February 15, 2008
Answers Gives Up The Ghost On $100M Buyout of Dictionary.com
Answers.com wanted Dictionary.com and its parent group Lexico in a bad way. Enough to agree to pay $100M to buy the ad-supported reference network. The problem is that Answers didn't have the cash and needed to go to Wall Street to do a secondary offering. Now Answers has had to admit that Wall Street gave them the Heisman. Answers has until March 1 to conclude the deal so unless a white knight turns up with that kind of cash Lexico will either be turned lose or it may look for other suitors.
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Israel's Nuconomy Backed By WPP
WPP - the ad giant with a growing appetite for digital plays - has bought a stake in Israeli Web analytics company NuConomy for an undisclosed amount, although Globes reports that it was around $3M
NuConomy claims its platform measures consumers engagement and interaction with content, while giving advertisers actionable insight into the audience they engage with. In short, what the want to provide for free is audience engagement data that you might find with the likes of Omniture. How and why will they do it for free? Well we don't yet know the biz model but surely they plan on selling aggregate data. They also are working on software to help you target ads at your readers once they have been segmented by NuConomy.
The acquisition follows a handful of recent WPP investments in digital media firms, including Integrated Media Measurement, VideoEgg and SpotRunner.
Israel-based Nuconomy is led by CEO Shahar Nechmad.
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ReadWriteWeb has a great run-down of Nuconomy
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Realms' Spinoff Sparkplay Raises $4.25M
Redpoint Ventures and Prism Ventureworks have invested $4.25M in Mill Valley, CA-based Sparkplay Media. Sparkplay as announced one product - Earth Eternal, a 3d MMORPG, but says that this is part of a larger strategy.
The company's CEO and founder Matt Mihaly had founded Iron Realms Entertainment which he says pioneered the virtual asset sales model, releasing four profitable MMOs. That company's flagship is called Achaea.
Sparkplay says it has been self-financing for the past two years. They describe it as a spin-off of Realms. The difference in the company seems to be that Sparkplay will combine MMOs with social networks.
The demo looks cool
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Novell Buys Groupware's Sitescape
Novell has been stuck in a rut for too long. We can't recall the last time the Utah-based software company was involve in a deal. Today it announced that it was buying groupware's Sitescape. Founded in 1995 and based in Maynard, MA Sitescape was originally spun out of DEC.
Sitescape started out making open-source Web workspace and then it bought a conferencing solution and now it is addressing social networking.
Sitescape clients include the US Navy, US Centers for Disease Control, the European Space Agency, Lockheed Martin, Shell, and Starwood Hotels.
Sitescape may have sold to Novell as it is facing strong competition from Microsoft Sharepoint as well as from smaller innovators like Jive Software, SuiteTwo and SpikeSource.
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February 14, 2008
The a:c Is Hands Down The Best. Bragster Raises $4M From Intel
Visit Bragster and you are bound to read some idiot get in your face about how he banged three chicks before lunch on his yacht on route to his crib in Greece. If this is your cup of tea have at it.
London's Bragster raised $3.5M in a first round of funding led by Intel Capital. Indeed Bragster's traffic has come out of nowhere. We assume that Intel did their research to see if this is natural or paid traffic. The company says it has had 800K visitors in its first 12 months.
The company is led by Wim Vernaeve, a former Morgan Stanley banker (which he boasts is the best frickin bank in London.)
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SocialVibe's SocNet Ad Network Raises $4.12M
Joe Marchese is an online ad sector columnist who was been penning provocative analysis for some time. Most recently he has been telling us to watch out for a startup that he had in stealth mode. Now we learn that SocialVibe (aka Archetype Media) has raised $4.12M in Series A funding led by Redpoint Ventures.
