One of the reasons I'm still hard at it is the extraordinary openness, generosity and collective goodwill that I keep coming across.
I wrote about it in connection with the month I spent in San Francisco and feel the momentum of collaboration has come, in no small measure, to London too.
A recent incident illustrated this to me very clearly.
I was analysing some data in a spreadsheet and wondered whether I could display the records (which contained post code) on a map. After failing to find some free software on the web, I tweeted my problem and sure enough within hours came the offer from one Andrew Bredon of Dealchecker - (whom I had never met)- he had a script lying around which he refined and after a couple of goes - voila!
I spend a lot of my time simply connecting people with one another and I know many others who do the same. This is what makes our own eco-system grow and strengthen.
Andrew's simple gesture - without any hint of quid pro quo - is another one of those small but important moments which make what we do so rewarding.
Thanks Bredo.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
No exits? Better Businesses?
In my experience it takes at least 5 years to build a good business. There is just so much to do and some things just can't be rushed.
So, will the fact that we are in part of the cycle where exits for tech start-ups are really hard to come by, be a positive thing for some good businesses in the making?
In boom times, it is difficult for founders and their backers to turn down some really juicy offers. Everyone's a winner? Not necessarily the company in question.
There certainly comes a time when new owners with greater resources, superior distribution or stronger brand can benefit the acquired business. However this often happens too early in the company's life.
Having to carry on independently may not have been the founder's or the VC's plan but could benefit the business significantly - the innovation is sustained, the focus shifts to revenue/earnings growth and cash conservation. This all breeds a strong and healthy culture for the business.
As much as we like exits, we do like building great businesses.
So, will the fact that we are in part of the cycle where exits for tech start-ups are really hard to come by, be a positive thing for some good businesses in the making?
In boom times, it is difficult for founders and their backers to turn down some really juicy offers. Everyone's a winner? Not necessarily the company in question.
There certainly comes a time when new owners with greater resources, superior distribution or stronger brand can benefit the acquired business. However this often happens too early in the company's life.
Having to carry on independently may not have been the founder's or the VC's plan but could benefit the business significantly - the innovation is sustained, the focus shifts to revenue/earnings growth and cash conservation. This all breeds a strong and healthy culture for the business.
As much as we like exits, we do like building great businesses.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Skimlinks keeps collecting awards
Skimlinks seem to have captured the imagination of the Affiliate and on-line Publishing worlds.
Cynics would say that winning awards are no indication of future financial success. That is undoubtedly true.
Skimlinks have clearly struck a chord however. At a time when publishers are struggling for ad revenue and are looking for additional revenue streams, the simplicity and ease of installation of their service is a real boon.
The awards list runs like this:
Affiliates4U awards:
Cynics would say that winning awards are no indication of future financial success. That is undoubtedly true.
Skimlinks have clearly struck a chord however. At a time when publishers are struggling for ad revenue and are looking for additional revenue streams, the simplicity and ease of installation of their service is a real boon.
The awards list runs like this:
Affiliates4U awards:
Skimlinks won all categories they were shortlisted for, the first company ever to win 3 awards in one night
New Media Age awards:
Shortlisted for Best New Business and a Special Award for Technological Innovation
National Business Awards:
Alicia shortlisted for Entrepreneur of the Year award
Linkshare Golden Link Awards:
Shortlisted for Best New Publisher and the LinkShare Golden Link Technology Genius Award
We wrote about Skimlinks earlier - here.
skimlinks.com :: How it works? from Ciaran Rooney on Vimeo.
We wrote about Skimlinks earlier - here.
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
Tweetdeck Version 26 - its awesome
In the words of one of the thousands of comments one can read about Tweetdeck, one stands out for me.
"Tweetdeck changed my entire Twitter experience."
Lets face it, there are still many people on the planet who can't see what all the fuss is about. What is the point of Twitter? Who wants to know what you are doing right now?
Tweetdeck goes some way to making sense of it all.
Just like the browsers and then the search engines made sense of the web in that they helped to navigate and find what you wanted from the millions/billions of pages out there, so Tweetdeck is providing its users with a 'controllable' Twitter, a useful Twitter and an insightful one.
The user expereince has been awesome and provoked huge adoption and great stickiness but now, with the latest release, Iain and his team - Tom, Reza, Nicola,Sol - have blown the commentators away.
There are simply too many great new features to enumerate here. Top of the list for most users will be the ability to sync across desktops, laptops and iPhone - across the cloud.
Unlimited columns, auto language translation of incoming or outgoing tweets, spam buttons - these are just a few of the new features.
Read lots more ...or just go to Tweetdeck and download version 26
http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2009/6/16/tweetdeck-for-iphone-coming-soon.html
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/16/tweetdeck-nears-for-the-iphone-set-to-battle-tweetie/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10265879-2.html
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tweetdeck_launches_iphone_app_and_better_version_of_desktop_app.php
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/06/17/tweetdecks-iphone-app-marks-new-shift-to-platform-service/?awesm=tcrn.ch_41u&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=direct-tcrn.ch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/16/exclusive-video-demos-of-the-new-tweetdeck-iphone-and-desktop-apps/?awesm=tcrn.ch_41q&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=direct-tcrn.ch
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/06/16/tweetdeck-for-iphone-go-for-launch-tonight/
http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/tweetdeck-iphone-2/
http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/tweetdeck-vs-seesmic-desktop-2/
http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/tweetdeck-vs-tweetie/
http://www.inquisitr.com/26353/god-bless-competition-seesmic-desktop-and-tweetdeck-release-new-features/
http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2009/06/16/tweetdeck-comes-to-the-iphone/
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/06/tweetdeck-on-its-way-to-the-iphone/
http://stuff.techwhack.com/6781-tweetdeck-0.26
http://www.intomobile.com/2009/06/16/tweetie-for-iphone-launched-on-appstore.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10266219-2.html?tag=mncol
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Its best to know nothing ...
When you are setting out to change completely the way in which an industry works, sometimes its best not be an expert in that field.
Experts sometimes know too much about how things work, how things are done, how its been done for years.
When Errol Damelin first set out to change the way in which unsecured lending was done - he started with a blank sheet of paper.
It was case of "what if customers could apply for a loan, be verified and risk assessed in real time and the money transferred to their account instantly?" And of course, the service operates 24X7 from anywhere. If that could be done, wouldn't this meet a need and be an awesome service?
