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Top News in the A.M.
Target just replaced its CEO over that massive data breach over the holidays.
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Trusted Insight, the Social Network for LPs, Look to Next Round
Trusted Insight is a four-year-old, New York-based platform that has made itself valuable to institutional investors – 100,000 of them and counting – by giving them a place to research one another, scout out new deals and trends, and connect on due diligence — all with the help of advanced algorithms and semantic analysis.
Now the 16-person company is gearing up for its next phase, suggests cofounder Alex Bangash, who previously founded Rumson Group, an advisory firm that specialized in private equity and venture investments.
Most notably, the company will be unleashing some financial products of its own, though Bangash won’t be more specific than that today, citing competitors that are copying Trusted Insight down to “features we want to throw away.” He merely says to “think of us as the Netflix of investment management. Netflix can create ‘House of Cards.’ We can [create our own offerings] in this business, too.”
Trusted Insight is also preparing to open its doors a bit wider to “different tribes,” says Bangash, who cites fund managers, companies, and “high net worths” who are accredited but don’t necessarily have a billion dollars behind them. (The platform will “still retain its exclusivity,” he insists.)
Trusted Insight also has numerous new features up its sleeve, including “certifications” that help to highlight who is truly expert in what, regardless of their academic credentials.
As for how it achieves what’s on its road map, Bangash says the company has three options, including organic growth. To wit, Bangash says Trusted Insight is poised to double or even triple its user base in the next year, as well as to increase the data it’s managing by five times. Considering that a “small but meaningful portion” of its 100,000 members already pay for one of Trusted Insight’s varying tiers of service, which range in price from $99 to $499 per month, the platform could “be a very large business on [its software-as-a-service fees] alone,” he says.
A second option includes partnering with another outfit (Bangash says Trusted Insight is “talking with two or three players”) or raising a big fat round of funding, which seems like the most likely scenario. Already, Data Collective, Founders Fund, RRE Ventures, Morado Ventures, Real Ventures, and 500 Startups are among those that have invested an undisclosed amount of money in Trusted Insight. And Bangash says he’s been receiving “inbound interest from prestigious investors” anew.
Either way, Bangash sounds confident in the network effects that Trusted Insight now enjoys, noting that “someone could develop a nicer LinkedIn, too, but people probably wouldn’t use it.” The trick going forward is turning Trusted Insight from a “transformational company,” as he calls it, into a transactional one.
New Fundings
Electric Objects, an eight-month-old, New York-based developer of an Internet-connected screen for walls, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding led by
RRE Ventures and First Round Capital, with participation from SV Angel and numerous individual investors, including Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley. Earlier investors, including Betaworks and individuals Strauss Zelnick, Nate Westheimer, and Alex Rosen, also joined the round.
Evariant, a 5.5-year-old, Farmington, Ct.-based software company that helps health care companies launch marketing campaigns and track doctor referrals, has raised $18.3 million in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other participants included Dignity Health, Salesforce, and Health Enterprise Partners. The company looks to have raised $27.7 million in mostly equity to date, judging by Crunchbase data.
Insightra Medical, a 13-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based surgical device company focused on inguinal and ventral hernias, has raised $6 million in equity, shows an SEC filing. The funding might reflect the undisclosed amount of Series C financing the company announced in October of last year, co-led by Baird Capital‘s venture capital group and Tekla Capital Management.
Kabbage, a four-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based provider of working capital to small businesses, has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Softbank Capital, with Lumia Capital and TCW/Craton participating. Earlier investors Thomvest, Mohr Davidow Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, David Bonderman, SV Angel and UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund also participated. Kabbage has now raised a whopping $465 million in equity and debt financing.
Prosper, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based peer-to-peer lending marketplace, has raised $70 million in new funding led by Francisco Partners. Institutional Venture Partners and Phenomen Partners also participated. As Dealbook notes, the round comes less than a year after Prosper raised $25 million in a round that included BlackRock. The company has raised $190 million altogether, shows Crunchbase.
SEE Forge, a 2.5-year-old, Perth, Australia-based reporting and analytics platform that largely targets the oil and gas industries, has raised $1 million in funding led by Mercury Fund, a Houston-based venture capital group. Correlation Ventures and unnamed gas and oil industry professionals also participated in the round. The company has raised $2 million to date.
