YCombinator

Anecdotal but interesting: NYC and London Up & Coming in the World of Startups?

Sep 03

Every month or two, someone tosses up a “Who’s Hiring in Startups?” post on Hacker News. In my current voluntary jobless state, I’m looking at new startup ideas as well as hopping on board with pre-funding or barely-post-funding startups, so I took a look. One thing that leapt out at me was how broad (geographically speaking), the posts were (data below).

While I’ll generally happily go on about how the influence of the valley is waning (a combination of cheaper-to-get-traction startups and investors who are happy to look outside of their fertile valley), I still agree with Paul Graham– if you’re doing a startup, you meaningfully increase your shot at success if you live/move there… For now. But it seems like there is something special happening in the NYC area. And London(?). Coincidentally, both financial centers that might have seen a rash of disillusioned geeks moving away from the world of finance, perhaps?

Anyhow, here’s a breakdown of the various locations of startup jobs as of 9:40am or so. I know it’s not REMOTELY scientific– it just stuck out to me.

Note: if you’re hiring, you should add to the thread.

How to Ask for an Introduction

Mar 09

I don’t know a ton of important people. But as a founder of a venture-backed startup with some amazing investors and advisors, I do know a few.

With Nivi and Naval preaching the gospel of social proof (can I get an “amen”?!) and with fundraising posts and articles espousing the importance of introductions, it’s no surprise that about once a week someone asks me to introduce them to someone else. It’s especially common around Y Combinator Demo Day, where YC groups shift from pure product mania to fundraising mode. I’m pretty sure that YC tells new crops of startups to ask for introductions from the funded companies from previous sessions.

What does surprise me is how people ask for these introductions. Here’s pretty much how they usually read:

“Hey Tony. I’m [insert name] from [company name]. We’re starting our fundraising effort and I was wondering if you’d introduce me to [insert RescueTime investor/advisor].”

I usually will make the introduction, but the person asking for it is certainly not making the most of the opportunity (and asking me to spend my social capital by doing so). So after making a mess of these introductions in varied ways, here is my suggested checklist for making an introduction (it’s pretty much my reply when I get a request like the one above):

Write the introduction for me. Seriously. You know more about your story than I do. You know the things to say that will make someone light up. I don’t. I might flub it. I can personalize it (“Hey [insert investor name]- hope your trip to [offensively exotic location] was fun. Welcome back! Listen, I wanted to introduce you to…”), but you should make the pitch. Bonus: this saves me a few minutes of writing, which is kind and thoughtful of you!
Don’t bury the lede. What’s the thing that will get an investor excited? Be concise, but talk about social proof, traction, growth, size of the market, how badass your team is, mainstream press coverage, other investors who are on board, and user passion/joy. Choose whatever distinguishes your startup from the sea of startups that investors read about every single day. Unless your product is revolutionary, spend more time talking about your market (“we’re helping companies in the billion dollar widget maker market sell doodads”) and your team than your product (“we’ve got an ajaxy shopping cart!”). If they investor blogs or has EVER talked about their investment strategy, hopefully you’ve read how they think and tune your pitch to match that.
Heap on the social proof, man! Getting an email intro from a near-stranger (me) is about the weakest social proof you can get (but it’s better than nothing). Tell us how many other investors you have soft-circled. Give us a link to a list of all of the blog posts praising you. Or all of the users tweeting about you. We’re herd animals. If the investor feels like the herd is leaving him behind, that’s a good thing.
Think about why it’s an opportunity for investors. If I’m writing to an investor about a company that looks like a credible opportunity, that’s me doing them a favor. If you don’t have any bullet points that many you look like a great opportunity, that’s me doing you a favor and adding noise to their already overflowing inbox.
Keep it short. All of the above stuff could mean a lot of content. You’ve got to pick and choose what to send and hope it’s enough bait for the investor to dig in and learn more.
Bonus points: track it. When we were talking to investors, we created custom (private) pages for each investor we were courting giving them a ton more to dig through and get excited about if they wanted. The emails were short and sweet with a “want to learn more” link at the end. We used Google analytics to track which people clicked through and which individual pages they clicked on so we could know what to focus our discussions on when we met them.

All that said, if you’ve got a great investment opportunity (with a launched product and some happy users), don’t be shy about dropping me a line if I can help (with introductions or advice).

(post scriptum: If you are in the market for introductions, you should check out VentureHacks’ StartupList!)

(post post scriptum: If you’d like to learn more about making good introductions, Chris Fralic just wrote an outstanding post for the “connector” – The Art of the Introduction)

Considering Y Combinator (or any seed funding)?

