisors,” said co-founder Quincy Smith. “This transaction demonstrates how together we might energetically adjust to serve the new needs of entrepreneurs and companies. The chance to work more closely with Jes and his team gives us awesome global and experienced perspective.”

J.P. Morgan’s investment and relationship will allow Code to accelerate its growth opportunities and allow each team to offer complementary services to their respective and shared clients.

“Identifying and supporting great ideas early in their development is particularly important in the technology space,” said Staley. “Code continues to uniquely identify next generation companies, and together we are excited to help those entrepreneurs grow and expand their businesses.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120502/exclusive-code-advisors-takes-a-25-million-investment-from-j-p-morgan/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120430/falcone-agrees-to-step-aside/ http://allthingsd.com/20120430/falcone-agrees-to-step-aside/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:06:21 +0000 Mike Spector and Greg Bensinger http://allthingsd.com/?p=201237 Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone agreed to step aside eventually as the public face of his LightSquared Inc. venture, a concession that may keep the wireless-telecommunications company from defaulting on its debt, people familiar with the negotiations said.

Mr. Falcone’s compromise is expected to prompt LightSquared’s lenders to approve a one-week extension on a debt-term violations waiver that expires Monday morning, the people said.

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