This is not easy - even now, no-one else does it.
Jonty Hurwitz joined him and they set about building this. Still not a banker in sight.
Since the funding round for Wonga was announced a couple of days ago, people have been asking - 'how does a company that's been trading for just less than a year raise $22m from some of the world's leading VCs - in this market.
The answer clearly is that Wonga have built some impressive technology, is serving its customers exceptionally well (they get a net promioter score in the 80's!) and is addressing an enormous market.
Errol and Jonty have built a great team too - dedicated to ensuring that their product remains cutting edge and obsessed with great cusomter experience and service. Congratulations.
Of course the APR debate will rage but its clear that this is an entirely inappropriate measure for the very short term loans which they make.
For my part, if the customer needs and loves the service then Wonga are doing a great job.
Some press coverage of the funding round:
Wall Street Journal
Financial Times
Telegraph
PaidContent
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Friday, May 29, 2009
We wrote about Imagini on February 26th - Imagini Comes of Age. Now Imagini has launched the beta launch of VisualDNA Shops a monetization widget that enables every blogger and web publisher to easily add personalized product recommendations, and start generating detailed demographic, psychographic and behavioral analytics of their visitors. VisualDNA Shops delivers real-time product suggestions from Amazon.com to every site visitor, based on responses to a series of simple visual questions. Products range from mobile phones to travel accessories, digital cameras and gadgets and products from sites such as eBay and Shopping.com are planned in the coming weeks.
VisualDNA Shops allows bloggers and publishers of any size to connect and understand more about their visitors’ preferences as well as providing a new way to monetize their traffic, since a percentage of every purchase is paid directly to the website or blog owner. VisualDNA Shops draws upon Imagini’s proprietary recommendation engine that it is powered by millions of users, enabling suggestions to be drawn from like-minded visitors from all over the world. Given that Amazon alone has more than 96,250 digital cameras in stock, and the keywords “mobile phone” in Google nets 204 million results, this is also a tool that will help consumers navigate the seemingly endless choices by tapping into the collective likes and dislikes of global consumers on a scale never previously possible.
We have popped a phone shop in the sidebar of this blog. It took about 5 minutes.
VisualDNA Shops is also available as a Pro version for $2.99 a month. This comes with advanced analytics that allows site owners and bloggers to view the types of visitors that come to their webpage, as well as who they are and what appeals to them. The Pro version also allows for new products to be suggested to different types of shopper, and "Similar Site" analysis that shows visitors other sites visited by people with similar preferences. These shared links will directly enhance search engine optimization (SEO).
The tools for publishers - aimed at monetisation and enhancing SEO, traffic and engagement are improving all the time.
In TAG's portfolio they include: bit.ly, Daylife, Skimlinks, UserVoice, Webmynd and Zemanta
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VisualDNA Shops allows bloggers and publishers of any size to connect and understand more about their visitors’ preferences as well as providing a new way to monetize their traffic, since a percentage of every purchase is paid directly to the website or blog owner. VisualDNA Shops draws upon Imagini’s proprietary recommendation engine that it is powered by millions of users, enabling suggestions to be drawn from like-minded visitors from all over the world. Given that Amazon alone has more than 96,250 digital cameras in stock, and the keywords “mobile phone” in Google nets 204 million results, this is also a tool that will help consumers navigate the seemingly endless choices by tapping into the collective likes and dislikes of global consumers on a scale never previously possible.
We have popped a phone shop in the sidebar of this blog. It took about 5 minutes.
VisualDNA Shops is also available as a Pro version for $2.99 a month. This comes with advanced analytics that allows site owners and bloggers to view the types of visitors that come to their webpage, as well as who they are and what appeals to them. The Pro version also allows for new products to be suggested to different types of shopper, and "Similar Site" analysis that shows visitors other sites visited by people with similar preferences. These shared links will directly enhance search engine optimization (SEO).
The tools for publishers - aimed at monetisation and enhancing SEO, traffic and engagement are improving all the time.
In TAG's portfolio they include: bit.ly, Daylife, Skimlinks, UserVoice, Webmynd and Zemanta
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Backing MicroSyntax
We are pleased at TAG to announce the launch of microsyntax.org — a
non profit organisation to help shape and codify the use of structured syntax
within real time data streams - like Tweets.
Users are increasingly coming up with their own microsyntax and abbreviated Twitter grammar to make their Tweets more expressive. RT, @ and # are already part of the venacular.
The purpose of Microsyntax.org, is to investigate the various ways
that individuals and tool providers (like Tweetdeck)
are trying to innovate around this sort of microsyntax.
We hope to create a forum where alternative approaches can
be discussed and evaluated.
Stowe Boyd is leading the effort — charter funding from Betaworks and TAG —
details and the manifesto on the site, microsyntax.org.
Read Techcrunch on Microsyntax .... together with all the twitter-bashing comments .... :)
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Suggestion Box for the web
TAG has long been an advocate of the Silicon Valley approach to evolving winning web sites. Get something out quickly - an Alpha version - to a handful of supportive and friendly users. Listen hard to their comments, improve, redesign and get the Beta out and keep listening, iterating.
We have joined the group of angels backing a simple to install, white label tool - Uservoice - which elicits Customer Feedback and Idea Generation based on “Ideas Anywhere” Approach.
Companies of All Sizes Now Have Easy and Affordable Way to Immediately Engage Customers in Two-Way Feedback Process
Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund Angel, Betaworks and TAG led the $800K angel funding investment.
A new white-label widget and ZeroLogin single-sign-on solution can be branded and deployed within minutes.
Companies can try the new tool at: http://uservoice.com/widgets.
UserVoice provides hosted community sites where people share their ideas for how to improve a product, service, process, institution, or city. Users vote up the best ideas to give a clear picture of what they want in a fraction of the time and expense it would take with traditional solutions (e.g., emails, surveys, focus groups). Additionally, with users organized around specific ideas, organizations can easily respond to them as a group and create ongoing dialogue around specific issues, which is much more effective than the classic newsletter. As a result, people feel heard and gain a sense of ownership in the solutions they come up with, thereby building a new kind of brand affinity.
