the riskmaster book (pdf) - draper fisher jurvetson
TRANSCRIPT
This book is dedicated to the entrepreneurs who set out to change the world. Their passion and driveadvance our society, improve our lives, and create employment and wealth for all of us. The entrepre-neurs featured here are some of the most successful we have encountered, but there are so many morewho are out there risking their careers, their financial stability, and their social lives for the good of ourworld that we dedicate this book to them.
We at Draper Fisher Jurvetson have been investing in start ups now for over 20 years, and our industryis forever fascinating and full of wonder. The people we meet are extraordinary, driven by some injusticeor difficulty or opportunity in the world, and they often create from nothing a way for their customers toimprove their lives. The blood, sweat and tears they shed are all for the good of their cause, and any success they achieve is rightly theirs.
The visions and products we see through the eyes of entrepreneurs can be as simple as Hotmail's freeemail, Skype’s free Internet phone service, or Overture's pay for performance search. Or, they can bebeyond the imaginations of science fiction writers, as in the case of Theranos' human-prescription feed-back mechanism or D-Wave's quantum computer. Whatever their effect, they all become a part of thehuman experience, our culture and our lives. It just keeps getting better.
Change will come to our lives faster and faster with the continued exponential development of commu-nications and information technologies, the melting of geographic barriers, and the improvement in governmental freedoms. Eventually, everyone will be able to exercise the creativity of the entrepreneur,and from the unleashing of their minds, we all benefit.
But it is only those who make the sacrifices, who keep their eyes on the mission, who lead their teamswith compassion and strength, and who ultimately wake the world to see what they have envisionedwho can be called, “The Riskmasters.”
Timothy Draper John Fisher Steve JurvetsonManaging Director Managing Director Managing DirectorDraper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson
The Riskmasters
Sabeer BhatiaSunnyvale, California
“We had our fair share of hard times. Finally we found aventure capitalist who was a true venture capitalist whowould venture to risk the money on two young peoplewith a dream.”
Hotmail pioneered free Web-based electronic mail. The
idea was simple, to give users for free a lifetime email
address that they could access over the Web. Hotmail grew
very large, very quickly. It had eleven million users before
being acquired by Microsoft in 1997.
Sabeer BhatiaCo-founder and CEOHotmail
Sabeer Bhatia
“Our recent successful IPO demonstrated stronginvestor confidence in the prospects of China's Internet search market, in our business modelas well as in our management team.”
Baidu accounts for over 50% of all Internet searches in
China, and the company recently completed the most suc-
cessful IPO of a foreign company in the history of NASDAQ.
In August, 2005, when Baidu went public, the company’s
share price rose from a range of $16-18 to an initial price of
$27 to close its first day at $120, shattering all NASDAQ
international records for an IPO.
Robin LiCEOBaidu
Robin Li
Robin LiBeijing, China
Niklas ZennströmLuxembourg
“We had the Draper family as investors from the beginning. We are delighted to have these leadinginvestors accelerate Skype’s growth and innovation.”
Skype offers high-quality voice communications to anyone
with an Internet connection anywhere in the world. One of
the fastest growing companies on the Internet, Skype has 54
million members in 225 countries and territories. Skype is
currently adding approximately 150,000 users a day and
has created a thriving ecosystem of products, services,
developers, and affiliates. Skype was acquired by eBay in
2005.
Niklas ZennströmCo-founder and CEOSkype
Niklas Zennström
“Warren Packard has been great with introducing us and promoting our technology and product to potentialcustomers by leveraging the firm’s network. DFJhelps us attract business partners and customers.”
Anagran develops next-generation routers using a new flow-state approach to IP routing, focusing on cost effective, fast,Quality of Service (QoS) - capable IPv4/IPv6 router technol-ogy for the Customer Premise Equipment (“CPE”) market.
Larry RobertsFather of the InternetCo-founder, CEO, and PresidentAnagran
Katya PuzyrkoCo-founder and VP MarketingAnagran
Larry Roberts & Katya Puzyrko
Larry Roberts and Katya Puzyrko
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Mike Cassidy
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“DFJ has been a terrific partner for us. Their extensiverolodex has opened doors for us from San Jose toShanghai. Their broad, deep experience has been a valuable asset to draw upon in countless situations. And they’ve stood by us through thick and thin. That’swhy I've raised seven different rounds of financing over two different companies that have included DFJ.”
Xfire is a free tool that simplifies the gaming experience by
making it easier to track, communicate with, and play with
friends. Xfire automatically keeps track of when and where
gamers are playing PC games online and lets their friends
join them easily.
Mike CassidyCo-founder and CEOXfire
Co-founder and former CEODirect Hit
Mike Cassidy
“The credibility and validation that comes with beinga DFJ portfolio company has enabled us to accelerateour momentum with customers, partners, and industrypress. Josh Stein and the team at DFJ have beeninstrumental to our early success.”
SugarCRM is the premier commercial open source customer
relationship management application provider. SugarCRM
created a new kind of software company that leverages the
combined intelligence of CRM developers across the globe.
John RobertsCo-founder and CEOSugarCRM
John Roberts
John Roberts, Jacob Taylor, Clint Oram
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Jim Hornthal
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San Francisco, California
“We were no different than a lot of startups, needing toreact to lots of changes in the marketplace. For a while,we felt like we were in the business of writing businessplans. DFJ’s Tim Draper understood that our flexibility toadapt was a strength, not a weakness, and was extremelysupportive of the evolutionary process we had to gothrough to find ourselves and create shareholder value.”
Preview Travel, Inc. merged into the first online travel
service, Travelocity.com, in March 2000. Now teamed up
with an industry leader in online travel and backed by lead-
ing travel innovator Sabre (the world's largest travel agent
reservation system), Preview Travel provides a broad, diverse
service offering.
Jim HornthalFounder and ChairmanPreview Travel
Jim Hornthal
“We cold-called DFJ on a Monday, met that week, andhad a term sheet the following Thursday. They movedas fast as we did. Tim Draper, the DFJ partner on ourboard, stuck with us through some dicey times, buthe never flinched. Tim’s staunch support enabled usto survive and succeed.”
Four11 was one of the first Internet companies to establish a
successful residential directory of names and addresses
nationwide and worldwide providing online telephone and
email directories. They were purchased by Yahoo in 1997.
Mike SantulloFounder and CEOFour11
Mike Santullo
Mike Santullo
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Palo Alto, California
Kirk Loevner, Jeff Tangney, Richard Fiedotin
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San Mateo, California
“From finding us our first office space to recruiting seniorexecutives, and now advising us on strategy for an IPO,DFJ has been an active hands-on partner in building ourbusiness. They bring us tremendous business insight,strategic ideas, and share a true passion for our business.Their intelligence, relationships, and experience hashelped us every step of the way.”
Epocrates is the leader in providing clinical information to
physicians and other health care professionals at the point
of care. Epocrates also provides formulary information from
health plans, hospitals, Medicaid agencies and pharmacy
benefit management (PBM) companies that represent over
95 million individuals, and messaging, market research and
clinical trial recruitment services.
Kirk LoevnerCEOEpocrates
Kirk Loevner
“DFJ had confidence in us from the start and has beenthere for us since we signed the deal. From the outset,they have persevered in helping open doors that haveresulted in fruitful business partnerships. Their strategicinvestments in user generated content create additionalpartnering opportunities that have helped a companylike Technorati to big things.”
Technorati is the largest aggregator and search engine for
real-time, semi-structured information on the Web. The
company is currently indexing over three million weblogs,
which allows Technorati to be the definitive authority on the
way information propagates on the Web about any topic,
company, or brand.
David SifryFounder and CEOTechnorati
David Sifry
David Sifry
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San Francisco, California
Barry and Tracy Schuler
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Napa, California
“I knew them when the shingle just said ‘DraperAssociates.’ They knew me when I was a wide-eyed entrepreneur endlessly yakking about the ‘comingInteractive revolution of the 90s.’ And what a decade itturned out to be! Their support led to a level of successand accomplishment many dream of but few achieve.When I look at DFJ and their great success in the last 20years it makes me proud to know we ‘grew up’ together.”
Raydiance is developing and commercializing Ultra Short
Pulse (USP) Lasers. Raydiance can now deliver the benefits
of USP lasers from an inexpensive, rackmount-sized device
that operates on a standard power supply (110 a.c. or bat-
tery). By comparison, a commercially available USP Laser
would be room-sized, require special power and cooling,
and only be operated by highly qualified professionals.
Barry SchulerFounder and CEORaydiance
Co-founder and former CEO Medior
Tracy SchulerCo-founderMedior
Barry Schuler
“When we started Nantero, few venture capitalists hadever heard of nanotechnology. Fortunately I was intro-duced to Jennifer Fonstad and DFJ, who were far aheadof the curve in seeing the potential in this new field.Jennifer’s deep connections in the nanotechnology field,thorough understanding of how to guide a startup tosuccess, and patience have made her an invaluableboard member and part of our team.”
Nantero is using nanotechnology to develop universal mem-
ory - a non-volatile random access memory chip capable of
replacing DRAM, SRAM, and flash memory, and eventually
hard drives as well. This carbon nanotube-based product is
in early stages of development.
Greg SchmergelCo-founder, President, and CEONantero
Greg Schmergel
Greg Schmergel
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Woburn, Massachusetts
David Uyttendale, Jeff Stewart, Adam Slutsky, John Delbridge
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New York, New York
“Explosive growth leads to a whole set of unique challenges,it was great to have the experience of DFJ on the team.It was also important that DFJ shared our vision anddesire to build a truly outstanding business. Their consistent support was refreshing.”