Founded in September 2006, SocialVibe calls itself an evolving brand advertising online to address the social media/brand advertiser divide. It's an idea that we like, although one that we think will be very hard to pull off. Hard to scale comes to mind. Let's say you write a blog on venture capital and startups, SocialVibe might represent you to land a sponsorship deal with say Wilson Sonsini. And as part of that deal Wilson Sonsini might even send you a Wilson fleece jacket. SocialVibe would then help you to extend this sponsorship relationship to the social networks.
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Gaming Start-ups Look For Their Turn
It's hard to know for sure if there are more gaming startups and and more successful gaming startups these days. For sure gaming startups tend to be overshadowed by social networks and other Web 2.0 startups. Perhaps enviously looking over at other tech sectors that have more buzz, the gaming startups arena is taking steps to change that. We note that Charles River Ventures and the Game Developers Conference have announced a conference series for gaming community entrepreneurs set to take place Friday, February 22nd in San Francisco.
Startup Launchpad will feature a business plan competition. Presenters include Raptr CEO and former Xfire founder Dennis "Thresh" Fong, LiveGamer president Andy Schneider, Rmbr CEO Gabe Zichermann, Twofish CEO Lee Crawford and iminlikewithyou founder Charles Forman.
Sounds cool. We"ll be there.
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Obit Site Tribute.com Spins Out of Troubled Eons With $4.3M
Tributes.com, has been spun-out from baby-booming business Eons with a dowry of $4.3M from Dow Jones, Eons and other "strategic backers". The obituaries site was originally a feature of Eons but apparently they feel it was popular enough to make it a standalone business.
If you are not familiar with it, Eons was founded by Jeff Taylor, who was founder and CEO of Monster.com. This is an odd deal as last September we reported that Eons had made mass lay-offs. Eons had raised $22M in Series B funding led by Charles River Ventures with Intel Capital, Humana, General Catalyst Partners and Sequoia Capital. Then CEO Taylor blew a bunch of cash on some lousy TV commercials.
While we agree that there should be a marketplace for obits on the Internet, particularly as newspapers are vanishing before our eyes, the Tributes.com just looks wrong at first site. Seeing the names and descriptions of beloved men and women who have recently passed away, next to a pink add for Tmobile or another ad for some sweepstakes scam looks tacky at best.
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February 13, 2008
Momprenuer Biz Upspring Raises $2M
Austin, TX-based baby product firm UpSpring has raised $2M, having previously raised $600K.
To date, Upspring has launched two products. Walking Wings aims to help parents to help their children learn to walk. The product reminds us too much of those creepy kid leashes. The other product is Milkscreen, two-minute test for the absence or presence of alcohol in breast milk. This product also doesn't hold much appeal to us. You know if you had a drink or not and you really should drink when breast-feeding. Their third product which they say is coming out in the spring would seem to have more broad appeal. Night Knight will be a motion sensing pod for sleeping infants. The monitor will clip to an infant’s onesie to detect motion and will sound an alarm when no movement occurs for over 23 seconds. Given how many times parents walk up in the night worried about their newborn's breathing and with the scare of SIDs hanging over their head, this seems like a winner.
The company is led by Lisa Williamson who was VP of Marketing at Commemorative Brands and Sr Marketing Manager at Pepsi Cola, plus two other co-founders.
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Michael Dell Pays $150M For His Bro's Startup
At a time when Michael Dell has regained control over the helm at the firm he has founded, it seems dicey for him to close a deal that smells of nepotism. But Dell seems to taunt the critics with this one.
Dell says it will pay $155M in cash for MessageOne, which was co-founded by Michael Dell's brother. MessageOne is owned in part by two investment funds: Impact Venture Partners and Impact Entrepreneurs Fund. Michael Dell and his family are investors in the funds, which are managed by his brother, Adam Dell. Michael Dell will pocket about $12M from the deal while his brother Adam Dell will gain close to $1M and his parents will get close to half a million dollars. Michael Dell says he will donate his own profits from the deal to charity.