UserVoice already has hundreds of paying customers in multiple vertical markets that run the gamut from technology, government, healthcare, education and retail. New customers include companies of all sizes including Intuit, NASA, Facebook, Xing, Nielson, Genentech, Blackbaud, University of Wisconsin, Animoto, Seesmic, StumbleUpon and TweetDeck.
Companies can also leverage UserVoice internally to crowdsource ideas from employees on various projects. This same feedback approach can be applied in a number of different vertical markets as well — university administrators can discuss funding issues with students; politicians can work with their constituents on new propositions; and rock bands can connect with their fans about what they'd like to see on tour.
Since UserVoice is easy to configure, any organization can integrate and launch within a day or two for as long or as little a duration of time as needed. The flexibility lets administrators generate an “ideas anywhere” solution to complement existing efforts or create new channels of feedback. UserVoice is optimised for fast, affordable deployments that don’t require a lot of planning or resources from IT departments, offering an end-to-end white label solution — branded, domain-alias, single sign on, and with open APIs for creating unique, custom integrations.
For more information on UserVoice, please visit http://uservoice.com.
For additional perspectives, please visit the UserVoice blog at http://blog.uservoice.com.
We have joined the group of angels backing a simple to install, white label tool - Uservoice - which elicits Customer Feedback and Idea Generation based on “Ideas Anywhere” Approach.
Companies of All Sizes Now Have Easy and Affordable Way to Immediately Engage Customers in Two-Way Feedback Process
Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund Angel, Betaworks and TAG led the $800K angel funding investment.
A new white-label widget and ZeroLogin single-sign-on solution can be branded and deployed within minutes.
Companies can try the new tool at: http://uservoice.com/widgets.
UserVoice provides hosted community sites where people share their ideas for how to improve a product, service, process, institution, or city. Users vote up the best ideas to give a clear picture of what they want in a fraction of the time and expense it would take with traditional solutions (e.g., emails, surveys, focus groups). Additionally, with users organized around specific ideas, organizations can easily respond to them as a group and create ongoing dialogue around specific issues, which is much more effective than the classic newsletter. As a result, people feel heard and gain a sense of ownership in the solutions they come up with, thereby building a new kind of brand affinity.
UserVoice already has hundreds of paying customers in multiple vertical markets that run the gamut from technology, government, healthcare, education and retail. New customers include companies of all sizes including Intuit, NASA, Facebook, Xing, Nielson, Genentech, Blackbaud, University of Wisconsin, Animoto, Seesmic, StumbleUpon and TweetDeck.
Companies can also leverage UserVoice internally to crowdsource ideas from employees on various projects. This same feedback approach can be applied in a number of different vertical markets as well — university administrators can discuss funding issues with students; politicians can work with their constituents on new propositions; and rock bands can connect with their fans about what they'd like to see on tour.
Since UserVoice is easy to configure, any organization can integrate and launch within a day or two for as long or as little a duration of time as needed. The flexibility lets administrators generate an “ideas anywhere” solution to complement existing efforts or create new channels of feedback. UserVoice is optimised for fast, affordable deployments that don’t require a lot of planning or resources from IT departments, offering an end-to-end white label solution — branded, domain-alias, single sign on, and with open APIs for creating unique, custom integrations.
For more information on UserVoice, please visit http://uservoice.com.
For additional perspectives, please visit the UserVoice blog at http://blog.uservoice.com.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Comparing 3,066,938 mobile phone deals
A price comparison service that allows consumers to get cheaper mobile phone deals by monitoring their online bills was accredited by Ofcom on Thursday last.
That service is Bill Monitor. I wrote about Optimor, Bill Monitor's creator back in November 2008 when the Alpha version of the product (code named Karoosh) was being released.
BillMonitor’s price comparison calculator has been awarded the Ofcom price accreditation scheme logo for meeting the terms of a rigorous independent audit. The audit checks whether the information provided to consumers is accessible, accurate, transparent, comprehensive and up to date. BillMonitor is the first mobile price comparison service to have their calculator accredited by Ofcom.
BillMonitor uses advanced statistics to find the best mobile price plans for consumers across the five network operators 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone. The comparison engine was developed by BillMonitor’s team of mathematicians with scientific advisors from the University of Oxford.
Image via Wikipedia
BillMonitor’s service is available as:
- online Bill Tracking, where consumers supply their online billing account details and BillMonitor automatically analyses their online bills for a tailored recommendation; and
- a one-off Tariff Search, where a consumer can enter minutes and texts used, as well as overseas calls, picture messaging and data usage.
BillMonitor analyses historical usage patterns to predict future usage and can keep consumers updated on the money they could save as the networks change their price plans.
Ofcom research shows that 57 per cent of mobile users are more likely to shop around if there is information available to calculate the cheapest supplier based on usage and 50 per cent are more likely to trust an accredited price comparison website.
How much could you save?
The following three anonymous users who used the online Bill Tracking service demonstrate how BillMonitor can help consumers to save money.
Consumer A is a light user on a contract with more inclusive minutes/texts than she uses, paying on average £31.33 per month. Bill Monitor recommended that she switched provider to reduce her average bill to £16.34 (saving over £15 a month) and still leaving her free minutes most months. Without switching provider, she could still save £11.41 a month by changing price plan with her current provider.
Consumer B currently has a monthly contract with no add-ons. He calls and texts Turkey, France, USA and Greece and has roamed while in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Greece. He pays £83.96 per month on average. When BillMonitor analysed his online bill, it recommended that he switch to a different provider and use their free roaming add-on which would reduce his average monthly bill to £67.52 (saving over £16 a month).
Consumer C is rarely off the phone. He uses an average of 2179 minutes and 853 texts and pays £209.50 per month. By using Bill Monitor he managed to bring his bill down to £68.68 by changing price plan with his current provider and saved a huge £140 per month.
Since the OFCOM announcement, there has been tons of coverage in the major broadsheets and in the Sun and the Mirror. Clearly, Bill Monitor has struck a chord.
Stelios and Ofcom's chief can be seen on BBC2 working lunch tv program .
Traffic surge was large and persists throughout the long weekend, thousands of people trying on-line bill assessment in particular and leaving v positive feedback.
Optimor has been bootstrapped by the founders (Dr. Stelios Koundouros, Prof. Chris Holmes and Dr. Nicolai Meinhausen) and seed funded by grants and by TAG.
