posted Sep 19, 2011 6:34 AM by C2I Ventures
[
updated Sep 19, 2011 6:41 AM
]
19, Sep 2011, Beijing: IBM Smartcamp is part of the program designed for entrepreneurs to help us build a Smarter Planet.. The program is open to any companies who are 5 years or younger and working in the areas of analytics, big data, cloud and internet of things. C2I Ventures join as official partner of IBM SmartCamp global program.
Global program launched in 14 countries - 7 new countries in 2011India, US, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ireland, UK, France, SwitzerlandGlobal media reachCoverage in WSJ, The Street, Forbes, Bloomberg and may other leading titlesActive social media community including livestream video and online voting http://bit.ly/kBMeni
Global external mentorsOver 300 well recognised mentors including Ann Winblad Bob Metcalfe, Larry Augustin and many moreLeveraging mentors from Kauffman Fellows, Startupbootcamp and more http://bit.ly/q4RWToLast year’s winners - Streetline($15m) , CareCloud ($5m) , Panoramic Power ($4.8m) , Sproxil ($1.8m), have received more than 25 million dollars total in venture capital funding since participating in IBM SmartCampIBM SmartCamp Schedule 2011Bangalore 27th AprilAustin 16th May Barcelona 14th JuneNYC 27th JuneTel Aviv 21stSeptIstanbul 4th-5th OctChina 27th-28th OctRio 10th-11th NovLondon 16th-17th NovFinals Mid Feb 2012Learn more at our SmartCamp Blog and Apply by Oct 7, 2011Blog: www.IBMSmartCamp.comApply: www.ibm.com/developerworks/cn/smartcamp.html |
posted Nov 23, 2010 1:10 AM by C2I Ventures
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updated Nov 23, 2010 1:14 AM
]
23 Nov 2010, Beijing & Helsinki -- C2I Ventures is pleased to announce the partnership with Accelerando. Following the launch of the Grow VC China network by C2I Ventures, the partnership with Accelerando a services firm which focuses on accelerating growth for innovative and potentially high growth businesses is aimed at creating more value for early stage startups both in China as well as Europe. With the two firms finding symbiotic strengths in their offerings, both are upbeat and excited about the new partnership.
“We are currently setting up the most valuable partnerships, aimed at empowering startups in the local China setting” says Mikko Puhakka, founding partner of C2I Ventures. One of the key elements of this is the Grow VC platform, which is the leading global crowd-funding service and community ("Virtual Silicon Valley") for startups to look for funding and make investments.
C2I Ventures a virtual incubator with a community collaborative approach to supporting innovative early stage startups also finds a considerable value addition through this partnership. “C2I Ventures has been looking for a partner that can help with our portfolio and client companies in becoming more investment-ready and geared for growth” says Puhakka. “We are excited about the possibilities the partnership with Accelerando brings and look forward to building many joint success stories. While the partnership is new, I have a long personal working relationship with individuals from Accelerando spanning over a decade and I know what they are capable of. Heinilä has not only his team and network, but an ability to actually use his connections efficiently to cover many critical business development issues – this is going to be an extremely valuable addition to things we can offer.’’ Puhakka elaborates.
“The C2I concept is exciting, modern and competitive; it appropriately mirrors the service needs of the fast businesses.” says Jussi Heinilä, partner at Accelerando. He continues to add, “C2I and Puhakka's team enable Accelerando to better serve the fast-growing Chinese startup scene and cater to its many needs. Among our clients in Europe there exists also more and more demand for access to new markets, Puhakka provides both good connections to access opportunities in China.” With the announcement of the partnership coming just a month after the launch of the Grow VC China Network for crowdfunding and providing a support structure to startups in China, there is clear momentum around building a better platform as well as services for promising startup ventures. ”C2I and Accelerando services are complementary, we can now serve our combined clients with turn-key solutions both in Europe and in China now.’’ Adds Heinilä.
About Accelerando
Accelerando consists of a group of seasoned professionals with extensive experience in building and running of international businesses. Their typical clients are high-growth companies whose business builds on innovation. Accelerando experts' competences cover areas such as international sales, marketing, distribution, financing, R&D and business process improvement. Each of the partners has extensive ‘hands-on’ experience from both, startup entrepreneurship to senior positions at major international technology companies, in Finland and abroad.
