Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Ben Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz Raises $1.5 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:59:18 +0000

Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital company run by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz has raised $1.5 billion. Ben Horowitz confirmed the investment on his blog today. The company has raised a total of $2.7 billion thus far.

The $1.5 billion will be going towards Fund III. Fund III will be used for extending their capabilities to more “disruptors and pioneers.” In 2011, Andreessen Horowitz hosted over 600 presentations to corporate customers and partners at their Menlo Park office. The presentations resulted in over 3,000 introductions between portfolio companies.

The company has relationships with over 4,000 engineers, designers, and product managers. Andreessen Horowitz has added over 550 executives to their network in 2011. Some of AH’s investments include Zynga, Foursquare, Groupon, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Jawbone.

Andreessen Horowitz Preparing To Raise $900 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:34:14 +0000

Andreessen Horowitz is preparing to raise $900 million for their newest fund, known as Fund III. The company’s first fund was worth about $300 million. The company used that funding to put money into Skype and Fusion.io. In late 2010, Andreessen Horowitz raised $650 million for Fund II. They used this fund to invest in Airbnb, Twitter, Facebook, and Zynga. Now the company is preparing to raise $900 million, which means that the company will have $2.15 billion in assets to distribute to companies. Andreesen Horowitz has invested in about 70 companies. The new fund will be used to make investments from between $10,000 to $100 million. [Uncrunched]

GoodData Raises $15 Million Funding Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:01:55 +0000

GoodData is a cloud-based company that focuses on business intelligence. GoodData has raised $15 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Andreessen Horowitz general partner John O’Farrell will be joining GoodData’s board of directors. Google’s president of Enterprise Dave Girouard is also joining the board of directors although Google did not invest.

GoodData plans on using the funding to accelerate their company. The company has 2,500 customers including Time Warner Cable, Zendesk, Twilio, Pandora, and Capgemini.

This is Andreessen Horowitz’s second investment in GoodData. The first round was $2.5 million in seed funding in 2009. GoodData raised $6.5 million in its Series A round of funding. The other investors in this round include General Catalyst Partners and Windcrest Partners.

[AllThingsD]

Airbnb Raises $112 Million In Series B From Andreessen Horowitz, DST, and General Catalyst

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:09:25 +0000

Airbnb has raised $112 million at a $1+ billion valuation. This round of funding was led by Andreessen Horowitz. The split is roughly 60 million from Andreessen, 40 million from DST, and 5 million from General Catalyst. The rest of the split is from previous investors and Jeff Bezos. This round of funding raises Airbnb’s total funding to $119.8 million.

“Over the past three years, we’ve built a community marketplace for unique properties and brought it into the mainstream and into almost every country on the planet,” stated Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. “Today is a watershed moment — both for Airbnb as a company and for our community — that will enable us to touch new markets and expand our vision to make the world’s most interesting and inspiring places accessible to our users.”

Airbnb doubled their benchmark of 1 million nights booked in four months. The company now has over 2 million nights booked. Airbnb receives over 30 million page views per month.

[Marketwire]

Andreessen Horowitz Invests $49 Million Into Headset Company Jawbone

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:02:44 +0000

Jawbone has received a $49 million investment from investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz have both previously invested in Jawbone as individual investors. Over the past 10 years, Jawbone has raised a total of $100 million. Jawbone has created a headset product and a Jambox wireless speaker box product. Recently they launched a free app called Thoughts, which lets users quickly write messages and send them through e-mail or text message. [AllThingsD]

Groupon Closes Its $950 Million Series G Round

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:09:53 +0000

Group coupon service Groupon.com has completed its $950 million series G round of funding. The best part is the press release title: “Groupon Raises, Like, A Billion Dollars.” I’ve pasted the press release below. The investors in this round include Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mail.ru Group, Maverick Capital, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures. Allen & Company LLC acted as financial advisor. The previous funding rounds was led by New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, and Mail.ru Group (formerly DST).

Groupon Raises, Like, A Billion Dollars

Investment to Continue Rapid Growth of Global Social Commerce Platform

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today Groupon announced that it has completed a $950 million round of financing. Groupon will use the funds to fuel global expansion, invest in technology, and provide liquidity for employees and early investors.

“With their support, we will continue on our mission to change the way people shop locally and serve the world’s local businesses.”
The financing consists of several venture capital firms and late-stage investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mail.ru Group, Maverick Capital, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures. Allen & Company LLC acted as financial advisor. Previous funding rounds were led by New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, and Mail.ru Group (formerly DST).

