Tag | reilly-alpha
Foursquare Founders Pull Out $4.6 Million For Themselves From Last $20 Million Round
Dennis Crowley didn’t get the big personal payday he would have if he had sold Foursquare to Facebook, which he almost did. But Crowley and co-founder Naveen Selvadurai did okay with the $20 million Series B funding they raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square, and O’Reilly AlphaTech. According to an SEC filing (first spotted by Dan Frommer at SAI ), the two founders personally took home $4,636,688 from that round, or 23 percent of the total amount raised. Under a part of the filing titled “Use of Proceeds,” the company had to disclose “the amount of the gross proceeds of the offering that has been or is proposed to be used for payments to any of the persons required to be named as executive officers, directors or promoters in response to Item 3 above.” There are only three people listed as “executive officers, directors or promoters”: Crowley, Selvadurai, and board director Albert Wenger of Union Square. It would be highly unusual for one of the VCs on the board to take personal liquidity out of a deal before his firm does. And Union Square put more money into this round. No wonder Crowley flew to South Africa to watch some of the World Cup games right after the round closed. With the IPO markets not as attractive as they once were and companies staying private longer, it is becoming increasingly common for founders to take some money off the table during later venture rounds. (Other recent venture rounds saw much bigger sums going to founders). As long as the company does well, nobody will blame them. But if the company hits on hard times when that cash could be helpful, well . . . then a different story will be told. Update : Foursquare says the founders sold shares essentially so that investors could buy more. Spokesperson Erin Gleason sent me the following statement: As is common in Series B financings, Dennis and Naveen sold a small portion of their personal equity as a secondary offering to allow our investors to achieve their ownership objectives. CrunchBase Information Dennis Crowley Naveen Selvadurai Foursquare Information provided by CrunchBase
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Foursquare Founders Pull Out $4.6 Million For Themselves From Last $20 Million Round
Boom! Foursquare Crosses 2 Million Users
It appears that Foursquare has just crossed the 2 million users mark this morning. The location based social network has been growing fast, adding 100,000 users per week. Only three months ago, Foursquare passed one million users after taking a year to accumulate one million members. Over the past several months, Foursquare has had a number of impressive stats for a startup. Some of them involved SXSW , some involved overall check-ins numbers. And it seems to be growing faster than its main competitor, Gowalla. Of course, to expand upon this growth Foursquare has just raised $20 million in funding at a $95 million pre-money valuation, led Andreessen Horowitz with existing investors Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures participating. The new funding is going to be used to hire additional staff, for product development and a new office space. And we know that Foursquare has some interesting ideas to incorporate gaming with check-ins. It’s important to note that other competitors have already crossed this mark. MyTown, another location-based network hit that number in May, Brightkite hit 2 million users in February. And, Loopt just passed 4 million users. Congrats to Travis E for being Foursquare’s 2 millionth member. Hat Tip to Finbarr. CrunchBase Information Foursquare Information provided by CrunchBase
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Boom! Foursquare Crosses 2 Million Users
Online Finance Startup Wesabe Heads To The Deadpool
Wesabe , an online personal finance site that looked to help users better keep track of their spending trends, is shutting down. The startup’s homepage now consists of a letter to Wesabe users instructing them to download their account information by July 31, at which point nearly all of the service’s features will be taken offline and data deleted. The lone feature that will remain online indefinitely is the site’s ‘Groups’ page, where members can trade advice about their finances (this part of the site is being taken over by one of Wesabe’s current customers). In the letter, Wesabe CEO Marc Hedlund writes that the site has been operating on a shoestring budget lately, which has led to both some poor customer experiences and the potential for security issues, which is why they’re pulling the plug: In recent months Wesabe has been operating on a shoestring budget, with support from some of the developers and operations people who made up our core team. While the site has remained online and we continue to hear from people who find it helpful, we have not been able to provide the support people need to use it for something so central as financial management. I’ve felt especially terrible that some members have a good initial experience but then hit a problem, often after investing many hours, and aren’t able to get help with it. That’s obviously a bad experience, and not what we want to offer. Also, because Wesabe stores such highly sensitive data, continuing to operate the service with shoestring operations and security staff is not acceptable, and we do not want to continue accepting new accounts if we cannot guarantee the security level we believe our service requires. Wesabe was showing some growth in April 2009 when it launched its iPhone app, but traffic has dropped steadily since then. The site has largely been overshadowed by competitor Mint , which launched at (and won) TechCrunch50 and later went to on be acquired for $170 million by Intuit. We’ve been covering the site since 2006 . In Feburary 2007 it raised $700,000 from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and later that year raised $4 million in a round led by Union Square Ventures. Wesabe has been added to the Deadpool . CrunchBase Information Wesabe Information provided by CrunchBase
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Online Finance Startup Wesabe Heads To The Deadpool
OpenCandy Raises $5 Million Series B For Bundled Software You Might Actually Want
If you’re a Windows user, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the concept of bundled software — you download an application you want, launch the installer, hit the “Next” button a few times, and find that you’ve inadvertently installed a spammy app that will haunt you for the rest of your PC’s life. OpenCandy is a startup that’s looking to reverse this trend by offering users bundled apps that they may actually want to use . Today, the company has closed a $5 million Series B funding round led by Google Ventures, with existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and O’Reilly Alpha Tech also participating. The company previously closed a $3.5 million Series A round in 2008. OpenCandy founder Chester Ng says that the company spent last year shaping the company’s product and showing that its model could actually work — now, they’re looking to scale, developing into new markets and forging more partnerships (along with bolstering hiring efforts). As we’ve discussed in our previous coverage, OpenCandy offers a few key differences from standard bundled software. Developers who integrate it don’t actually embed a second tag-along application with their installer. Instead, OpenCandy’s platform uses some server-side intelligence to suggest applications that are relevant to the one you’re installing, and it only downloads the app after you’ve told it to. And instead of making it the default option to install a bundled OpenCandy app, users always have to elect to install it. Finally, OpenCandy says that they only allow high quality applications into their list of suggestions — not just anyone can join the program. CrunchBase Information OpenCandy Information provided by CrunchBase
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OpenCandy Raises $5 Million Series B For Bundled Software You Might Actually Want