A funding round is currently being considered.
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Monday, May 18, 2009
Skimlinks makes an impact
The Evening Standard's piece on Skimlinks' new Twitter initiative tops a round of pretty extensive publicity that Alicia has generated for her fledgling business.
Techcrunch, which has liked the business from the start, covered their latest sales milestone and funding here.
Her idea for monetising Tweets is simple and uses the Skimlinks technology to follow links via 19 affiliate networks through to many thousands of retailers:
The project, called good.ly, allows people to recommend items such as books, electronic items and clothes by putting a link on Twitter.
When a person clicks on the link, they go to the retailer's website. If they buy the item, a proportion of the sale price goes to a charity — currently Dogs Trust, a fund for rehousing, or Crisis for homeless people.
To use the service, users log on to a shopping website and go to the page that shows the item they want to recommend. They then copy its webpage address into a text box atwww.good.ly.
When they press return, good.ly creates a message — or tweet — with the link on the Twitter website.
A commercial version of the system is being sold to publishing companies.
Chris Bond, W H Bond & Sons Ltd
Gary & Carmen Lewis, A1 Pharmaceuticals
Georgina Tarrant, The Great Outdoor Gym Company
Hunter Abbott, Now Group UK,
Karen Paterson, Patersons HR and Payroll Solutions
Marc Boyan, Miroma
Margaret Manning, Reading Room
Mike Tobin, TelecityGroup
Sara Murray, buddi [Great job, Sara!]
[BTW, Sara was an adviser to Seedcamp when it first set up in 2007]
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
New York. New York. So good ....
I just spent 3 weeks working out of
There is a lot happening on the East Coast in the web start-up scene.
Just as many of the digital media, real time web start-ups on the west coast choose to set up in
An example is Daylife, a TAG investment of some 4 years vintage. Its hard to imagine them based in a better place than
Union Square Ventures are as good as any and better than most – with a string of great companies in their stable….and of course Fred Wilson’s blog is required reading (but you can do that from home!)
John Borthwick and Andy Weissman of Betaworks have an original approach to developing Digital businesses – or if you prefer, a new type of media company.
Veteran (or should that be founder) of the Venture Capital industry like Alan Patricoff is turning his Greycroft Partners towards digital media in a serious way and has already built a portfolio of interesting companies.
Sure, for deeper tech you’ll need to go to
Of course, the NY economy is so huge that start-ups are hardly noticeable. Not like SF or
On the other end of the scale,
Sunday, April 12, 2009
To: Alistair Darling, Lord Drayson - an Open Letter
Dear Lord Drayson,
Put £100,000 into 10,000 startups - not £10m into 100!
There has been a lot of chatter about the Government's apparent initiative to make £1bn available for innovative early-stage companies.
Apparently, Lord Drayson, the Minister of Science and Innovation in the Department for Universities and Skills is driving this. The BVCA is keen to promote the idea through its influential contacts that this money should be channelled via the large established VC funds.
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Put £100,000 into 10,000 startups - not £10m into 100!
There has been a lot of chatter about the Government's apparent initiative to make £1bn available for innovative early-stage companies.
Apparently, Lord Drayson, the Minister of Science and Innovation in the Department for Universities and Skills is driving this. The BVCA is keen to promote the idea through its influential contacts that this money should be channelled via the large established VC funds.
From where we sit, putting lots more money into the large funds achieves the
exact opposite of what I understand the desired the objectives to be.
What is urgently needed in the
encourage innovation - is funding at the very earliest stages.
One of the major drivers for Silicon Valley's success has been the readily available, quickly raised seed capital. Its not uncommon, even in today's funding climate to find start-ups funded with $500K in a matter of weeks by angel syndicates led by an agile tech VC.
There is more than enough capital available once companies have proven their
technologies, validated the market need and have real momentum. This capital
is NOT venture, it is development or growth capital.
The so-called funding gap has never been adequately filled and the growth in
size of the leading funds has forced them to move up the food chain and to
back relatively fewer pure start-ups.
We have all been wringing our hands at this gap for many years and in the current environment the gap is noticeably widening.
Seed funds are extremely difficult to make work effectively on the classic
2/20 model since it is important that seed funds invest in a large and diverse portfolio (in order to find the winners) while at the same time need to provide a lot of hand-holding to these companies (implying a larger organisation - more partners).
The BVCA’s position is interesting in that it looks at the whole issue
from the 'industry's perspective' – you can’t blame them for that – its their job. Its certainly not being looked at from the entrepreneurs perspective!
We at TAG have had terrific support from some of the large tech VCs but their ability to do many seed fundings is very limited. We need healthy and growing seed capital partners to join us in our quest to find and nurture the next world beaters.
One of the most important and effective vehicles for promoting entrepreneurship in the tech arena in recent years has been Seedcamp - the flood of applicants and the rising quality of these applicants attest to the strength of innovation emanating from Europe.
They are deserving of far greater financial backing.
Robin Klein
Partner, The Accelerator Group (TAG)
PS: TAG is an early stage technology investor with 43 investments currently in its portfolio. We invest actively mainly in the UK but also across Europe and in the US.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
G-20 to change world order?
Forget the high powered talks. What are the wives wearing?
The world's press, hot on all the nuances that matter on these occasions, have analysed in some detail what Sarah Brown, Michelle Obama and others are wearing.
You can imagine how delighted Astley Clarke were when once again Sarah Brown called for her favourite jewels.
In these times of austerity, she chose impeccable design and quality at affordable prices.
As CNN says: "Brown also wore a pair of Astley Clarke earrings, according to a spokeswoman from 10 Downing Street. The Astley Clarke Web site sells earrings from less than $100 to more than $10,000".
Other links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
http://www.newstin.co.uk/tag/
http://www.itv.com/News/
http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Moo is now a cult?
A great profile article appeared in today's FT featuring Richard Moross.
Richard is creating something quite special at Moo.
The Moo brand has real flavour, a defined personality - none of this happens by accident. The attention to detail is awesome.
One of the benefits of being such a cool brand is that Moo has been able to attract a really good team which is ambitious and committed to continuing to be 'remarkable'.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Reaching Twitter and Facebook via Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck now accounts for 13 % of all Twitter users. Tweetdeck is the most popular desktop client for Twitter.
