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ron conway
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"Fight for Mike" moves to YouTube
Mike Homer, the former Netscape executive suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, has inspired a YouTube channel for the "Defeat Dementia" campaign, an effort to educate the public about neurodegenerative diseases. Angel investor Ron Conway, Google advisor Bill Campbell, and YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley organized the collaboration between the online-video site and UCSF, where Homer is being treated. [AllThingsD]
Mike Homer, the former Netscape executive suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, has inspired a YouTube channel for the "Defeat Dementia" campaign, an effort to educate the public about neurodegenerative diseases. Angel investor Ron Conway, Google advisor Bill Campbell, and YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley organized the collaboration between the online-video site and UCSF, where Homer is being treated. [AllThingsD]
Ron Hornbaker
Angel investor Ron Conway backs convicted fraudster's Youvebeenboned.com
In the Valley, they call it "dropping the Ron bomb" — when prolific angel investor Ron Conway, a Midas who has touched everything from Google to StumbleUpon, showers cash on a promising startup. His latest bomb target, however, is a bit explosive himself. Ron Hornbaker is the CEO of Foomojo, a stealth startup whose website can be found at the URL www.youvebeenboned.com. Private Equity Hub's Connie Loizos points out that Hornbaker was convicted of extorting AOL users in chat rooms in 1996. More »
jackpot
Shawn Fanning might never have to pitch Volkswagens again
Finally, Napster creator Shawn Fanning will make a little bank. After Napster went bankrupt and he sold Snocap to Imeem for not much at all, Fanning and cofounder Jon Baudanza have sold social network startup Rupture to Electronic Arts for $30 million. The best part: Fanning and Baudanza did it without launching a product out of beta. All Rupture ever built was a still-in-beta network for World of Warcraft gamers. Investors cashing in on the Volkswagen pitchman's payday (see video) include Ron Conway, Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, and Baseline Ventures.
acquisitions
Ross Levinsohn gets ready for another knife fight
Former Fox Interactive exec turned venture capitalist Ross Levinsohn only needs to finish the paperwork to become the biggest name on Microsoft's list of 10 nominees to replace Yahoo's board, TechCrunch reports and BoomTown confirms. The high-profile rubber-stamping position should suit Levinsohn's ego just fine. More »
venture capital
Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen love Lonelygirl15
EQAL, the L.A. Web-video studio which first brought you Lonelygirl15's bedroom antics, today announced it's raised $5 million in funding. The moneymen backing Bree's braintrust include angel investor Ron Conway, Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, reality-TV producer Conrag Riggs, former Google exec Georges Harik, and Spark Capital. Bree, who made the cover of Wired is gone from Lonelygirl15, having been killed off, but the series continues, as does EQAL's KateModern, which now runs on Bebo. EQAL CEO Miles Beckett and president Greg Goodfried told the Wall Street Journal the company is already profitable, having earned money with product placements woven into plotlines. Sounds more plausible than selling online ads.
it girls
Allison, Asha and Rambin dump the Web, embrace TV
It's unclear if wanterpreneurs Julia Allison, Meghan Asha and Mary Rambin will cancel their Silicon Valley tour entirely, but word is the trio has wised up to venture-capital realities. Valley angel Ron Conway, an early backer of Google and Ask.com, "has a list of 200 things he'd invest in and nowhere on there is content," Allison's friend David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, advised her. She got the same advice from Valleywag commenters. Undaunted, Allison, Asha and Rambin are already onto funding plan B. The New York Post reports the trio will star in a pilot for a reality TV show named IT Girls about creating their Web company. The difference between exposing every detail of their lives to Web viewers and TV audiences? The latter actually gets them paid.
mine is bigger
One day left to commission portrait of "Fellowship of the VCs"
"Are you a leader in Silicon Valley who has been unfairly left out of this work of art?" asks a project proposal on Strayform."Much like patronages offered by the leaders depicted in historical works, your patronage can earn you the recognition you deserve."More »
venture capital
Former AOL, MySpace chiefs switch VC teams
Jonathan Miller, the man who was ungracefully booted as AOL CEO, and Ross Levinsohn, the former Fox Interactive Media chief who was never quite as in charge of MySpace as he would have liked, will form a new group at VC firm ComVentures, SAI reports. They're callng it Velocity Interactive Group. The pair plan to invest $20 million to $30 million in digital media startups in 2008 and already, they plan to close as many four deals in February. Wait, doesn't this sound familiar? More »
scoop
Mark Zuckerberg cashes out?
