Next Phase in High Tech Individualism

By Michael Kanazawa, Guest Author Dell just announced a massive change in direction that may leave a mark as meaningful as when Ford shifted the market from individual coach-builders to mass production. It’s not exactly the same situation, but it is a shift in manufacturing and business model that makes a huge statement about social

Read Full Article »

Vertical Ad Networks: Evolution

Another big funding round in the vertical ad network world: FM raises between $40 and $50M from Oak Investment Partners. Valuation: $200 Million; 2007 Revenue: $25 Million; 2008 Revenue Forecast: $60 Million. Not bad!

Private Equity on Steroids (Part 1)

By Dominique Trempont, Guest Author For the last couple of years, we saw an unprecedented wave of private equity deals. Even though the current debt crisis is drying up some of Private Equity’s easy cash source, there are opportunities for savvy investors in the midst of the current chaos.

Stanford’s Seed Fund

While we’ve been on the topic of seed funding, Techcrunch is reporting the launch of a new seed fund at Stanford.

TI+InterDigital = 3G Consolidation?

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author In the previous article, I discussed what an acquisition of InterDigital can do to TI. What then will happen to the cellular industry and the 3G value chain?

Deal Radar 2008: Slide

Slide, founded in 2005, is Max Levchin’s second baby. Levchin, founder of PayPal, sold the online payment site to eBay for $1.5 billion, and he intends to do even better with his current venture, Slide. Slide, however, doesn’t look like a great second act to me!

Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 9)

SM: What do you think of SmugMug? It is very popular. JH: It is popular for us because we are in the valley. When you look at the grand scheme of things, they are still a relatively small company with about $10M in revenue. I think what they have done well is they said in

Read Full Article »

Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 8)

SM: Why didn’t Flickr elect to work with you? JH: At the time we were competing with Yahoo Photos, and Flickr chose a small company who is producing product as their outsource manufacturer. That small company has signed up a number of sites who in the early days thought they were competing with Shutterfly. They

Read Full Article »