Feb 22

[Timely note! We're hosting a Y Combinator Meetup in Seattle on Thursday Feb 25... details here!]

March 3 is the deadline for YC’s Summer 2010 session. I figured that I ought to throw my thoughts out there on the decisions that lead up to the application, the app itself, and the interview process that follows (if your app makes the cut!).

Making the Decision to Apply

First off, I think the most important thing to emphasize as an entrepreneur is that you should optimize for your chance of ~~success~~ a meaningful exit, NOT the magnitude of it, should it happen. It may seem like selling for millions to Google is a foregone conclusion given how brilliant you are, but it’s not. Startup success is a tough slog with lots of randomness outside of your control. If you can trade a little bit of equity to nudge up your shot at success by a few percentage points, you should do so. Thankfully, YC from this perspective is a no-brainer. No one can argue that it doesn’t improve your shot (with the amazing mentoring they provide, the investor introductions/credibility, and PR bump), and if you calculate YC’s take is if you sell for $100m (divided by the number of founders), it isn’t too painful.
Think about what you’re building, what market you’re playing in, and whether it’s appropriate for venture financing. I think I recall reading about someone applying who was proposing to build an app to manage Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. While there’s probably a business there, it’s pretty unlikely that the pen-and-paper RPG market is going to be the next big thing to change the world. Pick a big market– or better yet, pick a small market that can eventually morph into a huge market (like classifieds for San Francisco, selling books online, or an online garage sale).
Read everything here and make sure you agree with some of it, but don’t be afraid to disagree with some of it either!
Do something bold. You aren’t going to be thinking to yourself on your deathbed that you really should’ve taken less risks. YC is a blast. You get to meet amazing mentors, other great startup founders, and a few fairly impressive robots.
Consider how committed you are to your idea/market, your company, and your co-founders. YC has plenty of flips, but the majority of ‘em seem to be going concerns for years. Can you get excited about what you’re doing (and who you’re doing it with) for 7 years?
Do a gut-check on your team. Do they have the rough ingredients necessary to kick ass? If the better mousetrap you propose to build is going to be better because of an amazing UI, make sure you have a great UI guy. If you’re doing a vertical search/UGC play, make sure someone is at least a little interested in SEO. If you’re going to sell software to businesses, make sure someone is willing to sell stuff. And, of course, if you’re tackling something with big technical challenges (like most of us are) make sure you have some great hackers.

The Application Process

Read Paul’s essays. It provides good insight into what’s important to him (and YC). Reading Founders at Work is a good idea, too. It’s a great book and shows you some patterns for startup success.
Remember that the app is a sales pitch and focus your answers on the things that are important to YC. The biggest risks to YC are:
- That you don’t have the chops to build something good. The best way to deal with this concern is to show them something good that you’ve built. Preferably several things, and preferably things that you’ve built with your co-founders.
- That you’ll get bored/discouraged and quit. So try to work in examples of times when you’ve persevered despite significant obstacles.
- That you’ll fail to make something that people want. So do what you can to show that you’re in tune with the market you’re proposing to serve. You can be a badass hacker with unflagging dedication, but if you don’t/can’t understand your users, you’re probably not going to be a big win for YC.
Don’t be too shy or too arrogant to sell. I remember reading a comment on Hacker News that said, “My code speaks for itself.” No, it doesn’t. At least, not to investors, customers, employees, reporters, and the zillions of other people out there you’re going to have to sell to.
Get working on your software ASAP. If you apply with a functional product (or even a launched product that people love), you remove a lot of the risks listed above.
Get working on the YC app ASAP. If you’re unsure, apply! The app takes a few hours and it’ll help focus your thinking if nothing else.
If possible, make sure that your whole team is ready to dive in whole hog. Starting something up is a commitment to your founders and to your new investors. Having a team member who has other commitments can be a source of contention.
Hack the system! Every session I get emails from people asking me to review their apps. I usually do. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t do this… YC founders are people who wrote successful applications and spent at least 3 months getting repeatedly kicked in the junk by Paul Graham and friends. I’m sure we must know something about how YC thinks that might not be obvious. If you can’t bring yourself to ask a stranger for some time, how are you going to raise money after YC? How are you going to hire your first employee?

The Interview

I don’t recall the stats on how many applications make the cut, but if you get asked in for an interview, congratulations! Now get to work building something (hopefully you already have).

