2015 Is Shaping Up To Be The Key Year For Venture Capital
Eye-popping is the only word that comes close to describing the numbers we saw this year from venture finance. The valuations accelerated rapidly, with companies like Slack jumping past the billion dollar mark in less than a year of the launch of its enterprise social product. Google announced a massive $542 million round in Magic Leap in October, and just yesterday, Instacart announced that it had reached a valuation of $2 billion following a round led by Kleiner Perkins.
Even if these valuations were frightening, we could at least find solace in the equally eye-popping acquisition prices technology companies were willing to spend this year on high-flying startups. The year started with a bang following Facebook’s announcement of its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, in what remains the highest price ever paid for a startup.
The major acquisitions never stopped either, with Facebook also purchasing Oculus, Google buying Nest Labs, and Apple obtaining Beats all in multi-billion dollar transactions. In the enterprise space, massive acquisitions were equally the norm, with SAP buying Concur in a $8.3 billion transaction, and Oracle buying Micros at $5.3 billion.
There remain lingering concerns about whether we are seeing the start of a whole new era of startup growth or the final throes of an ecosystem completely out-of-control and about to pop. That bubble question is entirely the wrong one to ask though, and that is why 2015 is going to be the most interesting year in venture capital.
To see just the start of this, take a look at Beepi, which announced that it added another $12 million in capital to its previous $60 million round. While extending a round is not uncommon, what made this round so interesting was one of the sources of those funds. AngelList, the online fundraising site, put in $2.7 million led by Gil Penchina’s syndicate, the largest investment ever made from the platform.
This is truly a new world for VCs. While AngelList’s presence has certainly not gone unnoticed in the venture world, its effect has been most immediately felt by angels themselves in seed rounds. Until now, the platform’s round sizes were simply not at a scale where early-stage investors had to spend much time considering the platform or how they might fight it competitively.
That is changing as its rounds increasingly move into the seven-digits. Many firms thrive on investments at a couple of million dollars a piece, and now these funds won’t just compete with each other, but also with every large syndicate on AngelList. That is great news to entrepreneurs, who will almost certainly gain better valuations and more control over their company, but for traditional VCs, they are going to have to find ways to adapt against this new onslaught of funding.
Even more than the early-stage changes though, growth rounds of fast-growing companies are increasingly going to be done by insiders, or more specifically, friends of the insiders. Venture capitalists are increasingly offering their limited partners the ability to invest directly into later rounds of their early-stage investments, giving them important exposure to growth while mitigating management fees. LPs have traditionally eschewed these sorts of options, preferring to back investment managers who can make these decisions on their behalf. But as startups increasingly wait to exit, the investment options for growth are simply more limited.
If I had to make a single prediction about venture capital in 2015, it is that the gulf between the very top venture capital firms and the rest of the industry will widen even more than it is today. Top firms who can organize these sorts of easy growth rounds can promise almost unlimited capital to their entrepreneurs, eliminating the bane of fundraising for founders. That’s a heck of a selling point when the term sheets come in.
While this has obvious implications for founders, the wider implications are for everyday investors. Since the 1990s, common investors have been increasingly prevented from investing in growth stocks since startups simply don’t go public as early as they used to. These issues will only compound as large managed funds increasingly become comfortable with investing directly in growth rounds. A founder will almost certainly prefer to take dollars from a handful of private investors rather than submitting to the vagaries of the stock market. That investment inequality is going to accelerate rapidly in the coming year as the tools and contracts needed to manage this capital mature.
The other issue, which Eric Kim and Chi-Hua Chien brought up in an article here recently, is that tech companies are sitting on a pile of cash, about $600 billion or so. These changes to later growth rounds also means that the returns that tech companies can potentially receive from their cash will decline if they aren’t actively investing that money in strategic growth rounds. Google’s half-billion investment into Magic Leap is just the beginning of this phenomenon.
2015 is shaping up to be one of the most interesting years for venture capital ever. We will witness the rewriting of the rules for early-stage fundraising as well as a change in the mix of capital for growth rounds that will spread out the growth of top companies far wider than before. Top Silicon Valley companies will continue to impress their incumbency status on the industry as well. While perhaps more of the same we have already started to see these past few years, 2015 will likely be the watershed year that all of these trends come together for the venture capital industry.
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Tesla Is Working On Robotic Snakes That Emerge From The Wall To Charge Your Car
Elon Musk is pretty much the best thing about Twitter, and today is no exception – the Tesla CEO tweeted that his electric car company is actually working on tech that would allow chargers to snake out of the wall and plug into your car automatically, eliminating the need to manually connect when you get your Model S back to your garage at night.
