The Venture Intelligence Blog

The Deal Blogs has an article providing a listing of Khosla Ventures' portfolio companies based on a recent speech by VK. Most of the companies are based around the general themes of making coal, materials, efficiency and oil more efficient. Then, he further refines them by grouping his investments according to the type of energy that the portfolio companies are trying to improve or harness. Here are the specific investment themes and companies that fall into each category: 1) Cellulosic - Mascoma, Celunol, Range Fuels, 1 stealth startup 2) Future Fuels - LS9, Gevo, Amyris Biotechnologies, Coskata Energy 3) Efficiency - Transonic Combustion, GroupIV Semiconductor, 1 stealth startup 4) Homes - Living Homes, Global Homes 5) Natural Gas - Great Point Energy 6) Solar - Stion, Ausra 7) Tools - Nanostellar, Codon Devices, Praj 8) Water - 2 stealth startup 9) Plastic - Segetis, 1 stealth startup 10) Corn/Sugar Fuels - Altra, Cilion, Hawaii Bio Arun...

Deepak Thomas and Vineet Buch have published a case study on YouTube. The reasons behind Google’s acquisition seem quite intuitive. YouTube falls in line with Google’s strategy of converting user visits to its properties into contextual advertising revenue. YouTube’s huge user-base combined with its own user base gives Google formidable market power and the ability to influence consumer behavior. Also, while the prospect of YouTube being acquired by one of the media giants was slim, the acquisition did serve to deter competitors like Yahoo from making further inroads into the online video-sharing market. For Sequoia Capital, YouTube’s main investor, the investment turned out to be a huge success. Sequoia had initially invested $3.5 million at a pre-money valuation of $15 million and another $8 million in a second round of funding. Sequoia is estimated to have owned approximately 30% of YouTube, for a stake valued at $495M. This represents a 43X return on invested capital in less than ...

Economic Times has an article on how corporate law firms are benefiting from the boom in PE and M&A deals. Industry observers believe that the revenues at India’s leading law firms which operate in this space like FoxMandal Little, AZB & Partners, Amarchand Mangaldas, Majmudar & Co, DSK Legal and Mulla & Mulla have gone up considerably. They believe many firms will hit record earnings numbers this year. Cyril Shroff, managing partner of Amarchand Mangaldas said: ”We see more private equity deals and inbound-outbound corporate activity in 2007. ” So when and where exactly does a law firm come into the picture during a deal? Akil Hirani, managing partner, Majmudar & Co says that there are three primary occasions when law firms are always present: term sheet signing, due diligence and during the final negotiation and contract document signing. That the business is booming can be seen by the activity at the firm these days. Mr Hirani says that these days when they are ...

Speaking at Internet & Mobile Connect , Probir Roy, Co-founder & Director of Paymate, described how his company went about raising venture capital and the challenges during the process. Saying that it took Paymate a total of 10 months from the time of active scouting for VC funding and eight months from the first meeting with the eventual investors, Roy broke down the time it took for various stages of the capital raising process. “The initial meeting to term sheet took 10 weeks. From the term-sheet to definitive agreement/shareholders agreement took six months,” he said. The money remittance however happened within four months of the terms sheet - prior to any formal agreement being signed up. “Don’t be daunted by paperwork, there is nothing you can do about it,” Roy added. Probir Roy of Paymate Pointing out how even a leading VC firm like Kleiner Perkins does not carry much name recall in India, Roy emp...

Speaking at Internet & Mobile Connect , Alok Mittal, Executive Director of Canaan Partners, emphasized the need for Mobile VAS companies to “own the customer” as well as directly create demand for their applications. This would be the best way for them to get a larger share of the consumer’s spending. “We are seeing companies in India that get a 50:50 revenue share with operators as long as they have something unique to offer and they own the customer.” Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners ( Right) Communication, Entertainment and Information would be his order of preference among services in the mobile sector, Mittal said. Pointing out that the sheer number of communication applications on the mobile platform was very limited compared to the Internet – including in terms of group communication, publishing, etc - Mittal said there was plenty of scope for entrepreneurs to come up with innovative products and ser...

Speaking at Internet & Mobile Connect , Avnish Bajaj, Managing Director of Matrix Partners India, said said how while in 1999-2000, perception of Internet-based businesses was ahead of reality, over the past few years, it has been the other way around. “Since investors have had such a negative perception, today we have a situation where while the audience is clearly there, there is a lack of compelling services and content.” He pointed out how India is among the few markets in the world where traditional media companies have latched on to the Internet quite early and ensured there wasn’t enough time for strong stand-alone businesses to emerge. Avnish Bajaj of Matrix Partners India There is more opportunity for utilitarian applications in the Indian context than self-actualization ones, Bajaj added. Pointing to the success of the Indian Railways’ online ticket booking service, he said as long as there are compelling enough applications, companies can build significant businesses by ...

Venture Intelligence organized “Internet & Mobile Connect”, a roundtable focused on opportunities and challenges for Venture Capital investing in Internet-based services and Mobile Value Added Services companies. The event, which was held on March 15 in Mumbai, brought together over 150 participants. The event was sponsored by leading Venture Capital firm Canaan Partners . You can view the post event newsletter here . Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports.