If I told you that a game company you’ve never heard of will be a top ten entertainment company in 2009, you’d probably laugh. But that’s the ambition of Alok Kejriwal, chief executive of Games2win, and his cofounder and chief technology officer, Mahesh Khambadkone.
India-based company Games2Win
has flown largely under the radar of the American press, but has managed to established itself as one of the web’s fastest growing gaming sites in less than a year. The company was founded by entrepreneur Alok Kejriwal along with seasoned gaming professional Mahesh Khambadkone in June 2007, and now counts around 6 million monthly users with a worldwide distribution.
October 10, 2008 - William Quigley
It is hard to believe that just 8 years ago, venture capitalists were facing what we all thought would be the ‘great crash’ of our lifetimes. Meaning the one and only significant crash we would see before we retired. After all, even with two world wars, a cold war, and an unprecedented energy shock in the 1970’s, the 20th century only had one Great Depression. The Dow dropped 90% from its high during the Great Depression. NASDAQ dropped 80% from its high after the tech bubble burst. Market collapses of that order are only supposed to happen once in a lifetime. But now, due to the financial crisis of 2008, the consensus opinion among wall street and venture investors is that we are at the beginning of another great crash and long term economic malaise (note Sequoia’s amazing comment about a 15 year secular bear market).
Now is far from the best time for an entrepreneur to try to raise money. Venture capital investment has been flat this year, and initial public offerings, the vehicles by which VCs achieve their outsize returns, have been almost nonexistent. "It's never been harder to create the kind of company that VCs look for," says Jim Armstrong, a managing director in the Santa Monica, California, office of Clearstone Venture Partners. The ideal candidate for venture backing, he says, has the potential to quickly become a public company worth at least $1 billion -- a tall order in this economy. Even so, venture capitalists, by their nature, are always on the lookout for an interesting deal, and many firms are sitting on huge war chests of capital raised over the past few years. So, as part of an annual exercise, we asked Armstrong and partners at three other firms that invest in young, fast-growing companies to take a look at this year's Inc. 500 (which we published in September, and which you can find at Inc.com). Please note that the panel was given no information beyond what was printed in the magazine: no balance sheets, no business plans, and -- gasp! -- no PowerPoint decks. Nevertheless, the VCs gamely told us which companies caught their fancy.
Nokeena Networks Inc., a startup that is developing technology to better distribute and store online video, is the latest company to benefit from the incubation approach taken by Sumant Mandal, a managing director of early-stage venture capital firm Clearstone Venture Partners.
Mandal tells Tech Confidential that Clearstone, along with Trinity Ventures, is leading an $8.7 million Series A round in Nokeena, which has been in stealth mode until now. Mandal is taking a seat on Nokeena's board, as is Trinity's Fred Wang. Angel investors in the company include B.V. Jagadeesh, the CEO of 3Leaf Systems (he also co-founded Exodus Communications and is the former CEO of NetScaler Inc.); Raj Singh, managing director of Redwood Venture Partners; and Rajeev Motwani, a Stanford University computer science professor who was an early backer of Google Inc.
TheDeal.com
by Mary Kathleen Flynn Posted 04:33 EST, 5, Aug 2008
Born as a technological puzzle, Nokeena Networks Inc. has raised its first round of venture capital to commercialize technology that it says will help solve the problem of how to better deliver and store online video.
The Santa Clara, Calif., startup, which until now has remained under the radar, has raised $8.7 million in a Series A round led by Clearstone Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures, said Sumant Mandal, a managing director with Clearstone. "Nokeena's video delivery system is going to change the cost curve for most video publishers, especially as high-definition video comes online," Mandal said.
He and Trinity's Fred Wang will join Nokeena's board of directors.
Nokeena evolved out of conversations Mandal had with company co-founder Prabakar Sundarrajan about the challenges of delivering high-quality online video.
