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How Can Entrepreneurs Use LinkSViewer?: TheFunded.com Case Study

The Funded.com is a entrepreneurial resource that provides various ratings and data for VC funds.  LinkSViewer illustrates relations between Silicon Valley investors, companies, and their board members/management teams.  This post demonstrates LinkSViewer network map integration with TheFunded information to further supply resources for the emerging start-up company interested in obtaining venture capital.  The main idea here is to combine capital relations with entrepreneurial experiences. 

Some potential questions (with TheFunded.com in mind):

• What are the investment relations of the VC(s)?
• How are they related to other VCs?
• How are they related to board members and/or management team members?
• What other companies has the VC (or multiple VCs) invested in? 
• In what sector? 
• Over the what time period? 
• With what keywords? 

Let’s look at an example:

True Ventures is currently rated as one of the top VC firms by the members at TheFunded.  Let’s examine the relational network map for True Ventures’ portfolio companies in the Silicon Valley:

True Ventures Relational Map.  Notes: (1) All of the active companies are private companies (blue rectangles); (2) Three Angel investors (yellow ovals) have multiple capital relations with True Ventures: Auren Hoffman (Meebo & BrightRoll) and Michael Tanne & Jeff Clavier (BrightRoll & Maya’s Mom) have two common investment ties with True Ventures; (3) Three Board/Management Team Members (tan ovals) have board/management team interlocks with Sphere and Automattic: Phil Black (True Ventures), Toni Schneider (True Ventures & Automattic CEO), and Matt Mullenweg (Automattic founding executive).  Double click on each tan oval in the map for their LinkSV bio (in a new window).  Here is a complete view of all of the relations for True Ventures Silicon Valley active companies (including all co-investors and related management team and board members). (Source: LinkSV.com)

Here we gain a sense of the Silicon Valley company portfolio of True Ventures as it relates to its co-investors and board/management team interlocks.  LinksViewer provides a handy (and clickable) representation of the relational capital for each VC firm.  Below are some other potentially interesting maps for start-up entrepreneurs: 

Sequoia Capital + Accel Partners: Round 1-2 Internet Sector companies funded in 2005 or later 

Sequoia Capital + Accel Partners: Round 1-2 Keyword “Wireless” companies funded in 2005 or later

Entrepreneurs are encouraged to try out LinkSViewer for a free two-week trial (particularly when in capital-seeking mode).  This allows the user access to multiple map views, search, filtering, and a number of other features.  After the two-week trial, LinkSViewer is available on a per seat monthly subscription basis for $25/month.  Check it out, it may save you money in the long run…

New Feature: Investor Activity Maps & Examples

Building upon the previous post, I now examine recent SV-company investor activity.  The feature is accessible to registered users from our new home page at http://linksviewer.com/home.  There are some differences between investor and company activity maps which I will highlight in this post.   

Example 1:  I am interested in recent investor activity in 1st round SV-companies the Internet sector (let’s say I was an investor who wants to keep abreast of other investor activity).  Who were the most active investors over the past 3 months in funding Internet sector start-ups?

From the LinkSViewer home page, I started at the Search Most Active Investor Networks and from each pull-down menus I selected All Investors, 1st Round, 7 days, 3 Months, and Internet Sector, and clicked on Show Results.  The results returned 8 matching investors (Shasta Ventures, Jeff Clavier, Ron Conway, Emergence Capital, Greylock, Khosla, NEA, and Redpoint), listing the number of investments in this time period, name of investor, and total number of investments.  At this point I can select any combination of the results in displaying the map.  For this example, I selected all of the investors (Clicking on the first entry and then holding the shift key on the last entry) and clicked Show Relational map.  

Relational Map of Most Active Investors in 1st Round SV Internet companies over the past 3 months.  Notes: (1) Conway and Clavier both invested in Kaboodle; (2) Redpoint and Greylock both invested in Oodle; (3) Emergence and Shasta both invested in Lithium Tech.; and (4) NEA and Shasta are linked by Nikhyl Singhal (SayNow Founder & Teracent Board advisor). (Source: LinkSV.com)

Continue reading New Feature: Investor Activity Maps & Examples…

Infinera IPO Soars: Why Relational Capital Matters

Infinera shares soar in debut (CNN Money)

