Author Archives: Kevin

Monday Morning Memo

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happy-st-patricks-day

Happy St. Patrick’s day fellow C:V. readers!!  We hope you are wearing green today or finding a way to celebrate some other way. Here at C:V. we celebrate by writing our Monday Morning Memo while listening to the Boondock Saints theme song (you would be surprised how productive you can be when the MacManus’ are on your mind…).

Recap of Last Week:

Last week we had our VC spotlight on Bill Gurley and Round of the Week on speed reading technology company Spritz.

What Lies Ahead:

We ran into some issues with our Valuation attempt so that will be posted soon this week (#premoneyprobz) as well as our VC Spotlight and Round of the Week.  Additionally, we will be beginning a March Madness style feature on various tech/finance blogs we follow so stay tuned!!

Round of the Week – Spritz

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Pretty neat how this actually works without giving us a headache…

spritz

Finally coming out of stealth this week, Boston based speed-reading technology company Spritz has raised a $3.5M Seed round.   Check out the technology behind the faster reading tool here.  They plan to license their technology to app and web developers, which should be a good way to test new channels indirectly and inexpensively (free downstream R&D!).

Given that Spritz has the ability to disrupt so many MASSIVE markets (Email, Education, Business, etc.), we wonder if they are only using the licensing model initially for feedback loops to find product-market fit and then will pivot to a more vertical approach?  Either way, it will be fun to read about what happens (hopefully much faster than average!)

Name: Spritz

Website: http://www.spritzinc.com/

Funding to Date: $3.5M Seed

Deal Notables:  This was a tranched deal ($1M, $2.5M).  When we see tranches, we see it as our duty to at least guess what the terms of it were…

C:V.’s guess:  Initial funding went for development and since they are all about User adoption, we think they hit their User growth goal which triggered the final piece. Simple. Actionable. Desirable for all.

VC Spotlight of the Week – Bill Gurley

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Bill is a partner at Benchmark Capital and has both a technical and a Wall Street background (dual threat!).  He won our VC Spotlight award this week due to his intriguing background and his recent post about Uber’s dynamic pricing strategy. We are huge fans of Uber as is, but anyone that uses Supply and Demand curves and actually references Elasticity in a blog post is bound to grab our interest!

Name: Bill Gurleygurley-headshot

Company: Benchmark Capital (Links to their Twitter, since their website left something to be desired…)

Blog:  Above the Crowd (One of our liked blogs!)

Bio: A former engineer at Compaq and Wall Street research analyst, Bill has been an active VC for years serving on many boards. Some of his current investments/seats include:  Uber, GrubHub, and Zillow.

Miscellaneous/Interesting Facts: Bill is our most decorated VC featured so far as he has a Computer Science degree, a MBA, and is a CFA charterholder.

Monday Morning Memo

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daylight savings

Good (feels extra early) Morning from C:V. HQ!  We hope you have survived the annual “Spring Ahead” daylight savings switch and what better way to kick-start your week into gear than with an all new Monday Morning Memo!

Recap of Last Week:

Last week we had Brad Feld as our VC spotlight, DocuSign as our Round of the Week and we also did a feature piece on Enterprise Security while channeling our inner Zoolander.

What Lies Ahead:

This week you can expect a VC spotlight, a round of the week, and our first valuation attempt.  We may also add in a book review and we have a “March Madness” themed surprise starting the following week, so stay tuned!

Round of the Week – DocuSign

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And the award for the most crowded Cap Table of the week goes to…

crowded table

DocuSign board meeting?

Electronic signature platform DocuSign raised a whopping $85M this week (rumored at a valuation of $1.6B) to expand growth and innovation. This brings their total funding to $210M and their investor count to about the same… Seriously though, they did not name the investors this round, but according to their Crunchbase profile, they have at least 10 different investors in the round (holy syndicate Batman!).  What we would give to see the evolution of the Cap Table since inception…

Name: DocuSign

Website: https://www.docusign.com/

Funding to Date: $210M (reports vary, but had main rounds of $27M, $55M, and $85M among other smaller ones)

Deal Notables:  CFO Mike Dinsdale is on record as saying they are not a takeover target but rather an IPO candidate.  He claimed they couldn’t be valued properly because they span so many verticals. He definitely has a point given that they have the ability to disrupt almost every market in existence (i.e. anything that requires a signature…). Makes us wonder that if $1.6B was the value for the round, what was the associated TAM for E-signatures and DocuSign’s corresponding market share expectation?  $16B and 10%, $8B and 20%??

VC Spotlight of the Week – Brad Feld

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Brad has been one of our favorite VC’s to follow ever since we stumbled upon his book “Venture Deals”. It is required reading here at C:V. HQ, and we will be featuring it in a book review shortly. Brad is also 1/4th of the Foundry Group, creators of our favorite YouTube video so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKArupEBE6Y

Name: Brad Feldfeld

Company: Foundry Group

Blog: Feld Thoughts  (One of our liked blogs!)