Pretty remarkable for a small UK company, months old and until recently, funded partly by donations from users of the site.
Its utility keeps improving with new features and functionality. The latest of these is an application that adds Tweetdeck to Facebook connect. This means that when you send out a message from Tweetdeck, you will be able to send it to Twitter, Facebook or both.
A new column gets added to Tweetdeck showing you updates from your facebook friends.
If one of your Facebook friends is online, a green dot appears next to their name and you can initiate a chat via a pop-up window.
Techcrunch has just announced this feature which will be rolled out in the next few days.
TAG and Betaworks backed Tweetdeck. See comment on this blog on 25th January.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Imagini comes of age
Alex Willcock's Imagini has always fallen in the 'intriguing' category.
The idea of consumers having a 'visual DNA' is the big idea.
What to do with this concept and the 12m profiles which Imagini has collected has always been the issue.
Imagini have created some compelling applications which have proven the hypothesis that profiling by visual preference enhances response significantly and is an engaging and entertaining mechanism. Hotels.com's 'Hotel Visualiser' created by Imagini is a superb example of Visual DNA in action. http://hotels.visualdna.com/statement/module/HotelsModule/Hotels_Module.
Others who have used the Imagini approach include: MyDeco, The Army, Nectar, Pepsico and MSN http://visualdna.com/advertisers/
Imagini has just announced a second round funding of $13.5m The additional investment comes from Horizons Ventures, NorthZone Ventures and Atomico. See Techcrunch.
In addition, Imagini has appointed Dermot Halpin, former President of Expedia Europe, as non-executive Chairman and Board Director.
Prior to joining Imagini, Dermot was President of Expedia Inc. Europe.
Imagini has developed unique technology that offers advertisers, publishers and agencies extremely detailed profiling information about their online target audiences. By offering a series of picture-based quizzes to website users, Imagini’s VisualDNA product creates the opportunity for brands to connect with their customers in a completely new way. The bespoke quizzes can either run on a company’s website, or be embedded into flash, making them easy to distribute through online ad and affiliate networks.
Now Imagini is developing a VisualDNA Plug-In that will allow any website publisher to create their own free online quiz, in order to enhance their site.
Imagini also operates a consumer site called youniverse.com
For more information about Imagini and its brands, visit www.visualdna.com
Many readers of this blog may not be familiar with Horizons Ventures.
"Horizons Ventures is a Hong-Kong based investment company focused on early-stage companies in the field of telecommunications, media & technology. With extensive business experience and reach in Asia, Horizons partners and invests in innovative companies that bring about transformational changes to their focus areas. Successful investments and current portfolio companies include Skype, Facebook, UMPay, NBA China, Joost, Lemonade, doubleTwist and Rfinity."
TAG invested in Imagini in April 2007.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Moo sets up in the USA
Moo ships its minicards, business cards, stickers and postcards to over 180 countries. Its biggest market is the USA.
It has now reached a size where it makes sense to send the digital files to the US and print and distribute its US orders from there.
The office will be based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Moo, which was seeded by TAG and then funded by Atlas Venture and Index Ventures in 2006, has grown rapidly through quality product innovation and superb attention to detail in the development of its brand.
The idea of using your business card to do more than provide your contact co-ordinates but to project your brand, content, products is a simple but strong one.
Moo's unique technology allows each card in the pack to be different.
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Monday, February 23, 2009
A simple way to monetise content
Skimlinks is a really neat solution for bloggers and web publishers to earn cash through affiliate marketing without all the hassle of signing up Affiliate networks or retailers.
Advertising CPM rates are going down, publishers are finding it harder to generate sustainable revenue from their content. Affiliate marketing is an increasingly attractive option for website publishers however, it can be difficult to implement and manage, especially where fragmented editorial, technical and commercial teams are involved. Skimlinks looks likely to be a breakthrough for many publishers struggling with these current systems.
Really simple to implement and install, Skimlinks turns normal retailer links found in their editorial content into ‘affiliate links’ automatically. Each time a user clicks-through and makes a purchase, the website earns a commission from the retailer. Skimlink’s new technology means users no longer have to sign up for multiple affiliate programs across many networks, or create and maintain affiliate links as merchants change from one network to another.
Skimlinks provides instant access to affiliate programs of over 9,000 international merchants (even the 30-40% of merchants that do not support deeplinking) across 16 affiliate networks, and all publisher’s links are optimised for the best commissions at any point in time.
Alicia Navarro is the founder and CEO of Skimlinks. She created the business recognising that consumers are no longer relying on advertising to make their purchasing decisions, instead being driven by reviews and recommendations from both editorial and user-generated content. Publishers are embracing this shift by creating useful content, and encouraging their users to do so too, adding links to relevant products and services within the context of that content.
Skimlinks represents a new way to monetise those links, and therefore its surrounding content, by implicitly applying affiliate marketing.
TAG has invested in Skimbit Ltd, the company that has launched Skimlinks alongside Sussex Place Ventures and NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and others in its first external equity funding round.
Techcrunch covered the funding round today.
There is a natural affinity with Zemanta, another TAG company, which provides tools for authors (of blogs, emails etc) automatically creating relevant links, inserting images and providing readers with a richer experience.
Clients of Skimlinks already include brands such Channel 4, T3.com, TechRadar.com, the Daily Mail.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
DVDs by Post ..... why not Food?
The LoveFilm, VideoIsland, ScreenSelect alumni have come together to back Graham Bosher and his team to launch Graze.
Graham was one of the co-founders of DVDs on tap.
They sold the company to Arts Alliance who created LoveFilm who merged with Video Island who had merged with ScreenSelect ...you following?
Anyway, Graham latest venture is Graze - an ingenious new way of getting healthy, quality food direct to your desk.
The product and packaging and business model has been designed with superb attention to detail, leveraging the wonderful next day service of the Royal Mail and its newish tariff - pricing in proportion. The Royal Mail, which is currently delivering over 100 million DVDs back and forth for LoveFilm, must be hoping that Graze can similarly change the way Britain gets its lunch time food!
Image via Wikipedia
Graze delivers a full letter-box-sized box of healthy food (nuts, berries, dried fruit etc) straight to a desk. Prices start at £2.99 delivered. Users rate the range of over 200 products and choose from 4 different types/sizes of package. Highest rated products get included most often. Delivery frequency, package type and delivery address are controlled through a well designed interactive drag and drop website.
