Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Benchmark Capital http://pulse2.com Sat, 26 May 2012 21:27:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Why Bill Gurley Believes Dropbox Is Disruptive http://pulse2.com/2012/02/25/why-bill-gurley-believes-dropbox-is-disruptive/ http://pulse2.com/2012/02/25/why-bill-gurley-believes-dropbox-is-disruptive/#comments Sat, 25 Feb 2012 21:02:58 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=57043 Continue reading →]]>
Benchmark Capital venture capitalist Bill Gurley recently wrote a blog post about why he thinks that Dropbox, a company that he invested in is disruptive. We all know that Dropbox has tons of customers and that they make file synchronization very simple. Nothing really disruptive there. So why is Dropbox being valued at $4 billion?

“Once you begin using Dropbox, you become more and more indifferent to the hardware you are using, as well as the operating system on that device,” said Gurley. “Dropbox commoditizes your devices and their OS, by being your ‘state’ system in the sky. Storing credentials and configurations of devices, and even applications are natural next steps for this company. And the further they take it, the less dependent any user becomes of the physical machine (HW and SW) that is accessing that data (and state). Imagine the number of companies, as well as the previous paradigms, this threatens.”

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/02/25/why-bill-gurley-believes-dropbox-is-disruptive/feed/ 0 Edmodo Raises $15 Million In Series B http://pulse2.com/2011/12/12/edmodo-raises-15-million-in-series-b/ http://pulse2.com/2011/12/12/edmodo-raises-15-million-in-series-b/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:08:10 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=54427 Continue reading →]]>
Edmodo is an education social network for teachers and students K-12. The company has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital. Reid Hoffman (Greylock) and Matt Cohler (Benchmark) will be joining Edmodo’s board of directors as a result of this funding round.

The user interface of Edmodo looks just like Facebook. It is a social network for students and teachers to connect with each other. Edmodo is private and secure. Edmodo is a free service where teachers can share educational content and manage projects.

Students on Edmodo can take quizzes and interact with the website. However students cannot direct message each other.

“Both Matt and I have seen networks grow spectacularly once they hit their tipping point. It’s clear to us that Edmodo is well on its way to becoming one of the key networks in our lives. Just as LinkedIn is the professional graph for work and Facebook is the social graph for your friends, Edmodo is the educational graph for learning. The graph provides the platform for teachers to bring selections of the web to the classroom…Edmodo is the third social graph network that Greylock has invested in, after Linkedin and Facebook,” stated Reid Hoffman.

Currently Edmodo has 5 million users in 60,000 schools, which is up from 500,000 users at the end of 2010. The funding will be used for hiring engineering talent and scaling Edmodo.

[TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/12/12/edmodo-raises-15-million-in-series-b/feed/ 0 Car Request Servicer Uber Raises $32 Million From Menlo Ventures, Benchmark, Goldman Sachs, and Jeff Bezos http://pulse2.com/2011/12/07/car-request-servicer-uber-raises-32-million-from-menlo-ventures-benchmark-goldman-sachs-and-jeff-bezos/ http://pulse2.com/2011/12/07/car-request-servicer-uber-raises-32-million-from-menlo-ventures-benchmark-goldman-sachs-and-jeff-bezos/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:04:51 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=54215 Continue reading →]]>
Uber is a private car service company that has raised $32 million in Series B funding from Menlo Ventures, Goldman Sachs, and Jeff Bezos. Previous investor Benchmark Capital also participated in this round.

Uber was founded by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp. Kalanick previously founded a company called Red Swoosh that he sold to Akamai for $19 million. Garrett Camp is also the founder and CEO of StumbleUpon.

Kalanick made the funding announcement at Le Web on stage. They launched their European operations in Paris today. currently they have 60 cars on the street and they are seeing heavy demand. The company plans on using the funding to expand to two cities per month.

[TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/12/07/car-request-servicer-uber-raises-32-million-from-menlo-ventures-benchmark-goldman-sachs-and-jeff-bezos/feed/ 0 Yelp Files For $100 Million IPO http://pulse2.com/2011/11/18/yelp-files-for-100-million-ipo/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/18/yelp-files-for-100-million-ipo/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:02:55 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52946 Continue reading →]]>
Yelp is a local business review website that has filed for a $100 million IPO. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Jefferies are working as the lead underwriters. However the San Francisco based company has not selected an exchange to be traded on. Yelp is using multiple classes of shares for the public offering.

It is believed that Yelp will seek a valuation of between $1 and $2 billion. Like Groupon, the daily deals website that recently went public, Yelp turned down an acquisition offer from Google. Yelp turned down a $500 million offer from Google in 2009.

Yelp reported a $7.6 million net loss for the first 9 months of 2011 on about $58 million in revenue. Yelp also reported an $8.5 million loss on $32 million in revenue during the year earlier.

Yelp raised $56 million in venture capital funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Elevation Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Max Levchin. Yelp founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1% of the company.

