Archive for the 'Venture Capital' Category

FolderShare, Dropbox, Syncplicity, Oh My…

foldershareI’ve been a user of FolderShare on my multiple Mac computers for quite a few months now. FolderShare is a FREE application that is provided by Microsoft (they acquired the FolderShare company in November, 2005). It does run on a Mac, but the Mac version is very old (not a Universal Binary, so it has to run in PowerPC emulation mode), and showing its age a bit.

OK, it’s really called Windows Liver FolderShare (beta).

FolderShare mostly works, though. And, when it works, it works very well. It’s a peer-to-peer way to synchronize your folders across multiple computers. What that means is that Microsoft never owns a copy of your files - they flow directly between your own computers, using 256-bit AES encryption (good enough). They limit each "share" to 10,000 files, which is a limit that I have absolutely run into. And it was not pretty unraveling the mess that was made by blasting through it (likely user error, but it was not entirely obvious how to recover from it).

I am bold enough to use FolderShare to even synchronize the active source code that I am editing across my desktop and laptop. This is a bit scary, but all my stuff is backed up by Subversion and Time Machine, so it’s all good.

dropbox Enter Dropbox.

Dropbox is still in Beta and, unfortunately, I don’t have an invite yet. However, the video demonstration looks very slick. It’s different from FolderShare in that it does store your files "in the cloud". By storing your files centrally, it also adds the ability to version your files - basically providing a backup service along with a synchronizing service.

It appears that you have to place files within a "Dropbox" folder in order for the product to work. That’s different than FolderShare, as FolderShare can work in whatever existing folder you specify. Since Dropbox is in Beta, and I really haven’t seen it, who knows how it actually works. Stay tuned for more later (when I get my Dropbox invite, that is).

Dropbox has received a ton of press coverage, including articles in TechCrunch and the GigaOm Network.

SyncplicityLogo Enter Syncplicity.

Also in Beta, and currently only available for Windows, I haven’t had a chance to kick the tires on Syncplicity either. But I know the founder well, and have had numerous long talks with him about the product, the product philosophy, the target customer, the market, the competition, and where Syncplicity wants to go.

At this point, Syncplicity feels like the perfect combination of FolderShare and Dropbox. Like FolderShare, Syncplicity allows you to work within any folder - you don’t have to specify a side folder to do your backup/synchronization. Like Dropbox, Syncplicity integrates tightly with the Explorer/Finder to work the way you want to work, and also provides a cloud-based, secured version of your  files (and the requisite benefits of having that).

I look forward to watching how these products evolve. There is a definite need for something like this, and I do think the need goes way beyond the tech crowd.



Will Price Moves On: VC Industry Now Less Smart

photo_wide_willwidgetboxhummer_winblad

Will Price announced last week that he will be leaving Hummer Winblad to join one of their portfolio companies, Widgetbox, as CEO. Techcrunch has the story.

I don’t know Will personally. But I have read his stuff. It’s good. Very good.

While every VC you will meet is generally pretty darn smart, Will is both smart and articulate. His blog articles are always well thought out, well constructed, and thought provoking. And, yes, I usually agree with him.

Anyway, the VC industry average IQ just dropped a few notches with Will’s departure. It’s unfortunate news for Hummer Winblad in particular.

As it turns out, if you’re really interested in making money (and like to be somewhat in control), you have to be an entrepreneur and build a successful company. Sure, you can increment your way to a very nice retirement as a Venture Capitalist, but very few VC’s can extract the kind of returns that a CEO will bring home from building a successful start-up.

So, Will has made Widgetbox one to seriously watch. I wish him all the success in his new gig.

VMware IPO - A Major Success

VMware went public today!

Check out VMW on Google Finance.

Back in October of last year, I wrote an article that noted how VMware, a subsidiary of EMC, was kicking butt as a software company, but the value that they were bringing to EMC shareholders was clearly not being represented in the EMC stock price.

In February of this year, EMC and VMware announced that they would sell about 10% of the company in an IPO to happen this summer. Great minds think alike — and ours too! I wrote about that here.

VMware pre-sold over $368M of the proposed 10% to Intel Capital and Cisco (see these articles).

