This first map provides multiple connections of Haas alumni to extant companies. Companies appear if there are two or more Haas alumni as board/management team members in the LinkSV database.

Example 1

Here, we see that two companies have three or more Haas affiliations: Tube Mogul has three management team members from Haas and Delivery Agent has one management team member and two board members from Haas. Exploring further, below is a map of Haas alumni that currently have the title CEO (registrants goto Person Filters Title=CEO and Apply Changes).

Example 2

Here, we see a list of 12 people who are currently CEOs at companies. This could be expanded further by clicking “add to map” for any of the 12 people. Roost CEO Alex Chang was added to the map and then we removed Haas as a target node. You can double-click on any person to pop-up their LinkSV bio.

Example 3

Here, we see Alex Chang’s multiple ties to Juliya Rubin (TotalMove, Roost) and Myles Felsing (Haas, Middlebury).

The next examples are two Cluster Maps, which effectively removes Haas as a target node and highlights other pre-existing relationships amongst its alumni (MinLink=3) map which only depicts triads or greater clusters.

Example 4

Here, note the strong relationship to Accenture (n=8). Note again ties to TubeMogul and Delivery Agent.

The next map is the Haas Cluster Map with School Nodes Collapsed into Links (registrants goto Information window Controls).

Example 5

Here, note two large clusters in the map.

We can specify these clusters from the information window Controls by unchecking Collapse School and checking Collapse Companies, Investors, and Experience, leading us to…

Example 6

Here we see the aforementioned Haas clusters as other university ties, the strongest tie being UC Berkeley (+non-MBA degree, n=32), followed by Stanford (n=9), Cornell (n=8), UC-Davis (n=5). This map can be used to identify potential Haas groups based on common education affiliation. Note how double Berkeley Alumni can be identified as strong School Ties toward potential collaborative efforts. It is surprising to note the high number of ties to Cornell (my old stomping grounds) and the surprising Upstate NY-Bay Area connection.

We hope you can use some of the new features of LinkSViewer 1.3 to your own strategic advantage. Feel free to sign up for a free two-week membership by clicking on Free Trial Registration.

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)

Realize a few things from the above map: (1) the results indicate the most active investors in your chosen time period (i.e., those with more than one investment); (2) the resultant companies shown on the map are filtered to meet your chosen activity specifications (i.e., 1st round Internet companies over the past 3 months) - this is by default displayed at the top of the map to remind you of how companies on the maps are filtered; and (3) each of the filters can be changed by clicking on the Company Filter link (top center) which allows on-the-fly changes to your current settings (round, sector, or funding dates) or other settings (including amount of capital, company keyword, or start year).   

Example 2:  I am looking for Internet VCs (let’s say I am a 1st-round funded Web 2.0 company looking for 2nd round financing).  What VCs invested in 2nd round Internet companies this past year?

From the LinkSViewer home page, I started at the Search Recent Funding Networks and from each pull-down menus I selected Venture, 2nd Round, 12 Months, and Internet sector, and clicked on Show Results.  The results returned 16 investors 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 the 6 VCs with 3 or more investments fitting my activity criteria investors (Clicking on Sequoia and then holding the shift key on Lightspeed) and clicked Show Relational map.

Last year 2nd Round Internet investors Relational Map.  Notes: (1) Sequoia Capital has the most investments (5) with co-investments with DFJ (Meebo), Lightspeed (RockYou!, TutorVista, & NetPickle), and Accel (AdMob); (2) Benchmark Capital has the 2nd most investments (4) with co-investments with DAG Ventures (Gaia) and Accel (AdMob); and (3) Randy Kormisar (KPCB) is the only board member on the map via DAG/KPCB co-investment (Aggregate Knowledge & Pinger).

Of course there are several ways to further explore investor activity maps.  I provide a few of these below:

Most Active Individual (Angel) Investors in the Internet Sector over the past 2 Years.  Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Josh Kopelman, and Reid Hoffman are the most active investors in this space over the past two years.  Note how 10 other angel investors (yellow) appear on the relational map as well as 4 earlier-stage VC firms.