We could forgive the deal if MessageOne was part of the fix for Dell, but this is a joke. MessageOne is an email backup company that was founded a decade back by Adam Dell. There is nothing sexy or game-changing about the firm.
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Hearst Invests in First 30 Days
First 30 Days reminds us a bit of a prior post on ThePoint.com. Both are second generation social networks that don't focus on a demographic or a form of entertainment like music or movies, but rather both sites are about movements. ThePoint is about collective movements while First 30 Days is about personal movements. First 30 Days wants to help you to have better sex, live a greener lifestyle or become a millionaire. The site taps celebs like Apple's Steve Wozniak to guide you toward the Mac lifestyle.
Manhattan's First Thirty Days has raised $5M in Series A funding led by Hearst Interactive Media with New York City Investment Fund, ex Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons and other individual angels.
First 30 Days is built around the Cult of Personality of its Founder and CEO Ariane de Bonvoisin who learned the racket with self-help guru Anthony Robins but also picked up the Stanford MBA, various top media jobs, and can boast of glamorous challenges like climbing Kilimanjaro.
Will the business succeed? The business seems that it will rise or fall on whether the public likes and buys into Ariane. There are plenty of other sites to get this stuff but if Ariane can continue to get on TV, get people to read her books, and build that cult of personality then that is a business. If the public shrugs this will be tough.
Today Show Eats This Stuff Up
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February 12, 2008
Kid's Virtual World DizzyWorld Raises First Round
Former CNET chief Shelby Bonnie has led a $1M Series A investment in DizzyWorld along with Charles River Ventures. Bonnie is hooking up with a former report at CNET, Scott Arpajian who had founded Download.com, which was bought by CNET. Arpajian ran the business for a decade. Before launching Dizzyworld, he was VP of Product for Wallop Inc. for all of 7 months. He is joined by Sean Kelly who was a co-founder and CTO of Wallop.
Dizzywood is going after kids age 8-12. As with most other virtual worlds, the service is free but it will ad subscriptions to access premium content.
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ThePoint.com Raises $4.8M For Tipping Point Concept
San Francisco-based ThePoint.com as raised $4.8M in a first round from New Enterprise Associates.
Per this long-winded video introduction, The Point is based on the concept floated by the best-selling book The Tipping Point, which describes how movements and trends succeed and fail. The Point plans to serve as a focal point for fundraisers, rallies, boycotts, etc. Participants act only once a pre-set tipping point has been reached.
In a sense, ThePoint is similar to Meetup in that it encourages strangers who share a common interest to convene. However, ThePoint uses the wisdom/passion of the crowd to see which movements raise to the top. ThePoint says it plans to partner with activists or maybe sites like MoveOn. So in addition to having a destinations site, we would expect to see ThePoint.com launch widgets to reside on partner sites. 
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February 11, 2008
Rebuffed By Yahoo!, MSFT Buys Danger Inc.
Danger Inc. recently filed for an IPO, but Microsoft has stepped in to snatch the Palo Alto-based wireless handset hardware+software maker. No financial terms have yet been disclosed.
What does this say about Microsoft and the M&A environment? The Yahoo! deal is important but it's just of may M&A balls that MSFT has in the air. Also, given the lousy market environment, selling to MSFT at a fair price is not a bad option for most.
Danger has raised around $142M in total VC funding since 2000, including a Series E round in late 2006 at a post-money valuation of around $187M (PeWire number). Top shareholders are Mobius Venture Capital, Redpoint Ventures, T-Mobile, Softbank Capital, Motorola, Meritech Capital Partners and VSP Capital.
Danger and its partners have done a nice job partnering with celebs like NBA Phenom Dwayne Wade who has his own line of Sidekick.
BTW - we have owned several of Danger's Sidekick's and found them to be sound, if fragile devices. They don't have the brands of Blackberry or iPhone but Microsoft seems to have made a strong purchase here. Also interesting is that Andy Rubin, one of the founders of Danger Inc. is now running the show on Google's wireless world.
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