Bio: A longtime investor and entrepreneur, Brad is also an avid blogger on venture capital and startup issues.  He also co-founded TechStars.

Miscellaneous/Interesting Facts: Brad is an avid marathon runner and famously goes “off the grid” for a week each quarter.

Enterprise Security: So Hot Right Now!

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IT Security = Hansel?  We think so!

hansel

With the recent onslaught of Enterprise Security investments (25 in February alone!), we decided to turn to our friends at Crunchbase to see just how hot this market really was.  Let’s just say, the numbers did not disappoint. Below are the key takeaways from the study:

fund8

Rising Round Size:   Average round sizes are up almost 50% since this time last year which we hope translates into companies receiving higher valuations (and not higher founder dilution…).

The Rich Get Richer:  Follow on funding rounds have been increasing in both size and quantity in the past year. This bodes well for the industry because it means more firms are putting good use to earlier rounds and leveraging that success into future investment.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Buy Them:  There have been 10 acquisitions this year alone so there seems to be a theme of consolidation at work (Looking at you Bit9…).

Finally, we couldn’t write an entire piece about Enterprise Security and NOT mention the darling of 2013; FireEye. After their successful IPO last fall and recent purchase of Mandiant (bonus points for it being a majority stock deal and limiting the cash impact!), they have clearly revealed their plans on how to take share in this market.  Now if only they would do the same for profitability…

Monday Morning Memo

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Gooooooood Morning Internet!

Besides channeling our inner Robin Williams, we over here at C:V. HQ are very excited to bring you the 2nd installment of our Monday Morning Memo:

Recap of Last Week:

Last week we featured Ben Horowitz as our VC of the week and also did a spotlight on Shape Security about their funding round and phenomenal management team.

What Lies Ahead:

This week you can expect a VC spotlight, a round of the week, and a piece on the current state of the Enterprise Security market.  We may also add in a book review or even a valuation attempt, so stay tuned!!

Round of the Week – Shape Security

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In honor of the RSA Conference happening this week, we have decided to bestow our first “Round of the Week” on Shape Security.

After being rather tight-lipped since its inception and releasing its first product just last month, Shape has quickly become a force to be reckoned with. Armed with quite possibly the best Management/Board/Investor/Advisor combo in the security business and a fresh $40M in backing, this company need not be quiet about their plans anymore.

Name: Shape Security

Website:   http://www.shapesecurity.com/

Funding to Date: $66M ($6M A, $20M B, $40M C)

Deal Notables:  The Board/Management team is literally an “All Star” cast of the security world.  It is no surprise they have been able to secure so much funding prior to their product launch with the caliber of talent they have at their disposal (has to make for a crowded cap table though…). Highlights of the team below, but read here and here to see for yourself just how stacked they are.

  • Sumit Agarwal – The 1st Google Mobile Product Manager and Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for US Department of Defense
  • Shuman Ghosemajumder – Google’s former “Click Fraud Czar”
  • Michael Coates – Former Chief Security Officer of Mozilla

*Editor’s note:  We will be doing features on both the current state of the Enterprise Security market (hot like fire!!) and the relation of funding amounts to “Exceptional Co-Founders” in the near future so stay tuned!

VC Spotlight of the Week – Ben Horowitz

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It only made sense to use Ben as our inaugural VC of the Week seeing that we took a page right out of his playbook in our first ever post (we also like rap lyrics!).  It also helps that he is really good at what he does and is the 2nd half of arguably one of the most recognizable VC names out there…bhorowitz2

Name: Ben Horowitz

Company: Andreessen Horowitz

Blog: http://www.bhorowitz.com/ (One of our liked blogs!)

Bio: Ben was co-founder of Enterprise Software company Opsware which was acquired by HP for 1.6B in 2007.  He then co-founded Andreessen Horowitz which has responsible for investments in many of the hottest deals of the past few years such as Skype, Airbnb, and Box. Full details on Ben can be found here and here.

Miscellaneous/Interesting Facts:  Ben recently declared all proceeds from his book The Hard Thing About Hard Things will go towards the American Jewish World Service to support their efforts for Women’s rights.

*Editor’s note:  Ben if you are reading this: 1) Welcome! 2)We tried messaging you on Twitter to let you know ahead of time we would be featuring you but apparently you do not get DM’s (probably for this exact purpose… well that and the whole twitter-verse spamming you with their Billion dollar business plans that have already “achieved” Product-Market Fit…). 3)  As soon as The Hard Things about Hard Things is available for download on Audible we will be listening and subsequently Book Reviewing it!