MobileIron, an enterprise mobility management and mobile security company, just announced that it has closed a Series F round, raising $48 million. With this raise as a prompt, we took a look at the largest rounds of 2013 so far.
Startup Friendly New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker came under fire earlier this year when it was revealed he was a major stake holder in video startup WayWire. The spotlight was turned to WayWire when Booker threw his hat in the ring for a US Senate seat that vacated when five term Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg [...]
Branding is much wider than a logo and color scheme. It is the entire ecosystem of touch-points a business has with the outside world. It is important to note that you - as a company - can only control one side of the branding equation. You control what you send out into the world, but you can not control how it makes people feel. Perhaps the best quote from Everywhere Else Cincinnati on branding came from Derek Flanzraich: "Don't Suck!"
What makes The Brandery successful is the fact that they drink their own Kool-Aid. It is one thing to talk about how great a city is or how great an industry is; it is another to roll up your sleeves and get to work. If an accelerator has a real focus on community - which The Brandery clearly does, as it boasts a more than 60% retention rate for all of its portfolio companies - it can enact a sort-of socially responsible investment strategy.
The Internet may have killed the travel agent and the door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, but the service economy is still running strong. In fact, the digital revolution has given many entrepreneurs the opportunity to re-imagine old services to make them better. In some cases, the service revamp hinges on improved cost or convenience; other times, it’s making a service relevant to a new audience.
Pockets across the country are slowly, but surely, turning into technology hotspots. While traditional Venture Capital funds tend to be focused in Silicon Valley and New York City, there is a slow migration underway. This migration is happening throughout the country: the flyover states of the Midwest, the Southeast, New England, and "Everywhere Else." The only thing that everywhere else is truly lacking, is ready access to capital. True, there are VCs and firms everywhere, but not nearly in the same density or with the same level of funds as those in the Valley and NYC. Monday, however, a new fund was launched. A fund of the likes of those in the Valley, but specifically for the rest of the country. This will go down as a watershed moment for everywhere else.
The significance of this conference goes way beyond the actual substance of the event. The quality and turnout of the event speaks volumes, and in some was affirms, everything that we and others have been saying for some time: the Southeast is becoming a hotbed of innovation and technology.
"When people have these conferences, they tend to become most interested in founding stories," Bell began, "And then they talk about the end, 'how did you exit?' But they usually skip over the middle." The middle, Bell went on to argue, is a series of doublings.
The CED Tech Venture Conference held an illuminating CEO panel. It was a very insightful look at some of the less glamorous aspects of being a CEO, and some things that go under the radar. Among the many topics were: When did you realize you had a company? How did you raise funds? How do you hire the right people? How did you learn to be a CEO?
"Often times the company is worth no more to us with $10M in revenue than it was with $5M, or even $50M for that matter, because the way we're thinking about it is the impact that they can make on our business. That is not going to be necessarily driven by their existing mode of generating revenue."
