Agile VC

AUGUST 1, 2012

About 6-12 months ago you could hardly throw a rock in the startup ecosystem without hitting a VC expressing their enthusiasm for “mobile” Now the frenzy about mobile has extended into the mass media and public equity markets, though with trepidation as often as excitement.

Mobile 160

Mobile Advertising Bandwidth Web 160

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

This is especially true for those with a media / ad based business model (e.g. This is a logical thing to do… when we started LinkedIn, my mentor Reid Hoffman instilled a mantra of Growth –> Usage –> Revenue which still holds for many consumer companies.

Revenue 234

Revenue Product B2B Marketing 234

Agile VC

MAY 23, 2012

In the wake of the undue frenzy leading up to and now ex post recriminations about Facebook’s IPO, the mainstream media and normal folks keep wondering if the non-existent “bubble” for internet companies has now popped. The internet has already had meaningful impact on industries ranging from commerce to media to software.

Internet 182

Internet Silicon Valley IPO Seed Stage 182

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

And while the internet created both tremendous reward and tremendous investment carnage leading up to and after the 2000 tech bubble, it’s created long run disruption of broad sectors of media, advertising, business software & computing, and retail commerce and VCs that missed this shift have faced real struggles.

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Agile VC

APRIL 30, 2019

All three have different business models… SaaS, media/ad, and consumer transactional. In just the last month or so we’ve seen Lyft go public ( my analysis of the company’s S-1 here ) and more recently, Zoom and Pinterest. Zoom is a B2B company Pinterest and Lyft are obviously B2C companies.

IPO 100

IPO B2B B2C Institutional Investors 100

Agile VC

MAY 21, 2012

were fairly active a few years ago though neither is as active today and big media conglomerates like Disney are fairly sporadic as they embrace web-based media. IAC and Yahoo! On the B2B SaaS side or enabling services (e.g. ad-tech, analytics, development platforms, etc) the list is slightly different.

Acquisition 162

Acquisition Silicon Valley B2B Seed Stage 162

Agile VC

MARCH 30, 2012

That phrase means different things to different folks, but broadly speaking we’re now in an era where there’s vast amounts of data “exhaust” being generated by a wide range of activity… from consumer web browsing patterns to financial trading to social media content to purchasing behavior.

Business Model 113

Business Model Silicon Valley Advertising B2B 113

Agile VC

MARCH 13, 2012

only notified them of potential IP infringement two weeks ago on February 27, 2012 (as described in the lawsuit) and Facebook heard about it through the media rather than in private. It’s not as though nobody’s heard of Facebook before, yet Yahoo! hardly tried to deal with Facebook on this issue outside the court system.

IP 100

IP IPO Social Network Silicon Valley 100

Agile VC

JANUARY 3, 2013

They further had to open up IE to allow consumer choice of embedded services like search and media players. Microsoft famously had to open it’s desktop OS to allow other web browsers to complete against IE. And of course the FTC and others have been poking into all sorts of practices at Google in recent years.

Mobile 124

Mobile Software Open Source Search 124

Agile VC

MAY 22, 2014

4) It’s Unclear if Alibaba Looks Like an Media Company or a Marketplace – To be clear, Alibaba’s sites are obviously marketplaces. So Alibaba captured only 2.6 cents out of every $1 in GMV that was sold on its marketplaces. But Alibaba is clearly making it up on volume as they say.

China 159

China Revenue Flash Affiliate 159

Agile VC

OCTOBER 17, 2011

The second order impacts to the entire technology industry are in their early innings… not just the complete digitization of consumer media, but also the “consumerization” of business software, the BYOD movement in corporate IT , the evolution of the computer/human interface.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 133

Agile VC

OCTOBER 2, 2011

Because consumers don’t want a portable touchscreen computer… they want a product that integrates content & media suite seamlessly with the hardware. The Kindle Fire (and it’s successor upgrades) will be the first Android tablet to sell 10M+ units.

Business Model 100

Business Model Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate 100

Agile VC

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

I have to say that I’m not a fan of the brand “Qwikster” for the DVD-by-mail service, though I think it’s good that group will expand into other media types like video games (a la Gamefly). They’re both right.

Silicon Valley 100

Silicon Valley Private Equity Seed Stage Syndicate 100

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

The secondary wave of VC-backed IPOs has also come to fruition… both consumer facing (Yelp, Demand Media, Pandora, Carbonite, HomeAway, Angie’s List, et al) and B2B (Jive Software, Brightcove, Imperva, Responsys, etc). The pipeline of companies in registration has continued to grow.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Facebook admits as much that the ad business, which again accounts for the vast majority of revenues (85%), has seasonality in line with the media industry generally with a strong Q4 and weak Q1. In fact Facebook’s ad revenue dropped in absolute terms slightly (about -3%) from Q4 2010 to Q1 2011.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100