[Fortune]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/18/yelp-files-for-100-million-ipo/feed/ 1 Minted Raises $5.5 Million In Series B Funding http://pulse2.com/2011/11/15/minted-raises-5-5-million-in-series-b-funding/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/15/minted-raises-5-5-million-in-series-b-funding/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:17:42 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52813 Continue reading →]]>
Minted.com, an e-commerce service for stationery and cars, has raised $5.5 million in Series B funding in a round led by Benchmark Capital, IDG Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Marissa Mayer, and Jeremy Stoppelman. Minted connects independent graphic designers to consumers looking for prints such as holiday cards, notebooks, calendars, and wedding invitations. The designer makes a percentage of every sale of their design.

To provide designers with extra exposure, the company holds contests. One popular contest was the Art Print Challenge. The winning designer would be able to sell his or her prints on One Kings Lane. Minted CEO and founder Mariam Naficy said that revenue has grown several hundred percentage since 2008. The company plans on using the funding for recruiting and support growth opportunities. They will also look into new product lines.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/15/minted-raises-5-5-million-in-series-b-funding/feed/ 0 Social Learning Startup Grockit Raises $7 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/10/17/social-learning-startup-grockit-raises-7-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/10/17/social-learning-startup-grockit-raises-7-million/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:26:45 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52071 Continue reading →]]>
Grockit is a social learning startup company that has raised $7 million in Series D. Current investor Atlas Ventures led the round. Existing investors Benchmark and Integral Capital also participated. New investors NewSchools Venture Fund and GSV Capital CEO Michael Moe participated in this round.

Grockit has test preps for the SAT, GMAT, and LSAT. It also has high school AP classes. Their latest service is called Grockit Answers, a website that creates Q&A pages for any videos on YouTube.

Grockit passed its 10 millionth answered question milestone. Grockit is getting close to 100 million chat messages too. The website has about 1 million total registered users. About 25,000 to 50,000 are active at any given month.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/10/17/social-learning-startup-grockit-raises-7-million/feed/ 0 Game Streaming Company Gaikai Raises $30 Million In Third Round http://pulse2.com/2011/07/24/game-streaming-company-gaikai-raises-30-million-in-third-round/ http://pulse2.com/2011/07/24/game-streaming-company-gaikai-raises-30-million-in-third-round/#comments Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:31:04 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=48865 Continue reading →]]>
Game streaming startup company Gaikai has raised $30 million in a third round of funding. Games are stored in the cloud and is delivered through high-speed Internet connections when on demand.

This round of funding was led by New Enterprise Associates. Qualcomm, Benchmark Capital, Rustic Canyon, and Intel Capital participated on this round. Gaikai CEO David Perry will be using this round of funding to accelerate the Interactive Cloud Network rollout.

“We have all become used to accessing every song ever made, every book ever written, every movie in every genre through cloud-based services. Gaikai is bringing this same functionality to video games and other interactive software,” stated Perry. Gaikai started in 2009 and has 65 employees.

[VentureBeat]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/07/24/game-streaming-company-gaikai-raises-30-million-in-third-round/feed/ 0 Domo Raises $33 Million In Series A http://pulse2.com/2011/07/17/domo-raises-33-million-in-series-a/ http://pulse2.com/2011/07/17/domo-raises-33-million-in-series-a/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:45:26 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=48547 Continue reading →]]>
Domo is a software-as-a-service company that has raised $33 million in series A funding from Benchmark Capital. The company has raised a total of $43 million. Domo was founded by Josh James, who also founded and served as the CEO of Omniture.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/07/17/domo-raises-33-million-in-series-a/feed/ 0 CloudPassage Raises $6.5 Million In Series A http://pulse2.com/2011/04/27/cloudpassage-raises-6-5-million-in-series-a/ http://pulse2.com/2011/04/27/cloudpassage-raises-6-5-million-in-series-a/#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:00:34 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=46404 Continue reading →]]>
CloudPassage is a cloud server security company that has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Benchmark Capital. CloudPassage provides server security for cloud websites and services. A core competency that CloudPassage has is the Halo architecture, which can automate multiple server securities and allow enterprises to set up security across public cloud environments on a massive scale. One of their most well known clients is Foursquare.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/04/27/cloudpassage-raises-6-5-million-in-series-a/feed/ 0 Zillow Files For $51.75 Million IPO http://pulse2.com/2011/04/19/zillow-files-for-51-75-million-ipo/ http://pulse2.com/2011/04/19/zillow-files-for-51-75-million-ipo/#comments Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:09:07 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=46085 Continue reading →]]>
Real estate search engine company Zillow.com has filed an S-1, which means that the company is going public on the stock market. Zillow is aiming to raise $51.75 million. Currently this is a placeholder amount and is subject to change.

Citigroup, Allen & Company, ThinkEquity, Needham & Company, and First Washington Corporation are underwriters in the IPO. Zillow received about 19 million unique visitors in March and they are currently listing about 100 million U.S. homes. Zillow hit $10.6 million in revenues in 2008, $17.5 million in 2009, and $30.5 million in 2010. However income has been at a loss over the last 3 years.

In March 2011 Zillow was used over 8 million times on a mobile device. Over 1.4 million homes are viewed on mobile devices per day. Zillow is expecting the revenue growth rate to decline due to the maturation of their business. The costs are also expected to rise as they continue to invest in product development, marketing, and partnerships. Zillow raised about $87 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, PAR Capital Management, and Legg Mason.

[TechCrunch]

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