After Imeem Ends On Bum Note, Founder Back With New Venture
Investors often talk about the importance of a founder having previous start-up experience. Dalton Caldwell’s last start-up certainly was an experience.
He founded online music service Imeem Inc. in his apartment and watched it grow to 95 employees and raise more than $25 million in venture capital. Then he watched it fall apart, selling to MySpace Inc. for a reported $1 million.
“It helps to have some sort of track record and be able to talk about lessons learned,” Caldwell said.
That experience was enough to attract one of the hottest venture capital firms in the game to Caldwell’s new business, Mixed Media Labs Inc. Andreessen Horowitz backed the company in a $5 million Series A round, with Marc Andreessen joining the company’s board.
“It’s great to work with Marc,” Caldwell said. “I met him a few times over the years at conferences and I’d come up with any idea just to talk to him.”