In the last year, Groupon has been called “the fastest growing company ever” by Forbes Magazine and “America’s best website” by one of Groupon’s television commercials. In 2010, Groupon:

- Expanded from 1 to 35 countries
- Launched in almost 500 new markets (from 30 markets in 2009)
- Grew subscribers by 2,500% from 2 million to over 50 million
- Saved consumers over $1.5 billion
- Worked with 58,000 local businesses, serving over 100,000 deals worldwide

“We’re thrilled that Groupon has earned the confidence of some of the world’s most respected investment firms,” said Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of Groupon. “With their support, we will continue on our mission to change the way people shop locally and serve the world’s local businesses.”

About Groupon

Groupon, launched in November 2008 in Chicago, features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, eat, see and buy in more than 500 markets around the world. Groupon uses collective buying power to offer unbeatable prices and provide a win-win for businesses and consumers, delivering more than 650 daily deals globally. For more information, visit http://www.groupon.com. To learn more on how to become a featured business on Groupon, visit http://www.grouponworks.com.

Andreessen Horowitz Raises $650 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:49:32 +0000

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has raised a new $650 million round of funding. Andreessen Horowitz launched a year ago with a $300 million fund. Andreessen Horowitz was founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Some of the companies in their portfolios include Zynga, Digg, Skype, and Foursquare.

“We want to be in business with the best entrepreneurs going after the biggest markets and we do not care whether they need seed money, venture money or growth money. We believe in great entrepreneurs and the products and companies they build. We do not focus on special return profiles for various stages of investment,” stated Horowitz.

[bhorowitz.com]

Boku Receives Funding From Andreessen Horowitz

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 27 May 2010 22:15:04 +0000

Boku has announced that they have raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz. Boku did not reveal how much funding that they have received, but the company has raised a total of $38 million since they launched last year. Boku is a mobile payments startup company and now Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz will join the Board of Directors. Boku does not require anyone to have a credit card or bank account to make micropayments.

People just have to enter their cell phone number on the website and reply to a text message, then the person’s mobile phone bill is charged extra. Boku recently acquired a couple of other payment companies over the last year: Paymo and Mobillcash this past year. Boku is available in over 60 countries and across 200 carriers. [TechCrunch]

Kakai Raises $7.5 Million From Andreessen Horowitz, Josh Kopelman, and Ron Conway

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:20:36 +0000

Kakai is a stealth company that was started by Chegg founder Osman Rashid and Babur Habib. Interestingly Kakai is still in stealth and raised a Series B round of funding already. The second round is $7.5 million and the investors include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Josh Kopelman, and Ron Conway. Marc Andreessen is joining Kakai’s board of directors as a result of the funding.

Kakai’s previously raised $1.85 million in Series A from Osman Rashid and Mike Maples. Rumor has it that Kakai has something to do with electronic readers. The portable consumer electronics products made by Kakai will be Linux-based. Kakai currently has about 40 employees. Rashid’s other company Chegg.com has about $144 million in funding and was started in 2005.

BREAKING: eBay Sells 65% Stake In Skype Based On $2.75 Billion Valuation

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:01:48 +0000

About four years after eBay acquired Skype for about $4.1 billion, $2.6 billion of which was upfront cash, the company has decided to sell a big chunk of it it off to several investors. Skype was valuated at $2.75 billion when eBay decided to sell 65% worth of the company to investors such as Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

eBay will receive about $1.9 billion cash when the deal is complete along with a $125 million note in principal from the buyers. eBay itself will retain 35% in Skype. The transaction is expected to be complete by the fourt quarter of this year.

“This is a great deal, unlocking both immediate and long-term value for eBay and tremendous potential for Skype,” stated eBay President and CEO John Donahoe in a press release. “We’ve acted decisively on a deal that delivers a high valuation, gives us significant cash up-front and lets us retain a meaningful minority stake with talented partners. Skype is a strong standalone business, but it does not have synergies with our e-commerce and online payments businesses. As a separate company, we believe that Skype will have the focus required to compete effectively in online voice and video communications and accelerate its growth momentum.”

Back in April, eBay said that they were planning on spinning Skype into its own brand and preparing a separate IPO for the VoIP company. Now it is assumed these investors that took control of Skype will work together in preparing the IPO. This gives eBay the ability to focus all of their energy on their own company and on PayPal.

How much money does Skype make?
In 2008, Skype itself made $551 million in revenue which was a 44% increase from the year before. eBay’s total revenues for 2008 was $8.5 billion.

How many users does Skype have?
By EOY 2008, Skype had about 405 million users which was a 47% increase from the year before.