Infinera had a 14M share offering with a price range of $10-12, it priced at $13 and opened yesterday at $16.04.  It closed at $19.71 after reaching a high of $21.24 in mid-day trading (low = $16.00).  As a result, Infinera (INFN) was up 52% if you got in at the IPO and up 23% if you got in at the opening bell.  This is particularly noteworthy because the NASDAQ was down 1.77% yesterday.  From the CNN article, independent IPO analyst Tom Taulli states, “In hindsight [Infinera] looks like it was underpriced.”  This hails the sentiment I offered in my March 2 blog post, Infinera IPO Filing: The Juniper Net Works?  Here I was bullish on Infinera because of its relational capital via co-investor ties to 24 public companies and multiple board ties to Juniper Networks.  I repeat two of these maps below:

Infinera Investment Relational Map. Notes: (1) Juniper Networks as both an investor (orange oval) and related company (green box) via Kleiner Perkins & JAFCO; (2) Kleiner multiple public co-investment ties to Venrock (Photon Dynamics, Pharmacyclics, Geron, Echelon, & NeoMagic) & Sprout (Synaptics, Verifone, & eHealth); and (3) 17 investors on the map reflecting 7 rounds of capital ($315M total raised). (Source: LinkSV.com)

Continue reading Infinera IPO Soars: Why Relational Capital Matters…

eBay Acquires StumbleUpon: Capital Relations

Ebay acquires StumbleUpon for $75M (Venture Beat)

While there was some speculation as to the reasons why eBay made this deal, the capital network shows some indirect ties between StumbleUpon and eBay.  This is noted in the below relational map of eBay (as investor and company) and StumbleUpon: 

Relational Map for eBay/StumbleUpon.  Notes: There are two capital paths between eBay and StumbleUpon: (1) eBay as an investor (orange oval): eBay as investor in Feedster –> Josh Kopelman (Board Advisor to Feedster) –> StumbleUpon (Kopelman as Board Member); (2) eBay as a company (green box): Benchmark Capital (eBay investor) ties to Ram Shriram (via Friendster), Mitch Kapor (via Linden Lab), & Ron Conway (via OpenTable & oDesk) as angel investors in StumbleUpon; and Bob Kagle (Benchmark) board interlock tie to Ram Shriram (via Friendster) as angel investor in StumbleUpon. (Source: LinkSV.com) 

The Top 5 SV VCs Under 40 - Direct + Indirect Ties & Clusters

The top five VCs under 40 — what do you think? (Venture Beat)

Venture Beat posted a poll on the top 5 Silicon Valley VCs under 40, in reference to a San Jose Mercury article.  I figured it would be interesting to answer this question using their SV capital relations with one another.  For this post, I mapped together their relational networks with each other - this illustrates the common SV company ties of Roelof Botha, Kevin Efrusy, Peter Fenton, Danny Rimer, and Peter Thiel (LinkSViewer registered users can see each individual VC’s capital networks by clicking on each user in the map and then displaying their relational map from the information window).   First, I mapped their current and former company direct ties (as board/management team members & investors) by filtering out all other people and investors: 

Top 5 VCs Under 40 Relational Map (Investors & People Excluded).  Notes: (1) Peter Thiel is the only VC that is also listed as an individual investor (yellow oval); (2) Direct Ties: (a) Peter Thiel & Roelof Botha (PayPal former management team; Xoom current/former board interlock); (b) Peter Fenton & Kevin Efrusy (Hyperic & Terracotta board interlocks); (3) Of the 28 SV companies affiliated with the VCs, 10 were acquired and 18 are currently private; (4) 4 of Danny Rimer’s SV boards were acquired (MyCFO.com, Ofoto, Neoteris, & TellMe Networks). (Source: LinkSV.com)

Continue reading The Top 5 SV VCs Under 40 - Direct + Indirect Ties & Clusters…

MySpace Acquires Photobucket?: Trinity-HP Tie

MySpace to buy Photobucket? (Venture Beat)

The apparent acquisition of Photobucket by MySpace for $250M has some precedence from a venture capital perspective.  By examining the capital map combining MySpace with Photobucket I found a former tie between the two.  Realize that each only has one main investor: Trinity Ventures (Photobucket) and HP (MySpace).  By filtering in inactive company ties, one connection emerged between HP and Trinity: Speedera Networks.  Speedera Networks (total capital raised in 4 rounds = $53.3M) was acquired by Akamai Technologies for $130M in 2005  - Trinity and HP were among 10 of the investors in Speedera.  Thus, HP and Trinity have had a previous acquisition experience together, albeit they were on the same side of the table on the deal.  This relationship is shown in the below map (pendants dropped), followed by a map including pendants = current and former board and management team members for Photobucket and MySpace (Source: LinkSV.com).