Mimeo provides Internet-based outsourced printing solu-
tions for corporations around the world, offering quality,
convenience, and hard-dollar savings for the production,
management and distribution of hardcopy documents.
Jeff Stewart,Co-founderMimeo
Jeff Stewart
“Aside from being smart - lots of VCs are smart - DFJis fast. DFJ sticks to the mantra that the ventureexperts talk about. They find and connect deeplywith great teams that have great ideas. They getmoney on board and help shape those ideas intoearnings. It’s the real deal...What venture capital isall about... And is absolutely who they are.”
Athenahealth is dedicated to providing healthcare practi-
tioners with a comprehensive answer to their practice
management, billing and collection needs. They combine
experienced insurance specialists, direct connectivity
linking customers to payers and cutting-edge technology to
create a multi-faceted suite of professional services that
make today's practice management systems and billing
services obsolete.
Jonathan BushCo-founder, President, and CEOAthenahealth
Jonathan Bush
Jonathan Bush
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Watertown, Massachusetts
Jim Guzy, Mike Salameh, Wei-Ti Liu
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Sunnyvale, California
“More important than the dollars DFJ invested in PLXwas Tim Draper’s support and encouragement to ourmanagement team. Even during grim times, we cameaway from meetings with Tim feeling re-energized totackle challenges and to pursue new ideas. Many times,Tim’s enthusiasm and forward-looking attitude definitelygave us a turbo-boost right when we needed it.”
PLX Technology, Inc. was a pioneer in designing flexible,
fast chips that allowed various computer components and
devices to communicate with each other easier and faster.
The company has become the leading supplier of PCI
Express Bridges and Switches, and other standard input/
output (I/O) interconnect silicon for the communications,
server, storage, embedded-control, and consumer industries.
Mike SalamehCo-founder and CEOPLX Technology
Mike Salameh
“By creating a synthetic cell, we will for the first timetruly understand the essential components of life.The ability to construct synthetic genomes may leadto extraordinary advances in our ability to engineermicroorganisms for many vital energy and environ-mental purposes.”
Synthetic Genomics, Inc. is developing new scientific
processes to enable industry to design and test desired
genetic modifications. Synthetically produced organisms
with reduced or reoriented metabolic needs will enable
new, powerful, and more direct methods of bio-engineered
industrial production.
Craig VenterFounder, Chairman and CEOSynthetic Genomics
Craig Venter
Craig VenterRockville, Maryland
Mark Goldston
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Woodland Hills, California
“My respect for Tim Draper, Steve Jurvetson, John Fisher,Jennifer Fonstad and the DFJ team has grown over theyears and I consider them to be among the very best ‘partners’ I have ever worked with during my 28 yearcareer. Everyone’s money is green but it is the intellectualcapital that DFJ brings to a company that separates themfrom the rest.”
United Online, Inc. is a leading provider of consumer
Internet subscription services. The company's pay services
include Internet access, accelerated dial-up services, premi-
um email, personal Web hosting and domain services and
community-based networking. It also offers consumers free
Internet access, email and Web hosting.
Mark GoldstonChairman, President, and CEOUnited Online
Mark Goldston
“As entrepreneurs, my partners and I feel like we arepart of the DFJ family. DFJ has the foresight andbackbone to take risks in new industries where otherswill not, and DFJ has consistently led the VC packinto new markets rather than following the herdmentality. This has enabled them to be one of the firstVC’s to make investments in the start-up energytechnology sector and at GreatPoint Energy we havebenefited as a result.”
GreatPoint Energy is looking to revolutionize the use of coal
as our primary energy source. The company’s technology for
catalytic coal gasification can transform inexpensive coals
directly to methane (natural gas) which can then be used in
cleaner burning, gas fired power plants. The technology
promises to achieve this at a significant discount to current
natural gas prices.
Andrew PerlmanCo-founder and CEOGreatPoint Energy
Co-founder and CEOCoatue Corporation
Andrew Perlman
Andrew Perlman, Aaron Mandell, Avi Goldberg
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Cambridge, Massachusetts
Peng T. Ong
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“Steve Jurvetson was the first VC that had faith in me andthe first one that invested in Interwoven. We’ve both seenreally good times, and pretty tough times since then, andI’ve seen Steve really mature as a partner to entrepreneursbuilding companies. I look forward to the next time we’llget a chance to work together again.”
Interwoven, Inc., provider of Enterprise Content Manage-
ment solutions for business, enables organizations to unify
people, content and processes to minimize business risk,
accelerate time-to-value and sustain lower total cost of own-
ership. Interwoven delivers deep industry-specific solutions
which reduce business process cycle time from initial col-
laboration through design, production, sales, marketing,
legal review, IT and service.
Peng T. OngFounderInterwoven
Peng T. Ong
“DFJ and DFJ New England impressed us with their willingness to roll up their sleeves from the begin-ning. Raj Atluru and Scott Johnson worked hard tounderstand the many complexities of the market forour products and services, and they continue to support our day-to-day efforts in invaluable ways.Having DFJ behind us has proven invaluable onnumerous occasions when trying to convey our credit worthiness and substantiality.”
EnerNOC is an energy data communications company that
provides software and packaged managed services to the
distributed generation market. EnerNOC is also New
England's first Demand Response Provider, supplying
commercial and industrial customers with an enabling
technology and full-service solution to help ISO-NE create a
more robust energy grid.
Tim HealyCo-founder and CEOEnerNOC
Tim Healy
Tim Healy, David Brewster
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Boston, Massachusetts
Subodh Toprani
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Englewood, Colorado
“Steve Jurvetson has been a strong leader and a key influence on the board. He understands the challenges of companies that have to navigate unchartered waters in order to achieve breakthroughs that prove the technology viable. His support, enthusiasm, guidance and patience have been invaluable in helping ZettaCoremake progress towards the end goal of revolutionizingthe way semiconductor memory is constructed.”
ZettaCore is developing ultra-dense, low-power molecular
memory chips that have the potential to revolutionize the
microelectronics industry. The company uses molecular
structures as part of electronic storage devices, leading to
significant advances in memory cost and density, and to
devices requiring less power than current technology. This,
in turn, could form a key component of new generations of
electronic devices, both large and small.
Subodh TopraniCEOZettaCore
Subodh Toprani
“As a longstanding investor in Everdream, DFJ has provided us with high-value support from the initialstart-up phase, through the economic downturn, and now in our current high-growth phase. Their deep industry knowledge, strategic insight and commitmentto our success make them a valuable part of our team.We greatly appreciate their dedication and look forwardto a long and fruitful partnership.”
Everdream is the leading provider of Internet-based IT
services for desktop management. Everdream's award win-
ning service organization and advanced service technology
has provided businesses with an easy-to-implement, cost-
effective alternative for managing IT operations. Companies
receive IT services customized to their needs with immedi-
ate access through an innovative Web-based Control Center.
Mark HoffmanChairman, President, and CEOEverdream
Mark Hoffman
Mark Hoffman
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Fremont, California
Bob Lessin
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New York, New York
“The first institutional investor in the life of an early stageventure company is truly defining; after that, all theinvestors are largely ‘piling on.’ Draper Fisher Jurvetsonhad the insight, the wisdom and the courage to be Wit’sfirst institutional investor and I will never forget this.”
Wit Capital was the first online investment bank and broker-
age firm. Using the Net and automated brokerage technology
to keep costs down, Wit opened IPOs and venture
capital investments to individual investors. Wit Capital later
merged with SoundView Technology and was acquired by
The Charles Schwab Corporation in 2003.
Bob LessinCEOWit Capital
Bob Lessin
“John Fisher is not only a trusted advisor, but he is always exceptionally crisp in his analysis of our business challenges. Moreover, the entire DFJ organi-zation has been generous with their time, with theirconnections, and with their solid market insights.Simply put, we love DFJ and feel lucky to have themas investors.”
MFORMA is a leading global publisher and distributor of
wireless entertainment content. MFORMA provides interac-
tive mobile entertainment content and delivery technology
to the world's leading wireless operators. MFORMA's
solution is complete, saving operators from integrating and
managing multiple solutions, and giving them everything
needed to successfully provide entertainment products to
their subscribers.
Jonathan SacksCEOMFORMA
Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan Sacks
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Neville StreetChantilly, Virginia
“DFJ is one of the great influences behind Mobile 365’s success, with an ‘investment’ that goes far beyond just dollars. Early on, DFJ and lead investor AndreasStavropoulos shared Mobile 365’s vision of a wirelessfuture and that dedication has not wavered. On behalfof Mobile 365 and its nearly 300 employees worldwide,thanks DFJ. You’ve been there from the start – we sincerelyappreciate your partnership and continued support.”
Mobile 365 is the leading provider of mobile messaging
services and global messaging interoperability solutions,
delivering messages, premium content and value-added
services to global mobile carriers, content providers, mobile
marketing partners, and media and entertainment compa-
nies around the globe.
Neville StreetPresident and CEOMobile 365
Neville Street
“Tim Draper took a real risk on us when we got started withPTC. He is an ideal investor who thinks big, trusts theplayers, and has remarkable instincts. If I were to refer abudding entrepreneur to a venture capital firm, withouthesitation I’d contact Draper Fisher Jurvetson. They havea sincere interest in supporting their CEO's.”
PTC is among the largest independent software companies
in the world. PTC develops, markets and supports software
solutions that help customers improve the competitiveness
of their products and product development processes. PTC
has 3,600 employees in 30 countries around the world, and
serves more than 35,000 customers.
