Private Equity
Joe Lacob will soon have to swap his green Boston Celtics jersey for an Orange "We Believe" T-Shirt. Lacob, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and part of the ownership group that bought the Celts in 2002, has become the primary owner of the Golden State Warriors, according to various NBA-related news reports. Lacob is joining with Peter Guber of Mandalay Entertainment to buy the Warriors for reportedly $450 million, a record amount for an NBA franchise. Many Warriors fans were hoping that Oracle boss Larry Ellison, who has made offers to buy the team in the past, would fork over the winning bid. Apparently the price was too steep for a team mireed in recent disappointments.
1 min read · 15 July 2010
Layar, the Dutch provider of augmented reality software for smartphones, was named the top mobile app at Getjar’s first annual Getties Award on Monday night. The awards ceremony featured a performance by “Lady Getjar,” which was actually the emcee Lauren Mayer dressed up in a wild costume. The event billed itself as the Oscars for the mobile app community, and it didn’t disappoint John Hering, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Lookout, which was named the best Android app. “It was unlike any other mobile event I had been to before, to say the least,” said Hering, pictured below, holding the Getties trophy with other members of the Lookout team. “We need to see more of this. Support and recognition of app developers through these kinds of awards are great for end users in general as they aid in discovery of key must have apps.”
3 min read · 14 July 2010
1 min read · 08 July 2010
3 min read · 30 June 2010
In any other given week, the fact that Elevation Partners this week bought $120 million of shares in Facebook, essentially valuing the social networking company at $23 billion, would be topic No. 1 on the Twittersphere and here at peHUB. But Tesla drove forth its IPO, and Foursquare finally located that Series B funding it was looking for. Nevertheless, Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic covered the Facebook/Elevation deal earlier today, which you can read here. His story discusses the firm's previous investment in Facebook, which is also backed by Digital Sky Technologies, Microsoft and Accel Partners, among others. Also, Sarah Lacy wrote about
2 min read · 30 June 2010
Lots of people are enjoying playing with their new iPhone 4 right about now. So it’s a pretty good bet that lots of them are upgrading and downloading tons of apps on their newest toy from Apple by going to GetJar. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company earlier this month announced that it has downloaded more than 1 billion mobile apps from its independent store for use on Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Symbian, among 2,000 other phones. GetJar ranks as the second largest app downloader behind, of course, Apple’s app store. Late Wednesday, just as Apple’s latest iPhone was due to arrive in stores and rival smart phone makers Motorola, Google and Verizon announced Droid X, the latest Android device, GetJar also unveiled that it raised an $11 million Series B round, funded entirely from return investor Accel Partners. The funding follows a $6 million round that GetJar raised from Accel in 2007.
2 min read · 24 June 2010
2 min read · 24 June 2010
1 min read · 16 June 2010
Lucas Carné seems like an unlikely person to launch a private, online sales site. And I’m not trying to disparage his fashion sense. After all, I don’t know the difference between a Manola Blahnik and any other high-heeled shoe. But Carné, an engineer by training, and a onetime Bain & Co. consultant, is CEO of VC-backed Privalia, a Barcelona-based operator of a private online sales club that now operates in four countries, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico, although Carné says that Spain accounts for about 70% of the company’s revenue. Privalia, which boasts at having 4 million active members, offers discounts on fashion apparel, sports wear, electronics, home furnishings and personal care items. Carné visited me in San Francisco this week, on his way to participate in the RBC Capital Markets Conference in New York today. We met over lunch while we talked at length about his company and the growth of the online sales market and VCs’ interest in the sector.
2 min read · 10 June 2010
2 min read · 05 June 2010
