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Content Tagged with Partners + Web2.0
Nokia Plunks Another $150 Million Into Venture Fund
Nokia doesn’t want to miss the next wave of mobile technologies so it is doubling down on its venture investment activities. The cell phone giant is putting another $150 million to work in Nokia Growth Partners, a fund in which it is the only limited partner. This brings the total capital in the fund to $250 million (Nokia initiated the fund with $100 million in 2004). That is in addition to a $100 million fund of funds also run by Nokia Growth Partners on behalf of Nokia, which is used to sprinkle cash around to other VC firms.
So far the fund has done best investing in mobile chip companies, some of which have been acquired by ATI (BitBoys for $44 million), Broadcom (Global Locate for $143 million), and Dolby (Coding Technologies for $250 million). But it is also an investor in mobile video service Kyte. Generally, it is a alter-stage growth fund that looks for companies with a product ready to ramp up.
The new cash comes at a time when the mobile Web is generating excitement again in Silicon Valley. Most of that excitement right now surrounds the iPhone. Throwing around a little cash to encourage startups to develop cutting-edge apps for Nokia phones is not a bad strategy. The fund will also invest more heavily in China and India, where mobile growth far outstrips the U.S.
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Accel Looks To India For Venture Returns
Is India finally ready to produce some world-shaking Web companies? It certainly has the raw talent. And increasingly it has the capital. Accel is the latest VC fund to focus on the sub-continent. It absorbed Indian VC firm Erasmic, and is relaunching it as the Accel India Venture Fund.
One of Erasmic’s investors is Google. The fund does seed-stage investing inside India, and will continue to do so under Accel’s ownership. (Four Erasmic partners will keep running the show).
Accel India will reportedly raise a $60 million fund this quarter. Which may not sound like much, but it is six times bigger than Erasmic’s current $10 million fund. And, remember, this will be earmarked for seed investments, in India. A dollar goes a lot further there.
Accel has been around since 1983, but didn’t create its first non-U.S. fund until 2001 (focusing on Europe and Israel). It entered China in 2005 through a partnership with IDG. And now it is going after India.
Will Accel find the next Facebook in India? Probably not (It is an investor in the original Facebook here in the U.S., by the way). But it gets to dip its toes into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. If it can find a couple startups to shake up India alone, it will have been worth the investment.
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European Mobile VoIP Startup Nimbuzz Raises $15 Million
Mike Butcher at TechCrunch UK reports:
Word has reached me that Netherlands-based Nimbuzz, the mobile VoIP and IM startup that extends into social networks, has raised $15 million in a second round led by Naspers/MIH, with Nimbuzz’s other major existing investor Mangrove Capital Partners also participating. It’s already had $10 million from Mangrove (the original Skype investor). Apparently deals with 10 major social networks and three operators are already on the table. The latter see these kinds of apps as a way of boosting data use and therefore revenues. The cash will be used to extend to Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android. They are looking at a million registered mobile users so far.
Nimbuzz offers free mobile VoIP, conference calling, IM and group chat and photo and file sending across multiple IM communities, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber and ICQ, plus 23 social networks, including apps/widgets for Facebook and Myspace.
Read the rest of the entry.
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He’s Baaack! Quattrone Starts Qatalyst Partners.
After spending years in the wilderness fighting obstruction of justice charges stemming from the investment banking excesses of the late 1990s, Silicon Valley investment banker Frank Quattrone is back. Yesterday, he launched Qatalyst Group, a boutique investment bank that will focus on technology M&A and advisory services.
As the head technology banker for Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley before that, Quattrone had a hand in practically every major Internet IPO during the 1990s, from Amazon to Netscape. He has one of the deepest Rolodexes the Valley. In the press release announcing his return, he squeezes a couple of supportive quotes out of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, venture capitalist Jim Breyer, and Facebook CFO Gideon Yu.
I suppose a general economic downturn is as good a time as any to start a boutique M&A investment bank. Perhaps he can hire some folks from Bear Stearns.
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Judge Throws Out CNET’s Objections to Investor Lawsuit
The showdown between CNET and its largest shareholder, Jana Partners, may be entering a new phase. Following a tense meeting last week with Jana representatives, there is now a good chance CNET’s hard stance against giving Jana any board seats (despite the consortium owning a 21 percent share in the company) is about to vaporize. According to a source close to the situation (updated below, now confirmed), CNET was trying to block a lawsuit Jana has filed to fill the board with its proposed slate of directors. Jana wants to increase the number of board members from 8 to 13, and have the right to name 7 of them.
CNET was trying to block the suit on a technicality—apparently there was some question as to whether it had been filed properly. CNET was advised that it had a pretty strong case. So strong, in fact, that CEO Neil Ashe earlier this week offered Jana only one board seat because he was so confident the lawsuit would be blocked. But the judge didn’t agree.