"We got to brainstorming on the next big problem to be solved," recalled Sundarrajan, who developed Nokeena with company CEO Rajan Raghavan, another entrepreneur. "The light bulb went off on the oncoming tsunami of high-quality Web video. That was the genesis of Nokeena."
Such methods typifies Mandal's approach to innovation, said entrepreneurs who have worked with him. Specifically, he seeks to identify an inefficient business process or related factor that technology can improve. He then asks a trusted entrepreneur to come up with a solution to the puzzle. If the answer looks promising, they start a company.
Although such methods are certainly not unique, and indeed would be familiar to any business school graduate, Mandal, who joined Clearstone in 2000, brings a special talent for refining ideas into companies.
Frank Addante, founder of the Rubicon Project, a startup that helps Web sites optimize unsold advertising space and that has raised $21 million from Clearstone and other VC firms, said the idea for his company emerged from a casual conversation he had with Mandal after bumping into the VC while jogging by his house one day in the spring of 2007. "What's fascinating is that after every meeting with Sumant I always feel smarter — not because of what he tells me but because of what he asks me," Addante said.
Clearstone is a good fit for Mandal, 39, who continues to focus on incubation or "co-creation," as he calls it. The firm, which invests in a range of early-stage software, Internet, telecommunications and other companies, was formed in 1997 as Idealab Capital Partners, the venture capital arm of technology incubator Idealab Inc. Idealab Capital Partners is known for backing PayPal Inc., which eBay Inc. bought for $1.4 billion in 2002, and NetZero, now owned by United Online Inc., among other investments. Today Clearstone is on its third fund and has offices in Santa Monica, Calif., Menlo Park, Calif., and Mumbai.
Mandal's predilection for building companies from their earliest conceptual phases naturally has led him to seek out like-minded entrepreneurs with startup experience. Sundarrajan, for example, helped launch another Clearstone portfolio company called Mimosa Systems Inc., which makes archiving software for large companies and which has raised $51.5 million in venture capital. Sundarrajan also served as an adviser on another Clearstone startup, DiVitas Networks, which makes handsets that link cellular and wide-area networks and which has raised $23 million.
Previously, Sundarrajan was chief technology officer at NetScaler, whose technology helped provide business software applications over the Internet and which was acquired by Citrix Systems Inc. in 2005 for $325 million. He also formerly was senior vice president at Exodus Communications Inc., an Internet service provider that once had a market valuation of $30 billion before going bankrupt in 2001 during the dot-com crash.
"My experience with both Exodus Communications and NetScaler were central to the conversation Sumant and I had on Web video delivery," Sundarrajan said. "Sumant recognized the huge opportunity and indicated that the time was ripe to be bold and incubate a venture focused on solving the challenge of large-scale delivery of high-quality Web video."
The main problem with online video when Nokeena was getting off the ground was that the viewing experience was poor, with pieces often appearing choppy and stopping and starting. Other issues with online video included difficulty scaling up to offer masses of content and incompatible platforms, while as a business endeavor it was proving difficult to make money.
"It is clear that if this trend continued without a suitable solution, Web video delivery growth would stall and viewers would turn away in droves," Sundarrajan said. Nokeena's solution to such problems consists of high-speed video processing and network optimization technology that eliminates video stutters by monitoring congestion on the network and adjusting video transmission accordingly. Angel investors in the company include B.V. Jagadeesh, CEO of virtualization software maker 3Leaf Systems (who also was co-founder of Exodus and CEO of NetScaler); Raj Singh, managing director of Redwood Venture Partners; and Rajeev Motwani, a Stanford University computer science professor who was an early backer of Google Inc.
Nokeena plans to launch its first commercial product next year. As for customers, the company initially will target large content delivery networks, video content aggregators, original video providers and media companies.
As for Mandal, it remains to be seen if his hands-on style to building companies, which has yet to yield any exits, will pay off. But the entrepreneurs he and Clearstone support express confidence that they are on the right path.
