Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » New Enterprise Associates

Millennial Media’s Shares Surge 97% In First Trade Of $25

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:54:44 +0000

Millennial Media is a mobile ad network that has debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MM.” The shares popped 97% in the first trade of $25. Millennial Media’s valuation jumped to almost $2 billion and the company priced their IPO at $13 per share. Trading reached as high as $27.90 in early trading.

Millennial Media filed their original S-1 in early January and they raised over $130 million in the offering, which is up from $75 million. Millennial is one of the last largest remaining independent mobile ad networks, which currently serves ads to 200 million unique users. Over 30,000 apps use Millennial for their ads, which are served to 200 million unique users worldwide.

Millennial Media’s revenue increased 195% from $16.2 to $47.8 million. The company took a net loss of $7.6 million and $7.1 million between 2009 and 2010. Between 2010 and 2011, revenue increased 117% from $47.8 million to $103.7 million. In 2011, the company saw a net loss of $287,000.

Paul Palmieri founded Millennial Media and they raised $65 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, and several others.

“Today is an exciting day for our company, and also a significant milestone in the maturation of the mobile advertising industry. We have spent the last six plus years helping create what’s now a multi-billion dollar mobile application advertising market and we look forward to continuing to drive growth and innovation in the space,” stated Palmieri.

Viral Tracking Pop Culture Website BuzzFeed Raises $15.5 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:10:24 +0000

BuzzFeed is one of my most favorite time-pass websites because they have interesting galleries and lists of pop culture. BuzzFeed has raised $15.5 million in Series C funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Other investors that participated include Lerer Ventures, Hearst Media, SoftBank, and RRE Capital. NEA General Partner Patrick Kerins will be joining the BuzzFeed board of directors. Ken Lerer, the Huffington Post co-founder and BuzzFeed board member, will become the BuzzFeed executive chairman.

Former Huffington Post President Greg Coleman is also joining the BuzzFeed board of directors. BuzzFeed was founded by co-founded by Jonah Peretti, who was the former CTO of The Huffington Post before the company was acquired by AOL.

BuzzFeed has recently hit some major milestones. For example, the company has tripled their traffic to 25 million monthly unique visitors in the past year. They hired Politico’s Ben Smith to serve as the head editor. And recently they broke the news about how John McCain was going to endorse Mitt Romney before CNN and other news agencies.

[TechCrunch]

How Much Groupon Executives and Investors Made From The IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 20:57:39 +0000

Yesterday Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ:GRPN) had an initial public offering. The company set their stock price at $20 and yesterday it closed at $26.11. The company was given a valuation of over $17 billion. BusinessInsider.com has compiled a list of how much the executives and investors made from the IPO. Below is the list:

Ted Leonsis – Former AOL Vice Chairman – Made $48.27 million from 1,848,770 shares owned
Brian Totty – Groupon SVP of Engineering – Made $16.31 million from 624,786 shares ownde
Howard Schultz – Starbucks CEO/Groupon board member – Made $49.59 million from 1,899,336 shares owned
Kenneth M. Pelletier – Former Groupon CTO – Made $70.47 million from 2,698,944 shares owned
Robert S. Solomon – Former Groupon President and COO – Made $105.88 million from 4,055,000 shares owned
Andreessen Horowitz – VC Firm – Invested $40 million, Earned $132.2 million, Gain of $92.2 million
Maverick Fund – VC Firm – Invested $50 million, Earned $165.3 million, Gain of $115.3 million
Greylock Partners – VC Firm – Invested $65 million, Earned $214.9 million, Gain of $149.9 million
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – VC Firm – Invested $65 million, Earned $214.9 million, Gain of $149.9 million
Morgan Stanley – VC Firm – Invested $75 million, Earned $248 million, Gain of $173 million
T Rowe Price – Investment Firm – Invested $100 million, Earned $330.6 million, Gain of $230.6 million
Fidelity Investments – Investment Firm – Invested $100 million, Earned $330.6 million, Gain of $230.6 million
Battery Ventures – VC Firm – Invested $58 million, Earned $417.4 million, Gain of $359.4 million
Technology Crossover Ventures – VC Firm – Invested $150 million, Earned $459.9 million, Gain of $345.9 million
The Growth Fund of America – Fund – Invested $175 million, Earned $578.6 million, Gain of $403.6 million
Accel Partners – Invested $20 million, Earned $866.96 million, Gain of $856.96 million
Digital Sky Technologies – Invested $151 million, Earned $1.11 billion, Gain of $959 million
The European Founders Fund – Earned $1.02 billion based on 6.2% ownership in Groupon
Brad Keywell – Groupon Co-Founder – Earned $1.07 billion based on 6.5% ownership
Andrew Mason – Groupon CEO – Earned $1.2 billion based on 7.3% ownership
New Enterprise Associates – VC Firm – Invested $14.8 million, Earned $2.28 billion, Gain of $2.26 billion
Eric Lefkofsky – Groupon Co-Founder – Gained $1.67 billion based on over 10% ownership of the company
Elizabeth Lefkofsky – Wife of Eric – Gained $1.67 billion based on over 10% ownership of the company

Box.net Raises $81 Million With Valuation That Is Over $600 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:37:25 +0000

Cloud storage company Box.net has raised $81 million in Series D funding from Salesforce.com, SAP Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Box.net has now raised a total of $162 million. This puts Box.net’s valuation at over $600 million.

Box.net has 7 million users and stores about 300 million documents. Box.net was founded in 2005 by Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith from their dorm rooms in 2005. Box.net currently provides cloud storage to 77% of the Fortune 500. About 100,000 businesses are using Box.net’s services and 250,000 new users are joining every month.

Box.net has even received several acquisition offers that was roughly worth about $500 million. The company eventually plans on going public.

[TechCrunch]

Social Media Management Company Hearsay Social Raises $18 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:10:24 +0000

Corporate social media management company Hearsay Social has raised $18 million. The company launched this past February. Hearsay provides franchise companies and businesses with local chapters the ability to monitor social media across the whole organization.

Some of Hearsay’s customers include State Farm, Farmers Insurance Group, and 24 Hour Fitness.

Hearsay’s additional features include a Rogue Page Finder, a system for adding corporate hierarchies, and a social campaign tool for multiple social networks. The Rogue Page Finder finds social media pages that uses the company’s branding but are imposters.

The investors in this round include New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital. NEA partner Jon Sakoda will join Hearsay’s board of directors. Previous investors in the company’s $3 million round includes Sequoia Capital, Michael Abbott (Twitter), Steve Chen (YouTube), Dave Morin (Path), and Aaron Sittig (Facebook). Hearsay was founded by Clara Shih and Steve Garrity.

Game Streaming Company Gaikai Raises $30 Million In Third Round

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:31:04 +0000

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]

Dell Paying $700 Million In Cash To Acquire Force10 Networks

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:18:30 +0000

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) is acquiring Force10 Networks Inc. for $700 million in cash. Force10 is a high-speed Ethernet networking equipment company that was planning to go the IPO route.

Force10 is best known for developing 10 gigabit Ethernet networking switching and routing products. Force10 was founded in 1999 and merged with Turin Networks Inc.

Between Turin and Force10, they raised over $630 million in venture capital. The company’s most recent round of funding was $30 million, which gave the company a valuation that is greater than $200 million.

Some of the previous investors in the company include Advanced Equities, Crosslink Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, DCM, Morgenthaler Ventures, New Enteprise Associates, Pacesetter Capital Group, RWI Ventures, Tudo Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Worldview Technology Partners.

MemSQL Raises $2.1 Million From Multiple Investors

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 04:41:11 +0000

MemSQL has raised $2.1 million in seed funding from First Round Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Start Fund, SV Angel, Y Combinator, Ashton Kutcher, Paul Bucheit, Sam Altman, Guy Oseary, and several others. MemSQL will be using the funding to move into a new office in downtown San Francisco. MemSQL is an in-memory database system that is 30 times faster than relational databases. MemSQL focuses on online transaction processing.

Blue Jeans Network Raises $23.5 Million for the Future of Videoconferencing

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:44:22 +0000

The Blue Jeans Network is more than a videoconferencing platform, it aims to be the platform on which all other video conferencing platforms sit, the platform that integrates all others. Unsurprisingly, the startup has raised $23.5 million for their venture. Investors include Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Northwest Venture Partners. As TechCrunch notes, the draw of Blue Jeans is that it works in the cloud and doesn’t require users to buy or download any software.

Blue Jeans has the potential to streamline videoconferencing into a convenience without the current hassle of agreeing on a program every time a videoconference is needed. The service charges between 10 and 5 cents per minute.

Pulse News App Raises $9 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 00:23:49 +0000

Pulse has raised $9 million in funding as they have just hit 4 million users. Pulse is a social and visual news reader company that has apps available on the iPad, iPhone, and Android.

The investors in this round include New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Ventures, and Greycroft Partners. Pulse started as a class project at Stanford University. Over the past year, the company has gone from a project to a 10-person team. Pulse also won an Apple App Store Hall of Fame award.

Patrick Chung, co-head of the consumer investing division at NEA will join the Pulse board of directors.

[Mashable]