Kleiner Perkins related stories
All articles and analysis
Zynga plays alone for nowCEO Mark Pincus says the VC-backed company is eschewing the IPO route
Small Fund, Big DreamMission Bay Capital plans to seed bioinformatics startups, draws Brook Byers and other top VCs to its advisory board
- Surprised, BookRenter.com Rushes Out Funding News
Who knew that the world of renting college textbooks could be so competitive -- or so dramatic? Following Chegg.com's announcement /56296/why-cheggcom-was-financed-with-credit-and-debt/ last week of its whopping $112 million in funding -- $57 million in Series D equity led by Insight Venture Partners, plus $25 million in credit and $30 million in debt -- BookRenter.com rushed out a press release today announcing that it too had raised funding: A $6 million Series A round from Storm Ventures and Adams Capital. BookRenter's round was really raised back in September, and both BookRenter's CEO, Mehdi Maghsoodnia, and one of Bookrenter's venture backers say they were wary of announcing it at all.
- peHUB First Read
* Incoming New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie asks the state not to make any new private equity investments, pending review http://www.privateequityonline.com/ArticleNewsletterArchive.aspx?aID=14577 (top link). Worth noting that a member of Christie's budgetary task for is Bob Grady, who left The Carlyle Group a few months back. * Gillian Tett: Will sovereign debt become the next subprime? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d01692bc-d7d0-11de-b578-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 * Wikipedia is getting older, and an unprecedented number of its volunteers are quitting http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125893981183759969.html * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher http://www.reuters.com/article/usMktRpt/idUSN2321671620091123 London rises early http://www.reuters.com/article/londonMktRpt/idUSGEE5AM0D820091123 Europe looks up http://www.reuters.com/article/eurMktRpt/idUSGEE5AM06X20091123 and both Hong Kong and China jump http://www.reuters.com/article/hongkongMktRpt/idUSHKG30938920091123 * Green shoot #1: PayNet finds that the smallest U.S. businesses -- those with less than $100k in outstanding debts -- have begun borrowing again http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5AM1C120091123 * Green shoot #2: S&P reports that distressed debt hits a 17-month low http://www.iddmagazine.com/news/sp-distressed-level-hits-17-month-low-200081-1.html * Man arrested for not using Twitter http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091122/heres-a-first-man-arrested-for-not-using-twitter/ * 16 year-old Charles Allatt thinks he has created Napster 2.0 http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/11/22/16-yr-old-launches-vye-music-sharing-site-another-napster (i.e., a free P2P music sharing site that isn't illegal).
- Week in deals, Nov. 23, 2009
Summary of North American tech companies and other startups that raised venture financing in the past week
- AlwaysOn's Top 100 Venture Capitalists
The Forbes Midas List may be gone /55999/not-all-that-glittters-forbes-scraps-the-midas-list/ but AlwaysOn has stepped into the breach with what founder Tony Perkins says will be its first annual VC100 list of top performing venture capitalists. Winners were selected based on four years worth of data -- from Oct. 1, 2005 through Sept. 30, 2009 -- and were judged on "total number and dollar amounts of successful M&A and IPO deals from their portfolio companies. For IPOs, AlwaysOn examined opening market capitalization as well as subsequent stock performance, relative to the Nasdaq. For each investment, AlwaysOn counted one lead investor per firm, in order to identify the true dealmakers. Much of the data required for a thorough evaluation remains private and inaccessible..." No one from Kleiner Perkins made the list, which is unusual, and it isn't ranked -- the copy I have is in alphabetical order. Get it after the jump:
- peHUB Wire: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right
- peHUB Wire: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right
- Bump On The Road To Smart Grids -- A Lawsuit
Here's a copy of the complaint filed last month in Kern County, California, alleging problems with the new -- and mandatory -- smart meters being installed in that part of the state. The plaintiff, Pete Flores, claims that his utility bill has tripled -- from $200 to as much as $600 a month -- since he got one of these devices, which he says were supposed to save him money. He's suing both his utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, and the installer of the meters, PG&E contractor Wellington Energy, for negligence, fraud, unjust enrichment etc. His attorney, Michael Louis Kelly, says that PG&E's suppliers might also be sued. These include General Electric and two private-equity backed companies -- Landis+Gyr, which makes the meters, and Silver Spring Networks, whose communications technology connects them. Silver Spring is advised by Al Gore