Dick HarrisonPresident and CEOParametric Technology
Dick Harrison
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Needham, Massachusetts
Tom Williams
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“A successful investment firm uses all their senses to succeed.As a CEO, advisor, board member, and limited partner ofDFJ for the past 13 years, I have had the opportunity toobserve a venture capital firm that sees the vision, hearsthe passion, touches the opportunity, smells the success,and shares in tasting the rewards in working with creativepeople with great ideas. It has, and will continue to be, anhonor and privilege to work with DFJ and I wish themcontinued success in the future.”
Combinet's ISDN modems brought dramatically faster
online connectivity to online users in the 1990s, and
enabled an entirely new class of workers to arise: the so-
called "telecommuters". By enabling knowledge workers to
work from home and still be productive on corporate net-
works, Combinet's products helped thousands of corporate
employees to better balance work and family lives while
reducing congestion on freeways and emissions in the air.
Tom WilliamsCEOCombinet
Tom Williams
Stories
Hotmail
Sabeer Bhatia grew up in Bangalore, India as the son of an Indian ministry
of defense official and came to the U.S. in 1988 with only a couple of hun-
dreds in his pocket to attend Caltech. From Caltech, he later went on to
Stanford University for his M.S. degree. After graduating, he linked up with
his co-founder of Hotmail, Jack Smith. They received $300,000 in funding
from DFJ, and Hotmail launched on July 4, 1996, providing free Web-based
email directly to consumers. Steve Jurvetson joined the board. Tim Draper
made the suggestion to put a message at the bottom of every email that said,
“Get your free email at Hotmail.” While controversial at the time, since
advertising on email was considered spam, the product spread to 11 million
users in 18 months and “Viral Marketing” was born. In fact, Sabeer sent one
email to his friend in Bangalore and within 3 weeks there were 100,000 reg-
istered Hotmail users in India.
By late 1997, the company was signing up new users at a rate of 125,000 a
day. In just under two and a half years, Sabeer built Hotmail’s user base
faster than any media company in history – faster than CNN, faster than
America Online, faster even than the audience for Seinfeld. This kind of
growth doesn’t go unnoticed, and Microsoft ultimately bought Hotmail for
what is rumored to be $400 million in Microsoft stock. Now there are over
200 million Hotmail users, and Sabeer is a hero throughout the world for
freeing communications across geographic borders. The impact of Hotmail
is being felt in freer markets, freer societies and better global relationships
around the world.
DFJ is proud to have been associated with such a great entrepreneur who
had such an important impact on the world.
Baidu
Robin Li has a quiet confidence and a wise spirit. His ambition to build the
first Chinese search engine was met with a lot of skepticism. China was risky
for investors, Google was beginning to dominate the field, and people in
China didn’t use computers much. But Robin persisted and Baidu was
formed.
The company was introduced to John Fisher at DFJ. Fortunately, the DFJ
affiliate model meant that DFJ had a local team in Beijing. The opportunity
was unique, and DFJ worked with the local China team to make the
investment. The China-U.S. link proved to be critical for Baidu’s success.
The introductions to various start ups in the U.S. gave Robin new ideas for
how those could be best implemented in China. Today, Baidu accounts for
over 50% of all Internet searches in China, and the company recently com-
pleted the most successful IPO of a foreign company in the history of
NASDAQ.
Robin, of course, is not at all satisfied. Far less than 10% of the Chinese
population even use the Internet, and Robin won't rest until many, many
more people do.
Skype
Niklas Zennström with his partner Janus Friis were the founders of Kazaa,
the biggest peer-to-peer file sharing company in the world. They revolution-
ized the music industry. When news got out that they had sold Kazaa, Tim
Draper, with the help of his father’s partner, hunted them down. Tim was
enthusiastic about peer-to-peer technology, and was curious about the
team, and what they would do next. When they met, Tim was so impressed
with Niklas, he commented, “we should fund him, whatever he does.” That
was fortuitous, because the company started out in another direction,
before the founders hit on the most exciting application of peer-to-peer
technology to date: the ability to allow users to speak to each other for free
over the Web.
This revolution in telecommunications took off and Skype grew faster than
any customer acquisition company in history. Within weeks of launching,
the user base was in the millions. Once the team announced SkypeOut,
allowing users to pay 2 cents a minute for calls from Skype to phone lines,
the company had a path to profitability. When the user base reached 20 mil-
lion, the Skype team worked to become a platform for all communications
so that Skype could be the foundation for all providers on the Web.
The impact on the world was extraordinary. People from all corners of the
globe were now able to freely communicate with each other. Because of
Skype, there is more communication across borders, more understanding
across cultures and more trade among businesses. The positive impact of
Skype will be felt for years to come. The company merged with eBay to
become the dominant force in communications and commerce in the
world. Niklas and Janus will continue to drive the vision forward with the
strength of eBay behind them.
When Niklas went kayaking with Tim Draper in Estonia, the two got caught
by a “sneaker wave” that came up and drenched them. Niklas never found
a “sneaker wave” in business that he couldn’t handle. DFJ feels that it was
an honor to be a part of such an impactful and successful company and to
work with these genuine Riskmasters.
Anagran
Larry Roberts began designing ARPANET back in 1966 and led the overall
system architecture of what was to become the Internet that we all use
today. Not many individuals can claim this distinction. In fact, only four
individuals are widely recognized as the Founding Fathers of the
Internet...and, no, Al Gore is not one of them. Roberts, Vint Cerf, Robert
Kahn, and Leonard Kleinrock hold claim to this title.
Since the late sixties, Larry has started five companies, authored eight
approved patents, written three major international protocol standards,
designed and built seven packet switching products, received four Nobel
equivalent awards, and run five companies. During this distinguished run,
Larry met Katya Puzyrko and realized that every great idea and technology
needs to be complemented by a specialist in market and product execution.
This is where Katya fit into the picture. An accomplished engineer by back-
ground, Katya has had extended tours of duty running both business
development and marketing in the communications industry.
Larry and Katya are at it again in a start-up called Anagran. Not content with
current Internet protocols that deliver bits on a "best effort basis", the
tandem have set off to commercialize a novel communications protocol
that delivers data at the high quality of service demanded by real time appli-
cations, such as digital video conferencing, IP television, and Internet
telephony (VoIP). At the same time, they have discovered that the hardware
architecture that implements this protocol can be extremely cost effective,
surprisingly scalable, and a dream for IT managers seeking to simplify their
lives in light of all the complexity that surrounds them.
Larry Roberts began architecting the Internet back in 1966. Exactly forty
years later, Larry and Katya will make the real-time Internet a reality.
Xfire
Mike Cassidy is a rocket scientist...well, actually, he was a rocket scientist.
Suffice it to say, it's always good to have a rocket scientist around. You never
know when you might need one, especially one who has a knack for
identifying valuable business opportunities and building companies from
the ground up.
While Mike certainly has the capacity to design an actual rocket and send
it out into space, he has spent the last 15 years starting companies and send-
ing them off into the stratosphere. Mike started his first company back in
1990, Stylus Innovation. Having bootstrapped the company to profitability,
Mike ultimately sold Stylus to Artisoft (dba Vertical Comm.) in 1996.
Following this success, he joined a team of entrepreneurs from MIT and ran
Direct Hit: a revolutionary Internet search engine whose customers includ-
ed MSN, Lycos, AOL, and dozens of others. DFJ funded Direct Hit through
all three rounds of financing before Ask Jeeves acquired Direct Hit for over
$500 million.
A brief retirement followed the Direct Hit acquisition, but it was clear that
Mike couldn't stay away from the technology market for long. In early 2003,
Mike started Ultimate Arena, a Web-based destination site that enabled PC
gamers to compete against each other for money. While Ultimate Arena was
successful at attracting the best gamers from around the world, this success
had the unfortunate side effect of scaring away beginning and intermediate
gamers.
Without missing a beat, Mike recast Ultimate Arena into Xfire as the first
social networking tool for gamers. Xfire helps gamers play with their friends
much more easily. In a little over a year, Xfire has reached over two million
gamers in over 100 countries and is used, on average, over 70 hours per
month per member. Xfire was mentioned on the cover of Forbes and
described as “the TV Guide, maître d’ and instant messenger of the gaming
world.”
It appears that Mike has launched another rocket ship into space. DFJ is
honored to be a key member of the propulsion team once again.
SugarCRM
Great teams, disruptive ideas, big markets - it’s the classic recipe for venture
capital success. When DFJ first met SugarCRM, we believed they had all the
right ingredients for success. Founded in early 2004, SugarCRM was the
vision of three ultra-competitive and seasoned industry veterans - Clint
Oram, John Roberts and Jacob Taylor. Having played key roles in building
several of the largest enterprise software companies, they had an insider’s
view on where the industry was broken and revolutionary ideas about how
they could do it better. Inspired by the success of open-source projects like
Linux and Apache in the datacenter, SugarCRM became the first to take the
open-source model to business applications, becoming the first and most
successful of a new breed of software companies.
Since DFJ’s first decision to invest, the SugarCRM team has executed to
perfection. Just a year after the first product release, SugarCRM’s flagship
SugarSuite has generated more than 300,000 downloads and has been
embraced by more than 1,000 open-source developers, who have in turn
translated the software into 20 languages. Currently deployed by tens of
thousands of companies around the world as a core e-business system,
SugarCRM is the world’s largest open-source business application and one
of the most successful open-source projects overall. Powered by its extreme-
ly efficient and customer-friendly business model, SugarCRM is aiming to
reshape the software industry as we know it today.
Preview Travel
Jim Hornthal met Tim Draper in John Goodrich’s pool. Jim had an idea: to
create videos of and for travel and sell them in a variety of ways. Draper
Associates funded Jim not long after that after hearing Jim’s confident and
brash prediction that he would make Tim 25 times on the investment.
