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Quark Files IPO: Larry Ellison & SuperGen Former Connections

Quark Biotech hopes to raise up to $86.25M in IPO (Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal)

Quark Biotech filed for its IPO on March 30.  The Quark Biotech Relational Map provides some insight into the relations between its current and former management team and board members.  Along the way, I would like to point out some key transition points that will help LinkSViewer users to navigate from simple to complex maps (the opposite of the previous post which demonstrated navigating from complex to simple maps).  First I started with a relatively simple relational map - I searched for Quark Biotech and then filtered in former people.

Quark Biotech Relational Map (Former People Included).  Notes: (1) Board Interlock Ties: Joseph Rubinfeld & Daniel Zurr (Former SuperGen Board Members); (2) Key People Ties: Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO, previous Quark board member).

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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). 

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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)

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Auren Hoffman: Network of a Networker

Auren Hoffman is Zelig (ValleyWag)

ValleyWag reports on the connectedness of RapLeaf Co-Founder/President Auren Hoffman, comparing him to the title character in the Woody Allen movie, Zelig.  I thought it would be useful to look at his relational network:

Auren Hoffman + RapLeaf Relational Map.  Notes: Three clusters emerge: Auren Hoffman as Investor; Advisory Board Member; and RapLeaf President; (1) Hoffman’s SV Investment investment network includes Meebo, edgeio, Socializr, and BrightRoll; (2) BrightRoll connects to his SV Advisory Board network which includes Merchant Circle, Zoom Systems, Spoke Software, and RapLeaf; and (3) RapLeaf connects to his Management Team network which includes Kaboodle, Maya’s Mom, BuzzLogic, Mint Software, and Powerset. (Source: LinkSV.com)

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Powerset Case Study: Managing 22 Investors

This post examines the company Powerset as an atypical first round company.  Powerset’s LinkSV Company Summary or LinkSViewer Information Window reveals that Powerset is a first round company founded in November, 2006 ($12.5M), with 4 VC investors and 18 Angel investors.

Powerset is a Silicon Valley company building a transformative consumer search engine based on natural language processing. Using these advanced techniques, Powerset is building a large-scale search engine that breaks the confines of keyword search. Powerset is currently operating in semi-stealth mode. Source: Powerset Web Site.

I am interested in Powerset because its capital network is complex.  The goal is to apply LinkSViewer as illustrating and unfolding the capital complexity of the company.  Hopefully, this can provide some insight on potential alliances, support, and strategic ties.  I first examined its Relational Map including current and former relations + direct tie connections. 

Powerset Relational Map.  Counts: VCs = 4; Angels = 18; Board Members = 2; Management Team Members = 3; Related Active Companies = 8 (6 Private; 2 Acquired).  Source LinkSV.com 

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Precocious Start-Ups + Active Investors: Network Analysis

Fueled by a previous post, I sought to examine start-up companies that received funding early in their existence.  I term these “precocious companies” because they were founded in 2006 or later and received either Angel or VC funding at an early age.  I looked at this in an alternative way.  While I initially searched for companies that started in 2006 or later, I only selected portfolio companies financed by investors with 2 or more investments.  In this way, I cross-referenced the most recent start-up companies with the most active start-up investors.  One can view these companies as interesting because they received backing close to opening their doors; one can view these investors as opinion leaders (or risk takers) because they are financing companies with little time for proven experience.  I divided my analysis into types of investors: Individual Angels and VC Firms.  First I examined the most active angel investors for companies started in 2006 or later.  5 angel investors had at least 2 SV portfolio companies started in 2006-7: Ron Conway, Alexander Lloyd, Reid Hoffman, Jeff Clavier, and Frank Caufield.

Angel Map - Most Active SV Angels (2006-7 Start-Ups) Investment Map (Other investors filtered out).  Notes: (A) All of these angels are connected to each other; (B) Jeff Clavier has the most recent start-up investments (4), followed by Ron Conway (3); (C) Four of the start-up companies on the map were invested in by more than one of the angels: RapLeaf (Clavier, Hoffman & Lloyd) and edgeio (Clavier, Conway, & Caufield); Kongregate (Clavier & Hoffman) and PowerSet (Hoffman & Lloyd). Source: LinkSV.com

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Biotech & Medical Company Funding: Recent Activity (March, 2007)

Building upon the previous theme of activity reports, I turned to SV Health-Tech companies (i.e., Biotech & Medical sectors) that received funding in March, 2007.  I mapped these companies together and then filtered for companies that only received funding in the past year.  The goal here is to find out which investors and outside board members were most recently active in the health-tech space and to illustrate their capital relations. 

First I was interested in the most recently active investors - for this I only included investors with at least 3 investments (MinLink =3) in the Biotech and Medicine sectors over the past year.  I then dropped pendants to only show the connections between these investors.  

1st Round SV Health-Tech Companies Recent Activity Investment Map (Pendants dropped, MinLink=3).  Large blue boxes indicate Health-Tech companies that were funded in March, 2007.  Small blue boxes indicate Health-Tech companies that were funded from 3/06-2/07.  Source: LinkSV.com 

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Derivative Networks: Hot Board Member, Angel, and VC Relations

Continuing from the previous post…We now use the relations found in the previous map to investigate ‘hot company’ networks in new ways. This is based on the idea that key people and investors can help point the way to new companies. The goal of a ‘derivative network’ is to take a network of interest and ‘invert’ it to see another view of its affiliations. In each of the ensuing three derivative maps, we will be exposed to new sets of people and companies that are not in this group of ‘hot companies,’ but are related to that group through these derivative networks.

First let’s look at the networks of the three key board members identified in the previous post: Reid Hoffman, David Sze, and Bill Gurley. Q: What do these board members have in common? The goal here is to identify companies not found in the previous post map - companies that are found in the same circles as the ‘hot companies’ discussed in the last post. Along with the new people we find, all of these companies are potentially interesting, so let’s see what we can dig up.

In the last post we started with a map of company nodes. In this first derivative map we will look at the network formed by the affiliations of those companies - namely, the key board members.

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Searching for the Hottest Silicon Valley Startups - Network Analysis

Searching for the hottest Silicon Valley startups (VCRatings)

This post is based on the question about Silicon Valley startups that Reid Hoffman posed on his LinkedIn Answers Page, referencing the original post by Matt Marshall on Venture Beat. The VC Ratings post identifies the initial tallies for the votes on the hottest SV companies (linked to individual maps): Facebook, NetSuite, Linden Lab, LinkedIn, AdMob, Digg, Nanosolar, Tesla Motors, Bebo, AdBrite, SixApart, and Aggregate Knowledge all received votes.

I surmised that it would be interesting to see what these companies have in common from a relational capital perspective. For this I searched for and mapped all of these companies together using LinkSViewer. Then I removed companies, dropped pendants (i.e., one-link only-nodes), and the result was the below Relational Map. Question: What capital ties do the hottest SV companies have in common?

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Funding Activity (March, 2007): 1st Round Internet Companies - Recent Relations

LinkSViewer 1.2 has the ability to search and view recent Silicon Valley funding activity.  This post demonstrates the how, what, and whys of this feature.  For this example, I was interested in 1st round Internet Sector companies that received funding in March, 2007.  I mapped these companies together and then filtered for companies that only received funding in the past year.

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.

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