Contact Accelerando: jussi.heinila [at] accelerando.fi
About C2I Ventures
C2I Ventures is a Beijing based virtual incubator helping early stage companies in getting investment ready and building growth stories. We look for ambitious entrepreneurs with big goals, an adventure in mind to bring harmony into their business by helping them out in the early stages of company formation and development. Our in-house team, advisors and partners have experience from some true global success cases such as investing into MySQL in 2001 when it was early in business development and exiting that to SUN Microsystems for 1Billion in 2008.
C2I Ventures operates GrowVC China, a crowd-funding platform in order to be able to serve large numbers of clients in the Chinese market.
Contact C2I Ventures: Mikko Puhakka, pm [at] c2ivc.com
About GrowVC
Grow Venture Community - "The Virtual Silicon Valley", is bringing the first truly global, transparent, community-based approach to seed funding. Grow VC can help startup to secure initial funding for their businesses up to 1m USD. Grow VC will not only connect startup entrepreneurs with investors to help them discover their common interests, but also provide tools for the process and new transparent ways of doing things. Grow VC international headquarters is located in Hong Kong, with offices in UK and Finland.
Contact GrowVC:JoukoAhvenainen, jouko [at] growvc.com
|
posted Nov 10, 2010 7:55 AM by C2I Ventures
By Fred Wilson http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/competing-to-win-deals.htmlThe venture capital business is highly competitive. There is more money out there chasing good deals than most people imagine. It is also true that there are good deals and good entrepreneurs that can't find anyone to invest in them. That is a failure of the system. But this post is not about that. It is about how a VC can compete and win a deal that many others want.Here are my rules:1) Do your very best to connect with the entrepreneur. If you don't have a great personal connection, you won't win the deal. Don't even bother to try to win a deal where you don't have good personal chemistry with the founder/CEO.2) Bring your full partnership into the deal process early and consistently. Entrepreneurs are smart and they know they are doing a deal with a firm as well as an individual. Let them see the full picture early. Make it easy on the entrepreneur to meet the full partnership. Don't make the entrepreneur do all the work.3) Encourage the entrepreneur to get feedback on you and your firm. Instead of references, I like to give a list of every entrepreneur I've ever worked with and an email address. I tell them "throw a dart at that list and talk to four or five of them randomly. you'll hear the same thing from everyone."4) Don't pressure the entrepreneur to make a decision. Don't issue exploding term sheets. Don't put no shops into your term sheets. Those kinds of things are signs of insecurity. I prefer to tell people that we'll have an exclusive relationship when the deal closes and not before then. If someone wants to leave me at the altar, better it happens then than after we are married.5) Make your offer in person and don't do it via a term sheet. Tell the entrepreneur you want to be their business partner. Tell them how much you will invest and how much ownership you want. Leave it at that. Tell them that if they are interested, you will send them a term sheet. Leading with a term sheet focuses the discussion on the wrong things. The process should be all about personal fit and very high level deal terms. Once the decision is made to try to work together, you can get into the specifics of the deal.6) Add value during the process. Talk about the strategy issues facing the company. Talk about the hiring challenges the company faces. Try to help with these issues even before you are an investor. Show what you can do right away.7) Use the product or service. Ideally you should be using it well before you start chasing the deal. But use the product/service actively and smartly. The entreprener will be watching. I assure you of that.8) Don't feel the need to pay the highest price. Offering a crazy price to win the deal scares off most smart entrepreneurs. They will be wondering why you are so aggressive. Offering a fair price that is in the range is what you need to do. And communicate that if the entrepreneur chooses to work with you, you will be flexible on your offer. That way you put yourself in the position to win and you can work the specifics to close the deal when the opportunity presents itself.9) Don't team up with another firm. We've made this mistake a few times recently. Entrepreneurs want to choose their syndicate partners. By pairing up with another firm, you signal to the entrepreneur that you want to choose the syndicate and that is a mistake in a highly competitive deal.10) Be prepared to lose the deal and if you do, lose gracefully. There are plenty of good deals out there. You don't have to win them all. Lose gracefully and maintain your good relationship with the entrepreneur at all costs. They might come back to you on the next round.Many of these rules are counter intuitive. But they work well for my partners and me. You might say they will only work for you if you are a top tier investor. That may well be true, but you have to act like a top tier investor to become one. So you might as well play the game that way from the start. |
posted Oct 19, 2010 10:06 AM by C2I Ventures
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updated Nov 7, 2010 4:01 AM
]
19th
October Beijing, London & Hong Kong – Leading global crowdfunding platform for seed funding startups Grow VC just added another reason for Chinese
entrepreneurs to cheer in an already buzzing startup scene by launching a local
funding network exclusively for China. The China Grow VC network which was launched
today by Grow VC in collaboration with local partners C2I
Ventures will open doors for entrepreneurs and early stage startups in China
into the “crowdfunding” arena and also aims to provide a strong startup support
infrastructure that encourages startup culture. The launch of an exclusive
funding network for China by Grow VC comes just months after a similar local
network was launched in India.
