Deal Radar 2008: eHarmony Replacing Yenta

eHarmony is an online dating/matchmaking site that uses its patented Compatibility Matching System™ to match singles. In November 2004, eHarmony raised $110 million in a Series B round of financing from Sequoia Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures and Tuputele Ventures. It had earlier raised $3 million in Series A from Sarofim Fayez and Co.

Deal Radar 2008: LinkedIn Should Roll-Up Jobs

LinkedIn is a professional business networking site founded by Reid Hoffman in 2003. It allows members to showcase their profiles and caters to the age 25-65 professionals demographic. It generates revenues via subscriptions and advertising. Recruiters use the site to tap talent, and is LinkedIn’s primary revenue generating segment. In 2003, LinkedIn secured $4.7 million

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Deal Radar 2008: Girls Like Stardoll

Stardoll.com, formerly known as Paperdoll Heaven, is an online community for girls aged between 9 and17. It is a free online version of dress up dolls and is meant for those in love with fashion and style. The site features over 330 dolls and tens of thousands of virtual garments and accessories. It is now

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Deal Radar 2008: Trulia Can Consolidate Real Estate

It is raining cats and dogs. Electricity was out this morning and we just got it back. I am very behind in everything, including my writing. But here we go … Yesterday, we discussed the Kayak-Sidestep roll-up deal, and its implications on Google. Trulia is a real estate vertical search engine that could be a

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Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

As we have discussed, Online Travel is a large category, and active in entrepreneurship. Web 1.0 produced giant companies (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline), and in Web 2.0 we have a couple of vertical search engines that are pulling ahead. Kayak, the world’s largest travel search engine, receives more than 6 million unique visitors per month.

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Web 3.0 & Google (Part 4)

Acquisition Strategy Google has made several acquisitions this year. The key acquisitions were Adscape, Trendalyzer, Marratech, FeedBurner, PeakStream, GrandCentral, Postini and Jaiku. Google is yet to complete its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick Inc., a global leader in digital marketing technology and services. Google’s acquisition strategy is different from most other companies. Google has mostly

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Web 3.0 & Amazon (Part 4)

Acquisition Targets Amazon has been slow to acquire companies. Amazon acquired dpreview.com, a London-based digital photography review site in May 2007. Amazon needs to use acquisitions to enter businesses that have a higher profitability dynamic in their business models. For example, Amazon could consider acquiring on-demand, customized product creation company CafePress. CafePress.com is a growing

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Web 3.0 & MSN (Part 4)

Acquisition Strategy Microsoft acquired Medstory and aQuantive this year. Actually both were very good acquisitions. Online Health is a large segment with 31% of the total U.S. Internet users or 55.3 million U.S. Internet audience visiting health information sites each month during the first quarter of 2007. Buying aQuantive was a shrewd move. With the

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