Last week, Jeff Bezos made $2 billion in one day, courtesy of a massive spike in Amazon shares. That gives him more money to plow into the likes of Aviary, a Long Island-based company that makes design software. The Amazon CEO has made a second investment in the company as part of a $7 million round led by Spark Capital.
Start-ups whose business plans are based on selling advertising are having a very hard time raising money. But start-ups that want to make money by helping other people sell advertising? That’s another story.
Today’s example: Rubicon Project, a Los Angeles-based advertising-optimization start-up, has raised a $9 million C round led by Peacock Equity, the joint venture co-owned by GE Capital and GE’s NBC Universal.
Is Twitter a billion-dollar company? It is now, according to its investors. People familiar with the company tell me it has raised around $50 million in a funding round that values the start-up, which has no real revenue to speak of, at about $1 billion.
What happens to a start-up whose business never materializes? One option is to try to peddle the company based on the value of its human capital–aka the “acqhire.” Or would-be employers can simply wait for the start-up to flame out, then pick up the people they want on an a-la-carte basis. Did that just happen with Time Warner Cable and former Joost CTO Jason Gaedtke?
Google guy Sergey Brin and his wife, 23andme CEO Anne Wojcicki, have donated $500,000 to Creative Commons, the nonprofit that’s trying to reinvent copyright. It also happens to have a direct tie to the couple, in the form of Wojcicki’s mother, Esther.
Facebook offered to buy TipJoy, then changed its mind. Now the micropayment start-up has closed, and a co-founder is working for…Facebook.
One downside of being the world’s most talked-about start-up: You become an irresistible target for hackers. And now someone’s made off with a pile of Twitter’s corporate documents, apparently with Google’s unwitting assistance. Time to for a realistic solution to the cloud computing security problem.
We’re used to seeing Google vets leave for Facebook. Now they’re headed to Twitter.
The buzzy microblogging service has just grabbed its highest-profile Google exec to date: Alexander Macgillivray, a deputy general counsel at the search firm, is coming aboard as Twitter’s top lawyer.
Just a few weeks after a very public breakup, Warner Music Group and Imeem are getting back together again. Warner, which told investors last month that it had written off the $16 million it had invested in the Web music start-up, plus another $4 million in debt, has made a new deal with the company and will get another slug of equity. The big difference–this time, Warner isn’t cutting Imeem a check.
The founders of Last.fm, the London-based Web music start-up CBS snapped up for $280 million two years ago, are leaving the company. No word yet on whom CBS will appoint to replace the founding trio of Felix Miller, Richard Jones and Martin Stiksel, or what any of the men intend to do next.
Miller announced the deal in a short blog post today. More shortly….
Nope, Twitter still hasn’t trotted out a business model yet, and that may or may not be a problem for potential acquirers like Google or Microsoft. But it’s a nonissue for a growing number of start-ups hoping to succeed simply by positioning themselves in Twitter’s general vicinity. Today’s example: StockTwits, a day-trader-meets-Twitter site that just raised $800,000 from venture capital firm True Ventures.
There are plenty of question marks surrounding Vevo, Universal Music Group’s new music video site that’s scheduled to launch later this year with a big assist from Google’s YouTube. But here’s one answer: The venture will be run by Rio Caraeff, who currently oversees UMG’s digital business.
Last year, Warner Music Group boasted about its investments in two digital music start-ups. Today the label says those dollars were wasted. Bummer for imeem, which is trying to raise more money.
Yes, investors are still betting on Web video. Just not in the way they used to: FreeWheel, one of the buzzier online video start-ups you’ve never heard of, has raised a $12 million C round from Battery Ventures, which had provided financing for the company’s first two rounds, and Foundation Capital.
Web video publishers are still trying to get their heads around their existing sites, which attract plenty of eyeballs but not much in the way of ad dollars. But at some point they’re going to have to figure out what will happen as video moves from the PC to the phone.
Here’s one small step in that evolution: Joost, the once-hyped video site, is going to start selling ads for stuff it shows via its iPhone app. Doing the heavy lifting will be FreeWheel, a well-regarded start-up that already handles ad-serving for some of the Web’s biggest video players.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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