Get started on a demo. If you walk in and start monologuing, you’ll fairly quickly get interrupted and asked to start showing stuff.
The “demo” will be less like Steve Jobs and more like Guantanamo Bay. You’ll be derailed almost instantly and peppered with questions and objections.
Have a backup idea that you’re comfortable talking about. I know several founders who were essentially told, “we don’t like that idea. Do you have any others?” This may be a test of how much you love your idea as much as anything else. Founders who refuse to pivot often die from it. It also might be a test of your ability to have good ideas. If they don’t like your idea OR your backup, they might los faith in your ability to grok what people want.
Practice. Ask 10 smart people to name 10 things that will make your idea fail. Have good responses for those objections. Don’t practice a speech. Don’t practice a 10 minute demo, practice little 1-2 minute chunks of a demo that you can string together if they leave you alone. Practice individual talking points and responses.
Be willing to be wrong but also be willing to disagree. YC doesn’t want lapdog PG fanboys(and girls!), but they also want people who are coachable and willing to learn. Don’t be afraid to say, “That’s one of the things we’re going to have to figure out, but we have a few ideas.”
Be dynamic and energetic. You’re a storyteller here. Your job is to get YC excited about your business. Make them believe that it (and YOU) are an investment opportunity. Work on eye contact, not talking to too fast, and thinking on your feet. Have someone role-play an aggressive interviewer.

That’s about all the advice I have. I’d close with this point– very very very few YC founders wouldn’t do it again in a heartbeat. It’s a killer experience and it’s certainly a needle-mover during the most fragile part of your new company’s life. Applying is cheap in terms of time and rewarding even if you don’t get asked in for an interview. Do it!

Should you move your startup to the Valley? Depends on where you are (Data included!)

Jun 12

I admit that I am a bit of a contrarian. For a long time, the contention that “if you’re doing a startup, you HAVE to be in Silicon Valley” didn’t sit well with me. Sure, talent is important– but for many startups you need only a few talented folks to prove that you’ve got something and companies like WordPress have proven that you can build a great team (literally) anywhere and everywhere (they are virtual and across the world). Sure, energy is important– but the biggest source of energy isn’t your peers– it’s the people who are finding value in your product (users and customers). And sure, you need money… Well, the Valley wins hands down here. If you need to raise money, that’s where you need to be. But more and more early stage investors seem willing to invest outside of their little patch of Californian dirt. After our stint at Y Combinator and a bit of fundraising, the decision about our startup (an employee time tracking tool) was pretty clear to us. We headed back to Seattle, where we had a rich network of geeks to work with and talk with and (more importantly) we could live cheaply and not die.

So it was with great glee that Jim Karsten took the gauntlet I threw down in my last post and mined the vaunted CrunchBase for some real live data. Now, CrunchBase is obviously NOT scientific… But it’s the biggest and most consumable dataset that I know of. Without further ado, here is a table showing startups by location and the percentage of startups in that location that have been acquired. Note: Jim has kindly put up the full scrape of data here – there are other interesting bits worth looking at.

Startup Count & Acquisition Rate, by State
	Startups	% of Total	Acquisitions	% of Total	Acquisition Rate
CA	2739	41.2%	188	53.3%	6.9%
NY	692	10.4%	34	9.6%	4.9%
MA	386	5.8%	20	5.7%	5.2%
TX	323	4.9%	19	5.4%	5.9%
WA	317	4.8%	26	7.4%	8.2%
FL	254	3.8%	3	0.8%	1.2%
NJ	227	1.8%	8	2.3%	6.6%
IL	180	2.7%	9	2.5%	5.0%
VA	164	2.5%	7	2.0%	4.3%
CO	133	2.0%	7	2.0%	5.3%
PA	131	2.0%	2	0.6%	1.5%
GA	117	1.8%	2	0.6%	1.7%
MD	94	1.4%	4	1.1%	4.3%
NC	80	1.2%	1	0.3%	1.2%
AZ	77	1.2%	1	.3%	1.3%

Disclaimer: Yes, CrunchBase is flawed for this. No, ~5% isn’t REALLY your chance at getting bought if you start a company tomorrow, etc., etc. Please don’t troll about the quality of this data. It’s still thousands of records, which is better than the alternative.

At first glance, the key number (acquisition RATE) doesn’t seem markedly different. Heck, if you live in Virginia, CrunchBase tells you that you have a 4.3% shot at an exit… Why move to California for a measely 6.9%? But I think it’s better to focus on the fact that you’d be increasing your exit shot by *over 50%* with such a move. With acquisition rate being as vanishingly small as it is, nudging up a few percentage points is a huge deal.