Tim was always impressed with the quality of the people Jim surrounded
himself with. The board members crackled with a combination of excite-
ment, entertainment, and snappy, interesting dialogue. Jim started by selling
to airlines, hotels and television shows, but as media began to be stored dig-
itally, Jim recognized the trend and jumped in with both feet. After years of
struggling with the company, Jim was suddenly a "content" mogul with Web
travel companies pursuing him from every side. He sold Preview Media
(formerly Preview Travel) to Travelocity, and Draper Associates made
exactly 25 times on its investment.
Four11
Mike Santullo has an energy all his own. He brings a sense of urgency to
every task. With Mike, no cliff is too steep. His team at Four11 felt it too.
Once DFJ funded Four11 (signing the term sheet on the ultimate frisbee
field), Mike focused on his business - an Internet directory, which he
believed would be unique and defensible.
Mike’s sense of urgency was catching. Every board meeting brought a
demonstration of a new service he could provide with the directory.
Rocketmail used Web-based email with a viral marketing message, and the
service took off like a rocket. With both a directory and free email, Four11
became a major acquisition target and several companies made offers
before the management team decided to combine with Yahoo, and that was
the birth of YahooMail.
Mike continues to be the ultimate Riskmaster. He helps companies get start-
ed against great odds, and for fun, as a rock climber, he climbs sheer rock
walls where no cliff is too steep.
Epocrates
During the spring of 1999, Richard Fiedotin and Jeff Tangney were still busi-
ness school graduate students at Stanford when they walked into DFJ’s office
for the first time. They were accompanied by representatives from two life
science VC funds who had given them an offer to invest, but wanted to add
some Internet marketing expertise to the mix - hence the trip to DFJ.
Richard’s and Jeff’s vision has remained true to this day: Epocrates is the
leading provider of point-of-care information to physicians and medical
professionals, claiming over one in four U.S. physicians as an active user.
The company sits in the middle of an interactive network that joins the
medical professionals with pharmaceutical companies, insurance payers,
medical education and research companies, all on top of the hands-down
industry-best drug information reference database. It was that drug informa-
tion database (processed specifically with electronic - not textual - lookup
in mind), coupled with the gutsy decision to offer the product to the doc-
tors for free, that led to one of the most rapid adoptions of a medical infor-
matics product in U.S. history and the creation of one of the most trusted
brands in U.S. medicine.
The virtuous cycle that ensued, with revenues coming from pharma compa-
nies and insurance payers wanting to reach out to medical professionals
with relevant clinical information delivered in the right context, plus user
subscription revenues from premium products, have resulted in a rapidly
growing, profitable company getting ready for the public markets. The future
of Epocrates looks brighter than ever.
Technorati
Dave Sifry is one of the best respected and most often quoted authorities on
the subject of blogs (or weblogs), the personal journals that have taken the
Internet by storm in the past couple of years. The latest studies estimate that
about 11%, or about 50 million, of Internet users are regular blog readers,
with the percentage increasing every day. A new weblog is created every
7.4 seconds, which means there are about 12,000 new blogs a day.
Bloggers - people who write weblogs - update their weblogs regularly; there
are about 275,000 posts daily, or about 10,800 blog updates an hour.
Dave conceived of Technorati in 2003 as the search engine of the real-time
Web, the place where all these conversations are taking place right now.
Technorati displays what’s important in the blogosphere - which bloggers
are commanding attention, what ideas are rising in prominence, and the
speed at which these conversations are taking place. Technorati makes it
possible for people and companies to find out what people on the Internet
are saying about them, their products, their competitors, their politics, or
other areas of interest - all in real-time. All this activity is monitored and
indexed within minutes of posting, unlike the traditional, spider-based
search engines where new information might take weeks to be discovered.
Technorati is Dave’s third startup - he was a co-founder of Sputnik and
LinuxCare in the past - and the most ambitious thus far. With over 17 mil-
lion sites and 1.5 billion links tracked, Technorati is the leader in the real-
time search space, which has allowed the company to secure partnerships
with a number of leading media properties (Newsweek, Washington Post,
and AOL, to name a few) to allow them to track the dialogues among their
readers. And blogs are just the beginning: Technorati is already pioneering
the tracking of other types of timely information scattered around the Web
(reviews, event listings, classifieds, etc.) and leading the industry-wide
efforts around establishing publishing standards for all of them. As more
time is spent on the Web searching for and consuming such information,
Technorati’s role becomes more and more crucial to an increasing number
of people.
Raydiance
Barry Schuler is one of a rare breed - he is a true visionary. Barry started
building personal computers in the mid-70s and he hasn’t stopped thinking
about what they can do since. He has made many notable contributions to
the IT industry including developing early video games in the 1970’s,
pioneering the color desktop presentation category, co-developing the first
commercial interactive ecommerce technology, developing the first version
of America Online designed to appeal to mass market consumers, and
notably, he was a senior team member and ultimately Chairman and CEO
of AOL as the company grew from $400 million to a phenomenal $350
billion in market cap during 20 consecutive quarters of growth. Barry joined
AOL through the acquisition of Medior, a company he and his wife, Tracy,
founded and in which DFJ invested.
Barry’s “Next Big Thing” is Raydiance, a company that is in the process of
revolutionizing the ablative laser industry. Raydiance has succeeded in
transforming a $1.5 million, bulky, workbench-based, free-space optics
ultra-short pulse laser device into a 70% cheaper, briefcase-sized, software-
controlled device with 5-10 times more power. Applications range from
laser surgery, nanomachining, industrial precision-cutting, and military
uses. The patent-protected technology at Raydiance could have a profound
and transformative influence across numerous industries in the years to
come. Just another flash of light in Barry’s luminous career.
Nantero
Thomas Rueckes, while completing his Ph.D. at Harvard, developed a
simple but elegant concept for using carbon nanotubes to create computer
memory. Using carbon nanotubes (thin strands of carbon about 15,000
times thinner than a human hair ) in a cross-bar configuration would enable
a very fast, low power, non-volatile switch that Tom thought could one day
replace all the existing forms of memory used in electronics. The concept
won him the prestigious Material Research Society Gold Award, a published
article in Science, and a Ph.D. from Harvard, but it was an ambitious goal
to take the idea and build a company around it. Tom teamed with business-
man Greg Schmergel and scientist Brent Segal to launch Nantero in the
winter of 2000.
Greg Schmergel, already a successful entrepreneur, brought the organiza-
tional and business experience the project needed to begin the company
building process. He raised a seed round of funding with DFJ in August of
2001, built out the company lab and negotiated the company’s first business
deals with BAE and LSI Logic. Greg successfully raised two subsequent
rounds of finance, closing additional business and government contracts,
and hired key personnel to drive the commercialization effort. The company
was recently named as a business leader in the Scientific American 50.
It is still early days for Nantero, but the vision Tom had - to see carbon nan-
otubes switching as memory bits in a standard CMOS fab - has become a
reality. The future is bright for this dynamic team and the company they
have created.
Mimeo
Mimeo is not the first business Jeff Stewart and Dave Uyttendale, college
buddies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded together. Their first
venture, SquareEarth, was a successful Internet technology consulting firm
with clients such as Merrill Lynch, PepsiCo, Citibank and Pfizer. The sale of
SquareEarth to Proxicom gave both of them financial independence and the
time to plan their second startup, Mimeo, which officially launched in
February of 2000.
Mimeo provides just-in-time printing, binding and delivery of documents
from any desktop to any physical destination. As ex-consultants, Jeff and
Dave had experienced the embarrassment of having important documents
produced at local copy shops that were missing pages, poorly copied or just
late. They realized there had to be a better way, and they devised Mimeo as
the Internet-enabled solution to just-in-time printing and delivery needs.
Mimeo’s unparalleled quality, security and 24/7 dependability, have led to
hundreds of enterprises selecting Mimeo for all their printing and delivery
needs, thus displacing either in-house printing centers or trips to local copy
stores. The economies of scale and processes of continuous improvement
on the factory floor, coupled with consistent software innovation and lack
of retail store-front expenses, have created strong financial momentum for
the company (revenue growth rates in excess of 40% per year and sustained
profitability). They are clearing high hurdles on the company’s way to the
public markets and, we believe, to greatness.
Athenahealth
In 1996 while at Harvard Business School, Jonathan Bush had an idea for a
medical management company. As a class project, Jonathan and a team
including DFJ’s Jennifer Fonstad wrote a business plan for the idea. Jonathan
was intrigued and took the plunge after graduation, convincing his Booz
Allen colleague Todd Park to be his partner. Raising an angel round from
friends and family, Athenahealth was born.
The two started out by purchasing and managing two medical groups. They
quickly found, however, that insurance companies took too long to pay
them and it cost too much to collect; it was killing their cash flow. In
typical start-up fashion they dug into the challenge and thought there might
be a business in it. They sold off the medical groups and focused on provid-
ing Web-based billing services for doctors.
To pull it off they needed to build a complex rules engine with hooks into
every major insurance carrier, while providing an auditable paper trail. They
raised their initial round of venture funding from DFJ and several other
investors and launched the new business. The value proposition was
unbeatable: doctors would collect their payments in half the time while
increasing their revenues by 10-20%. The business quickly took off.
Jonathan and Todd are the consummate entrepreneurs. Jonathan, as the
CEO, provides passionate leadership for the company, building a strong com-
pany culture that has been the mainstay of Athenahealth’s success. Todd
leads product development and also drives the company’s strategic business
relationships. By building a strong team and listening to customers they
have revolutionized the medical payments industry.