The India Grow VC network which was
launched in July 2010 gathered the backing of important partners such as
IndiaCo Ventures and The Indian Angel Network, has already grown to almost 1000
members and the growth continues strong. The China Grow VC network which is the
second local funding and startup ecosystem on the platform will also partner
with top local angel funding organizations and investors in a bid to create an
online eco system for Chinese startups to thrive.
“We are looking for
entrepreneurs and companies who are ambitious and are looking for an adventure
to grow and build a sustainable business” comments Mikko Puhakka, Founding
Partner of ‘Virtual Incubator’ C2I Ventures. The Founding team of C2I Ventures official
partners for the China Grow VC network have a long history of working with
young companies and have been involved in creating Billions of dollars of value including
MySQL in 2001. “While raising angel investments through crowdfunding is one of
the main attractions for startups on the local funding network, we look to provide
harmony into startups on the network through mentorship, strategic advice and
in select cases, we are also available for board seats” says Peter Cheng
Founding Partner at C2I Ventures.
With China being recognized as one of the
most attractive destinations for the next generation of entrepreneurs and
startups the launch of a local funding network
has been a milestone for Grow VC who plan to launch several other local
network s across key markets in the coming months. “The launch of local funding
networks will continue in certain markets we’ve identified, at the same time
our global service is growing rapidly and offer excellent service for
international investments.” says Jouko Ahvenainen Founder & Chairman at
Grow VC.
The local Grow VC network for China which
can be located at China.GrowVC.com was officially introduced to the public on
the 10th of October 2010 at the OpenSourceCamp Event in Beijing. Membership on the local platform has been offered with a special free promotional offer valid until
the end of 2010 with some limitations that will ensure quality, to ensure that
the community itself would get a flying start. Grow VC China will be presented in the coming
weeks at several other events in the country including the upcoming China Mega
Forum and the China Mobile Developers Conference. With talks actively
progressing to engage more partners and key organizations through the next two
months more developments are expected soon for this promising entrepreneurial
community.
About
Grow VC
Grow
Venture Community - "The Virtual Silicon Valley", is bringing the
first truly global, transparent, community-based approach to seed funding. Grow
VC can help startup to secure initial funding for their businesses up to 1m
USD. Grow VC will not only connect startup entrepreneurs with investors to help
them discover their common interests, but also provide tools for the process
and new transparent ways of doing things. Grow VC international headquarters is
located in Hong Kong, with offices in UK and Finland.
Contact
Jouko Ahvenainen,
jouko [at] growvc.com, +44 7889 833
165
Founder & Chairman
About C2I Ventures
C2I
Ventures – A Virtual Incubator, We are looking for entrepreneurs and companies
who are ambitious and are looking for an adventure, not just for making money. The
Founding team draws from successful operating and venture capital track record
of discovering, building and realizing market potential for innovative
technology start-ups including MySQL. We provide harmony into your business
through mentorship and strategic advise, in select cases we are also available
for board seats. At C2I – Community Collaborative Innovation, Ventures, we're focused on helping start-up
entrepreneurs build great technology companies. That's what drives us and
everything we do — from ideas to reality. C2I
Ventures headquarters is located in Hong Kong, with offices in Beijing and Helsinki.
Contact
Mikko Puhakka, pm [at] c2ivc.com, +86
158 0163 4152
Founding Partner |
posted Sep 12, 2010 9:55 AM by C2I Ventures
‘’The markets are on the web, the production power is on the web, both globally available for everyone’’ Mårten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems.
Let’s do a small intellectual play: Web 2.0 services, or the current generation’s internet companies globally, are built for the most part on top of the so-called LAMP-stack. In other words their infrastructure is based on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP – a selection of open source software programs.The ventures started today differ from the ones in the -99 era in a way that a growing number of them have managed to create very big global business in a unbelievably short amount of time. They have managed to create hundreds of millions of profitable business in a span of just a few years, and new ones seem to emerge on a daily basis.