The team has significant experience of designing, developing and running complex operations which give customers complete control and provides great customer service.
The service is still in beta mode and TAG have negotiated an offer for UK readers of this blog: enter code QKX412R - It offers a free box and the 2nd one for half price.
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
Innovate! Europe
Innovate!Europe is a three-part program designed to identify Europe’s most promising startups and accelerate their drive into the global technology market.
The first step in Innovate!Europe’s unique six-month accelerator program is to apply to participate in one of the complimentary Going Global Workshops. Dates have already been announced for Workshops in Zaragoza, London, Dublin, Paris and Berlin, and they are in the process of identifying other cities to add to the Calendar.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=8e007417-e9fb-4756-a153-54ff30c1f69f)
The first step in Innovate!Europe’s unique six-month accelerator program is to apply to participate in one of the complimentary Going Global Workshops. Dates have already been announced for Workshops in Zaragoza, London, Dublin, Paris and Berlin, and they are in the process of identifying other cities to add to the Calendar.
Every company who applies will receive feedback from Guidewire Group’s seasoned team of analysts. In addition, regardless of acceptance into the Innovate!Europe program, all applicants will be listed on the Innovate!Europe site. So, just by applying, you will raise your company’s profile with potential partners, customers, investors and media who are part of the Innovate!Europe community.
Innovate!Europe is run by Chris Shipley and Mike Sigal of The Guidewire Group who is a global market intelligence firm focussing on technology entrepreneurship.
Like Seedcamp, Innovate!Europe's focus is mentoring, advice and support. Seedcamp's investment is an added bonus but not the 'main thing'.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Tweetdeck organises Twitter
Techcrunch announced Tweetdeck's funding round of $500K on Thursday 22nd.
TweetDeck is a desktop application that aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking loads of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.
TweetDeck enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets. To do this All Tweets are saved to a local database. One column will always contain All Tweets. The GROUP, SEARCH and REPLIES buttons then allow the user to make up additional columns populated from the database. Once created these additional columns will automatically update allowing the user to easily keep track of a twitter threads.
Being database driven TweetDeck allows the user to continue twittering even when offline. Tweets and direct messages are queued and then sent automatically when back online.
Twitter itself is growing spectacularly. Techcrunch UK pointed out its UK growth in a recent post.
The recent funding round in which TAG participated was led by our good friends Andy Wiseman and John Borthwick of Betaworks, New York. Songkick, Lookery and Snaptalent are other investments we have in common.
Betaworks was also a seed investor in Twitter.
Friday, January 23, 2009
LoveFilm hits 1m subscribers
As hoped for, the credit crunch has given a boost to home entertainment.
LoveFilm already had significant momentum having added 100,000 new subscribers during 2008, but January has continued this trend.
In addition to announcing the 1m subscriber number, LoveFilm also announced an injection of £10.5m in Bank Debt which it plans to invest in new on-demand technology as well as repay existing debts. [Who says banks aren't lending?]
Lovefilm became profitable last year having achieved revenue growth of around 50%.
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Monday, January 19, 2009
Zoopla raises £3.75m
If you have surreptitiously checked the value of your neighbour/friend/colleague/father-in-law/uncle's house recently, don't be embarrassed - you are not alone.
Zoopla has been growing like topsy. It is now the UK's fastest growing property website and since it launched 12 months ago has been visited 5 million times.
It is ranked the 4th busiest property website in the UK according to the latest traffic stats.
Today, Zoopla is announcing a further funding round of £3.75m from existing investor Atlas Venture and Octopus Ventures. Their funding does demonstrate that despite the significant tightening of the venture funding market, really strong businesses with talented and experienced teams will attract capital.
[See Techcrunch]
Zoopla provides house prices and value data and is already the most comprehensive source of residential property market information with the UK's most active community. In 2008 it had over 1 million user contributions to its website from users.
With its imminent and innovative launch of estate agent listings on a pay-for-performance basis, Zoopla expects to become the website of choice for anyone interested in the property market – whether buying, selling or just looking to stay informed about market activity. Zoopla addresses all 27m homes in the UK - not just the 1m or so that are for sale.
They are now also focussed on using their traffic and levels of consumer engagement in helping estate agents make the most of their marketing spend.
Fred Destin and Atlas have been outstanding backers of Zoopla demonstrating clearly the value that VC's are capable of by acting decisively and fairly throughout.
Octopus Ventures have a long standing relationship with Alex Chesterman (founder, CEO), Simon Kain (CTO) and angel backers William Reeve and Simon Murdoch.
TAG's relationship too goes back to the Video Island/Screenselect/LoveFilm days.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Kiva - an amazing success
Most of us involved in the tech start-up world will have noticed Kiva getting publicised quite widely. See the rhs of this blog for example. What is not that widely understood is just how Kiva works and how powerful it is. The well constructed video below tells the story.
A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
Some of the numbers speak for themselves: Kiva is only 39 months old. It has raised loans totalling $55,521,085 for low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world. Its repayment rate todate is 97% It has funded 125,496 entrepreneurs to date. There are over 400,000 Kiva users from 156 countries.
Recently, Wonga, unsecured small loans company - featured in a previous post - became a backer of Kiva.
Wonga is lending £1 interest-free, via Kiva, for every Wonga loan they process. To date Wonga has lent $14,475.
A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
Some of the numbers speak for themselves: Kiva is only 39 months old. It has raised loans totalling $55,521,085 for low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world. Its repayment rate todate is 97% It has funded 125,496 entrepreneurs to date. There are over 400,000 Kiva users from 156 countries.
Recently, Wonga, unsecured small loans company - featured in a previous post - became a backer of Kiva.
Wonga is lending £1 interest-free, via Kiva, for every Wonga loan they process. To date Wonga has lent $14,475.
Many corporates are setting up similar schemes. What a great illustration of how the web enables previously impossible ideas!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Strong Momentum for Fizzback
I featured Fizzback in a post about 2 months ago.At the time we were postulating that in a shrinking market, retailers and other service providers would need to gain market share to keep growing or maintain profitability.
Gaining market share usually means giving customers what they want. This in turn requires very careful listening to customer's requirements.
Fizzback does this in a sophisticated but automated way, enabling large numbers of customers to engage in 'dialogue' at relatively low cost.
