Today, during our Social Currency CrunchUp, angel investor Ron Conway had some interesting data to share for the first time. Conway says that his company, SV Angel, has recently done an audit on the over 500 companies they’ve invested in over the past 12 years. And he was surprised with the results.
Conway expected it would show that about one-third of companies fail, one-third get investors their money back, and one-third bring a 2x to Google-x return (Conway invested in Google early on). But that’s not the case. Conway noticed that during the Internet Bubble in 1997 to 2001 — the failure rate (startups that go out of business and the investors get nothing) was a staggering 77 percent. “It was catastrophic,” he said. → Read More
Today at our Social Currency CrunchUp in Palo Alto, CA, Michael Arrington sat down with investors Ron Conway and Paul Graham. Obviously, these are two of the biggest names in early-stage investing (with SV Angel and Y Combinator, respectively).
Both Conway and Graham had some interesting data to share. Conway, in particular, was able to give some great numbers because he’s recently done an audit on the over 500 companies he’s invested in over the past 12 years. → Read More
Making buzz happen online is an elusive enterprise, but BuzzFeed is making a business around it. The New York City startup just raised an $8 million series B financing, led by RRE Ventures. Ron Conway (via SV Angel) and Chris Dixon (via Founder Collective) also invested. BuzzFeed previously raised a $3.5 million series A in 2008 from Hearst, Softbank, and Ken Lerer (who all put in more money this round as well).
BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti was one of the original founding partners of the Huffington Post. Ken Lerer is the chairman of both companies, and also an investor in BuzzFeed. Peretti moved on to BuzzFeed, which tracks and promotes viral video, articles, and other content across the Web. Peretti is also the guy behind the Rejection Line and other online pranks. BuzzFeed’s business is helping publishers like Time, the Huffington Post, brands like Viacom or ad agencies spread the buzz. → Read More
Super-angel Ron Conway, who is one of the most prolific and successful investors in Silicon Valley, is expanding his SV Angel fund to include outside investors (recently he has invested only his own capital in startups). He is raising a new fund of around $10 million, we’ve confirmed.
Conway, who was called the “Godfather of Silicon Valley” in a book by Gary Rivlin, is considered by many to be the most important angel investor in technology. He sees most new startups before anyone else, and an investment by his firm is a serious milestone. His deep ties to most top tier venture capital firms also ensure quick introductions and a long look when the time comes to raise a second and larger round of capital.
He was one of the first investors in Google, and has, he says, invested in hundreds of startups over the last twenty years. His current investments include Facebook Twitter, Digg and just about every other startup of note you’ve heard about.
In other words, he isn’t going to have any trouble finding takers for this $10 million fund. → Read More
Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is starting a new startup called Asana to solve enterprise collaboration, and he just closed a $9 million series A round from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen-Horowitz. this follows $1.2 million angel round last spring from investors including Ron Conway, Peter Thiel, Mitch Kapor, MySpace CEO Owen van Natta, Sean Parker, and former Facebook Director of Mobile Jed Stremel.
Moskovitz, who was Facebook’s first CTO, founded Asana with another former Facebook (and before that, Google) engineer, Justin Rosenstein. Matt Cohler, also a former Facebook executive who is now a partner at Benchmark, will be taking a seat on Asana’s board. And two of its investors, Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel, currently sit on Facebook’s board. → Read More
When we first covered real-time photo-blogging service DailyBooth last August, we had noticed how remarkably vibrant the community already was, and how quickly the site was amassing tons of traffic.
The startup was launched in February 2009, received some initial seed funding from Y Combinator over the summer and has now raised an additional $1 million from an all-star team of institutional and individual investors. → Read More
This morning Jason Calacanis made a quip that Ron Conway is such a prolific angel investor that all presenting companies at TC50 were getting $50,000 just for walking on the same stage with him. Conway made a face, so Paul Carr and I grabbed him back stage and asked his thoughts on frequently being called a “Spray and Pray” investor. As evidence that he doesn’t invest in everything, Conway also names the one that got away.
Conway says that things are getting easier for start-ups in the Valley and that most start-ups he knows aren’t having problems getting money. In fact, he says he’s facing some stiff competition to get in deals. That’s good news for entrepreneurs.
(Note Jason Hirschhorn pacing behind us. Apparently Conway was about to slip him a list of his companies MySpace should buy…)
Video is on the jump. → Read More
Heavy hitting angel investor Ron Conway, who’s been called the “Godfather of Silicon Valley” by Gary Rivlin, is now focusing most of his investment attention on “real-time data,” according to an email he sent out to friends and contacts earlier this week. Conway was one of the earliest investors in Google, and has invested in more than 500 startups, he’s said in the past.
Conway is changing his relationship with Baseline Ventures, a fund run by Steve Anderson. Since 2006 Baseline has taken the lead in managing Conway’s deal flow. Now, Conway says, he’s reverting back to doing all of his investments directly. He’ll still work closely with Baseline, he says, particularly in syndicating angel rounds and sharing deal flow.
Conway is also accelerating his investing, he says in the email, and has a goal to invest in 40-50 companies in the next 18 months. His focus will be companies exploiting “real-time data,” which he calls “the next billion dollar market opportunity.” Conway is already an investor in Twitter and Facebook, two companies solidly in the real-time space. He’s recently invested in other very young startups like Scoopler and Twitvid. Both are Y Combinator startups. He’s also an advisor to Topsy, a new real-time search engine that launched recently. → Read More
We are thrilled to announce the next three expert panelists participating in TechCrunch50. Joining Marc Andreessen, Roelof Botha and Marissa Mayer as TechCrunch50 experts are Ron Conway, Sheryl Sandberg and Yossi Vardi. The experts will judge the fifty startups launching at the event, and then discuss each of the demos on stage as a group. More details on the conference are here. TechCrunch50 is a three day conference where fifty new startups will launch over three days. There will also be a number of topical panels and workshops. The event will be held at the San Francisco Design Center, a huge and beautiful venue that can accommodate over 1,000 attendees with ease. There will be 24 experts in all, more will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets for the event can be purchased here (early bird pricing is available until July 15). The submission process to launch your startup is here. Ron Conway Ron Conway is one of the Internet’s pre-eminent angel investors. He was the Founder and Managing Parter of the Angel Investors LP funds whose investments included Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware and Brightmail. Ron was names #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “dealmakers” in 2006. Ron currently on investments with Baseline Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He is an active advisor for a number of Internet companies and also very active in community and philanthropic activities, including Vice Chairman of UCSF Medical Foundation in San Francisco and co-chair of the “Fight for Mike” Homer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Crunchbase profile. Sheryl Sandberg Sheryl Sandberg was named COO of Facebook in March 2008, and she manages business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy, privacy, and communications. Prior to Facebook, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, where she built and managed the online sales channels for advertising and publishing and operations for consumer products globally. She was also instrumental in launching Google’s philanthropic arm. Sandberg was previously Chief of Staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton. She was also a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and an economist with The World Bank. CrunchBase profile. Yossi Vardi Yossi Vardi is an Israeli entrepreneur most famous for being the original investor in ICQ – the first Internet-wide instant messaging system. Vardi has invested in over 50 tech companies in diverse → Read More
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