"Open source, in other words, is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end, and that end is collaborative innovation’’ Matt Asay, COO of Canonical
The other differating factor is that using open source and collaborative work methods has made possible an extremely cost-efficient way of testing new ideas and concepts. If "it" does not work, a different approach is tried right away. Unlike in the days before when writing a business plan might take a year (literally).Most of the building blocks are from the Nordics Linux (Linus Torvalds) and MySQL (Monty Widenius) are Finnish born ventures (while Swedish David Axmark played a key role in MySQL as well). PHP, on the other hand, originates from Denmark (Rasmus Lerdorf). So half of the building blocks are from Finland, with a quarter from Denmark, meaning 75% comes from the Nordics. But Finland’s and Finns' accomplishments don’t end here. As I was sharing the observation with my former colleague Tere Vaden, he reminded me that the discussions around the open source development more or less all happen online and more specifically in IRC (Internet Relay Chat). And you guessed right, IRC was developed in Finland by Jarkko Oikarinen out of Oulu, around 1988. One explaining factor for this success could be contributed to the way Nordic society has been structured as several proofreaders of this article duly noted. Nordics are a safe, neutral place to try out new things without (too much) having to fear someone will take advantage of you but rather you will be recognized by principle of meritocracy.  China’s and other emerging, or rather growth, countries' efforts around open source have made a lot of headlines in recent years. But how did, for example, Linux make its way to China? The story that should be told more often is that Helsinki University’s doctoral student Dr. Gong Min upon returning to China in 1996 had 20 diskettes in his luggage containing that moment’s version of Linux. Shortly after that first Linux distro (collection of software) was available in China.
A new, higher ambition-level is needed Now that even Venture Capitalists have seen the proof of making money around open source, both revenue-wise and exit wise (I was fortunate enough to be part of a team that made the seed investment into MySQL ten years ago and enjoy the 1 Billion USD exit in 2008) as seen in all parts of the globe, it is time to think of next steps. We need to take steps where, for instance, entrepreneurial open innovation and the practices of the open source world would be embraced. We should operate and create both cooperation and collaboration possibilities utilizing international talent networks in a global market place. One way could be a new type of an investment vehicle, which through active ‘open innovation’ guidance (freedom to test and fail easily and quickly) would capture value by retaining part of the ownership in new companies. At the same time it would work as a network serving both industrial and academic worlds. This kind of new and higher ambition-level is needed. Otherwise the Finnish and Nordic innovation activities especially the kind that is looking for high growth internationally via Venture Capital will wither in our too small home markets and will endanger our future competitiveness. Big opportunities must be embraced Open source and its way of working and building community built and driven businesses must be one of the biggest things to impact software and software based businesses in decades. The disruption is not limited, however, only to open source software but to the growing amounts to open content, open data and open substance. Based on our history I dare to predict we have yet again in the next few years a big opportunity in front of us. The global markets are waiting for our leadership just as Nokia did in the mobile business – we must not let this opportunity pass us by. Thank you for proofreading and comments to Valto Loikkanen, Jouko Ahvenainen, Peter Kelly, Aape Pohjavirta, Ossi Pöllänen, Karri Hautanen, and Peter Cheng. About the Author: Mikko Puhakka: I am Amateur consultant and investor rather than a professional. What? – You may ask. With more than 15 years of noted track record, why an Amateur?
Amateurs in sports are - or at least used to be - in highest regard. Amateurs do what they do because of love, inspiration and passion for their specialty. Amateurs don’t do their business for quick and easy money. Instead of living my life from paycheck to pay check or project to project, I live from adventure to adventure. As Hugh McLeod states ‘treat it like and adventure. An adventure worth sharing’ If this thinking strikes a chord, get in touch and share your thoughts and initiatives. In return, I promise at least an opinion, sometimes a good discussion or possibly even a new business relationship.
Amateur career specialties:
Start-ups, Venture Capital, community driven businesses, mainly in Europe and China. I am available as a mentor, advisor or a board member.
Connect to me on LinkedIn, or follow me on Twitter |
posted Aug 24, 2010 8:57 AM by C2I Ventures
The most active venture capital firm of 2009-2010 is New Enterprise Associates.