"We were two guys with three PowerPoint slides when Sumant and Clearstone found us," said Mimosa co-founder and chief executive T.M. Ravi. "They helped us flesh out the idea and, more importantly, validate the idea with about 70 customers. They introduced us to the majority of those customers."
MARINA DEL REY, CA -- AUGUST 5, 2008 -- Six Degrees Games, Inc., a video game and virtual world publisher, today announced it has secured $7 Million in Series A equity financing led by Clearstone Venture Partners and Prism VentureWorks. These funds will support the product development, launch and distribution of an original
sports-themed virtual world designed for six to 14 year-olds, but open to all ages. The project is currently in closed beta and further details will become available over the next several months.
"It's an exciting time for our entire Six Degrees Games team as we drive toward the launch of an all-new, interactive sports-themed virtual world," said Minard Hamilton, CEO and co-founder of Six Degrees Games, Inc. "In Clearstone and Prism, we have found partners that not only share our vision, but will also add immeasurably to our successful execution.”
“At Clearstone, we take great pride in investing in high-caliber entrepreneurs focused on creating innovative consumer experiences. With Six Degrees Games, there is a unique opportunity to deliver an immersive, branded experience that will appeal to both kids and their parents,” said Jim Armstrong, Managing Director of Clearstone Venture Partners. “We are very excited to be working with Minard, Ben and the impressive team they have put together here in Southern California to go after this massive opportunity.”
“Six Degrees Games is poised to offer the youth market a virtual sports world that surpasses current offerings,” said Will Kohler, Prism VentureWorks. “Prism’s LA presence has opened doors into new, high-value opportunities and Six Degrees Games is a great example of this. Minard, Ben and the Six Degrees Games team have worked with major participants in the world of sports, leagues and brands and understand how to build high-growth, successful companies.”
Six Degrees Games, Inc. was founded in 2006 by Minard Hamilton, CEO, and Ben Jones, President, and is based in Marina del Rey, CA. Prior to founding Six Degrees Games, Minard Hamilton and Ben Jones were senior executives at JAMDAT Mobile, a leading mobile game company which went public in 2005 and was later acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006. Prior to JAMDAT, Hamilton was a senior executive with ESPN and ESPN.com and Jones established and coordinated partnerships between leading game developers and publishers.
As part of the financing agreement, Jim Armstrong, Managing Director, Clearstone, and Will Kohler, Principal, Prism VentureWorks, have joined the company’s Board of Directors.
About Six Degrees Games, Inc.
Six Degrees Games, Inc., founded in 2006 with headquarters in Marina del Rey, CA, is a videogame and virtual world publisher for major videogame systems and personal computers. For more information, visit www.sixdegreesgames.com.
About Clearstone Venture Partners
Clearstone Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm with offices in Santa Monica, CA, Menlo Park, CA, and Mumbai, India. Clearstone has a proven track
record of developing market-changing consumer internet companies, including: PayPal, NetZero, Overture and CarsDirect. The firm has $650 million under management
and is focusing investments in its third fund on seed and early stage companies
in the United States and India. For more information, visit: www.clearstone.com.
About Prism VentureWorks
Prism VentureWorks is an early stage venture capital firm focused on disruptive segments in the Digital Media, Software & Services and Life Sciences sectors. The firm represents a committed team of early-stage investors whose industry operating heritage and domain depth make them valued partners among entrepreneurs and syndicates in building successful businesses. Founded in 1996, the Firm has approximately $1.25 billion in capital under management with offices in Needham, MA and Venice, CA. For more information, visit www.prismventure.com.
Contact Information
Tim DaRosa
Director of Marketing
Six Degrees Games, Inc.
