Lunch Links - March 25th, 2014

Major Moves

EDIT:  Several sources are reporting a deal for Facebook to purchase Oculus VR, maker of Oculus Rift, for $2 Billion in cash and stock.  More on this tomorrow.  


Box, the cloud content management file-hosting site, filed publicly for an Initial Public Offering under the NYSE ticker "BOX" yesterday, revealing plans to raise around $250M through the IPO.  In light of Box's propensity to burn through capital, a notable line in the S-1 states "We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future."  (You can read through the S-1's risk factor page here.) Whether that's enough to deter investors in a white-hot file sharing space remains to be seen.

King Digital, the digital entertainment company behind Candy Crush Saga, announced its intentions to go public this week, setting its IPO valuation as high as $7.6B.  Despite fears of a "dot-com"-like bubble, its important to note that, unlike Box, King has both significant profits and a profitable track record.

Dan Primack of Fortune.com offers a stat comparison of King to competitor Zynga, which had a 2011 IPO that notably fell flat.

For context, Zynga opened trading today with a $4.3 billion market cap, while King is looking for an initial market cap of between $6.6 billion and $7.5 billion (based on a $21-$24 per share IPO offering range). In the below stats, the first figure is for King Digital while the second figure is for Zynga:

2013 Revenue: $1.88 billion vs. $873 million

2013 profit (loss): $568m vs. ($37m)

2013 Adjusted EBITDA: $825m vs. $46.5m

Avg monthly active users (Q4 13): 408m vs. 112m

Avg daily active users (Q4 13): 124m vs. 27m

Monthly unique payers (Q4 13): 12.16m vs. 1.3m

Employees: 665 vs. 2,034

Palo Alto Networks buys Israeli cyber-security startup Cyvera for $200M, and Blackstone Group announces early intentions to open an office in Israel.  Recent interest in Israel's startup scene has been driven by its high GDP growth, low unemployment, and low inflation.

RelateIQ, a company looking to automate tedious manual data entry tasks in offices, raised $40M in a Series C funding round led by Redpoint Ventures and joined by KPCB and News Corp.  VentureBeat notes RelateIQ's more data-driven approach may help it unseat larger competitors in the CRM space, such as Salesforce.com.

Personal Blogs

One of my favorite VC bloggers, Tomasz Tunguz, dives into Box's S-1 filing, comparing 7 key metrics to other SaaS companies.

Marketer Seth Godin pens a lighthearted piece about musical chairs, and why he thinks teaching kids to make the team is okay, but teaching them to make a team is great.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures talks ageism, and why the older generation is still relevant in a youth-centric tech field.

Lists and Lessons

MIT Tech Review lists 5 interesting things about the Box IPO, including that Box doesn't actually own or run any data canters.

FastCompany gives a few management anecdotes from Juice Software founder Kim Scott, a boss who "actually gives a damn."

Lunch Links - March 24th, 2014

Major Moves

Actifio, a Boston-area startup, just eclipsed a $1B valuation through a $100M round led by investment firm Tiger Global Management, alongside VC funds Andressen Horowitz and Greylock Partners.  Actifio works to solve the problem of "copy data" by integrating otherwise-independent data protection and recovery backup systems.  The new valuation puts Actifio alongside e-commerce site Wayfair as the only two billion-dollar valued Boston companies.

Stir, a startup founded by ex-Apple engineer JP Labrosse, raised $1.5M in a round led by Tony Hsieh's Vegas TechFund.  Stir builds kinetic standing office desks to counter the epidemic of long-term sitting in office gigs, recently nicknamed Silicon Valley Syndrome.

OPower, a Virginia-based SaaS company that promotes personalized energy efficiency action, announced terms for its IPO at $110 million by offering 6.1 million shares.

CVC Capital Partners, a PE firm based in London with offices in NYC and Hong Kong, lands investment from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) for its £1.8bn Asia-focused fund.  This comes on the heels of CVC's reducing its stake in Indonesian department store Matahari.

Personal Blogs

Angel investor and blogger, "Gotham Gal" Joanne Wilson showcases Cameron Houser of Given Goods in her Woman Entrepreneur Monday column.  Given Goods, a Boulder, Colorado-based online marketplace for products that give a percentage of the price to non-profits around the world, joined TechStars back in May 2013.

Speaking of women founders, YC's Sam Altman offers a long essay on "What I've Learned From Female Founders So Far", the title of which reminds me of numerous middle school essays.  Given the controversy stirred up by his predecessor Paul Graham three months ago, it's good to see Altman attempting to clarify his views.

Tomasz Tunguz, a principal at Redpoint Ventures, gives a great explanation of the "Bike Rack Effect" - why companies often get swept up in debating simple things but gloss over complicated problems.

Lunch Links - March 21st, 2014

Major Moves

Airbnb is in talks to raise another round funding, possible valuing them at a cool $10 Billion, according to Wall Street Journal.  Compare this to hotel Hyatt's $8.4 Billion valuation, or Marriott's $15.9 B.

Gigwalk, an app-based startup that allows brand managers insight into how their campaigns is working through their network of 500,000 "gigwalkers", has raised $10 Million in Series B funding.

Pley, a San Jose startup offering, of all things, LEGO block rental, has raised $6.8 Million in a Venture Round led by Allegro Ventures, valuing them at $20 Million.  Taking advantage of people's desire to access, rather than own, Pley lends their subscribers lego sets, weighs and sanitizes the sets after receiving them back, and ships them off to new subscribers.  If you're a messy builder, don't fear - Pley allows its subscribers to lose an average of 15 pieces in each set without penalty.


Personal Blogs

Angel investor and blogger, "Gotham Gal" Joanne Wilson gives a small look into Las Vegas' Downtown Project, led by Tony Hsieh of Zappos.

Venture Capitalist Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures uses a few graphs to illustrate that obtaining Series B funding is much, much more difficult than Series A.

North Carolina-based business strategy speaker and travel photographer James Clear explains why scheduling is actually the key to creativity.


Lessons and Lists

Lisa McGreevy of Entrepreneur.com lists 5 habits of successful social media campaigns.

Inc.com interviews Seth Godin, founder of Squidoo.com christened "America's Greatest Marketer" by American Way Magazine.  Seth explains that too many forget that marketing is about the customer, not the brand.

Speaking of which, Seth Godin blogs about increasing perceived value, rather than decreasing actual profits.