For the IPO today, VMware priced at $29.00 and opened at $50.00. Near the closing bell, I took this snapshot:

Up 84.83% is what you call a successful IPO.

No wonder. IDC estimates the virtualization market at $20B by 2011. VMware is currently at $1.2B. Do the math on that. There’s definitely plenty of upside for companies in the virtualization space. (Disclosure: I am a founder and shareholder of Cassatt Corporation, a company that sells virtualization management software for large data centers; I am now also a customer and shareholder of VMware).

When I wrote my original article, EMC stock was selling for about $12/share, and had been largely flat for years. Yesterday, EMC stock was selling for about $19/share. That’s over a 50% rise in share price in under a year. A key kicker of that rise in share price was, indeed, the VMware IPO. Well done EMC! Your stock has finally moved and you are delivering shareholder value from your most excellent VMware asset.

Finally, Intel Capital and Cisco have more than doubled their Net Asset Value of their VMware investment in just a handful of weeks. Honestly, that was a lot faster than I had predicted. They should expect a little extra something in their holiday bonus this year.

Go VMW!

Tags: , , , , , ,

Cisco Joins Intel Capital as Nation’s Smartest Investors

Earlier, Intel Capital announced that the will put in $218.5M to buy a 2.5% stake of the VMware IPO for a mere $23/share. When I wrote about it, I speculated that Intel Capital should expect to get a 3-4x return on that investment over the next 5 years.

That’s only an $800M+ gain for their investment. Not bad at all. This investment alone will put them in the "elite" category for venture investors. Well done!

Cisco announced that they will join the party. It appears as though they like to make easy money, too.

Cisco will put in $150M to buy about a 1.6% stake in VMware.

Also brilliant.

Anybody that gets in on the low end of the VMware IPO (currently $23-$25/share) will do very well. Congratulations to Intel Capital and Cisco for knowing how to invest wisely.

I’ve written about the VMware IPO previously here and here.

Tags: , , , , ,

GreenDimes Gets 205 Million Dimes

Back in October, 2006, I wrote about a company I really liked called GreenDimes. The article, I Hate Spam: Snail Mail Edition, talked about how the folks at GreenDimes had a great business on their hands, but I questioned whether they could ever be a stand-alone IPO-sized company that the usual VC model likes to fund.

Last week, it was reported in PE Week Wire that GreenDimes has secured $20.5M in Series A funding led by Tudor Investment Corporation. That’s a whopping huge Series A. Many congratulations to Pankaj Shah and the entire team at GreenDimes. It’s a good company with a worthy cause and a nice business model. The financing should give them ample room to build the business. Excellent news!

Great coverage is at Earth2Tech (and on GigaOm).

Death to Junk Mail!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Timeshifting Metcalfe-Cuban

One of the first blog articles I ever wrote was Timeshifting The Family. In that article, I described how TiVo has changed the content consumption experience for millions of people.

One of the points I touched on was the fact that TiVo, through timeshifting, was fundamentally changing the “shared experience” of how we viewed content. It’s hard to quantify that change, but it is definitely something that I experienced while watching Roots with my family back in the 1970’s.

What got me thinking about all of this (again) today was a recent article written by Mark Cuban, Metcalfe’s Law and Video, where he applies Metcalfe’s Law to video content distribution and forms some hypotheses. The two that relate to timeshifting I found most relevant and well stated:

1. The more people that see content when it is originally “broadcast”, regardless of the distribution medium, the more valuable the content.

This is the example of “appointment viewing” or “breaking news”. The more people who planned to watch, or did so as soon as they heard about it, the more valuable the content.


Call this the “heat check”.

 

10mm people watching a tv show at the same time creates more value for the content than 10mm people watching the same show on demand over the course of time.


2. The greater the number of people that watch content simultaneously, the greater the emotional attachment of the viewer.

The greater amount of confirmation that a viewer can get from other viewers that there were others, like them that made an appointment to see a video or immediately changed their plans to watch a video, the greater the “we” effect and emotional attachment.

Agreed.

