Private Equity
(Reuters) - Three initial public offerings were postponed on Tuesday, the latest casualties of volatile market conditions. Offerings by Portuguese mobile marketing and payment services provider TIM w.e. SGPS SA, which was expected to raise $146.3 million, and 3-D motion-sensing company InvenSense Inc, a VC-backed company due to raise $99.8 million, were postponed, underwriters said. The $180 million IPO of Seattle-based lender HomeStreet was also sidelined, an underwriter said. Invensense, founded in 2003, raised a total of $53 million in venture capital between 2004 and 2008, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB). The company's backers include Artiman Ventures, DoCoMo Capital, Partech
2 min read · 09 August 2011
(Reuters) - Partners Jim Kim and Alex Kinnier will depart Khosla Ventures Aug. 15, leaving the firm short of two partners just months after it said it was raising a $1.05 billion fund, Reuters has learned. Both specialized in renewable energy, a focus of Khosla Ventures, but one that has been slow to reap big returns. Kinnier will start his own company, a move founding partner Vinod Khosla called "standard." It was unclear what Kim intends to do upon leaving the venture capital house, which has backed Jawbone-headset makers Aliph and biofuels company Kior. "Junior folks join for three years typically and then start companies," he wrote to Reuters in an email. "We have our core set of five partners and though we don't preclude junior partners becoming senior partners, we expect the majority of them to leave to
2 min read · 09 August 2011
Minus said Monday that it has raised $1 million from IDG Capital Partners. New York-based Minus is a file sharing tech startup.
3 min read · 08 August 2011
Juggernaut Capital Partners and Centra Capital AS have led an $18 million round of funding for VOSS. VOSS is a Norwegian bottled water company. Sawaya Segalas & Co. provided financial advice to VOSS.
2 min read · 03 August 2011
2 min read · 03 August 2011
The CEO of hot VC-backed startup Airbnb today issued a public apology for how the online home rental service responded when one of its customers had her home trashed and identity stolen by another customer. Chief executive Brian Chesky also announced new safety measures and a $50,000 “guarantee” to any customers who suffer property damage. But is Chesky’s mea culpa too little too, too late? It comes more than a month after a blog post from aggrieved Airbnb customer “EJ” went viral and earned the Twitter hashtag #ransackgate. During that time, Airbnb made a number of missteps, appearing uncaring and keeping the story alive. This morning, before Chesky’s apology, 10 media outlets had covered the story, including CNN, Reuters and the Washington Post. That’s in addition to previous stories from popular tech blog TechCrunch, which were widely retweeted. “I think this is the right response , but it took them too long to get to it and they’ve done a lot of
4 min read · 01 August 2011
Greg Kouvelas has joined Seven Hills as an MD. Previously, Kouvelas was an MD at Innovation Advisors where he headed its Silicon Valley office.
2 min read · 01 August 2011
JOYUS said Monday that it has closed its first institutional round of funding at $7.9 million. Accel Partners and Harrison Metal were lead investors. JOYUS short-form videos that helps consumers purchase products. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, former Google exec., is the founder.
4 min read · 01 August 2011
Lightbank has led a $1.2 million investment into BabbaCo. SV Angel also collaborated. BabbaCo is a baby products company.
3 min read · 01 August 2011
Meet Warren Lee, head of Canaan Partners' New York office. A specialist in digital media, Lee was promoted to general partner in June after spending six years with Canaan. He recently sat down with peHUB for a quick Q&A on a wide range of topics: Q: Is there a bubble in tech? A: I think there are bubbles in selective categories such as flash sites and social media startups. There are too many 'me-too' startups without any real differentiation getting funded by investors. How many different services can your average online consumer subscribe to before getting fatigued? Q: What did you think of Specific Media buying Myspace for $35 million? A: I was surprised the price was so cheap. Thirty five million isn't a lot if you can execute and take advantage of the asset. gotten a fair price. They've also gotten Justin Timberlake and you can't beat that combination. There's still lots of traffic and lot of profiles. They'll get value out of it.
3 min read · 01 August 2011