As the company launches new products and prepares to go public, the two
founders continue to drive the business toward becoming the Mastercard of
the healthcare industry. It is entrepreneurship at its best.
PLX
Jim Guzy and Wei-Ti Liu knew each other from AMD where they developed
advanced memory chips together. They recognized that a big problem with
semiconductors was in how they transferred data throughout the system.
The “buses“ that transferred data tended to have to be redesigned for every
system. Jim and Wei-Ti noticed that there were parts of every bus that were
standard and parts that had to be custom designed. So they launched PLX
to combine the fast and inexpensive ASIC application specific device with
the flexible and more expensive programmable logic device to allow cus-
tomers both speed and flexibility in designing buses for their systems.
Neither of them had any business training, so Mike Salameh joined the
team as CEO and Jim's father, Jim Guzy, Sr. from the Intel board joined as
Chairman. Tim Draper made an initial seed investment once the team was
in place. Since that time, with Jim Sr.'s guidance, Mike has led the team
profitably through a series of evolutions as chips have become more com-
plex. Mike recently made a prescient bet on a new computer interconnect
technology called PCI Express that promises to take the company to the next
level. Chip interconnect speed becomes more and more important with the
explosion of the internet and complex communications systems. PLX
became a public company in 1999 and is valued at over $300 million.
Synthetic Genomics
“Life is the imperfect transmission of code.” At the DFJ life sciences confer-
ence, Juan Enriquez, President of Synthetic Genomics, shared some of his
adventures sampling microorganisms from the Sargasso Sea with Dr. J. Craig
Venter, President of J. Craig Venter Institute, a not for profit basic research
institute. From the first five ocean samples collected during the
circumnavigation voyage, Dr. Venter’s team of scientists increased the
number of known genes on the planet ten-fold and the number of genes
involved in solar energy conversion one hundred-fold.
Based on data collected from the Sorcerer II Expedition, Dr. Venter and his
team have discovered that the oceans are not homogenous mixtures of all
organisms, as was commonly thought. Every 200 miles of open ocean,
microorganisms’ genes differ by as much as 85 percent. The oceans are
comprised of myriad uncharted regions of ecological diversity, and serve as
the world’s largest genetic database.
With his new company, Synthetic Genomics, Dr. Venter, Juan Enriquez, and
Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith are extending and commercializing their
minimal genome project. They are working on creating a synthetic cell,
whose genetic code can be “programmed” to perform desired functions by
splicing cassettes of novel genes. From this collection of diverse genomes,
they are learning to write genetic code, instead of just being able to read it.
Synthetic cells could be used to create a biological solar cell or to generate
hydrogen from water using the sun’s energy for photonic hydrolysis.
The urge to change the world is unquenchable in entrepreneurs. Most
people know Dr. Venter as the man who won the race to sequence the
human genome with the private sector initiative of Celera. Having
sequenced the human genome, he did not rest on his laurels, but extended
the shotgun sequencing innovation from single organisms to microbial
ecosystems of the oceans. Dr. Venter is an explorer of the great frontier of
the unknown, ever questioning previously held scientific theories in search
of the truth.
United Online
They were early but ambitious days when Mark Goldston took the helm of
a small, fledgling company with the crazy proposition of providing free
Internet access. Mark was an accomplished business leader as the
former CEO of Einstein/Noah’s Bagels, COO of LA Gear, and Chief
Marketing Officer at Reebok. When he joined Netzero, the company had
about 25 people all crowded into a basement; they had just launched the
service and were acquiring subscribers at a breathtaking pace. The question
was, what to do to build a revenue-generating business.
Mark jumped into the crowded room, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.
The proposition was simple: be the lowest cost provider of Internet access
in the world. Mark proposed a business model with a multi-tiered product
offering including the company’s first paid service. As other competitors fell
by the wayside and AOL saw it’s annual subscriber numbers start to decline,
Netzero continued to grow, with a dramatic shift of its user base to the paid
service. He led a merger with the number two player, Juno Online as well
as acquired subscriber assets from the other smaller players exiting the
business.
Today, United Online is a public company and one of the largest providers
of dial up services. The company generates approximately $500 million in
annual revenue and provides a range of Internet services, including
Classmates.com, in addition to Internet access. It is a long way from those
early days in the basement but is the classic entrepreneurial story written by
a great entrepreneur.
GreatPoint Energy
Any time Andrew Perlman presents an investment opportunity, VCs listen.
Andrew and his co-founders Aaron and Avi are multiple-time entrepreneurs
who know how to build a business. We were first introduced to the team
through our co-investment with DFJ New England in Coatue, a nanotech-
nology company focusing on memory devices. After selling Coatue to AMD,
the team founded another venture backed company before founding
GreatPoint Energy. GreatPoint Energy is looking to revolutionize the use of
coal as our primary energy source.
The company’s technology for catalytic coal gasification can transform inex-
pensive coals directly to methane (natural gas) which can then be used in
cleaner burning, gas fired power plants. The technology promises to achieve
this at a significant discount to current natural gas prices. While a daunting
task, the team has the vision and experience to make a real run at creating
a very important company in the clean technology space.
Interwoven
Peng T. Ong epitomizes the immigrant mentality at the core of entrepreneur-
ial dynamics. Raised in Singapore, a country of immigrants, Peng came to
the U.S. for his BSEE and MS in Computer Science. He was drawn to start-
ups from the beginning, developing software at Gensym, Illustra and
Match.com before founding Interwoven.
DFJ first heard of Interwoven when a different entrepreneur was pitching a
Web site authoring tool. Near the end of the meeting, for some unknown
reason, he volunteered, “You know, if I was you, I wouldn’t invest in our
company. I’d invest in Interwoven. It’s the coolest tool I’ve seen for the
Internet.” Needless to say, DFJ took his advice.
Peng developed a collaborative Web site production system that allows
groups of people to coordinate their Web site authoring efforts. Through a
sophisticated modification to the file system on client and server,
Interwoven interoperates with all authoring tools and environments.
More importantly, Peng is a true entrepreneur, and imbued a culture of
frugality in the corporate DNA. He paid himself a subsistence wage, which
rippled through the cost structure of the organization. He raised a small
Series A round, with DFJ as his sole VC, at a $1 million valuation. Four years
later, Interwoven was a public company worth almost $10 billion at the
height of the boom.
The cycle of entrepreneurship continues. Since Interwoven, DFJ invested in
a new team of entrepreneurial immigrants from Singapore that Peng brought
to DFJ, and Interwoven executive alumni have left to found Xtime and
OnVantage, both DFJ investments. The corporate DNA from Peng permeates
these new companies with a common culture of frugality and managerial
openness. Entrepreneurship is a powerful expression of symbolic immortality.
EnerNOC
Tim Healy and David Brewster are classic DFJ entrepreneurs: young,
passionate, and willing to walk through walls to build their company. The
two founders previously gained insight into EnerNOC’s market opportunity
through their positions at Beacon Power Corporation and Northern Power
Systems, two leading energy technology companies. EnerNOC is building
the control layer for managing distributed energy systems and demand
response activities. Instead of investing to increase generating capacity and
improving the grid, utilities and independent system operators are now able
to decrease end user energy usage and increase the capacity of the overall
system by tapping into existing generating capacity at commercial, industrial,
and institutional facilities, all in real time. On any given day, system opera-
tors who manage the electricity infrastructure can tap into the EnerNOC
network and access thousands of endpoints.
EnerNOC is leading the way to a smarter grid and better utilization of
existing energy assets. DFJ and DFJ New England partnered on the deal,
leveraging DFJ’s experience in clean technology investing and DFJ New
England’s on-the-ground presence to help actively build the company.
ZettaCore
Subodh Toprani has spent his career riding the juggernaut of Moore’s Law.
In the late 70’s, at Midway, he helped to adapt the novel development of the
microprocessor to revolutionize coin-operated games. In the 80’s, as
Director of AMD’s PC Products Division, he saw the microprocessor revo-
lution extend to computing and the popular instantiation of Moore’s Law. In
the 90’s, as VP and GM at Rambus, Subodh rode the ascendancy of memory
over logic as the primary use of transistors in integrated circuits. In the early
00’s, as CEO of Catamaran and SVP and GM at Infineon, he saw how even
“logic” products, like communication chips, become saturated with mem-
ory over time.
Now, as the CEO of ZettaCore, Subodh is developing the next phase of
Moore’s Law - as nanotechnology extends and eventually transcends the
“silicon era” of Moore’s Law, ushering the next paradigm for computation.
ZettaCore builds memory chips from energetically elegant molecules that
are similar to chlorophyll, and self-assemble on exposed metal contacts on
otherwise standard silicon chips.
A broad set of industries depends on continued exponential cost declines in
computational power and storage density. Moore’s Law drives electronics,
communications and computers and has become the primary driver in drug
discovery and bioinformatics, medical imaging and diagnostics. Over time,
the lab sciences become information sciences, and then the speed of
iterative simulations accelerates the pace of progress. But the future of
Moore’s Law is not standard silicon transistors. Within 25 years, they will be
as obsolete as the vacuum tube.
Looking to the long term, DFJ portfolio companies ZettaCore, Nantero and
Coatue (acquired by AMD) are pursuing the next paradigm, self-assembling
3D molecular electronics, which should afford size, power, speed, efficiency
and cost advantages over the planar silicon transistor, just as the transistor
did over the vacuum tube, and the vacuum tube did over its predecessor
technologies.
Everdream
Mark Hoffman has led two companies in the past which created billions of
dollars of value for their early investors. He was the co-founder and CEO of
Sybase-which reached almost $1 billion in revenues during Mark’s last year
there-and CEO of Commerce One, one of the first companies to design
infrastructure software that connected complex commercial processes into
one centralized marketplace and became synonymous with B2B
e-commerce in the process. All of us at DFJ hope Everdream becomes his
third billion-dollar hit!