So now his hand has been weakened considerably.
Update: Reuters has more here
Update 2: The text of the Delware court ruling:
DELAWARE COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF JANA PARTNERS’ RIGHT TO NOMINATE SEVEN DIRECTORS FOR BOARD OF CNET NETWORKS
NEW YORK, March 13, 2008 – JANA Partners LLC (“JANA”) announced today that the Delaware Court of Chancery has upheld the rights of an affiliate of JANA to nominate seven directors and propose other business at the 2008 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of CNET Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: CNET). Following today’s ruling, JANA Managing Partner Barry Rosenstein issued the following statement:
“This is the first step towards putting aside the legal mechanisms CNET has relied on to fight our effort to create stockholder value, which have included a poison pill, golden parachutes and an attempt to prevent us from proposing new directors, an attempt which the court today rejected. We look forward to moving on to a substantive discussion of the need for change at CNET, and why we believe our nominees have the expertise and experience needed to reverse CNET’s ongoing underperformance. We hope that the company will now put aside their efforts to thwart this debate with technicalities and instead engage stockholders in a dialogue about the company’s future.”
On January 7, 2008 CNET claimed that the efforts of a JANA affiliate to nominate two directors for election to the open board seats at CNET’s 2008 Annual Stockholders Meeting and to add five additional nominees to the board of directors were “improper” under its bylaws and sought to deny its right as a stockholder to do so, after which this affiliate of JANA filed suit in Delaware challenging the company’s interpretation of its bylaws. The Delaware Court of Chancery today rejected CNET’s arguments and affirmed JANA’s affiliate’s right to have its nominations and proposals considered by stockholders at CNET’s Annual Meeting.
Background
JANA has joined with Sandell Asset Management Corp. (“Sandell”), Paul Gardi of Alex Interactive Media, Spark Capital and Velocity Interactive Group in seeking to elect two individuals to replace the board members who are up for re-election at CNET’s 2008 stockholders meeting and to expand CNET’s board by five members and nominate individuals to fill those vacancies.
JANA Partners LLC is a multi-billion dollar investment management firm founded in 2001 by Barry Rosenstein. JANA has on numerous occasions, alone or with other shareholders, challenged management to focus on creating shareholder value, including with respect to Kerr-McGee Corporation, Time Warner, Titan International, TD Ameritrade and The Houston Exploration Company.
Alex Interactive Media, LLC (“AIM”) is a private company focused on leveraging its domain expertise in digital media and related industries.
Spark Capital is a venture capital fund focused on building businesses that transform the distribution, management and monetization of media and content, with experience in identifying and actively building market-leading companies in sectors including infrastructure (Qtera, RiverDelta, Aether Systems, Broadbus and BigBand), networks (College Sports Television, TVONE and XCOM) and services (Akamai and the Platform). Spark Capital has over $600 million under management, and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Velocity Interactive Group, LLC is an investment firm that focuses on digital media and communications. Velocity Interactive Group has offices in Palo Alto, Los Angeles and New York.
Sandell Asset Management Corp., is a multi-billion dollar global investment management firm, founded by Thomas E. Sandell, that focuses on global corporate events and restructurings throughout North America, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific theatres. Sandell frequently will take an “active involvement” in facilitating financial or organization improvements accruing to the benefit of investors.
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Bay And Bessemer Add $25 Million In Monetary Muscle Behind Force.com
Bay Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners have teamed up with Salesforce to invest $25 million in businesses building on the recently announced Force.com application platform over the next three years. Investments will be around $500,000 each (some convertible notes). However, others may go as high as $2 million depending on the company’s stage and needs. The investments are a boon to the evolving Force platform and sure to lessen the appeal for a host of other database-driven application platforms.
The partnership will provide Bay and Bessemer early leads to new companies and Saleforce’s assistance during due dillegence. Bay and Bessemer were attracted to the platform due to Salesforce’s existing 35,000 customer base and 50,000 developers. Force.com already has 350 partners with 725 applications as well.
Bay looks to be taking the lead in the program and will be leveraging their significant experience SaaS investments. They have already invested in many Appexchange integrated companies (Xactly, Eloqua, Cornerstone, eProject) and are looking to get in earlier this time around. Notably, Bay has also invested in Facebook’s platform by setting aside funds for 50 investments (they’ve closed three).
The investment program has been underway over the past couple of months. Bay has been looking at 12 deals and already committed to one. The deals are judged on a case by case basis. Although, they will be looking for fully developed products, with strong metrics (revenue, customer stickiness).
The Force.com venture program is being led by Neil Sadaranganey and Salil Deshpande from Bay Parntners and Byron Deeter from Bessemer Venture Partners. Companies interesting in learning more about the program can send inquires to saas@baypartners.com.
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