But overall, as a contarian (AND as a resident of Washington State– the big winner by a nice margin), I was pleased by the results. The bottom line? It’s hard to quantify the COST of moving to a startup (months of distraction, expense, stress, loss of social network, etc), but my gut says (as it always has) that if you live in a technology hub like Seattle, NYC, Boston or Austin– hunker down and start building value- your success is based on how much value you can give versus how much you take.

Edit: some interesting insight from John Cook over here.

Just How Important is the Valley? Let’s Look at some Data.

Apr 17

[Edit: Added the raw data in a table at the end]

Some of the smartest startup brains I’ve ever met have said that if you want to be in the startup game, you MUST be in the Valley. There are plenty of justifications out there for it, and many/most of them make a fair bit of sense. Recently, Paul Graham posted another great essay on the topic, and said:

The second idea is that startups are a type of business that flourishes in certain places that specialize in it—that Silicon Valley specializes in startups in the same way Los Angeles specializes in movies, or New York in finance. [1]

What if both are true? What if startups are both a new economic phase and also a type of business that only flourishes in certain centers?

I don’t know the truth of Silicon Valley’s gravity (or more importantly, how that gravity is trending) but the idea of it doesn’t sit right with me. Emotionally, I found myself wanting to agree with Aaron Swartz and Glenn Kelmann rather than Ron Conway, Mike Arrington, and PG (which is pretty much the only time that’s ever happened).

So as an exercise in digital outsourcing, I took some public lists of technology acquisitions in 2007 and 2008 and paid some nameless person in some nameless town a few dollars to research the locations of those companies when they were acquired. The results surprised me. Here’s the spreadsheet, if anyone wants to fiddle with it (in hindsight, I should’ve used the CrunchBase API– if someone wants to dive in and do this, I’d love to see it).

Highlights, Acquisitions in 2007 / 2008
225 total acquisitions on the list (110 in ’07 and 115 in ’08)
175 (77%) were in the USA
63 (28%) were in the Valley
Top states beyond CA were NY (19), WA (14), MA (11), TX (6), IL (5), NJ (5).
Israel and the UK were dominant internationally

Removing Acquisitions with Prices under $20mm or Undisclosed
(This was in response to the thought that the non-valley acquisitions were the small one)
110 total
91 USA (82%)
28 in the Valley (25%)

The Really Frakkin’ Interesting Bit
In 2007, 45 of 110 (41%) acquired companies were in the Valley. In 2008, only 18 of 115 (16%) were.

Now, 1 year does not a trend make. And, this is some pretty amateurish research and number crunching. The numbers that I really want (which is really hard to find) are the denominators. In other words, how many valley startups spun up in these years versus the rest of the world? Does the Valley meaningfully change the chances of startup founders making it? And how have these numbers changed over the past 5-10 years?

My theory?

The core things that REALLY matters to build a v1 software startup are (in order of important):

having the will to build one
Silicon Valley used to have a pretty serious monopoly on people who wanted to be technology entrepreneurs. I think that’s changing– the number of people who are getting their feet wet with entrepreneurship outside of the Valley seems to be skyrocketing. People don’t want to be doctors and lawyers any more– they want to own their own companies. And as entrepreneurs in non-Valley locations see exits, it inspires a new crop in their home town.
building something that people really freakin’ want to have
The Valley offers no edge here– in fact, some people wonder if the “echo chamber” doesn’t actually get in the way of understanding the rest of the world.
having the team/resources/cash to get your product to market
THIS is where the Valley has always dominated. But I think that’s changing. We’ve all seen how cheap it is to start a software company nowadays (though you might still need VCs to GROW it).

In terms of teams– clearly if you’re going to be recruiting lots of geeks, you want to be in the Valley. Or do you? I’ve heard that WordPress has a virtual team all over the world and they seem to be doing okay. With all of the great information on software development and startups and with the fabulous open-source projects out there, maybe it’s getting easier to get to be a great hacker outside of the Valley. And, just as the cost of building a startup has gone down, the manpower necessary to build a v1 product has gone down as well. So MAYBE you need to move your startup to the Valley when it’s time to ramp up, but I’m not convinced you need the Valley to collect two or three motivated hackers.
Note: I think distribution magic and TAM (total addressable market) are hugely important for magnitude of startup success… But that’s a different post.