Sherpaa Health, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company that sells healthcare consultancy services, along with access to on-call doctors, has raised $3.9 million, according to a new SEC filing. The company’s earlier investors include SV Angel, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, First Round Capital, and Collaborative Fund. The company has raised $5.7 million to date.
SupportPay, a 2.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based platform that automates child support payments and related expenses, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding led by Draper Associates. Other participants in the round included TEC Ventures, Broadway Angels, Aspect Ventures, RPM Ventures, and Salesforce, along with numerous angel investors.
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New Funds
Draper Fisher Jurvetson has closed its newest growth fund, an “oversubscribed” $470 million pool, says the firm, which opened its DFJ Growth practice in 2006. The new fund, led by the same four investors who cofounded DFJ Growth — John Fisher, Mark Bailey, Randy Glein, and Barry Schuler — already counts five portfolio companies, including the location-based social network Foursquare, the space company SpaceX, and the 3D printing company Formlabs. If there was outsize demand for its newest effort, it’s no surprise, given the winners in the firm’s last growth fund, including AdMob (acquired by Google for $750 million in stock in 2009), Tesla Motors (which went public and is now valued at $26 billion), Tumblr (acquired by Yahoo in a $1.1 billion deal last year), Twitter (currently valued at $22 billion on the public market), and Yammer (acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion in cash in 2012). Combined with DFJ Venture XI, the firm’s recently closed, $325 million, venture fund, the firm is managing roughly $800 million in new capital.
Nokia Growth Partners, the company’s venture capital arm, has announced plans to plug up to $100 million into new startups that bring computing and communications technologies into cars. More here.
Northgate Capital, a 14-year-old, Danville, Ca.-based investment firm that specializes in fund of funds investments and direct investments, is raising its sixth fund of funds, shows an SEC filing that doesn’t list a target and states that the first sale has yet to occur. Northgate was founded by former San Francisco 49ers teammates and looks to have closed its sixth venture fund last year with roughly $153 million, per this SEC filing. Some of Northgate’s recent direct investments include AdRoll, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based ad retargeting company that raised $70 million in new funding last month from a variety of investors, and Health Digital Systems, an 11-year-old, Mexico-based electronic health records company that raised $25 million last month from Northgate Capital.
Startup Capital Ventures, a nine-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm, is looking to raise a $50 million second fund, according to an SEC filing that states the firm has yet to sell any shares. The firm principally invests in Silicon Valley and opportunistically in Hawaii, Texas, and Oklahoma, where, according to its site, it has “extensive investor relationships.” It also has offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Managing general partner John Dean was formerly the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (from 1993 to 2001).
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IPOs
Aldeyra Therapeutics, a 10-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based clinical-stage biotech developing treatments for rare skin and eye diseases, saw its shares close Friday at $7.20, down 10 percent in their first day of trading. (Aldeyra had initially planned to offer shares at between $10 and $12.) Domain Associates owned 50.1 percent of the company heading into its IPO. Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. held 44.5 percent.
Ambrx, an 11-year-old, La Jolla, Ca.-based biotech company developing protein therapeutics for cancers and growth hormone deficiency, has filed paperwork to raise up to $86 million in an IPO. No pricing terms were disclosed. The company’s principal shareholders are Tavistock Group, which owns 19.3 percent of the company; Maverick Capital (17.4 percent); Apposite Capital (9.5 percent); Versant Ventures (7.5 percent); and 5AM Ventures (6.9 percent).
Zendesk, the 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of cloud-based customer service software, set a price range this morning of between $8 and $10 million for its proposed IPO. The company’s biggest shareholders, heading into an offering, include Charles River Ventures, which owns 23.8 percent of the company; Benchmark (18.2 percent); and Matrix Partners (7.2 percent).
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Exits
LuxVue Technlogy, a four-year-old, Santa Clara, Calif.-based company that makes low-power, micro-LED-based displays for consumer electronics applications, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Apple. LuxVue had raised $43.8 million, according to Crunchbase, including from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Rangespan, a three-year-old, London-based automated supply chain service for online retailers, has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed amount of funding. Rangespan’s founders and other employees will now work within the company’s e-commerce unit, Google Shopping.
OVM Solutions, a 14-year-old, New Rochelle, N.Y. -based automated messaging service, has been acquired by the contact center company Genesys for an undisclosed amount of funding. Gensysys, in Daly City, Ca., is majority owned by Permira Funds. Technology Crossover Ventures is also an investor.