The Xmas sales data currently being announced show that not all retailers have been caned to the same extent by the market. Clearly those who have been listening hardest and implementing effectively have done better than others.
Fizzback continues to win high profile accounts.
For example, last month, The Carphone Warehouse selected the Fizzback Engagement Platform to assess their customer experience, improve advocacy and drive superior employee performance.
Ashley Cook, The Carphone Warehouse’s Business Operations Director said: “We’re committed to offering the best customer service on the high street. Fizzback gives us a new level of visibility into the in-store customer experience and provides actionable insight into areas for improvement.”
Carphone joins the list of household names now using Fizzback. They include: T-Mobile, Phones 4U, National Express, Virgin Trains, Sky, HMV, M&S, William Hill and others.
Positive customer service experiences happen all the time, but the feelings they evoke have a shorter half-life than very negative experiences. Therefore the key is to capture experiences as they happen, not days, weeks or even months after the event.
Positive comments help companies to reinforce areas that they are succeeding in, passing these best practices across the organisation, and are a great way to motivate and reward staff.
In summary, making it easy for consumers to tell you how they feel during (not after) their experience with the brand yields large volumes of high quality feedback. This approach taps into a previously 'silent majority' of consumers, ensuring an accurate representation of sentiment and giving brands the opportunity to begin a constructive dialogue with a large portion of their customer base.
In December, Fizzback received just short of 2m customer contacts. This channel split is reflected below.
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Mergers back on the agenda
Mergers are really difficult transactions to bring about and even more difficult to make work post-merger.
The rewards for doing so properly and well can be significant.
In these times, we are likely to see a number of mergers taking place between companies which will find it really hard on their own to raise cash to lengthen their runways or for those for whom the commercial logic is overwhelming.
Looking back, one can see some mergers which had they not happened may well have led to the demise of both companies (or at least a protrated and far more capital intensive journey) whilst what emerged was a real powerhouse.
I'm thinking particularly of the Betfair and Flutter.com (remember them?)merger in December 2001. Current Betfair revenues in the order of £250m and PBT over £40m.
Image via CrunchBaseI'm also not forgetting the LoveFilm and VideoIsland merger of April 2006, creating Europe's dominant on-line DVD rental service now turning over some £70m profitably.
We will be encouraging TAG companies to look at their markets carefully and consider whether getting together creates more value for everyone in the long run.
The difficulties are - fairly obviously - a) arriving at relative values and
b) resolving the question of who runs the combined entity and how.
It takes some skill, no little suppression of ego, sensitivity and far sightedness to achieve a good result.
The benefits can be huge. Aside from rationalisation of overheads, marketing can be made so much more efficient and effective (less competition for those keywords, greater clickthrough rates from natural and paid search)and its far easier to do those all important business development partnerships.
Commentators need to focus more on what value has been created, rather than on who 'won' and who 'lost'. In the case of the great mergers, everyone's a winner.
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Thursday, December 25, 2008
Happy Holidays and a very good 2009!
2008 can be split into 2 distinct periods. Pre-crunch and Post-crunch.
In the coming days we will all be reflecting on a pretty crazy year and most will be fearful, uncertain or excited by the coming one.
I think we are all agreed that 2009 offers significant opportunities and challenges.
We are in for some very tough times. The funding climate has changed radically and the chill wind is blowing.
All sensible companies are focusing on their cash. Getting themselves to break even as quickly as possible and focusing more intently on what makes a difference than ever before.
TAG companies are all looking closely at their costs, their revenue generation and their cash runways. They have been for some time now.
The opportunities are still there - but may be found in different places from the pre CC (Credit Crunch) era.
Certainly, competitors may be hurting and this will represent opportunities for some. Businesses that genuinely remove cost, save money and increase efficiency will be attractive as will those with well proven business models and with revenues continuing to rise.
Interesting to look at what date defined the start of the credit crunch.
For the tech community at large, it seems that Sequoia Capital’s publication of their 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom - October 7th,2008 - marked the date.
It was much earlier for most others.
On 22 February 2008 Northern Rock was taken into state ownership. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Bros. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the filing marked the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. On September 16th AIG suffered a liquidity crisis following the downgrade of its credit rating - it had been the 18th-largest public company in the world! And so it went ...
Certainly, if one was looking for signs (and who was?) we could go back to March 2007, when the United States' subprime mortgage industry collapsed due to "higher-than-expected" home foreclosure rates.
However for the tech start-up scene, the fundamentals are still strong. Technology is likely to lead the way out of recession for many economies. Better application of technology leads to lower costs and greater productivity. Broadband penetration continues to increase, eCommerce is holding up. December numbers are not out yet but November continued to show on-line gaining share from off-line. So it is with advertising. Whilst there is an overall slump, on-line continues to win share from off-line.
Of course, what has changed is that it is much more difficult to get ideas funded, values are not what they were and exits are very hard to achieve.
The idea that the funding community is closed for business is, however, not entirely correct.
The big brand Venture Capital Funds still have money to invest and in our view most will be successful in raising new funds - as Accel have recently.
Angels will return to the funding scene seeking capital efficiency and opportunity.
Since October 7th, 9 of TAG's companies have received follow-on funding (or have term sheets leading to that end).
As regular readers know, this blog essentially showcases the TAG portfolio. Since the portfolio is pretty well representative of the tech start-up scene, I hope that it of wider interest than just to friends of TAG.
Good luck in all your 2009 endevours!
To finish off this serious post, I share with you the movie that our friends at First Round Capital produced for the season of goodwill.
First Round are a special kind of firm with whom we share many common values - some of which are reflected in this video.
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In the coming days we will all be reflecting on a pretty crazy year and most will be fearful, uncertain or excited by the coming one.
I think we are all agreed that 2009 offers significant opportunities and challenges.
We are in for some very tough times. The funding climate has changed radically and the chill wind is blowing.
All sensible companies are focusing on their cash. Getting themselves to break even as quickly as possible and focusing more intently on what makes a difference than ever before.
TAG companies are all looking closely at their costs, their revenue generation and their cash runways. They have been for some time now.
The opportunities are still there - but may be found in different places from the pre CC (Credit Crunch) era.