There is no doubt that Silicon Valley wins. Even a paltry 16% of 2008′s acquisitions is a staggering number for a little cluster of cities in northern California. But it’s not as big a monopoly as I might have guessed. Maybe that 1 year trend is starting to show that the institutional dollars in the Valley aren’t as important as they were in years past (or heck, maybe those funds are looking beyond their traditional borders). And maybe all of those great technologies that allow us to connect with people around the world are helping entrepreneurs connect with the energy and relationships that the valley brings the the table.

Again, Big Dislaimer: This is quickly googled data, outsourced research, and quick-n-dirty spreadsheeting. And, of course, acquisitions are an imperfect measure of success. AND, each startup/market/region is different. Bad science all around. Just a conversation starter, really.

Raw Data:

Acquired	Acquirer	Acquisition cost	Year	City	State	Country
Moniker	Oversee.net	$65 Million	2008	Pompano Beach	FL	USA
Bodybuilding.com	Liberty Media	$100 Million	2008	Meridian	ID	USA
CleverSet	Art Technology Group (ATG)	$10 Million	2008	Seattle	WA	USA
Anywhere.FM	Imeem	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco	CA	USA
Audible	Amazon	$300 Million	2008	Newark	NJ	USA
Maven Networks	Yahoo	$160 Million	2008	Boston	MA	USA
FoxyTunes	Yahoo	Undisclosed	2008			Israel
Vehix	Comcast	Undisclosed	2008	Salt Lake City	UT	USA
HotOrNot	Avid Life Media	$20 Million	2008	San Francisco	CA	USA
Compete	Taylor Nelson Sofres	$75-150 Million	2008	London		UK
BlogDigger	Odeo	Undisclosed	2008	Washington, D.C	DC	USA
Auctomatic	Communicate	$5 Million	2008	San Francisco	CA	USA
BeInSync	Phoenix Technologies	$25 Million	2008	Tel Aviv		Israel
Prospero	Mzinga	Undisclosed	2008	Burlington	MA	USA
Social Platform	Onesite	Undisclosed	2008	Los Angeles	CA	USA
Pluck	Demand Media	$75 Million	2008	Austin	TX	USA
Bebo	AOL	$850 Million	2008	San Francisco	CA	USA
Sway	Cornerworld	$30 Million	2008	Middleton	WI	USA
buy.at	AOL	$150 Million	2008	London		UK
YaData	Microsoft	Undisclosed	2008	Tel Aviv, Israel		Israel
Weblistic	Spot Runner	Undisclosed	2008	Fremont, CA	CA	USA
XIV	IBM	$350 Million	2008	Tel Aviv, Israel		Israel
Apertio	Nokia Siemens	$206 Million	2008	Bristol, UK		UK
Onaro	Network Appliance	$120 Million	2008	Boston, MA	MA	USA
MySQL	Sun Microsystems	$1 Billion	2008	Uppsala, Sweden		Sweden
Trolltech	Nokia	$153 Million	2008	Oslo, Norway		Norway
Fraud Sciences	eBay (Paypal)	$169 Million	2008	Tel Aviv, Israel		Israel
E-Dialog	GSI Commerce	$157 Million	2008	Lexington, MA	MA	USA
MessageOne	Dell	$155 Million	2008	Austin, Texas	TX	USA
G-Technology	Fabrik	Undisclosed	2008	Santa Ana, CA	CA	USA
Danger	Microsoft	$500 Million	2008	Palo Alto, CA	CA	USA
Caligari	Microsoft	Undisclosed	2008	Mountain View, CA	CA	USA
Twhirl	Seesmic	Undisclosed	2008			Germany
Pageflakes	Live Universe	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Sphere	AOL	$25 Million	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Farecast	Microsoft	$115 Million	2008	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Activeweave	Buzzlogic	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Fleaflicker	AOL	Undisclosed	2008	Tenafly, NJ	NJ	USA
Expensr	Strands	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
gBox	eFORCE	Undisclosed	2008	Cupertino, CA	CA	USA
MeeVee	Live Universe	Undisclosed	2008	Burlingame, CA	CA	USA
Inquisitor	Yahoo	Undisclosed	2008	Sunnyvale, CA	CA	USA
Cnet	CBS	$1.8 Billion	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Ars Technica	Conde Nast	$25 Million	2008	Chicago, Illinois	IL	USA
StarBrand Media	Sugar Inc.	Undisclosed	2008	Los Angeles, Ca	CA	USA
M:Metrics	ComScore	$44 Million	2008	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Celebrity Baby Blog	People.com	Undisclosed	2008	New York, NY	NY	USA
Snapvine	WhitePages.com	$20 Million	2008	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