(773) 391-1865
Ad:Tech, San Francisco, Calif. – the Rubicon Project, a company with a mission to automate the large, yet highly inefficient advertising industry unveils an industry first: a free ad server for website publishers, specifically designed to manage multiple ad networks. Also released today is a new enhanced version of its ad network optimization (ANO) service for websites looking to let the experts handle the work of maximizing revenue from their ad space. More than 5,000 websites applied to be part of the company's private Beta; 750 were selected to participate in the program. With today's public Beta release any website interested in building advertising revenue through ad network optimization and ad network management can sign up.
AOL Autos, http://autos.aol.com, today announced an open marketplace for used cars, providing car buyers with access to more than 2.5 million vehicles for sale in the United States and a new set of search and filter tools to more easily find a car that fits their needs.
The AOL Autos used car marketplace features a new intuitive search function that enables users to search for used, certified pre-owned, and private-seller listed cars using natural language queries (e.g., “black Honda Civic”). Users can filter results based on make, model, price, body style and more, resulting in more relevant listings.
AOptix Technologies, Inc. www.aoptix.com a leading edge developer of advanced biometric iris recognition systems announced that it is entering the fast growing iris recognition biometrics market with its proprietary adaptive optics technology.
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
Silicon Valley startup Spock aims to refine people search
How many times have you Googled your ex-girlfriend? The guy from the bar last night? Paris Hilton, Barak Obama, David Beckham?
Instead of sorting through thousands of results from a major search engine the vast majority likely to be irrelevant Web pages a Silicon Valley startup promises more targeted results on people queries.
Menlo Park-based Spock Inc. scours sites such as MySpace.com, Wikipedia, LinkedIn and Flickr, compiling biographies of real people alive, dead, famous, obscure, from New York to New Delhi.
Spock is gaining 30,000 new members per week in an invitation-only beta. It will launch in three to four weeks with a searchable database of 100 million people.
Results often include an individual's photo, age, job title, political or religious affiliations, and research papers or articles written.
The site relies on public data; if you've never given your age or posted a your photo on a blog or other site, that data may not appear on Spock. But if you've submitted information to a company or neighborhood newsletter, or if you've used a social networking site, you may already be Spocked.
Backed by Clearstone Venture Partners and Opus Capital Ventures, Spock works like Wikipedia. Members contribute photos, data, tags or other information about themselves or others.
None of Spock's 30 employees is an editor. Computer algorithms police the site: If you post inflammatory or inappropriate items, your user rating plummets. Everything users add or delete can be traced back nothing is anonymous.
To highlight the ingenuity of Spock, co-founder and CEO Jaideep Singh searched for "Boxer." On Google, the top result is dogs specifically the American Kennel Club's Web site. On Amazon.com, it's underwear. On Spock, it's biographies of California Sen. Barbara Boxer and former World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali.
Broadly defined people searches individuals and groups such as "Al-Qaeda" or "NBA" are among the top Internet queries. Spock, which maintains 200 servers, is bracing for an onslaught of biographies and members.
"Our mission is to index everyone who is knowable," Singh said.
SupplyFrame, of Pasadena, Calif. is the latest to offer a specialized search engine for electronic components — and is also offering useful widgets about those components to embed in spreadsheets or Web sites. It has raised $7 million in a second round of funding.
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Acquisition Extends Seamless Mobility Offerings For Enterprises and Consumers
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Solution Works With Existing WLAN Environment, Enterprise Applications, and Handsets
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 17, 2006- DiVitas Networks today announced that it is entering the enterprise communications market with a new class of unified mobile communications solutions that extends the reach of the enterprise by providing seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular networks. DiVitas' solution works in any WLAN environment, with any PBX, and over any type of fixed, mobile, or wireless network; it also integrates with business and communications applications. A privately held company, DiVitas has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Clearstone Venture Partners and other private investors. DiVitas is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has an office in Bangalore, India.
DiVitas was founded by president and CEO Vivek Khuller and CTO Venkat Kalkunte. Khuller was previously a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Partners, entrepreneur in residence at Matrix Partners, and an executive at Sycamore Networks and Verizon. Kalkunte formerly worked at Cisco, and was founding engineer of Transmedia Communications, which Cisco purchased in 1999. He also worked at Alteon, Stratacom, and other technology companies.
