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EBay unloads Skype for $1.9 billion and 35%

by Matt Bowman, September 1, 2009 | Comments

The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion, separates it from an awkward living condition

Ebay today announced a definitive agreement to sell Skype. The deal values the world’s hottest VOIP company at $2.75 billion. An investor group led by Silver Lake and including Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) investment board will control approximately 65 percent of the company. EBay is expected to receive approximately $1.9 billion in cash and ...

Don't break your hockeystick

by Matt Bowman, August 28, 2009 | Comments (3)

Easy on that angle. None of the top tech companies built this decade had steep hockeystick growth.

When pitching a company, entrepreneurs often have to balance optimism with credibility, and the beam is never thinner than when it comes to sales growth projections. How steep sharp should you make that hockey stick angle? In a recent Vator status update, Marc Evans points to an interactive graph of the top 100 tech companies’ revenue over time, posted by ...

What Vantage Point wants to fund

by Matt Bowman, August 27, 2009 | Comments

Marc van den Berg is planning on a few, big investments in energy efficiency and storage.

He invests in every cleantech sector from biofuels to solar, but at the moment, Marc van den Berg has a few industries squarely in his sites; if you run a startup in energy storage or energy efficiency, especially in lighting, HVAC ("heating, ventilating, and air conditioning" aka climate control) or green building materials, you may want to talk to Marc. ...

Rumors of VC death are exaggerated

by Matt Bowman, August 26, 2009 | Comments

They may be growing angel wings, but VCs aren't dead yet

Market shifts are like slingshots for the imagination—a forceful tug can launch the mind into wild flights of fancy. That seems to be what’s happening in the VC world. No doubt the total amount of dollars allocated to Venture Capital from LP sugardaddies has decreased and will remain lower over the next few years than in the past few. But ...

Illinois Prof backs Adeo Ressi's term sheet

by Matt Bowman, August 25, 2009 | Comments (3)

"It's hard to see why all these quirks make any sense, except fooling naïve entrepreneurs"

Adeo Ressi’s on a mission to save entrepreneurs from the “atrocities of investors.” Yesterday, he published his “ideal term sheet”— an attempt to standardize VC deal terms that’s getting a lot of play in the WSJ, TechCrunch, Fred Wilson, and Chris Dixon. Among the key provisions are the elimination of participation with preferred stock, a 1x liquidation preference, and single-trigger vesting ...

Virtual marketplace LiveGamer catches TwoFish

by Matt Bowman, August 24, 2009 | Comments

Acquisition will streamline marketplace set-up for publishers and solidify LiveGamer's dominance.

In an attempt to corner the booming in-game virtual goods economy, LiveGamer, which lets players buy and trade in-game virtual goods, has acquired microtransaction platform and data provider TwoFish. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. LiveGamer gives players a way to monetize the points and other goods they earn in games. Take that, Gary Larson. Two Fish’s primary ...

Demand Media invests in CoveritLive

by Matt Bowman, August 20, 2009 | Comments

The partnership could add a real-time dimension to discovery widgets.

Demand Media announced a strategic partnership with, and investment in, live blogging platform CoveritLive, which will be integrated into Demand’s social media tools suite, Pluck. Pluck’s founder and EVP at Demand Media, Dave Panos, said this afternoon in an interview (see embedded video below) that the company is focused on integrating CoveritLive with Demand’s social media tool kit for publishers, ...

Tim Chang wants to fund the future of gaming

by Matt Bowman, August 20, 2009 | Comments

The up-and-coming Norwest Partner also predicts VC consolidation and the rise of super angels

In the not-too-distant future, Tim Chang sees a brave new world of online “gaming-as-a-service”: cloud-based, free-to-play, frictionless distribution, all monetized through advertising, virtual goods and premium subscriptions. And to help build it, he's looking to fund everything from a vertical gaming cloud to "Paypal 2.0" microtransaction processing, next-gen publishers, new platforms, service layers, and technology enablers. I spoke with Chang ...

Here comes the virtual goods bubble

by Matt Bowman, August 19, 2009 | Comments (1)

As ad-based biz models lose lustre, a new monetization panacaea for digital media has emerged.

“Whereas last year all the business plans I saw said, ‘We’re ads-based,’ today, it’s ‘We’re virtual goods-based!’” says Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners. “Virtual goods is becoming the new advertising of 2009.” Chang thinks this is good news for the gaming industry, where he regularly invests. Gaming can monetize in a lot of ways beyond advertising, and expects it ...

Conway shuffles empire to focus on real-time

by Matt Bowman, August 18, 2009 | Comments (1)

The super angel is forming a new fund focused exclusively on real-time data companies.

The Godfather of Silicon Valley has been touting real-time technology startups for the past several months, and is now reorganizing his investment empire to stay focused on the trend, according to VentureBeat. He's peeling off David Lee and Brian Pokorny from his existing fund Baseline Ventures, to form SV Angel LLC (a name reminiscent of his late 90s fund, Angel ...

What'll happen to the video platforms?

by Matt Bowman, August 12, 2009 | Comments (1)

Online video services proliferated like rabbits in the last few years, but can the market keep up?

Silicon Valley has a way of getting ahead of itself. The bust in 2000 didn’t happen because the internet was overhyped—it is, as promised, transforming the world economy at breakneck speed. The bust happened because the Valley wanted it to change just a few years faster. Speculation in anything that ended in .com outpaced the need for capital, and the ...

French ad giant buys Microsoft's Razorfish

by Matt Bowman, August 10, 2009 | Comments

Publicis pays $530 million for digital creative shop. Microsoft wins strategic alliance.

Ad giant Publicis Groupe announced yesterday that it’s buying digital ad agency Razorfish for $530 million in cash and stock. The price was 1.4 times Razorfish’s 2008 sales of $380 million. In exchange for Razorfish, Publicis will give Microsoft 6.5 million in shares, making Microsoft a 3% owner of the advertising company.As demand for print and TV ads die off, ...

Week in Review: The rise of freemium

by Matt Bowman, August 7, 2009 | Comments

As ad revenues plummet, Telcos and publishers are quickly shifting to premium models.

This week, the media world took a big step away from the ad-supported content model—touted not long ago as the panacea for all content owners—and towards freemium.The Cable operators are leading the shift. Comcast’s earnings increased 53%, even as ad revenue dropped and new subscriber growth declined due in part to slowing house sales and increased churn in poorer areas. ...

What Uncle Sam wants from Silicon Valley

by Matt Bowman, August 6, 2009 | Comments

The CTO of the United States is looking for healthcare, smartgrid, and education technologies.

On Tuesday night, Chief Technology Officer of the United States Aneesh Chopra told a group of Silicon Valley thought leaders how the federal government plans to work with the high-growth technology sector. The CTO said his top priority is to invest in the building blocks of innovation--primarily by ensuring we have smart, secure infrastructure, focusing the national $150 billion research ...

CTO of the US responds to Marine Twitter Ban

by Matt Bowman, August 5, 2009 | Comments

Robert Scoble goes toe-to-toe with Aneesh Chopra over the impact on innovation.

Last night at a Churchill Club event in Mountain View, Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, and tech uberblogger Robert Scoble exchanged thoughts on the Marine’s recent Twitter ban as well as new tech companies Aardvark, Mint.com, and the Geeks in Government initiative. Scoble said the Twitter clamp-down “is sending a horrible message” that Twitter ...

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