SwapDrive	Symantec	$123 Million	2008	Washington, D.C	DC	USA
Hostopia.com	Deluxe	$122 Million	2008	Mississauga, ON, Canada		CA
Imity	Zyb	Undisclosed	2008	Copenhagen, Denmark		Denmark
Rupture	Electronic Arts	$30 Million	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
ZYB	Vodafone	$50 Million	2008	Copenhagen, Denmark		Denmark
StarNet Interactive	IAC	Undisclosed	2008	Tel Aviv, Israel		Israel
Plazes	Nokia	Undisclosed	2008	Berlin, Germany		Germany
Adify	Cox Enterprises	$300 Million	2008	San Bruno, CA	CA	USA
Personifi	Collective Media	Undisclosed	2008	Fort Worth, TX	TX	USA
Navic Networks	Microsoft	Undisclosed	2008	Waltham, MA	MA	USA
Gracenote	Sony	$260 Million	2008	Emeryville, CA	CA	USA
Simple Star	Sonic Solutions	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Diligent	IBM	Undisclosed	2008	Framingham, MA	MA	USA
EDS	HP	$13.9 Billion	2008	Plano, TX	TX	USA
Hands-On Mobile Korea	Electronic Arts	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
B-hive Networks	Vmware	Undisclosed	2008	Herzliya, Israel		Israel
OpenAir	NetSuite	$26 Million	2008	Boston, MA	MA	USA
Let It Wave	Zoran Corporation	$27.6 Million	2008	Paris, France		France
Practique Associates	Merced Systems	Undisclosed	2008	Bracknell, UK		UK
MusicGremlin	SanDisk	Undisclosed	2008	New York, NY	NY	USA
Skywire	Oracle	Undisclosed	2008	Las Vegas, NV	NV	USA
Symbian	Nokia	Undisclosed	2008
Alltel	Verizon	$28.1 Billion	2008	Little Rock, AR	AR	USA
Helio	Virgin Mobile	$39 Million	2008	Los Angeles, CA	CA	USA
Iomega	EMC	$213 Million	2008	San Diego, CA	CA	USA
Powerset	Microsoft	$100 Million	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Weather Channel	NBC Universal	$3.5 Billion	2008	Atlanta, GA	GA	USA
HaloScan	JS-Kit	Undisclosed	2008
Imagekind	CaféPress	$20 Million	2008	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Truemors	NowPublic	undisclosed	2008	Palo Alto, CA	CA	USA
ContentNextMedia	Guardian Media Group	$30 Million	2008	Santa Monica, CA	CA	USA
PodTech	ViewPartner	$500 K	2008	Palo Alto, CA	CA	USA
jkOnTheRun	GigaOm	undisclosed	2008	Houston, TX	TX	USA
Omnisio	Google	unidsclosed	2008	Atherton, CA	CA	USA
AbeBooks	Amazon	undisclosed	2008	Victoria, Canada		CA
DailyCandy	Comcast	$125 Million	2008	New York, NY	NY	USA
Blogcritics	Technorati	undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Ciao (Greenfield Online)	Microsoft	$486 Million	2008	Connecticutm, MA	MA	USA
social.im	iSkoot	undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Peerflix	LiveUniverse	undisclosed	2008	Palo Alto, CA,	CA	USA
Napster	BestBuy	$121 Million	2008	Los Angeles, CA	CA	USA
YoVille	Zynga	undisclosed	2008
PartnerUp	Deluxe	undisclosed	2008	Shoreview, MN	MN	USA
Socialthing!	AOL	undisclosed	2008	Boulder, CA	CA	USA
ZAO Begun	Google	$140 Million	2008	Moscow, Russia		Russia
Jabber	Cisco	undisclosed	2008	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Pure Networks	Cisco	$120 Million	2008	Denver, CO	CO	USA
Ribbit	British Telecom	$105 Million	2008	Mountain View, CA	CA	USA
PostPath	Cisco	$215 Million	2008	Mountain View, CA	CA	USA
Lefthand Networks	HP	$360 Million	2008	Boulder, CO	CO	USA
Bitwine	Monster Venture Partners	Undisclosed	2008	Tenafly, NJ	NJ	USA
DBA	Ebay	$383 Million	2008	Denmark		Denmark
Bill Me Later	Ebay	$820 Million	2008	Omaha, NE	NE	USA
Polldaddy	Automattic	Undisclosed	2008	Sligo, Ireland		Ireland
JungleDisk	Rackspace	$11.5 Million	2008	Atlanta, GA	GA	USA
Wayport	AT&T	$275 Million	2008	Austin, TX	TX	USA
RuTube	GazProm Media	$15 Million	2008	Moscow, Russia		Russia
Clickpass	Synthasite	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Revolution Health	Waterfront Media	$100 Million	2008	Brooklyn, NY	NY	USA
socialmedian	XING	$15 Million	2008	New York, NY	NY	USA
AdEngage	Technorati	Undisclosed	2008	Los Angeles, CA	CA	USA
acerno	Akamai	$95 Million	2008	New York, NY	NY	USA
Lookery	Adknowledge	Undisclosed	2008	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Centennial	AT&T	$944 Million	2008	Wall, NJ	NJ	USA