This would presumably somewhat resemble the kind of articulated robotic arms made famous by comic book villain Doctor Octopus, but less threatening and evil. The invention would appear to be driven by a desire to make the process of charging Tesla vehicles even more convenient, and also by extension more idiot-proof – you can’t forget to plug in your car when the plug is autonomous, after all.
Backwards compatibility for said tech is a nice bonus, and yet another example of how Tesla goes out of its way to bring the benefits of its advances to existing, as well as new customers. Already, Tesla has begun rolling out battery swap tech that works with existing cars, and earlier this year it introduced a warranty extension that applied backwards to existing Model S cars already shipped.
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Top drone deals of 2014
Ready for some aerial acrobatics? Grab a drone, any drone here at TNW Deals at a special price, and perform smooth flight patterns and cool stunts in your personal airspace!
Also, don’t miss our top gadget deals and top digital deals of 2014.
The Limited Edition Code Black Drone + HD Camera
Whether you’re looking to gift or buy your own first drone, there’s never been a better looking choice than the sleek Code Black Drone. Finished in stunning matte black, the Code Black Drone features beginner and expert flight modes so you can execute simple flight patterns and tricks right out of the box, and more complex maneuvers once you’ve got in some practice.
The Code Black Drone also features an on-board camera to capture footage of your flights in glorious HD quality. Fly incognito for only $89 with free shipping in the US.
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The Extreme Micro Drone 2.0 + Aerial Camera
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The 3DRobotics IRIS+
Looking for a professional-grade drone for killer videos? If it’s good enough for Richard Branson, it’s good enough for the rest of us. The 3DRobotics IRIS+ can follow pre-determined flight paths, follow you around by tracking your phone’s GPS signal and even fly itself in autopilot mode.
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The Panther Air Drone with HD Camera
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NYC May Integrate Apple Pay, Bitcoin, PayPal For Parking Tickets
Given that NYC is the greatest city in the world (I’m definitely not biased), it makes sense that the Big Apple is looking to give its residents a better way to pay off their many parking tickets.
According to MarketWatch, the city of New York issues eight to ten million parking tickets each year, coming out to around $30 billion in revenue for the city. That said, the city is considering introducing Apple Pay, PayPal and Bitcoin as methods to pay parking tickets.
As it stands now, drivers are paying their tickets via mail or in person, or for the truly savvy, online. Still, that eliminates the ability to pay on mobile (mostly, because it’s a horrible experience) and it also means that drivers who pay with credit or debit are subject to a convenience fee.
Because the current process is so difficult, many drivers pay their tickets late, costing them even more money.
The city envisions a system that would allow drivers to take a quick picture of their ticket, and then choose a method of payment. However, NYC has only requested more information on the payment systems, and no official plans are in place yet.
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TinyPulse Raises $3.5M Led By Baseline To Help Companies Keep Tabs On Employee Happiness
A few years ago, a startup called TinyPulse launched to change the way employee reviews were done. Based on the promise of weekly, one-question surveys, the company has grown to more than 20 employees and just raised $3.5 million in Series A funding.
The funding was led by Baseline Ventures, with former eBay, Microsoft, and Starbucks executive (and Baseline founder) Steve Anderson joining the board. Also participating was Michael Dearing’s Harrison Metal, along with other investors.
TinyPulse was founded in 2012 to help companies track employee happiness and productivity within the organization. Rather than asking employees to answer a long survey or questionnaire annually or semi-annually, TinyPulse sends them an email with a single question each week.
Because the barrier to answering each one-question survey is so low, companies see relatively high response rates among employees each week, giving them the ability to instantly keep tabs on employee happiness. The answers to those questions also provide a more accurate representation of how that environment changes over time and how it compares to other employers.
In addition to answering the one question a week, employees are also able to nominate their peers for recognition each week, and also to make suggestions about how workplaces can improve. Since feedback is anonymous and immediate, employers can more readily respond to issues, rather than waiting for yearly review periods to recognize when there are problems.
As TinyPulse has added new customers, it’s also managed to collect a huge amount of data on how employees in different workplaces respond to questions each week. According to founder and CEO David Niu, the company now has more than 500 clients, which include companies like HubSpot, Deloitte, StitchFix, and Converse.