In the case of Roots, it was more like 130mm viewers consuming the content simultaneously. A pretty big “we” effect with definite emotional attachment. A validated data point for Mark’s hypotheses.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Intel Capital Makes Fantastic Investment - Buys Into VMware IPO

Intel Capital steps up to an interesting and brilliant investment by buying a 2.5% stake of VMware in their coming IPO. Intel Capital will invest $218.5M into VMware and take a seat on the board. Excellent coverage of the news can be found at Data Center Knowledge and at Intel.

Simply.

Brilliant.

Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge notes that the VMware IPO is expected to raise $741M, with shares priced between $23 and $25. Simple math says that if Intel Capital pays $218.5M for a 2.5% stake, then they have valued VMware at a cool $8.74B. That is a perfectly reasonable valuation for VMware, given that they are now in the elite few software companies with >$1B annualized revenue run rate.

From my perspective, this is fantastic news for Intel Capital. This one investment will easily return 3-4x for them in the next 5 years. That’s a seriously big return on a very large investment. Congratulations to the Intel Capital team for landing this one!

I’ve written about the VMware IPO previously here and here.

I’d love to get a guaranteed price at the low end of the VMware IPO range. VMware folks: You have my number. Call me!

Tags: brianberliner, Brian Berliner, VMware, IPO, EMC, Intel, Intel Capital

Scott Adams on Dilbert at EclipseCon 2007

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, did a great job with the EclipseCon 2007 Keynote talk on Tuesday.

While the talk was certainly entertaining, the thing I liked most about his talk was the focus on things like "failure", "timing","luck", and "persistence".

Scott pointed out that his "list of failures" got to 29 items before he stopped counting. Of those 29 failures, most would have been successes had they been shifted forward or backward in time by as little as 5 years. As I’ve said before, timing is everything. Startups are often too early to market. Lots of VC-backed startups do not have the patience to wait for the market to catch up to them. Patience.

In addition to his 29 failures, Scott did recognize 3 successes. And, certainly, a bit of luck played a part in the successes.

However, Scott’s spin on "lucky" and "unlucky" people was interesting. Lucky people are those that expect success to happen to them and, as a result, they have a broader perspective of the world around them. Unlucky people do not expect success and often miss the signs that would otherwise drive them toward the right opportunity. Interesting. Don’t forget to look around.

Finally, don’t ever give up. Be persistent. Create a "product". Create lots of products. Something will eventually stick, perhaps with that component of "luck" playing its part when you least expect it.

Nothing in here about Eclipse or EclipseCon 2007. Still, very well done, informative and entertaining.

Be sure to take a look at the Dilbert Blog.

At EclipseCon 2007 - Look Me Up!

I’m at EclipseCon 2007 this week, in sunny Santa Clara, CA. I’m very much looking forward to the event. Lots of great sessions lined up and this year’s conference looks to be bigger than ever.

The ecosystem that has developed around Eclipse is remarkable. Definitely shows the power of Open Source within the developer community (something I was lucky enough to contribute to with CVS).

If you’d like to chat/meet, please drop me an email.

Tags: ,,,,,,,

Fred Seibert of Frederator Studios and Next New Networks

I don’t listen to many podcasts. Way too time consuming, and not particularly searchable (and, they play back at a constant speed). However, from time to time, I will find one and play it in the background while I work.

And, occasionally, I hit an episode that is brilliant. I really enjoyed this 1.5-hour (yikes!) podcast with Fred Seibert of Channel Frederator.

Quoted from Venture Voice: VV Show #43 - Fred Seibert of Frederator Studios and Next New Networks:

VV Show #43 - Fred Seibert of Frederator Studios and Next New Networks

Download the MP3.
Before the rise of the Internet, cable TV was the new form of distribution remaking the entertainment business. Life-long entrepreneur and former jazz producer Fred Seibert pioneered that field, and is known in the industry for branding MTV (remember their ever-changing animated logo) and Nickelodeon (remember Nick-at-Nite). While he was figuring out what to do next, Ted Turner hired him to be president of the then-struggling Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio. Fred turned the famous studio around and kept his hand in the cable business until some friends dragged him into the Internet business. He now runs Frederator Studios which produces several cable and Internet TV shows. He also just launched a new well-funded startup called Next New Networks to create Internet TV networks.

Good storytelling. Reminds me that things sometimes work, and sometimes they don’t. In any case, you’re always learning and always moving the ball forward.

Enjoy!

Tags: ,,,