Last week, we initiated our series on the Top 30 VC firms presenting to you top venture capital firms ranked #11 to 30.
As a reminder, the 30 firms in aggregate participated in 663 unique
deals (24.4% of all deals), which yielded $8.67 billion in aggregate
investment (37% of all investment) from July 2009 through June 2010.
Now, we turn our attention to the Top 10 most active venture capital
firms from Q3 ‘09 to Q2 ‘10. These 10 firms led the pack with at least
28 deals each. Taking the crown in this period was New Enterprise
Associates, with an impressive 59 deals. Here’s the list: | Rank |
Firm name |
Deals |
| #1 |
New Enterprise Associates |
59 |
| #2 |
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers |
52 |
| #3 |
First Round Capital |
48 |
| #4 |
Polaris Venture Partners |
37 |
| #5 |
Intel Capital |
35 |
| #6 |
Sequoia Capital |
34 |
| #7 |
Khosla Ventures |
31 |
| #7 |
Benchmark Capital |
31 |
| #9 |
North Bridge Venture Partners |
29 |
| #10 |
InterWest Partners |
28 |
We will be looking into where the top 30 are making their investments
by sector in subsequent posts with a specific focus on the top VCs’
activity in the healthcare, internet, and greentech/cleantech sectors.
And, as a reminder, here’s the rest of the top 30 from our previous post:
Methodology : Ranked based on equity investments made by US-based VCs in US-based companies from July 2009 through June 2010. |
posted Aug 8, 2010 7:48 AM by C2I Ventures
[
updated Aug 8, 2010 7:50 AM
]
MONTREAL, QUEBEC, Aug 03, 2010 -- StatusNet Inc., the company behind the open source microblogging server StatusNet(TM), has taken on additional investment led by New York-based FirstMark Capital joined by BOLDstart Ventures, iNovia Capital and Montreal Start Up. The round brings StatusNet's total investment to date to $2.3 million. Founder of open source ad platform, OpenX, angel investor and FirstMark Capital venture partner Scott Switzer will join the StatusNet board. "We're building an enterprise sales and support team to further push StatusNet software into the Global 1,000 market," says Evan Prodromou, Founder and CEO of StatusNet. "Our investors and partners have deep experience in enterprise and open source software that will help us during our next phase of growth." StatusNet is a popular microblogging solution for Fortune 1,000 companies who want to encourage secure employee communication and collaboration inside the corporate firewall. StatusNet provides a commercial support subscription for its software, the StatusNet Enterprise Network(TM), and a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, the StatusNet Cloud Service(TM). "We see more and more companies using microblogging in the enterprise, and it is likely that social networking software will replace email as the primary interpersonal communications as it already did for about 20 percent of users in the consumer space," says Josko Bobjanovic of iNovia Capital. "The market opportunity for StatusNet couldn't be more clear." "StatusNet provides an open, auditable system that is installable inside the firewall," said Switzer. "This makes it the leader at the high end of the enterprise market. FirstMark Capital is excited to work with the team at StatusNet and will provide the market knowledge, relationships and guidance to set a course for growth." The company has seen tremendous interest for its product from a broad range of enterprise customers, including dozens of the world's largest companies. StatusNet plug-ins can integrate with other enterprise applications, and gives companies a way to keep their mobile workforces connected. "StatusNet revolutionized our internal social communications," shares Rami Levi, Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at global communications leader Motorola. "StatusNet shows the true power of open-source software in the enterprise," said Ed Sim, Managing Partner of BOLDstart. "Large organizations love the flexibility of the product's plug-in architecture and client API. This investment will give additional resources to the company's recent development of dedicated desktop and mobile clients for StatusNet." About StatusNet StatusNet Inc. develops and supports the Open Source microblogging tool by the same name. Founded in 2008, the company has offices in Montreal and San Francisco. Its products include the StatusNet Enterprise Network support subscription program and the StatusNet Cloud Service software-as-a-service offering. About FirstMark Capital Based in New York City, FirstMark Capital invests in ground-breaking companies that are creating new markets with innovative technology solutions or fundamentally changing existing markets by applying a fresh approach and new business model. A venture leader with nearly $2 billion in capital commitments, FirstMark's team of investment and operations professionals have decades of real-world experience and leadership in core technology markets, making the firm uniquely qualified to offer industry insight, relationships and the operational expertise to build lasting businesses. Select historical investments include: Netgear, Inc. (NTGR 23.71, -0.44, -1.82%); First Advantage Corp.(FAF 14.85, +0.02, +0.13%); StubHub, Inc (EBAY 21.45, +0.38, +1.80%); Netegrity, Inc.