Everdream came to DFJ in 1999 with a very simple idea, which, however,
has proven quite elusive even today: personal computers should just work,
period. We don’t have to reboot (much less protect from viruses, etc.) our
phone or any other appliance at home or work, so why should we have to
do it for our computers?
Everdream’s technology allows any personal computer, desktop or laptop,
and an increasing number of other “smart” mobile devices to behave like
the dependable appliances we’d like them to be. The company’s software
agents work in conjunction with hosted software on Everdream’s side that
makes sure the protected PCs always have continuous network backup,
virus protection and a whole host of other services to make complete desk-
top management easy for enterprises. Customers like FedEx, ADP, and
Maersk have come to appreciate the benefits of Everdream’s business
model, which turns what used to be a people-intensive, thankless, non-core
IT responsibility into an outsourced, scaleable technology-enabled service
with guaranteed end-user satisfaction.
Having survived the post-Internet bubble years with continuously growing
revenues Everdream is now poised for even faster growth. With ever-grow-
ing appetite for loftier goals, the investor group was able to attract a CEO of
Mark’s caliber to take the helm in Everdream’s quest to make the dream of
an unbreakable computer a reality.
Wit Capital
When the biggest names on Wall Street and corporate America had big
deals to do, Bob Lessin was often the man they called upon for advice. Bob
headed mergers and acquisitions for Morgan Stanley in the 1980’s, and was
Vice-Chairman of Salomon Smith Barney in the 1990’s. He was a banker
who had a vision of a world believing the Internet would fundamentally
change the way investment information and securities got distributed to
investors. He decided to pursue that vision by striking out as an entrepre-
neur just as he reached the pinnacle of his powers on Wall Street.
Bob joined Wit Capital as CEO in 1998 and along with founder Andy Klein
drove the upstart investment bank from obscurity to a high-profile IPO
during the investment banking boom of the 1998-2000 period. Wit Capital
later merged with research-driven Soundview Technology Group and in
2003 was acquired by The Charles Schwab Corporation.
Today, millions of investors obtain timely information and trade securities
via the internet on a daily basis, thanks to the vision and efforts of Wall
Street pioneers like Bob Lessin.
MFORMA
When Jonathan Sacks was President of America Online, he was helping to
change the way people communicate, obtain information and conduct
business. That’s why DFJ recruited Jonathan to run MFORMA - so he could
have a chance to do it again for a much larger audience, one that is poten-
tially well in excess of a billion people.
MFORMA is the brainchild of Dan Kranzler, a former McCaw Cellular
executive, who understood that the next wave of global Internet adoption
was not going to take place on bulky and expensive desktop and laptop
computers, but was instead going to be realized on the little wireless
devices a billion people in the world carry around every day that just
happen, among other capabilities, to allow people to talk to one another.
The company has been assembled through fifteen acquisitions in a classic
“roll-up” fashion, and now boasts contracts with well over 100 wireless
service carriers in over 50 countries around the world, and includes approx-
imately 10 million consumer subscribers in China alone.
With content offerings that are both proprietary as well as branded with
such partners as Marvel, Paramount and CBS, MFORMA is now one of the
world’s leading companies providing entertainment and content for mobile
phones. With Jonathan’s help, the company plans to significantly expand its
product and service offerings to create a true mobile media company.
Mobile 365
Mobile 365 is the global leader in messaging and data services delivered
over mobile phones. The company was born out of the merger of
InphoMatch (a DFJ and Draper Atlantic-backed company) and Mobileway
in 2004. At this point, Mobile 365 delivers approximately two billion
messages per month to mobile phones around the world.
InphoMatch was first discovered by Draper Atlantic and supported through
two separate rounds of funding during the tough early days after the burst-
ing of the Internet bubble. At that time in the U.S., mobile phones were
used almost exclusively for voice calls, even as the rest of the world was
experiencing huge growth of short text messages (SMS messages) and
associated revenues and profits for the carriers overseas. Once VoiceStream
(now T-Mobile) and AT&T agreed to allow each other’s users to exchange
SMS messages through InphoMatch’s data switches, it all changed. True to
the promise, the growth of SMS messages between U.S. carriers emulated
the torrid pace of Europe and Asia in the past, leading to the signing of
Verizon and scores of other carriers in the U.S. and abroad for InphoMatch.
As InphoMatch started to experience explosive growth, the need for a
seasoned leader with deep domain expertise in the global mobile data
marketplace became evident. Neville Street, with his prior stints as CEO of
Macrobridge and OmniSky International, as well as vice president for BT
Wireless and Palm Computing, was just that person. As a pioneer of
application-to-person mobile communications in his prior life, Neville saw
that mobile phones were becoming increasingly data-driven-instead of
voice-driven-devices, which meant that InphoMatch would have to expand
its offering to all kinds of content-driven messaging applications.
In 2004 a shortcut was found: the strength of InphoMatch’s carrier-grade
network and carrier connections for messaging interoperability was com-
bined with Mobileway’s globally leading application-driven messaging
platform and scores of additional carrier connections, giving birth to Mobile
365. With Neville at the helm, the company is today the undisputed largest
global provider of messaging services to branded content partners and
carriers around the world, eyeing the public markets as a possible next
move.
Parametric
On a trip to Boston in 1986, Tim Draper visited Apollo Computer, a
company his father, Bill Draper, had venture financed and which was at the
time a fast-growing public company making powerful computer worksta-
tions. Tim asked the Apollo guys a straight-forward question: “What is the
most exciting software you have seen that runs on your workstations?” The
answer was also straight-forward: “Go see Sam Geisberg’s new mechanical
CAD software company”, which was later named Parametric Technology
Corporation. Tim did, and he became instantly impressed. This engineering
software product addressed the missing front end of the product design
process by enabling the design engineer to change one parameter of a
design and see all of its ramifications in the total design; hence the name
“parametric.“
Tim invested, and soon afterwards the board brought in Steve Walske to be
CEO of the company, and Richard (Dick) Harrison, a motivated and ener-
getic VP of Sales. Under Steve’s aggressive and charismatic leadership,
Parametric grew very fast, went public in 1990, and ultimately reached a
peak market capitalization of approximately $8 billion as the company
became the dominant provider of mechanical CAD software in the market-
place. For many years now, Parametric’s ProEngineer products have been
the standard for mechanical design engineers, and businesses and
consumers around the world have been relying on machines and other
products that were designed using Parametric software.
Combinet
ISDN was a bad word amongst investors when Tom Williams came confi-
dently into the DFJ offices to pitch his company, Combinet. He came in
with only his energy and a slide presentation. When asked for his business
plan, he pointed to the slides and said, “that’s it.“ His ISDN modems
enabled faster remote-access networking. By targeting the small business
users, Combinet allowed workers to telecommute, unleashing increased
productivity around the globe. The company took off like a rocket, and just
as Tom was demonstrating that ISDN bit rates would enable video telecon-
ferencing, he got a call from Cisco, promising an enormous order. Once the
Cisco team realized that they would be beholden to Combinet among small
business customers, they made an offer to buy Combinet for $114 million.
Tom then joined Cisco and continued to drive the business. Tom has been
an avid supporter of DFJ ever since, as a limited partner, an outside board
member, and a serial entrepreneur.
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper FisherCelebrating 20 Years of Ven
her JurvetsonVenture Capital Excellence
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Front Row: Jennifer Fonstad, Tim Draper, Emily Melton, Joshua Raffaelli, Shelley Zhuang, Ellen Levy
Middle Row: Raj Atluru, Josh Stein, Mohan Lakhamraju, Warren Packard, Mark Greenstein, Andreas Stavropoulos
Back Row: Steve Jurvetson, John Fisher
About Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a premier global venture capital firm. In an industry wheremost firms remain provincial, DFJ has ventured beyond Silicon Valley to spread venturecapital to entrepreneurs around the world. Through our 20-year life, we have pioneeredthe affiliate model, and we also were the first venture capital firm to advertise, the first tocreate a venture capital offering for the non-accredited individual investor, and the firstmajor Silicon Valley firm to set up a global joint venture. At Draper Fisher Jurvetson, likethose entrepreneurs we serve, we are willing to take risks to accomplish our mission.
History
The Draper name is well known in the venture capital industry. General William H. Draper Jr.became the first professional West Coast venture capitalist when he founded Draper, Gaither &Anderson in 1958. Formerly Undersecretary of the Army, General Draper was responsible for eco-nomic reconstruction of Germany and Japan under the Marshall Plan. His son, William H. DraperIII, has a long history in the venture capital business. In 1962, with Partner Franklin "Pitch"Johnson, he started Draper & Johnson Investment Company. In 1965, he founded Sutter HillVentures which he managed with great success until 1981 when he was appointed Chairman of theU.S. Export-Import Bank. In 1995, he returned to venture capital by founding Draper International,concentrating on venture investments in India.
In 1985, Tim Draper left Alex. Brown & Sons, where he and John Fisher were office mates, tobecome the third generation of venture capitalists in his family with the formation of DraperAssociates. Tim set the tone for all of the subsequent funds with his focus on identifying outstand-ing teams of entrepreneurs setting out to change the world. Among the winners in this fund wereParametric Technology Corporation (PMTC), the first industrial-strength Computer Aided Designsoftware package to leverage the client-server era, and Digidesign (which went public and waslater acquired by AVID), the longstanding leader in digital editing tools for musicians.