Last Year Most Active Biotech Investors People Map (Pendants dropped).  Note the large number of board interlocks for active investors in the Biotech sector. 

• What companies recently received funding? (Focus of this post)
• What investors have been recently active? (Next post)

Example 1:  I am interested in recent SV-funded companies (let’s say I was on vacation).  Who was funded in the past week?

From the LinkSViewer home page, I started at the Search Recent Funding Networks and from each pull-down menus I selected All Rounds, 7 days, and All Sectors, and clicked on Show Results.  Very handy/time-saving.  The results returned 8 companies (DVC Labs, Eye-Fi, iKoa, Luminescent, M-Factor, Roxro Pharma, Silver Spring Networks, & Telltale Games), listing the company name, number of investors, and funding date.  At this point I can select any combination of the results in displaying the map.  For this example, I selected DVC Labs and Eye-Fi (clicking on the DVC Labs and holding onto the Ctrl key while clicking on Eye-Fi) and clicked Show Relational map.

Relational Map of DVC Labs and Eye-Fi.  Notes: (1) the board interlock between Larry Orr (Trinity Ventures) and Carl Showalter (Opus Capital): Orr sits on the board of DVC Labs, Showalter sits on the board of Eye-Fi, and they both sit on the board of Identity Engines; (2) DVC Labs has two VC investors, Matrix & Trinity - they were also one of five investors in Aruba Networks, a recently successful IPO. 

Example 2:  I am looking for Internet companies funded over the past three months (let’s say I am a Web 2.0 angel investor interested in the recent landscape).  What Internet start-ups got funded over the past 90 days?

From the LinkSViewer home page, I started at the Search Recent Funding Networks and from each pull-down menus I selected All Rounds, 7 days, and All Sectors, and clicked on Show Results.  The results returned 9 companies listing the company name, number of investors, and funding date.  At this point I can select any combination of the results in displaying the map.  For this example, I selected all of the 9 companies together (Clicking on the first entry and then holding the shift key on the last entry).  Their Relational Map is below:

Last 90 days Funded Internet Companies Relational Map.  Notes: (1) SnapLogic, lala, and Multiverse are isolates in the network; and (2) NEA is a central investor in the network even though they only invested in on of the 9 companies (Vibrynt) - NEA has common investment/board ties to 6 recently funded Internet companies.

Of course there are several ways to further explore the preceding map.  I provide a few of these below:

Last 90 days Funded Internet Companies Relational Map (Pendants dropped).  This amplifies the connectivity in the preceding map (e.g., NEA ties).  One large connected component dominates this map, tying together 6 target companies.

Last 90 days Funded Internet Companies Relational Map (Pendants dropped, Company filter = Internet sector companies only).  This further segments the preceding map to only contain linking Internet companies.  Note how NEA’s centrality is reduced and Peter Thiel’s connecting role is amplified. 

1st Round SV Internet Companies Recent Activity Relational Map.  Large blue boxes indicate Internet start-up (1st round) companies that were funded in March, 2007.  Small blue boxes indicate all Internet companies that were funded in March, 2006 or later.  The goal is to map recent activity in the SV Internet Sector.

Network Commentary:

• 14 Internet-Sector 1st Round SV companies were funded in March, 2007 (Industrious Kid, Wesabe, Outspark.com, Scribd, Xobni, kwiry, Fliptrack, Teracent, Popular Media, Oodle, Rock You, Kongregate, Flixster, & cFares) - Source: LinkSV.com
• David Sze (Greylock: Marquee, LinkedIn, & Digg) has the most board ties (3) for Internet companies that received funding over the past year
• Peter Sonsini (NEA: Compiere & Teracent) and Ravi Mhatre (Lightspeed: Flixster & Kosmix) both have 2 board ties on the map - one 1st round company funded in March, 2007 and one over the past year

Honing in on the investor relations from the above map, I dropped pendants and for the below Investment Map: 

1st Round SV Internet Companies Recent Activity Investment Map (Pendants dropped).  Large blue boxes indicate Internet start-up (1st round) companies that were funded in March, 2007.  Small blue boxes indicate all Internet companies that were funded in March, 2006 or later.  The goal of this map is to indicate recent investment relation activity in the SV Internet Sector.