NeurogesX IPO - Walden & Alta Ties

NeurogesX, a San Carlos pharmaceutical company, recently had its IPO.  Here I explore NeurogesX’ relational capital network.  Below is the Relational Map for Active companies: 

NeurogesX Relational Map (Active companies only).  Notes: (1) Alta-Walden co-investments: Plexxikon, Terawave Comm., Metabolix, & Corcept Thera.; (2) Alta-Global Life Science Ventures co-investment: Coapt Systems; (3) Alta-Arch Ventures co-investments: R2 Tech.; (4) Alta-Walden public company tie: Corcept; and (5) Alix Marduel (Alta Ventures) board interlock: Metabolix & Corcept ties.  Below is the Relational Map for Active & Inactive companies.

Continue reading NeurogesX IPO - Walden & Alta Ties…

Cavium Networks IPO: Mellanox Investor Ties

Cavium Networks Rises 22 Pct. After IPO (AP)

Cavium Networks is the latest among recent successful IPOs.  An earlier post examines the Relational network of Cavium Networks, highlighting its predominant Active Acquired company connections.  One of its connected companies also recently went public, Mellanox Technologies.  In light of their recent IPOs, I decided to examine the capital links between Cavium and Mellanox Technologies.  First I illustrate using their combined Relational Map.  Because of their multiple connections, I filtered out pendants and increased the MinLink to 3 (including only those companies with 3 ties in the network) in their below Investment Map.

Cavium & Mellanox Investment Relational Map (MinLink=3, Pendants dropped). Note the tie to Ikanos Communications, which went public in late 2005.  Here we see a multitude of investors and related companies because both Cavium (10) and Mellanox (14) each had a large number of investors.  To simplify the map, let’s remove the investors from the map using the Investor Filter.

Continue reading Cavium Networks IPO: Mellanox Investor Ties…

Data Domain files IPO: Greylock, NEA, & Sutter Hill Ties

Data Domain, storage appliance co., files for $100M IPO (VentureBeat NewsWire)

Data Domain filed for its IPO on April 4.  The Data Domain Relational Map provides some insight into the co-investment relations between its three investors: Greylock Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, and NEA.  Along the way, I would like to point out some key transition points that will help LinkSViewer users to navigate from complex to simple maps.  First I started with a relatively complex relational map - I searched for Data Domain and then filtered in current and former people and dropped pendants.

Data Domain Relational Map (Pendants dropped).  Notes (1) Co-Investment Ties: Sutter Hill-Greylock (Trusted Data); NEA-Sutter Hill (QuickLogic, Kovair); and NEA-Greylock (PortAuthority, SiTime, PolyServe, Tabula); (2) People Ties: Geoff Barrall (Trusted Data CEO); Reed Hundt (Former FCC Chair); Aneel Bhusri (Greylock); Scott Sandell (NEA); Ron Codd (PeopleSoft Former CFO); and Michael O’ Donnell (Network Appliance Former Director of Federal Sales); (3) Strong Company Ties: Trusted Data (Geoff Barrall, Greylock, & Sutter Hill); Kovair (Scott Sandell of NEA & Sutter Hill). 

Continue reading Data Domain files IPO: Greylock, NEA, & Sutter Hill Ties…

1st Quarter 2007 Funding: Health vs. Internet Sectors

VCs open pockets for health, but neglect IT (Venture Beat)

Venture Beat cites a VentureOne/Ernst&Young Report indicating a 65% increase in spending in 2007 Q1 in the Health Sector and only 10% in the Internet/Info. Services Sector.  I examined these two Sectors SV maps to: (1) see who the key investors were in each sector (and how they were related); and (2) look behind the numbers to see some general trends in these investments.  I started by mapping the most recently funded (1/1-3/1/07) Biotech + Medical sector companies (= Health).  I then filtered out all other companies and dropped pendants in the below Relational Investment Map. 

Health Company Investment Map (1-3/07).  Notes: (1) 19 companies funded in 2007Q1 are on the map; (2) 18 investors have at least 2 investments on the map; (3) Alta Partners has by far the most investments (=7: Aerovance, Sanarus, DiscoveRx, PneumRx, Intarcia, ChemoCentryx, & Coapt), followed by InterWest Partners (=4: Intarcia, TransOral, Fluidigm, & Gynesonics), and Bay City Capital (=3: Intarcia, Gentiae, & MAP); (4) Intarcia Pharma was invested in by all three key investors (+ NEA & NewLeaf); and (5) Optovue is the only company that does not have a linked investor on the map. (Source: LinkSV.com)

Continue reading 1st Quarter 2007 Funding: Health vs. Internet Sectors…