Until now, most of those clients have come to TinyPulse via word-of-mouth. But with the new funding, TinyPulse will be ramping up its sales efforts to bring more customers on board. It will also be investing in product development to add more features for its clients.
Although TinyPulse is always looking for ways to improve the experience for client, Niu says it’s important that the company stay focused on keeping the interaction with employees lightweight, easy, and approachable. At the same time, he believes there are ways to make the product more flexible and customizable for employers.
But hey, that’s what you can do when you get $3.5 million in funding after bootstrapping for two years.
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Grocery Delivery Startup Instacart Raises $210 Million More
Grocery delivery startup Instacart has raised an additional $210 million, according to an SEC filing on Monday. The filing confirms a Series C funding round reported earlier this month, which values the company at more than $2 billion.
Kleiner Perkins was expected to lead the round, although no new board members are listed in the filing. The financing comes just six months after Instacart’s last raise, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz and valued the company at $400 million. Other investors include Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and Canaan Partners, along with Box CEO Aaron Levie and Y Combinator president Sam Altman.
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The Kairos T-Band Turns Your Dumb Watch Into A Smart Watch
Another day, another wearable design. This time it’s something called the Kairos T-Band, a watch band that connects to your normal watch and enables all sorts of exciting things like step tracking and notifications. I’ve seen a few of these sorts of things over the past year – one company hid everything inside a nice leather band and didn’t include a screen – and this one has just enough going for it that it’s probably not a massive scam.
The basic band, called the ND, has no display and simply vibrates notifications and sends sensing data to your phone.
T-BAND ND (No Display) model is designed for people who want extended battery life, basic notifications (via vibrator and multi-color LED indicator), and activity (fitness/sleep), health data monitoring without the need for fancy displays or touch sensor capabilities. This is the ultimate businessmen’s smart watch, or rather a wearable device (smartband). Battery life is expected to last more than 7 days with the ND model.Features:
On board Kairos OS will be able to push notifications such as text messages, incoming calls, and also push alerts from available apps via a discreet multi-color LED indicator and/or vibrator motor. On top of having multiple sensors such as 9-axis gyroscope, accelerometer, compass and optical sensor, the ND model also gets GSR (Galvanic Skin Sensor) which detects skin temperature and sweat.
Other models will have touch sensitive displays. The $1,200 model includes a mechanical watch.
Everything pictured on the Indiegogo page is possible – curved displays, motor vibrations, and sensors included – but it’s up to the Kairos folks to put them all together. Whether or not they succeed is still in question but it’s a clever idea and a clever implementation. I expect to see more of these hitting the market this year so this won’t be the last smart band we see.
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Ten One Design’s Mountie Clip Is Perfect For Duet’s iPad Display App
Your mobile two-screen setup just got a lot more perfect: Ten One Design has launched the Mountie, a two-sided clip that securely mounts an iPad, iPhone or any other mobile device to your MacBook or iMac’s bezel, while remaining small enough to slip into a jacket pocket or laptop case accessory compartment.
The Mountie isn’t the first gadget to do what it does, but it does appear to be among the best designed. Padded rubberized inserts mean that it’ll respect your device’s industrial design, and fit snugly regardless of what you’re trying to attach to what. A snap clamp squeezes your device to make sure it won’t fall off while you’re working, and a long vertical support strip means you won’t get the wiggle and waggle that can make using two loosely joined devices at the same time somewhat nausea inducing.
Two weeks ago, I would’ve walked right past the Mountie, despite it being named for the horse-riding national police force of my homeland. But now that Duet’s excellent secondary display app for iPad and iPhone exists, the Mountie becomes a gadget I will likely recommend (once I confirm it works as advertised, as it should, based on Ten One’s track record) for just about any Mac-happy mobile worker.
When traveling, my main productivity suck is not having multiple displays to work across, and Duet combined with the Mountie looks like a cure for all my ails. Ever since the days of the original USB-powered Mimo monitor, I’ve had a hankering for this kind of solution, but those that use USB drivers and Wi-Fi connectivity have ultimately proven unsatisfactory, or not actually portable. A 9.7-inch iPad Air, however, with a Mountie and a 15-inch Retina MacBook, may just be a new high water mark in portable productivity.
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Posted 1 day, 22 hours ago
Refresh the home with new styles in bedding, window treatments and even bath towels with huge savings during the Winter White & Window Event at Boscov's. Already famous for their amazing values storewide, this sale blows the doors off with price cuts of up to 75% off. If you only shop one sale this week, let it be this one! Ending is unknown.
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