In the recap mode, here’s a list of the top 20 serial entrepreneurs I have spoken with: * Philippe Courtot – a very young 63-year old CEO of Qualys.
I want to turn the spotlight on serial entrepreneurs, and open a discussion on what drives them, and if you want to become a serial entrepreneur, what can you learn from the lives, careers and choices of other successful serial entrepreneurs.
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!
Kosmix is a vertical portal startup. Founded in 2006 by Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, founders of Junglee, this site aims at creating a ‘Home page for every topic’. Featured Kosmix sites are RightHealth, RightAutos and RightTrips focusing on health, autos and travel verticals. They have also been working on other verticals like politics, finance,
SM: How did you finance the different phases of the company? VH: Our company is funded by VCs, Accel and Lightspeed, and private individuals such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Bill Miller of Legg Mason. SM: What financing stage are you at right now? VH: We feel like we are fully funded, so we
SM: How big is the market? How do you calculate TAM? What is your business model? VH: We believe the overall TAM is very large – Wikipedia is a good proxy. They are #6 on the Web in traffic. Our business model is ad supported and very robust as we have very targeted and high
Someone asked me earlier about Kosmix in one of the discussions on this blog, and I had said that I hadn’t looked at the company yet. Well, now I have, and I am happy to bring you a conversation with Venky Harinarayan on the genesis and direction of vertical search startup, Kosmix. SM: Please describe