(CA 19.82, +0.03, +0.15%); Flarion, Inc. (Acquired by Qualcomm, Inc; NASDAQ: QCOM); OutlookSoft Inc. (SAP 46.70, -0.14, -0.30%); Vallent (IBM 130.14, -1.04, -0.79%) and Navic(MSFT 25.55, +0.18, +0.71%). Current investments include: SecondMarket, Riot Games, Dovetail, Knewton, Conductor, Clickable and Lumos Labs. For more information, please visit http://www.firstmarkcap.com. About BOLDstart Ventures BOLDstart Ventures is a New York-based, micro-VC fund that seeks to partner with and provide seed funding to bold entrepreneurs in the Internet, mobile, and cloud computing markets. Founded by Ed Sim in partnership with lead investor Penny Black, we actively work with entrepreneurs to help them become the market leaders of tomorrow. Ed Sim has been leading first round investments for over 15 years and financed many leading enterprises like Greenplum (sold to EMC), GoToMyPC (sold to Citrix), 24/7 Media (public and sold to WPP Group), LivePerson (LPSN 7.00, +0.04, +0.57%), Answers.com(ANSW 7.75, -0.08, -1.02%), and Gizmo5 (sold to Google). About Montreal Start Up Montreal Startup is a micro VC fund investing in Montreal-based software and web startups. For more information, visit montrealstartup.com. About Inovia Capital iNovia provides venture capital to entrepreneurs who transform innovations into successful companies. The team is comprised of sector experts focused on Mobile, Consumer Internet, Internet Communications, Software and Digital Media. iNovia has $165M under management across two seed and early stage IT and Life Sciences funds. For more information, visit www.inoviacapital.com or follow iNovia on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/iNovia. |
posted Jul 20, 2010 6:16 AM by C2I Ventures
India's first-ever platform (india.growvc.com) aiming to bring together start-ups, investors and experts; Backed by global funding service, Community Investment Pool and USD 5 Million Virtual Co-Investment Fund July 19th London, Hong Kong & Mumbai - In what could be a defining milestone in Indian entrepreneurial development domain - Grow VC, the 'Virtual Silicon Valley' software platform and world's first-ever 'Crowd-Funding' and interaction platform for startups announced the launch of a local funding network in India, in association with Springboard Ventures - an ensemble of experts dedicated to promoting start-ups. Based around the same model as the existing global funding network Grow VC offers, the Indian local funding network will be the first of many "local" networks the company looks to launch within its wider global network in the coming months. Grow VC's community platform for entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their early stage startups through the "crowd-funding" has already gathered considerable interest with hundreds of new sign-ups each month and active participation of investors, startup service providers, advisors and entrepreneurs within the online community. Grow VC works to create a "Virtual Silicon Valley" community and develop new models for more efficient early phase funding. Grow VC just announced the Virtual VC Co-investment Fund to enable VC's to participate in Grow VC's seed investments. IndiaCo a leading investment management firm from India is the first partner to come aboard the fund and has committed to invest $5 million to the virtual fund will pave the way for other VC's to join the fund. The local network in India will be spearheaded by Springboard Ventures creating a tailored network suited to Indian needs and culture. The launch of Grow VC India will pave the way for many 'firsts' in the innovative start-ups domain within the country as pointed out by Satish Kataria - Managing Director at Springboard Ventures. "It would be the first ever single platform to bring together the various entities which revolve around the creation and growth of start-ups while allowing them all to interact and work together with each-other. Besides uniting angel investors and entrepreneurs, this platform offers a first-time opportunity to various experts and consultancies to now come forward and offer their services to start-up community through innovations such as 'Service Investments'. " says Satish. This will essentially help enhance the 'funnel' or 'bandwidth' of support to Indian entrepreneurs bringing into the system not just funders, but experts, advisors and other resources which can help create and grow successful start-ups. Indeed, as a significant start towards this journey of bringing all key Indian entities together, Indian Angel Network - India's first and largest network of Angel Investors - having more than 125 members throughout the country, have agreed to associate with Grow VC India - in order to further strengthen and boost Indian start-up eco-system. "We see that India is very important market for Grow VC, because it has a strong entrepreneurial culture and also nowadays, more investors that are interested in investing in local but also international companies", says Jouko Ahvenainen Founder & Chairman at Grow VC. "India also has a lot of experience in crowd-funding and other innovative finance models. We have already now seen a lot of Indian users also in our global service." he adds. Local networks will play an important role in Grow VC's strategy