Feedburner	Google	$100 Million	2007	Chicago, IL	IL	USA
Treehugger	Discovery	$10 Million	2007	Brooklyn, NY	NY	USA
UGo	Hearst	$100 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Fireant	Odeo	$400000	2007
Insider Pages	CitySearch/IAC	$13 Million	2007	Redwood Shores, CA	CA	USA
RedSwoosh	Akamai	$15 Million	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Webdialogs	IBM	$161 Million	2007	Billerica, MA	MA	USA
Flektor	Fox Interactive	$20 Million	2007	Culver City, CA	CA	USA
Sidestep	Kayak	$200 Million	2007	Santa Clara, CA	CA	USA
Mediabistro	Jupiter Media	$23 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Hitwise	Experian	$240 Million	2007	Melbourne, NY	NY	USA
HowStuffWorks	Discovery	$250 Million	2007	Atlanta, GA	GA	USA
PhotoBucket	Fox Interactive	$250 Million	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
PRWeb	Vocus	$28 Million	2007	Ferndale, WA	WA	USA
BuzzTracker	Yahoo	$2-$5 Million	2007	Chicago, IL	IL	USA
WebEx	Cisco	$3.2 Billion	2007	Santa Clara, CA	CA	USA
StubHub	eBay	$310 Million	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Business.com	R.H. Donnelley	$345 Million	2007	Santa Monica, CA	CA	USA
MeziMedia	ValueClick	$352 Million	2007	Los Angeles, CA	CA	USA
StumbleUpon	eBay	$45 Million	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Wallstrip	CBS	$5 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Optimost	Interwoven	$52 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Mozy	EMC	$76 Million	2007	Pleasant Grove, UT	UT	USA
SmartShopper	Zango	$9 Million	2007	Tel Aviv, Israel		USA
Ingenio	AT&T	Not Disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Yedda	AOL	Not Disclosed	2007	Tel Aviv, Israel		Israel
dpreview.com	Amazon	Not Disclosed	2007	London, UK		UK
Virtual Ubiquity	Adobe	Not Disclosed	2007	Waltham, MA	MA	USA
Jumpcut	Yahoo	Not Disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
WhereOnEarth	Yahoo	Not Disclosed	2007	London, UK		UK
Grub	Wikia	Not Disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Blogniscient	TopTenSources	Not Disclosed	2007	Newton, MA	MA	USA
InviteShare	TechCrunch	Not Disclosed	2007	Atherton, CA	CA	USA
Odeo	SonicMountain	Not Disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Cuts	RiffTrax	Not Disclosed	2007
JobLoft.com	onTargetjobs	Not Disclosed	2007	Toronto, Canada		CA
Billmonk	Obopay	Not Disclosed	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
BarelyPolitical.com	NextNewNetworks	Not Disclosed	2007	Ambler, PA	PA	USA
MedStory	Microsoft	Not Disclosed	2007	Foster City, CA	CA	USA
Feed Crier	IMified	Not Disclosed	2007	Sacramento, CA	CA	USA
Tabblo	HP	Not Disclosed	2007	Cambridge, MA	MA	USA
Logoworks	HP	Not Disclosed	2007	Lindon, Utah	UT	USA
Trendalyzer	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	Stockholm, Sweden		Sweden
Tonic Systems	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Panoramio	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	Spain		Spain
Strategic Data Corp	Fox Interactive	Not Disclosed	2007	Santa Monica, CA	CA	USA
Parakey	Facebook	Not Disclosed	2007	Mountain View, CA	CA	USA
Cricinfo	ESPN	Not Disclosed	2007	London, UK		UK
Afterbuy.com	eBay	Not Disclosed	2007	Krefeld, Germany		Germany
metaStories	Brightcove	Not disclosed	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Movielink	Blockbuster	$50 Million	2007	Santa Monica, CA	CA	USA
Gravatar	Automattic	Not disclosed	2007
FotoLog	Hi-Media	$90 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Max Preps	CBS	$43 Million	2007	Sacramento, CA	CA	USA
Club Penguin	Disney	$700 Million	2007	Brighton, GBR		UK
AdultFriendFinder	Penthouse Media Group	$500M	2007	Palo Alto, CA	CA	USA