"Today's enterprise workers want to stay connected with their customers and colleagues, yet more than 70 percent of them don't have access to mobile solutions," said Khuller. "Enterprises have had to rely on disparate, costly, and unreliable approaches, including cellular and wireless VoIP. DiVitas' unified solutions let enterprise users stay connected and stay engaged, and put the enterprise in control of its mobile communications at a cost that will enable it to mobilize all workers."
"Convergence is now the core driving force in the evolution of communications - both wired and wireless," said Craig Mathias, a Principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group. "The idea is to provision a common set of services across a variety of networks, from cellular to wireless LANs to landlines. DiVitas is positioning themselves for leadership in this very exciting space."
DiVitas Addresses Gap in Market
DiVitas addresses a major gap in the communications market-the lack of a mobility solution for the full scope of enterprise workers and functions. Cellular is ubiquitous but expensive and device driven, and cannot be managed by the enterprise. Wireless VoIP has limited reach, performance, and device support. Neither addresses the need of enterprises to control communications, hand off Wi-Fi-cell calls seamlessly, and integrate applications with communications. As a result, mobile communications has limited penetration in enterprises. Enterprises pay for mobile voice service for far fewer than half of their employees, and the number of those employees with mobile email is even smaller.
"Clearstone sees a tremendous market opportunity for enterprise mobility solutions, and DiVitas is the first company to take advantage of it by letting enterprise being in control," said Sumant Mandal , a member of DiVitas' board and managing director at Clearstone. "By delivering voice, text, and enterprise applications on one handset, the DiVitas platform promises to cut down on voice mails and missed calls and greatly improve end users' productivity."
The DiVitas solution works in every network environment, whether it is cellular, WiFi, Internet/IP WAN, or wireline, and with every type of mobile phone, including dual-mode phones, WLAN phones, cellular phones, smartphones, and softphones. The company's solution also serves as an application platform for enhanced communications such as CRM, assuring end users of their presence and participation in business operations, irrespective of the underlying network.
Because enterprises own the DiVitas solution, administrators can control and manage communications centrally, without having to depend on service providers. End users need only one wireless handset to access voice, email, and applications as they roam between enterprise and cellular networks, giving them the type of "presence" previously unavailable with mobile communications.
DiVitas Solutions Interoperate with Mobile Phones, Networks
To make it easy for enterprises to adopt its solutions, DiVitas plans to conduct interoperability tests with a range of ecosystem vendors to ensure that the DiVitas solution works in every network environment, with every type of handset, and with every PBX. The company will announce interoperability with a range of wireless LAN, handset and IP/PBX partners.
"Symbol's wireless LAN solutions enable enterprises to cost-effectively increase penetration of mobile voice and data solutions. With the availability of dual-mode phones such as Symbol's MC70, which work both over WiFi and cellular networks, users can be accessible and productive beyond the four walls of the enterprise," said Chris McGugan, senior director of marketing at Symbol Technologies' wireless infrastructure division. "Symbol is closely working with DiVitas to develop end-to-end seamless voice and application handoff solutions for the enterprise across wireless LAN and cellular networks."
About DiVitas
DiVitas Networks is developing a new class of enterprise appliance that provides seamless voice and data mobility over disparate networks to all enterprise employees by taking advantage of disruptive technologies such as WiFi, the Internet, and dual-mode phones. DiVitas is the first company that enables such mobility while giving enterprises complete control of the system. The DiVitas solution enables seamless roaming and WiFi-cellular handoff and extends enterprise security, management, and cost control to mobile communications. End users are assured of their presence and participation in business operations, irrespective of the underlying network, whether it is cellular, WiFi, Internet/IP WAN, or wireline. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, DiVitas Networks is backed by Clearstone Venture Partners. More information is available at http://www.divitas.com .