to build a strong global start-up funding community and the company aims to offer options and freedom to its users allowing them to operate on a local level or operate on a global level too if they choose to. Speaking on further developments of the Grow VC India network, Springboard Ventures is already in talks with other leading angel investment networks who have expressed keen interest in participating on the platform. "Grow VC India would tap into different categories of start-ups setting in place self-sustainable groups within the larger platform each with its own set of domain-specific experts" states Saurabh Agarwal - Director at Springboard Ventures. "The larger base of participation will also lead to generation of a larger 'Community Investment Pool' which would become available to be invested in start-ups." he adds. Besides the investment tools and advantages the model offers, Springboard Ventures will also offer host of 'convenience' services to the subscribers within the network enriching their engagement with start-ups and offering professional help. With India having the innovative talent and technological capabilities present today the Grow Venture Community (Grow VC) India hopes to extend the support of investors, advisors, service providers and the entrepreneurial community in general much the way enjoyed by the community in the Silicon Valley for so many years. "With the support of a strong local network in place to back great ideas and assist in the growth of early stage start-ups we expect to see a lot more successful ventures come out of this potential goldmine of young talent." says an optimistic Valto Loikanen Founder & CEO at Grow VC. "The next Google or YouTube can come out of India and with the right network of people working together to discover and nurture innovative start-ups, it could be sooner than you think", Valto states. About Grow VC
Grow Venture Community - "The Virtual Silicon Valley", is bringing the first truly global, transparent, community-based approach to seed funding. Grow VC can help startup to secure initial funding for their businesses up to 1m USD. Grow VC will not only connect startup entrepreneurs with investors to help them discover their common interests, but also provide tools for the process and new transparent ways of doing things. Grow VC India is available in http://india.growvc.com. Grow VC international headquarters is located in Hong Kong, with offices in UK and Finland. About Springboard Ventures Springboard Ventures is an ever-evolving group of experts, coming from different professional domains but united by the passion to launch 'disruptive solutions' which would strongly boost Indian start-up support infrastructure. Through keen understanding of challenges in the eco-system and then by adapting and introducing newer support mechanisms and platforms - Springboard Ventures envisions to be true 'Start-up' enablers in the country - which is revered for its ideas and business leadership. |
posted Jul 13, 2010 7:46 AM by C2I Ventures
Matthew Aslett, July 12, 2010 @ 7:00 am ET Venture capital funding for open source software-related vendors increased 11.5% in the second quarter, the third consecutive quarter of positive growth following a 6% rise in 4Q09 and a 38% increase in 1Q10. According to our preliminary figures, OSS-related vendors raise $141.7m in Q2, compared to $127.1m a year ago. There were 21 deals in the quarter and 20 with a disclosed deal size, the same as 2Q09, resulting in an average deal size of $7.1m in 2Q10, compared with $6.4m in 2Q09. 
Early stage deals announced in the quarter included $5m for Karmasphere and $2.5m for Datameer, both building businesses around Hadoop, as well as $7.15m forMoodlerooms, $14m for Sencha, $4m for AlienVault and an additional $3.3m for Nuxeo. Later stage deals included $11m each for Cloud.com and Opscode, $10m each forHeroku, DeviceVM and Northscale, $9m for Zend, and $8m for Talend. The biggest round announced in the quarter was Eucalyptus’s $20m series B round, which was reported just hours before the end of the quarter, tipping the total into positive growth. Total funding for the first half of the year stands at $231.2, up from $191.7m in the first half of 2009. While it seems likely that we could see an overall improvement f |
posted Jul 1, 2010 8:53 AM by C2I Ventures
Current Investors Benchmark Capital and BV Capital Also
Participate in Funding to Fuel Growth of Private Cloud Computing Leader
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – July 1, 2010 – Eucalyptus Systems, creator of the
leading open source private cloud software, announced today the
completion of a $20 million round of funding led by new investor New
Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from current investors
Benchmark Capital and BV Capital. This represents the company’s second
round of funding, bringing total capital raised to date to $25.5
million. Eucalyptus also announced that Peter Sonsini, partner at NEA,
has joined the Eucalyptus board of directors. The company is using the
funding to scale development, marketing and sales of its commercial open
source private cloud software to meet increasing demand for more
scalable, agile and cost-efficient information technology (IT) systems.
