1 min read · 19 March 2010
It’s not easy to waltz into an established, crowded market and convince investors that you can lead it. Yet the San Francisco-based Web analytics and advertising firm Quantcast has managed that trick, already collecting $53.9 million over three rounds, including a $27.5 million round in January led by Cisco Systems -- with more funding to come, possibly soon. “We’re well capitalized but are always open-minded to ways we might accelerate our business and better serve the market,” said co-founder and CEO, Konrad Feldman, when we chatted briefly yesterday. How Quantcast is accelerating its growth is a well-guarded secret from a technical perspective, although its large-scale analysis models seem to be working. The four-year-old company is reluctant to share details about how it creates its rich data sets about Web users and their online behavior. But it claims that millions of Web destinations use its service, including two-thirds of Online Publishers Association members, and that it is measuring millions more Websites, games, and widgets. Last week, Quantcast began a push for much stronger customer adoption abroad, too.
3 min read · 19 March 2010
Since last fall, the New York Post and other interested parties have been trying to suss out who had fathered a child with glamazon Padma Lakshmi. Lakshmi, 39, host of the Bravo show “Top Chef,” had been involved for years with buyout giant Teddy Forstmann. She is also famously the ex-wife of novelist Salman Rushdie. Recently, the New York Post and other outlets began speculating that it might be venture capitalist Adam Dell, you-know-who’s brother. Turns out they were right, and he may want to spend more time with one-month-old Krishna than her mom would like. So says the Post, which reported yesterday:
2 min read · 18 March 2010
Somewhere -- wherever he is buried, I suppose -- Mario Puzo is rolling over in his grave. Even he couldn't have made up this story about one of Italy's most wanted henchmen, Pasqual Manfredi, who was caught by police earlier today while using Facebook. View vid after the jump...
1 min read · 18 March 2010
5 min read · 17 March 2010
Jerry Seinfeld and Seth Meyers recently teamed up for a “Really!?!” segment on "Saturday Night Live" about former Congressman Eric Massa, who kept coming up with new -- and often contradictory -- explanations for his resignation last week. (We'll never think of tickle parties the same way again.) The segment came to mind yesterday, when I received an impassioned email from Joanna Rees, co-founder of VSP Capital and soon-to-become candidate for mayor of San Francisco. It was in response to last week's post about a glowing profile of Rees in the San Francisco Chronicle, which called her a “star” in the world of venture capital. As a San Francisco resident and someone acquainted with Rees’ track record, I had pointed out that “star” was overstating things. After all, the limited partners of VSP Capital demanded their money back just months after VSP raised its third fund. Still, Rees, dubbed the “Alley Cat” by Forbes in the late ‘90s, claws at every opportunity for coverage, and we don't mind giving her the platform she wants. In fact, we believe the best way to present her note is via our own “Really!?!” segment:
4 min read · 16 March 2010
For the very public Ning, CEO Gina Bianchini’s departure is a very private matter. Yesterday morning, Marc Andreessen announced in a blog post that Bianchini had “decided to step down after five-and-a-half years of hard work” at Ning, the company they co-founded in 2004. Though Andreessen added that Bianchini is now becoming an entrepreneur-in-residence at his venture firm, observers immediately began speculating that Bianchini had been fired from Ning, noting that she appeared very focused on the company during an interview on “Charlie Rose” late last week.
6 min read · 16 March 2010
2 min read · 12 March 2010
7 min read · 11 March 2010
2 min read · 11 March 2010