Network Commentary:

• 9 Internet-Sector 1st Round companies funded in March, 2007 have investment ties over the past year (Scribd, Xobni, Teracent, Popular Media, Oodle, Industrious Kid, Rock You, Kongregate, & cFares)
• Sequoia Capital is the most active VC in the past month (Rock You & Popular Media) and year (Xoom, Tutor Vista, NetPickle, LinkedIn, & Clearwell Systems) - 7 total investment links in the past year
• LightSpeed Ventures has 3 common investment links with Sequoia (NetPickle, RockYou, & Tutor Vista) and one other with Jeff Clavier (Wikia)
• NEA (GarageBand, Teracent, & Xoom), Greylock (Oodle, LinkedIn, & Digg), and Jeff Clavier (Wikia, Kaboodle, & Kongregate) each have 3 past-year Internet-sector investments
• Jeff Clavier and Reid Hoffman (Digg, Kongregate) are the only two angel investors on the map
• Y Combinator (Scribd & Xobni) Steamboat Ventures (Popular Media & Industrious Kid) both have 2 Internet-sector investments in the past month

Practical Uses (Whys)

The above map and analysis can be used to see who has been active in the Internet Sector over the past month and year.  It is meant to save users time by illustrating funding activity in one map with one-click summary information (in the Information Window or to LinkSV Company Summaries or People Profiles).  This information can be used by companies seeking funding, VC firms or angels surveying the investment space, or anyone looking for latest trends.  Some potential specific questions:

• Who are the recently active investors?
• What companies are they co-investing in?
• How are these companies related to each other? 
• How are these companies related to my company?
• What are the capital-based ties for collaboration?

Of course, LinkSViewer 1.2 can generate similar activity maps for different sectors, datelines, keywords, rounds, capital $, etc.  It can also be used to find board member and/or management team relations in addition to investments.  Registered users are encouraged to play around with either of the above maps (e.g., filter, node or link alteration).  We plan on integrating this festure into our front page as a way to help registered users quickly discover recent funding activity and relationships (Thanks to Paul Sherer at PodTech for this suggestion).  Contact us if you have any suggestions or specific requests for activity maps. 

Here we see that there are several investors have at least 3 co-investments with Mohr Davidow, but it is difficult to see their relations from the above map.  Because we know by definition that Mohr Davidow is connected to the companies in their map, we can better view their relations by excluding their node from the map.  We now check the Exclude Target Node box below the Legend icon.  The below map alters the previous map even though it contains the same information, with the exception of the Mohr Davidow node.

From the above map you can now discern the relationships between companies and investors for larger maps.   For example, you can see that Accel Partners has 3 active co-investment ties with Mohr Davidow and they are all public companies (FormFactor, Critical Path, & Agile Software).  In the previous map such relations were difficult to gauge.  Of course there are other ways to clarify maps using Filters, zoom, changing font size, and truncating node labels, but the Exclude Target Node feature is an efficient way to view entire maps without losing information.  Try it out.  It is a useful feature. 

By double-clicking on any person node in the map, their LinkSV.com profile pops up in a new window.  The profile allows immediate access LinkSV’s Web-accessible information on their background, boards, and investments.  It also links to other available information such as their Web bio, company Website + address, LinkedIn record, and Jigsaw contact information.  Here is an Example LinkSV Profile (full-screen).

Double click on a person (board or management team member) the next time you map, it should be useful.  More new stuff to come…