"The market for private and hybrid cloud computing is poised for massive
expansion this year, and we are honored that NEA, one of the world’s
largest and most respected venture capital firms, along with current
investors Benchmark Capital and BV Capital, will finance the next, high
growth, phase for Eucalyptus," said Marten Mickos, Eucalyptus Systems
CEO. "Cloud computing is catalyzing a shift in IT that is more
significant than anything we’ve previously seen, paving the way for a
huge worldwide increase in data, IT consumption and Internet usage.
Eucalyptus now has the resources to quickly build on our early
leadership position, meet overwhelming customer interest, and help drive
this expanding industry."
NEA’s Sonsini commented, "We’ve been studying this market for some time
and early on identified infrastructure software for cloud computing as a
major new opportunity. With a scalable, standards-compliant and mature
solution – as well as unmatched adoption across the globe -- Eucalyptus
has emerged as a clear leader in this space. I look forward to
collaborating with the Eucalyptus team to build on their success as the
market for private and hybrid clouds grows."
Eucalyptus is infrastructure software that enables organizations to
deploy massively scalable private and hybrid cloud computing
environments within a secure IT infrastructure. With Eucalyptus,
customers can make more efficient use of their computing resources,
increase productivity, and deploy new applications faster, while
protecting sensitive data and reducing capital expenditures. Eucalyptus
is the only cloud architecture to support the same application
programming interfaces (APIs) as public clouds, and today Eucalyptus is
fully compatible with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud
infrastructure. The company recently announced
Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition (EE) version 2.0, a major upgrade to
the fully-supported commercial version of the Eucalyptus software, as
well as a new
partner program.
About Eucalyptus Systems, Inc.
Eucalyptus Systemsdevelops
enterprise-grade technology solutions built on the open source
Eucalyptus software for private and hybrid cloud computing. Originally
developed as part of an NSF-funded academic research project at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, Eucalyptus is quickly becoming
the standard for on-premise cloud computing, delivering the cost
efficiencies and scalability of a cloud architecture with the security
and control of deploying on an organization’s own IT infrastructure.
Eucalyptus is available in two editions: the open source Eucalyptus
Community Edition and the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition (EE),
commercial, enterprise-grade infrastructure software designed for large
scale-deployments. For more information about Eucalyptus, please visit http://www.eucalyptus.com.
About New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital
and growth equity firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build
transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and
geographies. With approximately $11 billion in committed capital, NEA
invests in information technology, healthcare and energy technology
companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage
through IPO. Since the firm's founding in 1978, NEA's experienced
management team has invested in over 650 companies, of which more than
165 have gone public and more than 265 have been acquired. In the U.S.,
NEA has two offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and one in
Menlo Park, California. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India)
Pvt. Ltd. has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, India and New Enterprise
Associates (Beijing), Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China.
For additional information, visit www.nea.com.
About Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital, an early-stage technology venture capital firm,
was founded in 1995 to help talented entrepreneurs with original ideas
build successful technology companies. Benchmark's general partners take
a team-oriented, labor-intensive approach to venture investing to
deliver a superior level of service to the firm's portfolio companies.
Benchmark's portfolio includes high-profile start-ups such as Twitter,
Second Life, Yelp, and Zillow, recent exits such as Infinera, MySQL,
OpenTable, and Tellme, and franchise companies such as eBay, Juniper
Networks and Red Hat. The firm manages nearly $2.8 billion in committed
venture capital. For more information on Benchmark Capital, visit its
website at www.benchmark.com.
About BV Capital
BV Capital is an international Internet-focused early stage venture
capital firm. The team has invested in early pioneers such as AOL,
shopping.com, gotomypc and eGroups as well as today’s market leaders
such as Angie’s List, Eucalyptus, Groupon, Sonos and Yume Networks.
Backing Internet entrepreneurs, BV frequently is the first institutional
investor in companies creating highly scalable services and significant
value propositions for their users. The firm currently invests out of
its Fund III that was raised in 2009 and also operates eVenture Fund I, a
dedicated European entity that covers investments throughout the whole
of Europe, including the emerging markets Russia and the Ukraine. |
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