1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2012: PartingOut.com, Graham, Texas

After years of frustration trying to efficiently sell used car parts online, Kevin Fullerton realized there was a significant opportunity to build an online community designed around the deal flow of buying and selling used parts. The result was PartingOut.com, an online salvage marketplace for used auto parts that operates on a visual platform of parts exchange, combining a yard management system with an open web-based platform. Its intention is to work evenly through both buyers and sellers.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: A Second Conversation with Mark Settle, CIO of BMC (Part 1)

Mark Settle is the chief information officer of BMC, a Houston-based company that provides software solutions to any size business. Mark has been in this position for four years. Before BMC, he worked as CIO of Corporate Express and Arrow Electronics, and he was executive vice president of the Systems & Processing division of Visa. In this interview he explains new trends in cloud computing, big data management, and how these affect medium-sized and large businesses.

Sramana Mitra: Welcome back to the Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing series, Mark.  We have talked before, so our audience knows you. I think the last time we spoke was some time ago, and we were still trying to figure out how America or the world was looking at cloud computing as a trend. At this point, the trend is sweeping over the IT-infrastructures around the world.  There is no ambiguity – the trend is here to stay and cloud adaption is quite significant. In today’s conversation, I would like to address some specific issues which you have a lot of insight to. >>>

1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2012: Hooduku, Houston, Texas

In late 2011, 1M/1M premium member Hooduku, a cloud and mobile application services company, saw an unduly large bill from one of its cloud providers but couldn’t see how to track the spending. Citing lack of controls on cloud spending as a cause, Hooduku decided to develop an internal solution to the problem. Earlier this year the company released Xervmon, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) based cloud cost management and analytics product that primarily focuses on cloud spending analytics.

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Having Trouble With Series A Funding?

There is a lot of talk right now that Series A funding has gotten difficult for the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who have received angel financing over the last 18 months. Some data from PEHub:

According to the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research, the number of active angel investors topped 300,000 last year, up 20 percent from 2010. The ranks of the matchmaking service AngelList also swelled, with 2,500 investors joining the community last yearalone, most of them in the last six months. (When AngelList got its start in the spring of 2010, it listed 80 accredited investors.) A study from UNH shows that angels put a fresh $9.2 billion to work in the first half of this year, a 3.1 percent increase over the same period in 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of firms that are actually investing is dwindling, despite the best efforts of partners to save face. The NVCA pegs the official number of “active” traditional firms at 500, but according to NVCA President Mark Heesen, this number is misleading, because at least 200 of the firms only do a deal or two a year.

Last year, some 66,230 companies received $22.5 billion through angel investors, up from 36,000 receiving $15.7 billion in 2002, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

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1Mby1M Deal Radar 2012: Mansa Systems, San Francisco, California

Mansa Systems, a San Francisco–based provider of cloud, mobile and social enterprise solutions, was founded on one entrepreneur’s passion to build a great IT company. The company, which describes itself as a “boutique consulting partner with a global presence,” not only provides the IT services of a larger company but specializes in providing enterprise-level apps as solutions to Salesforce customers. Services include solutions for cloud storage, secure document sharing, transactional email service, cloud telephony, and more. >>>

Trend Spotting: Global Services Exchanges and Capitalism 2.0

I have been watching the trend for a while … the amount of outsourced business being transacted on the various services exchanges around the world is HUGE. We have done story after story on this trend. Here is a summary of the links: eLance, oDesk, Freelancer.com & vWorker (these two have recently merged), CrowdFlower, CrowdSpring, etc.

Our latest addition to the series is Envato, bootstrapped to $10M by Australian entrepreneur couple Collis and Cyan Ta’eed.

Needless to say, I am extremely bullish on the trend, and expect to see this industry developing to huge scale, funneling, potentially, hundreds of billions of dollars of global GDP and supporting numerous small entrepreneurs.

The other encouraging element of this trend is the rise of the million dollar freelancers. Some stories: Ignacio Galarraga, Srish Agarwal, Sanjay Dange. In each case, solo entrepreneurs got started on these exchanges, and then used the platform to build sizable businesses using them as launching pads.

My read: the combination of services exchanges and million dollar freelancers would become an important piece of the Capitalism 2.0 puzzle.

1Mby1M Deal Radar 2012: CallFire, Santa Monica, California

CallFire is a Santa Monica, California–based text messaging and voice platform for businesses. It was founded by a group of friends with a passion for technology and a desire to build a successful company from the ground up and perhaps alter the course of telecom along the way. CallFire provides a cloud platform for businesses that powers two-way communication between businesses and opt-in customers, enabling companies, government agencies and grassroots organizations to instantly and affordably communicate with key audiences. Today, CallFire has 25 employees, more than 50,000 customers and annual revenues of $10 million – and has yet to receive a dime of venture capital.
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Trend Spotting: The Variegated Social Web

The social web is gradually taking over the Internet. From search to shopping, everything is getting social these days. Time for an overview of what we see in the 1M/1M portfolio from all corners of the social web.

Lutebox

Ali Ahmed, who used to be an entrepreneur-in-residence at Groupon, co-founded Lutebox, a walkie-talkie shopping venture that allows users to turn shopping online or in stores into a social experience. Normally, sharing product images is a slow process. People either have to e-mail links of the products or post the photos on social networks. Based in London, Lutebox offers a rich-media communication and collaboration platform on which users can quickly share the shopping experience in real time with their friends and family and save conversation threads about products they want to buy. >>>