Certainly, competitors may be hurting and this will represent opportunities for some. Businesses that genuinely remove cost, save money and increase efficiency will be attractive as will those with well proven business models and with revenues continuing to rise.
Interesting to look at what date defined the start of the credit crunch.
For the tech community at large, it seems that Sequoia Capital’s publication of their 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom - October 7th,2008 - marked the date.
It was much earlier for most others.
On 22 February 2008 Northern Rock was taken into state ownership. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Bros. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the filing marked the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. On September 16th AIG suffered a liquidity crisis following the downgrade of its credit rating - it had been the 18th-largest public company in the world! And so it went ...
Certainly, if one was looking for signs (and who was?) we could go back to March 2007, when the United States' subprime mortgage industry collapsed due to "higher-than-expected" home foreclosure rates.
However for the tech start-up scene, the fundamentals are still strong. Technology is likely to lead the way out of recession for many economies. Better application of technology leads to lower costs and greater productivity. Broadband penetration continues to increase, eCommerce is holding up. December numbers are not out yet but November continued to show on-line gaining share from off-line. So it is with advertising. Whilst there is an overall slump, on-line continues to win share from off-line.
Of course, what has changed is that it is much more difficult to get ideas funded, values are not what they were and exits are very hard to achieve.
The idea that the funding community is closed for business is, however, not entirely correct.
The big brand Venture Capital Funds still have money to invest and in our view most will be successful in raising new funds - as Accel have recently.
Angels will return to the funding scene seeking capital efficiency and opportunity.
Since October 7th, 9 of TAG's companies have received follow-on funding (or have term sheets leading to that end).
As regular readers know, this blog essentially showcases the TAG portfolio. Since the portfolio is pretty well representative of the tech start-up scene, I hope that it of wider interest than just to friends of TAG.
Good luck in all your 2009 endevours!
To finish off this serious post, I share with you the movie that our friends at First Round Capital produced for the season of goodwill.
First Round are a special kind of firm with whom we share many common values - some of which are reflected in this video.
Friday, December 12, 2008
TAG invests in Amee
One of the precepts we believe in at TAG is the one that goes "what you can measure, you can improve". Hence our 'obsession' with selecting the right KPIs and monitoring them so closely.
Amee's idea is a simple but important one.
Their mission is to measure the "Carbon Footprint" of everything on Earth.
This goal requires a neutral aggregation platform. AMEE is that platform.
The AMEE platform is being used internationally by many organisations including Defra (DECC), The Irish Government, The Welsh Assembly, Google, Morgan Stanley, Nesta, the Energy Saving Trust, BRE, Radiohead, Sun Microsystems, plus numerous other IT, business services and software companies.
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AMEE has been designed to deliver a new standard in functionality, transparency and interoperability. AMEE's aim is to map, measure and track all the energy data on Earth. This includes aggregating every emission factor and methodology related to CO2 and Energy Assessments (individuals, businesses, buildings, products, supply chains, countries, etc.), and all the consumption data (fuel, water, waste, quantitative and qualitative factors).
It is a web-service (API) that combines measurement, calculation, profiling and transactional systems. Its algorithmic engine applies conversion factors from energy into CO2 emissions, and represents data from 150 countries.
The company has just announced that it has secured substantial Series A funding from leading VC funds in the USA and UK.
The collaboration between O'Reilly Alphatech Ventures (OATV), Union Square Ventures (USV) and TAG enables AMEE to enhance its data and to extend its international reach.
Related articles by Zemanta
- AMEE lands funding - Green is the new black!
- Carbon-calculating data site Amee scores seven-figure investment
- Like An OpenID For Your Carbon Footprint - AMEE Secures Series A
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Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Dopplr is strengthened ...
Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
Image via Wikipedia
Dopplr has appointed Marko Ahtisaari as CEO. Dopplr, the online service for smarter travel, today announced it has appointed Marko Ahtisaari as CEO, effective January 1st 2009. This is great news for the company as it prepares to take its next steps.Marko was a founding investor in Dopplr and has been active in guiding the company. Co-founder and founding CEO Lisa Sounio will become Chairman, alongside fellow board members Tyler Brûlé and Saul Klein.
Since launching to a select group of global companies last fall, Dopplr has attracted an international following of smart travellers. Lisa and the team have done a super job of launching the brand and building a strong following. As a founding investor Marko knows the team well and with his background in mobile services and media is an excellent fit to grow the business.
Today, Dopplr is an important 'intention sharing service online', akin to social platforms like Twitter and Facebook, but with a tight focus. When people share their travel plans and tips through Dopplr their mind is already set on the travel experience: on where their colleagues and friends are going, how they’re getting there and what hotels they’re staying at.
Marko Ahtisaari has worked previously as Director of Design Strategy at Nokia and serves on the board of directors of F-Secure and Artek. Most recently Ahtisaari has been Head of Brand & Design at Blyk, the free mobile network for young people funded by advertising, and will continue in a role supporting Blyk in its partnering and expansion strategy. In September 2008 Dopplr announced its second financing round from a group of prominent international investors — all users of the service.
The investors include Esther Dyson, Tyler Brûlé, Thomas Glocer, Yat Siu, Aditya dev Sood, Lars Hinrichs, Joshua Schachter, Brian Behlendorf, Daniel Sachs, Joshua Cooper Ramo, and Azeem Azhar. Saul Klein, whose Accelerator Group, invested in this round, also invested in the previous round together with Martin Varsavsky, Reid Hoffman and Joichi Ito. www.dopplr.com
Related articles by Zemanta
- Dopplr appoints Marko Ahtisaari as CEO
- Dopplr Gets On Some Pretty Big Names Radars
- Dopplr Announces Financing Round for Global Expansion
- Dopplr Raises A Second Angel Round
- Dopplr scores second round of funding
- Dopplr: For Smart Social Business Travelers
- Dopplr announces a new financing round for its international expansion
- New funding & more star investors for online travel service Dopplr
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Monday, December 08, 2008
A good reading list.....
Douglas de Jager, co-founder of Byteplay, the company that created Dothomes, has put together a useful set of links, interesting articles, golden rules for entrepreneurs and the like.
They can found here.
Doug tells me he'll be adding to the list regularly.
There is some good Xmas reading in amongst his recommendations.
They can found here.
Doug tells me he'll be adding to the list regularly.
There is some good Xmas reading in amongst his recommendations.
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