Jellyfish	Microsoft	$50 Million	2007	Madison, WI	WI	USA
WebShots	American Greetings	$45 Million	2007	Redwood City, CA	CA	USA
Kaboodle	Hearst	$30 Million	2007	Newbury, Berkshire, UK		UK
Last.fm	CBS	$280 Million	2007	London, UK		UK
Fandango	Comcast	$200 Million	2007	Los Angeles, CA	CA	USA
MyBlogLog	Yahoo	$10 Million	2007	Orlando, FL	FL	USA
Rivals.com	Yahoo	$100 Million	2007	Brentwood, TN	TN	USA
BOOMj.com	Time Lending California	Not Disclosed	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Glimpse	TheFind.com	Not Disclosed	2007
TripUp	SideStep	Not Disclosed	2007	Los Angeles, CA	CA	USA
mbuzzy.com	SendMe Mobile	Not Disclosed	2007	San Mateo, CA	CA	USA
Pickle.com	Scripps Networks	$4.1 Million	2007	Arlington, VA	VA	USA
Zingfu.com	Profile Builder	Not Disclosed	2007	Milwaukee, WI	WI	USA
Newsvine	MSNBC	Not Disclosed	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
WebFives	Microsoft	Not Disclosed	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Jaiku	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	Helsinki, Finland		Finland
Clipmarks	Forbes Media	$30 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
SingShot	EA	Not Disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
BuddyTV	Comcast	Not disclosed	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Five Across Inc.	Cisco	Not disclosed	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Tribe	Cisco	Not disclosed	2007	Los Gatos, CA	CA	USA
Twango	Nokia	$96.8 Million	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
Doubleclick	Google	$3.1 Billion	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
aQuantive	Microsoft	$6 Billion	2007	Seattle, WA	WA	USA
BlueLithium	Yahoo	$300 Million	2007	San Jose, CA	CA	USA
Quigo	AOL	$340 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
24/7 Real Media	WPP	$649 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
Tacoda	AOL	$275 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
RightMedia	Yahoo	$680 Million	2007	New York, NY	NY	USA
AdTech	AOL	Not Disclosed	2007	Frankfurt, Germany		Germany
Enpocket	Nokia	Not Disclosed	2007	Boston, MA	MA	USA
ScreenTonic	Microsoft	Not Disclosed	2007	Paris, France		France
Cognos	IBM	$4.9 Billion	2007	Ottawa, Canada		CA
Zimbra	Yahoo	$350M	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Opsware	HP	$1.6 Billion	2007	Sunnyvale, CA	CA	USA
EqualLogic	Dell	$1.4 Billion	2007	Nashua, NH	NH	USA
Koral	SalesForce.com	Not Disclosed	2007	California	CA	USA
devBiz	Microsoft	Not Disclosed	2007	NJ	NJ	USA
Global Care Solutions	Microsoft	Not Disclosed	2007	Bangkok, Thailand		Thailand
GreenBorder Technologies	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	Mountain View, CA	CA	USA
PeakStream	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	Redwood City , CA	CA	USA
Latigent	Cisco	Not disclosed	2007	Chicago, IL	IL	USA
TellMe Networks	Microsoft	$800 Million	2007	Mountain View, CA	CA	USA
Postini	Google	$625 Million	2007	San Carlos, CA	CA	USA
GrandCentral	Google	$45 Million	2007	Fremont, CA	CA	USA
VoiceStar	Marchex	$28 Million	2007	Philadelphia, PA	PA	USA
Avaya	Silver Lake & TPG	$8.2 Billion	2007	London, UK		UK
3Com	Bain Capital Partners	$2.2B	2007	Santa Clara, CA	CA	USA
Gaming Everywhere	Ujogo	Not Disclosed	2007	San Diego, CA	CA	USA
Adscape	Google	$23 Million	2007	San Francisco, CA	CA	USA
Havok	Intel	$110 Million	2007	Dublin, Ireland		Ireland
Vexcel	Microsoft	Not Disclosed	2007	Boulder, CO	CO	USA
ImageAmerica	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	Clayton, MO	MO	USA
Keyhole	Google	Not Disclosed	2007	California	CA	USA
NavTeq	Nokia	$8.1 Billion	2007	Chicago, Illinois	IL	USA