Building on the momentum of his first fund, Tim set out to raise a larger fund and identify a part-ner with whom to team. In 1991, Tim brought his erstwhile office mate, John Fisher, on board tolaunch Draper Associates II, and a remarkable partnership was born. Over the next three years, theduo made numerous successful investments, including Medior (acquired by AOL), Combinet(acquired by CSCO), Cybermedia (CYBR), Software Quality Automation (which went public andlater was acquired by RATL, which was in turn acquired by IBM), Convoy (acquired by NEONwhich then was acquired by SY) and T/Maker (sold for cash).
In late 1994, Tim and John received a thought provoking letter in the mail from Steve Jurvetson, asecond year business school student at Stanford. Intrigued by the energy and intellect conveyed inthe letter, the pair invited Steve in for a conversation. Within minutes of meeting Steve, Tim andJohn realized they had found their next partner - a serious technologist who would help round out
the team as they set out to raise Draper Fisher Associates III. During his first year at the firm, Stevehelped land Four11 (acquired by YHOO) and Hotmail (acquired by MSFT), and subsequently hewas made a partner in the firm. Beyond these two investments, the trio also backed a number ofother significant software ventures in Fund III, including Interwoven (IWOV), Tumbleweed(TMWD), RightPoint Software (acquired by EPNY which then was acquired by SSAG), andWebline Communications (acquired by CSCO).
In 1997, with the Internet-focused Fund III showing considerable promise, the trio of investorscontinued to grow the firm after raising Draper Fisher Associates Fund IV. Out of StanfordBusiness School they hired Warren Packard, who had been through the DFJ office the prior yearpitching his start-up, Angara Database Systems, which was later acquired by Personify. Warrenhad previous venture capital experience working at Institutional Venture Partners and productdesign experience at Baxter.
At the same time, the firm hired Jennifer Fonstad from the Kauffman Fellows Program. Jenniferhad recently graduated from Harvard Business School and had worked previously at Bain &Company.
Together, Warren and Jennifer added horsepower to the growing firm, leading investments in suchstandouts as United Online (UNTD), Direct Hit Technologies (acquired by ASKJ), and DigitalImpact (which went public and was later acquired by ACXM). Draper Fisher Associates Fund IValso included GoTo.com/Overture Services (which went public and was later acquired by YHOO),Tradex (acquired by ARBA), C2B Technologies (acquired by INKT which then was acquired byYHOO), Fogdog Sports (went public and was later acquired by GSIC), Selectica (SLTC), KanaCommunications (KANA) and Netmind (acquired by PUMA which then was acquired by SYNC).
In 1999, DFJ added a three-degree graduate from Harvard University, Andreas Stavropoulos, whopreviously worked for Cornerstone Research and McKinsey & Co. Andreas led investments inEpocrates and Everdream, both of which are making excellent progress for Draper FisherJurvetson Fund V. Fund V has also benefited from the IPOs and subsequent distributions of WitCapital (later became SNDV and was acquired by Charles Schwab) and the previously mentionedUnited Online, as well as the acquisition of Cyras by Ciena (CIEN).
In that same year, Mark Greenstein joined DFJ as CFO to manage the expanding backroom oper-ations of the firm. Mark brought extensive experience from nearly 20 years as a Senior Managerwith Deloitte & Touche and as a Partner in charge of the Palo Alto office of a regional firm startedby his father. The relationship between the firm and Mark is an extension of one which dates backto the 1950s, when Mark's father Morey first met Tim Draper's grandfather while working on theaudit of Draper, Gaither & Anderson.
The following year, after the partnership raised Draper Fisher Jurvetson VI, the firm brought onRaj Atluru, a three-degree graduate from Stanford University who worked previously as aninvestment banker for CSFB and a venture capitalist at TL Ventures outside of Philadelphia. Raj'sbackground in both civil and environmental engineering brought significant value to the firm, andRaj has led DFJ Fund VIII’s initiatives in the cleantech and energy technology arenas.
One of Raj's first investments while at DFJ was in ViaFone, a software company enabling an arrayof mobile applications for enterprise customers, which was eventually acquired by ExtendedSystems (XTND). One of ViaFone's founders was Josh Stein, a Stanford MBA with consulting expe-rience at BCG and prior industry experience at NetObjects and Microsoft. After ViaFone wasacquired, Josh spent the next year as an executive at another wireless startup before being select-ed for a fellowship by the Kauffman Foundation. Josh joined DFJ in 2004, was promoted to direc-tor in 2005, and has been leading DFJ Fund VIII’s initiatives in the open source software market,as well as joining other partners in investing in next generation Internet initiatives.
Over the past twenty years, DFJ has been proud to back approximately 300 teams who haveshunned the traditional path and set out to change the world through their entrepreneurial ven-tures. At DFJ, we recognize and salute these riskmasters, because it is these teams who pursue theirvisions, overcoming numerous challenges, to bring us new products and services that make all ofour lives more rewarding.
As we reflect back on all the progress and accomplishments of the past twenty years, we can't helpbut think what the next twenty years will bring us. Advances in information technologies, life sci-ence technologies, nanotechnologies, clean energy technologies and process technologies are cer-tain to be abundant and significantly impact the way that consumers live and corporations con-duct business. We look forward to the challenge of realizing this exciting future. We look forwardto working with you in actively creating this future. We look forward to the next twenty years.
What is Viral Marketing?
By Steve Jurvetson
May 1, 2000
The "viral marketing" meme is hitting us from all directions. Hardly a business plan comesthrough Draper Fisher Jurvetson's door without some mention of a viral marketing strategy", notto mention a few books being written on the topic.
So what is viral marketing? In 1997, when DFJ first coined the term in a Netscape newsletter arti-cle by Draper and Jurvetson, we used several examples to illustrate the phenomenon, withoutdefining it more precisely than "network-enhanced word of mouth." Its original inspiration camefrom the pattern of adoption of Hotmail beginning with its launch in 1996. Tim Draper persuadedthe company to include a promotional pitch for its Web-based email with a clickable URL in everyoutbound message sent by a Hotmail user. Therein lay one of the critical elements of viral market-ing: every customer becomes an involuntary salesperson simply by using the product.
Viral marketing is more powerful than third-party advertising because it conveys an impliedendorsement from a friend. Although clearly delineated as an advertisement, the spillover market-ing benefits are powerful-much like the efficacy of radio commercials read by your favorite DJ. Therecipients of a Hotmail message learn that the product works and that their friend is a user. A key
element of consumer branding is usage affiliation: do I want to be a member of the group- in this case, myfriends-that uses the product?
We were amazed at how quickly Hotmail spread over the global network. The rapid adoption pattern wasthat of a network virus. People typically send emails to their associates and friends, both geographicallyclose and scattered around. We would notice the first user from an overseas university town, and then thenumber of subscribers from that region would rapidly proliferate. From an epidemiological perspective, itwas if Zeus sneezed over the planet.
Hotmail grew its subscriber base from zero to 12 million users in 18 months, more rapidly than any com-pany in any media in the history of the world. Fair enough, this is the Internet after all. But it did so withan advertising budget of $50,000-enough for some college newspaper ads and a billboard. Nonviral com-petitors like Juno spent $20 million on traditional marketing in the same time period with less effect.What's more, Hotmail became the largest email provider in several countries, like Sweden and India,where it had done no marketing whatsoever.
Hotmail is not an isolated incident. Hotmail and the instant messenger service ICQ had close to the samenumber of subscribers at their 6-, 9-, 12-, and 18-month stages. What do they have in common? Hotmailwas typically used as a secondary or personal account for communication to a close coterie of friends-much like ICQ's buddy lists. There appeared to be a mathematical elegance to their smooth exponentialgrowth curves.
A first-order model for viral spread is this:
cumulative users = (1+fanout) ^ cycles
In this model, the exponent cycles is the number of times the product is used in the time period sincelaunch (or frequency x time ). In the early days, Hotmail and ICQ fanned out to about two new users everymonth, and they each told two friends, and so on, and so on. By the simple model, one seed user grew to3 users at the end of the first cycle, 9 by the second, 27 by the third, and so on. Companies with much larg-er fanouts, such as the free email list managers, have grown more quickly than Hotmail. Those that haveprovided an economic incentive to spam large groups, like AllAdvantage which pays users view advertis-ing, have grown faster still, going from zero to 750,000 users in two weeks. The same formula would applyto traditional word-of-mouth marketing (like MCI Friends & Family discount plans and Tupperware par-ties), but lacking the involuntary coupling to patterns of communication, the average fanout and frequen-cy are much lower.
For a bit more accuracy, we can factor in the variables that describe the success of the recruiting messageand the retention rate as percentages:
cumulative users = [(1+fanout x conversion rate) x retention rate] ^ frequency x time
Working through the variables, the ideal viral product will be used to communicate with many people, willconvert a high percentage of them to new users, and will retain a high percentage of them. It will also beused quite frequently.
A more accurate, second-order model would include decay functions on each of the variables, reflectingnovelty and saturation effects. For example, Hotmail's variables are tapering as it reaches population sat-uration. Hotmail has blown through 100 million active users, so that there is a Hotmail account for one outof every four people on the Web worldwide. [As of 2005, Hotmail had 200 million active users.]
Given our excitement about the power of viral marketing, we have funded several companies that arepushing viral marketing in new directions, and we have suggested the addition of a viral element to anotherwise noncommunicative product. For example, NetZero's email vector of spread is very similar toHotmail's, but it has higher retention and conversion rates. Free Internet access is a more compellingproposition than free email, and so NetZero has grown faster than Hotmail in the U.S. It has also grownten times faster than America Online, becoming the second largest Internet service provider in America.