Tvinci, a seven-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company whose technology helps TV operators and media companies create personalized, social TV experiences, has been acquired by Kaltura, an open source video platform. Tvinci had raised $6.1 million from Trellas Enterprises, Kaedan Capital Group, and investor
Zohar Gilon. Kaltura, a 7.5-year-old, New York-based company, has raised roughly $116 milllion from investors, including Avalon Ventures, Commonfund, Intel Capital, SAP Ventures, Gera Venture, Nexus Venture Partners, Nokia Growth Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, .406 Ventures, Mitsui & Co.
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People
In early March, Rakesh “Rocky” Agrawal, a veteran of America Online and Microsoft, became PayPal‘s director of strategy to help grow the company’s base of small business customers. Over the weekend, however, Agrawal’s employment ended publicly with a series of stunning tweets that Agrawal thought were private, including about Christina Smedley, PayPal’s VP of global communications. (Agrawal wrote that Smedley was a “useless middle manager” as well as a “piece of s–t.”) It didn’t take long for PayPal to issue a public tweet of its own, stating that Agrawal is “no longer with the company. Treat everyone with respect. No excuses. PayPal has zero tolerance.” Yesterday morning, Agrawal told Re/code in an email that he’d quit before sending the tweets. He also declined to apologize to the targets of his tweets, including Smedley.
Fran Hauser — who spent more than a decade at Time Inc., including overseeing the digital businesses of top-selling magazines such as People, Entertainment Weekly, and InStyle — has a new job, reports Re/code. Last month, she joined Rothenberg Ventures, an 18-month-old early-stage venture firm founded by Mike Rothenberg, who’d previously cofounded a residential real estate investment firm with his brother in Austin, Texas. The two met via a mutual investment, says Hauser. She later became an LP in Rothenberg Ventures and was eventually asked by Rothenberg to join him as a partner. “We complement each other,” she told Recode from her home in Bedford, N.Y. “I’m an operator. I’ve built businesses, I’ve run businesses. I bring experience.”
Thomas Weisel, the famed investment banker who personally bankrolled cyclist
Lance Armstrong in his seven Tour de France wins, sat down with the San Francisco Chronicle to discuss life these days and Armstrong. Said Weisel, who was not named in the United States Anti-Doping Agency report that torpedoed Armstrong’s career: “I knew nothing about what (Armstrong) was doing, and I’m extremely disappointed in him and everyone involved . . .But I’ve been disappointed with a lot of people in life. I liked Lance. His training regimen was off the charts. I thought he was a gentleman of the utmost character, and he looked like a champion. It’s just one more thing that you don’t control, and you couldn’t control. Life throws you curveballs.”
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson added his two cents to a piece published by TechCrunch over the weekend about the suddenly precarious position of both Square and Box, given that both companies have high burn rates and the IPO market has turned rocky. “[Y]ou can push valuations when you have investors knocking down your door,” writes Wilson. “But unless you are cash flow positive and expect to remain so for the foreseeable future, you do that at your own risk . . . I have lived it, felt it, and suffered from it. It is a real issue.”
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Happenings
TechCrunch Disrupt started up today in New York. You can watch a live stream of the happenings here.
This Thursday, 500 Startups hosts its newest Demo Day if you’d like to get a glimpse of its newest batch of startups.
Next Thursday, May 15, the 15th annual Founder Showcase in Mountain View Ca. gets underway with featured speakers Mitch Kapor and Mike Maples, among others. (Click on the ad above for a 20 percent discount.)
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Job Listings
The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) is looking for an associate director to help vet and monitor its energy and clean tech investments. The job is in Vancouver.
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Essential Reads
It’s starting to dawn on marketers that the online video ad system has a few booby traps.
Volvo‘s first self-driving cars are now being test live on public roads in Sweden.
Scientists at UC San Francisco School of Medicine have been building cancer-killing nanorobots, and they appear to work.
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Detours
You could subsist on Soylent. But would it be a good idea?
“Mad Men” enters the future, and possibly the Peggy Olson era.
The 17 meanest jokes from Saturday night’s the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. (One of our favorites: “Between Rob Ford, Justin Bieber and Ted Cruz, you just want to tell Canada, “Hey, hey, relax – we already have a Florida.”)
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Retail Therapy
A pretty neat place for books.
We like this overall concept of a “connected” bike, too.