Like many of you, I last night was stunned to read about a 55-employee company called WhatsApp selling to Facebook for $19 billion. Like me, you probably had the following feelings shoot through your brain: shock, awe, admiration, and jealousy. But, amidst all the media, one story stuck with me. Scott Kirsner Tweeted out an
Category: Technology and VC
Azuki (And, Cable TV Is Almost Dead)
Congratulations, Team Azuki! Telecom giant Ericsson last week purchased Azuki Systems, our first investment in Kepha 1. It was a very meaningful event for our first VC fund, and we’re very happy. Xconomy’s Greg Huang wrote about the acquisition here. The BBJ’s Kyle Alspach wrote here about Ericsson’s big hiring push. Azuki technology can now
Kepha’s Fund 2
I try to reflect more at year-end, and so, I thought I’d write here about our first year investing from Kepha’s Fund 2. We’re very grateful to our LPs for supporting us with another fund. We cut over to Fund 2 spring of 2012 and we’ve since made six seed investments. We plan on continuing that
Money and Arrogance
Business Insider recently published a story called “Silicon Valley Is Living Inside a Bubble of Tone-Deaf Arrogance.” It highlighted a number of incidents in the Bay area regarding wealth and the ensuing self-confidence it can create. I don’t know the people in the article, and I don’t want to judge them. But, I can write that
An Email Exchange at 11 p.m.
I was surprised last night at 11 pm to get an email from one of my CEOs. His flight was cancelled due to bad weather and he was going to have to bush-whack his way home on a train. He was also feeling pretty run down, he admitted. So, we emailed back and forth and
One Way to Think About E-Commerce Start-Ups
Now that e-commerce appears to be less hot, we’re increasingly looking at the category. As I’ve written in the past, Customer Acquisition Cost is a key driver of the business. Another thing we look at in particular is industry structure. Specifically, we look at the supply chain and try to see where the “fat” is