Venture capital's ancien régime is on the verge of being overturned. We hear Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, may have cashed out — before an IPO, before a sale, and before his investors. In the company's recent financing round, insiders believe, he sold about $40 million worth of stock. A tiny portion of his $5 billion stake, but in cash rather than on paper, and "enough that he never has to think about money for the rest of his life," says a person made privy to details of the sale. On the Sand Hill Road of old, this is simply not how things are done. More »
10:58 PM on Fri Dec 7 2007
By Owen Thomas
11,293 views,
18 comments
Latest by Trackback: Nick Denton, who still claims he's the world's greatest investigative journalist even though he twice incorrectly identified Fake Steve and swore both times he had me dead to rights, is determined to make a go of this Valleywag gossip blog. more »
stanley kirk burrell
Entrepreneur launches startup
Silicon Valley entrepreneur Stanley Kirk Burrell, who sometimes goes by another name and often wears very large pants, as the video above, has teamed with Flock founders Geoffrey Arone and Anthony Young to launch DanceJam, a new online video site. Burrell is perhaps best known for pairing with videoblogger Justine Ezarik of iJustine to endorse Y Combinator's MySpace profile tool.
More »
party report
Founders Club, MC Hammer take over SNL studios
Digital media types here in New York are always looking for a reason to celebrate their own achievements. A couple of months ago, a few of them began calling themselves the Founders Club and decided to start holding mixers around town. Last night, NBC hosted the latest in the series on the set of Saturday Night Live. Who showed? Mostly wantrepreneurs looking for a VC teat to suckle, of course. But I also ran into Digg CEO Jay Adelson, pictured above; a definitely not-pictured angel Ron Conway, who dodged my camera; a Facebook "founder"; and MC Hammer.More »
clips
Hooman Khalili interviews Google backer Ron Conway at the recent TechCrunch40 conference. He describes the event as showcasing "40 great Silicon Valley companies," which shows he wasn't really paying attention, and doesn't say much else of interest. But his relentless monotone raises a question: How does the Valley's most successful angel investor manage to keep entrepreneurs awake long enough to sign a termsheet?
Angel investor Ron Conway bores startups silly
Hooman Khalili interviews Google backer Ron Conway at the recent TechCrunch40 conference. He describes the event as showcasing "40 great Silicon Valley companies," which shows he wasn't really paying attention, and doesn't say much else of interest. But his relentless monotone raises a question: How does the Valley's most successful angel investor manage to keep entrepreneurs awake long enough to sign a termsheet?
picture of the day
Microsoft executive Don Dodge captures a moment from the TechCrunch40 conference. Or, more specifically, after the conference, in the limo ferrying VIPs from the TechCrunch40 VIP dinner to the after party at Fluid. Pictured, from left, Mayfield Fund VC Raj Kapoor on the floor of the limo; Allen Morgan, also from Mayfield, throwing gang signs; DanceJam cofounder MC Hammer; and angel investor Ron Conway, looking bewildered.
Letting loose at TechCrunch40
Microsoft executive Don Dodge captures a moment from the TechCrunch40 conference. Or, more specifically, after the conference, in the limo ferrying VIPs from the TechCrunch40 VIP dinner to the after party at Fluid. Pictured, from left, Mayfield Fund VC Raj Kapoor on the floor of the limo; Allen Morgan, also from Mayfield, throwing gang signs; DanceJam cofounder MC Hammer; and angel investor Ron Conway, looking bewildered.
venture capital
The battle to plunk bucks in Splunk
The Valley's venture capitalists fall into and out of love with enterprise software. Today, with Facebook and other social networks the talk of the town, it's hard for the makers of boring IT products to get attention. But not, it seems, money. Splunk, in a lightning-fast fundraising effort, has pulled in $25 million in a third round of financing, bringing the company's valuation up to $120 million. Splunk's software analyzes server logs, and in a nod to the collaborative aspects of Web 2.0, lets sysadmins share and discuss the results to figure out if odd patterns are signs of system failures or security breaches. Think of it as a Google for hardcore nerds, but one they're actually willing to pay for. And that, in turn, made Ignition Venture Partners, a Seattle-area venture-capital firm, willing to pay for a stake in the San Francisco company. In every investment, there are winners and losers, though. More »
search
MerchantCircle provides a circle jerk for local businesses
The first rule of Valleywag: Never pitch Valleywag. But sometimes the temptation just proves too great. In response to a post about Google and Yelp's rivalry in local search, a MerchantCircle employee contacted us to tout the company's supposed leadership in the market, pitching the site for some Valleywag love. Well, here's some tough love. We've looked into MerchantCircle's business model .. and found nothing but self-love. More »
10:17 AM on Mon Aug 20 2007
By Tim Faulkner
2,860 views,
7 comments
techcrunch20
Michael Arrington yanks panel critique
More than one person has described TechCrunch's Michael Arrington to me as "touchy." Which is putting it mildly. Try "hypersensitive." Or "thin-skinned." Or "prickly." The latest example? Arrington recently posted about the naming of three people to the advisory panel of TechCrunch20, his upcoming startup conference: French blogger Loic Le Meur, angel investor Ron Conway, and Sarah Lacy. The panelists, unexpectedly, proved controversial — and Arrington, predictably, overreacted. More »
san francisco
