If you’re curious to learn about the latest investment out of San Francisco-based True Ventures, you’ll have to be patient. Though the firm is disclosing that it has led a whopping $12 million Series A round in new startup Brava, details about the startup are scarce. What we do know: Brava is a new IoT company that […]
True Ventures
Howdy Raises $1.5 Million from Top VCs to Build Apps for Slack
Despite a checkered history with online platforms, developers are always looking for the next big distribution model and a small but growing number is betting Slack, the popular group-messaging platform, is the way to go. One such startup, Austin-based Howdy, may be the first to nab venture funding based largely on that vision. Specifically, the […]
Amid Unicorn Talk, High-Potential, Low-Glamour PayNearMe Slogs Along
PayNearMe doesn’t get a lot of attention from the press. Partly, that’s because the five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca., company doesn’t seek it out. But PayNearMe is also in a business that’s not nearly so relatable to many in Silicon Valley as enterprise messaging or high-end black-car services. It’s focused on the roughly 25 percent of people in […]
Duo Security Raises $30 Million More, Led by Redpoint
Duo Security, a five-year-old, 100-person company that sells its cloud-based two-factor authentication software to thousands of organizations, including Facebook, Twitter, NASA and Uber, has just raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Benchmark, Google Ventures, Radar Partners and True Ventures. (The Ann Arbor, Mi.-based startup has now raised […]
The Industry Gets a New, $50 Million Micro-VC Fund of Funds
Today, Venture Investment Associates, a 21-year-old fund of funds group that commits capital to venture capital, growth capital, and private equity groups, is announcing that it has closed on an oversubscribed $50 million seed fund of funds that counts some pretty tony institutions as LPs. Managing director Chris Douvos — who joined the firm in […]
About.Me Lands $11 Million in Fresh Funding
About.me thinks you want more control over how you’re perceived online, and a growing number of investors is betting it’s right. Indeed, the company — which invites users to create a digital landing page that can link to their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram accounts — has just landed a fresh $11 million in funding […]
True Ventures on Spotting Winning Teams
Since its 2005 founding, San Francisco-based True Ventures has been making seed-stage bets on startups, with an eye toward plugging up to $10 million into those that break out. The firm’s strategy has worked with aplomb. True was the first investor in WordPress parent Automattic — one of the tech industry’s hottest private companies. True […]
True Ventures’ Jon Callaghan on the Series B Crunch
Late last week, I visited Jon Callaghan, a cofounder of eight-year-old True Ventures, a firm that makes seed-stage investments in companies that it can afford to back for the long haul. The firm’s string of hits includes the book recommendation site Goodreads, which raised $2.75 million and sold to Amazon this year for $150 million; 3D printing […]
Tony Conrad to Founders: VC Is “Not as Easy as It Looks”
Tony Conrad doesn’t doubt for a second that the worlds of founders and venture capitalists are “highly symbiotic.” But it’s easier to succeed in both worlds if you’re a venture capitalist first, he says. Conrad is speaking from his own experience, having worn both hats for the last seven years. Before Conrad cofounded the first […]