Companies as diverse as Ingenio (a marketplace for questions and answers), Skype (a free telephony serv-ice) and Homestead (personal Web pages) have found ways to amplify their growth through viral spread.Ingenio encourages users to forward a question to a friend who is likely to know the answer, and in return,the forwarder gets a cut of the lifetime economics of the new recruit. Homestead facilitates the recruitmentof coauthors to a family or group Web site, eventually bringing the community of users to Homestead.
In the e-commerce world, online retailers have gained some viral effects through gift packaging and "refera friend" programs. Mimeo.com has taken it a step further by applying viral marketing to every packageit delivers. Mimeo offers Web-initiated printing, copying, binding and delivery - a substitute for waiting inline at Kinko's. Each sender is a Mimeo user, but the multiple recipients are not so the FedEx-like packageis covered with Mimeo evangelism.
And this is just the beginning. NetMind/Palm offers a free Web-site update notification service as a pre-sales pilot for enterprise server sales. The free voicemail, fax, and telephony companies use aural market-ing to recruit new users. Even Palm users are beaming viral applications like ePocrates over their infraredports.
From a memetic engineering perspective, the idea of viral marketing spreads like an adaptive virus. Theidea itself evolves as it is retold in society.
In the venture capital business, we learn to serve entrepreneurs the way our entrepreneurs
serve their customers. Knowing that the venture capital business is local, but knowing that the
markets are global, we at Draper Fisher Jurvetson have a mission to be able to serve our entre-
preneurs locally, everywhere. As a result, we have set up a network of affiliates throughout the
world who can help us better serve our entrepreneurs. This network becomes more powerful
with each additional node, and helps with due diligence, with introductions, and with syndi-
cations. All entrepreneurs funded through our network are immediately plugged in to rolodexes
around the globe, experts in many fields, and relationships that they would take decades to
build themselves. The DFJ Network is the largest matrix of venture capital funds in the world
today, and growing.
The DFJ Network
The Draper Fisher Jurvets
vetson Affiliate Network
Looking forward to the
next 20 years
of venture capital...
and beyond.
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20 years of amazing entrepreneurs
422, Inc.4INFO, Inc.AbuzzAccess Media IncorporatedAchexAdvanced Software TechnologiesAgentis International Inc.AirPrism (GreyPrism, Inc.)Akimbo Systems, Inc. (Blue Falcon)Alert Logic, Inc.Alien SportAloha NetworksAmazing Media, Inc.Amnet/Aspect TelecomAnagran, Inc.Anuvio Technologies, Inc. (I-Drive.Com)Aperon Biosystems Corp.AppForge, Inc.Appia-Washington, LLCAppsoftAppStream, Inc.Ariat International, Inc.Arix (Arete)Arryx, Inc.ArtnetAthena Design Systems, Inc.Athenahealth, Inc.AuctionDrop, Inc. (AB Stores, Inc.)Avenue TechnologiesAviva SportBanyanBerkeley Data Systems, Inc.Best Offer.ComBinOptics CorporationBio-BottomsBlue Titan (ServiceMesh, Inc.)Blue Vector SystemsBodyFXBondMart Technologies, Inc.Bright StarBrightLink Networks, Inc.Brodia GroupC2BCalifornia Gold Catalog, Inc.Cambridge IncubatorCatalytic AntibodiesCenterpost Communications, Inc.Cerox CorporationChange.TV, Inc.Chili!SoftChroma Group, Inc.CitationClosedloop Solutions, Inc.Club One, Inc.CMI Marketing, Inc./ClubMom, Inc.CoalTek, Inc.Coatue CorporationCognigineCollabridge Technologies (ProductPop)CombinetCompassCare, Inc.ContextWeb, Inc.ConvoyCrystal Canyon Interactive, Inc.CrystalVoice Communications, Inc.CybermediaCydromeCypress ResearchCyras Systems, Inc.David SystemsDCADelivering The GoodsDifferential CorrectionsDigidesignDigital ImpactDigital Path Networks, Inc.Direct Capital Markets.Com, Inc.Direct HitDigitalWork.comDomestic AutomationDragnet Solutions, Inc.
MagnifiMailFrontier, Inc.Management Information SystemsMaptuit CorporationMarketron InternationalMarlstoneMassive, Inc.MaxPreps, Inc.Media GuarantyMediorMeetup, Inc.meVC.com, Inc.MFORMAMicrofabrica (MEMGen Corporation)Mimeo.com, Inc.MiradcoMobile 365/InphoMatch, Inc.MobileSoftMOK3Molecular Imprints, Inc.Multipoint NetworksnanoCoolers, Inc.NanoOpto CorporationNanoString Technologies, Inc.Nantero, Inc.NativelNature's Cure Inc.NeoParadigm Labs/ViVoDaNetcentivesNetChip TechnologyNetMindNeuport Acquisition LLC (Crystal)NewsNet TechnologiesNextwave DesignNexus Group, Inc.Nilford LabsNusym Technology, Inc.Objective S/WOctel CommunicationsOddpost, Inc.OnSite Systems, Inc.OnTech Delaware, Inc.OnVantage, Inc.Ooma, Inc.Open Latitude (RedKnife, Inc.)Open ObjectsOutcome Software (On Your Mind, Inc.)Panraven CorporationPantero Corp. (NEB Technologies, Inc.)PantheonPAR3ParametricPeak SystemsPetaSwitch Solutions, Inc.Pete's Brewing Co.Phosistor Technologies, Inc.Photo Access CorporationPhotonic Power SystemsPictureal Corp.Ping Identity CorporationPizzaTimePlanetUPlanitax, Inc.PLEJ, Inc.PLX TechnologyPolaris WirelessPolygenPosit Science/Neuroscience Solutions Corp.PowerAgentPractical Engineering, Inc.Praxon Preview TravelPrimet Precision Materials, Inc.ProLacta Bioscience, Inc.Pronto Networks, Inc.PS PublishingPSI StarPulse Entertainment, Inc.Qmobile Inc.Questlink SystemsQuios, Inc.
DTCD-Wave Systems Inc.E-Benefits, Inc.Eclipse InternationalEdgemailEmber CorporationEmerald City S/WemWareEnerNOC, Inc.Entegrity SolutionsENVIZEoPlex Technologies, Inc.Epocrates Inc.etang.com, Inc.EVDB, Inc.EverDreamEverest Biomedical InstrumentsEvil Twin Studios, Inc.eWingz Systems, Inc.Exemplar LogicExpress FaxFastpartsFeedBurnerFiat Lux, Inc.Financial World Mag.FlexICs, Inc.FogDog SportsFour11Game Trust, Inc.Garage.ComGlam Media, Inc.GlobalSightGolden Baseball League Gopher Grocery DeliveryGoTo.com/Overture ServicesGreatPoint Energy, Inc.GreenFuel Technologies CorporationGreenway ProductsGroup Technologies/Group LogicH5 TechnologiesHarmony SystemsHeadlight.comHome Security SystemsHomestead.com, Inc./KartoffelsoftHotmailHyperNex, Inc.I-CubeIdetekImago Scientific Instruments Corp.Impact with Quality dba IQ LabsIngenio (Keen, Inc.)InnerSell, Inc.InSpa CorporationIntegrated Media Measurement, Inc.IntelliVid CorporationIntematix CorporationInternational Power SystemsInternet Shopping NetworkInterwovenInterzineIntrusic, Inc.Ipedo, Inc.iShip.comiTvIvustechJetFax/Efax.com/J2 Global Comm.Jiwire, Inc.KANA CommunicationsKaspia SystemsKnights TechnologyKoch SystemsKonarka Technologies, Inc.Konaware, Inc.Lightwave/NeoPhotonics CorporationLipomics Technologies, Inc.Liquid Machines, Inc.LucidPort Technology, Inc.LumenosLumeta CorporationLumidigm, Inc.Luminus Devices, Inc.
RadioLANRagula Systems Development CompanyRaydiance, Inc.Real NamesRedgateReleaseNow.com Revver, Inc.RightPoint SoftwareRise TechnologyRoving Planet, Inc.S.E.T. SabaSaberSafeviewSaltareSanta Cruz Networks (Reality Fusion)SelecticaSequenceSharpcast, Inc.Sierra SemiconductorSiimpel Corporation/SiWave, Inc.Silicon CompilersSilverpop Systems, Inc./Avienda Tech.Smith & HawkenSnocap, Inc.SocialText, Inc.Software Quality AutomationSolicore, Inc.Sonnet Financial/NewMarkets Int'lSpacebridgeSugarCRM Inc.Synthetic GenomicsT/Maker CompanyTacit Knowledge Systems, Inc.Technorati, Inc.Teeccino Caffe, Inc.TelutionTheranos/RealTime Cures, Inc.Third VoiceThree Sixty PacificTouchscapeTRADEXTroika NetworksTumbleweed CommunicationsUBmatrix, Inc.United Online (NetZero)Unity SystemsUpside Publishing Co.Upspring SoftwareValicertVelox Semiconductor CorporationViafone.comVincera SoftwareViral Media, Inc.Virgil SoftwareVirtual ComputerVis-A-VisVisto CorporationVivaldi.netViVOtech, Inc.Vizional Technologies, Inc.WaveMarket, Inc.WebFlowWebLineWeitekWheels of Zeus, Inc.WiDeFi, Inc.Winformation SoftwareWireless Inc.Wit Capital Corp./Soundview Tech.WorkExchangeWorld of Good Holding Company, Inc.X-EMI Inc.Xfire/Ultimate Arena, Inc.X-Sten Corp.Xtime, Inc.Z- OperationsZane InteractiveZARS, Inc.Z-Capital CallsZettaCore, Inc.