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Top 5 investments: Airtime, Coupons.com, Palantir, Networked Insights, Connectify
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AIRTIME
Chatroulette is akin to a number of interesting internet phenomena that have sprung up in recent times. The video chat service is a communication tool with a twist that attracted a large number of users in a short time with a similar volume of subsequent hype. But like a number of online communication tools, including a wide range of high profile examples like YouTube, Twitter and Skype, the startups have found it hard to convert usage into hard cash. Of course YouTube and Skype have the deep pockets of Google and Microsoft behind them these days, but there are plenty of services that don't and die. Napster founders Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning are reuniting to launch a video startup very similar to Chatroulette. Having acted as advisors for Chatroulette, they were inspired, but hope to use their expertise to ensure that Airtime receives the same sort of usage as Chatroulette, but with resultant revenues. "When it [Chatroulette] grew so quickly, it clearly pointed out some missing piece or unfilled need," says Fanning. Airtime was previously known as Supyo and is believed to be a random chatting network with a social network attached. Most interesting will be to the sort of business model the pair plan to employ. [Read More]
COUPONS.COM
Having previously shunned high-profile investments, Coupons.com received USD200m from institutional investors in June this year and is now following this up by taking on USD30m from Greylock Partners. Although there is a daily deal flavour to its offering, Coupons.com has a more traditional discount approach, extending the newspaper coupon model to the web. "Coupons.com is almost single handedly transforming the multi-billion dollar coupon industry by ushering the newspaper-dominated business to digital," says Greylock partner Reid Hoffman. The company is yet to properly embrace mobile and investors are banking on the sense that when it does, its business will boom even more. "The market opportunity the company faces is immense, and we look forward to contributing in any way to their continued success, particularly in the context of social and mobile solutions," says Hoffman. [Read More]
PALANTIR
In the internet age data is all important. This is something that investors understand and they continue to pour cash into data analytics. There is a current vogue for companies that focus on tracking patterns in large data sets or concentrate on ‘big data'. Palantir is just such a company. It develops software for government and law enforcement agencies, as well as financial institution, which analyses large data. Although the majority of the company's clients (60%) are from the private sector the US government has used its software to track terror suspects and small-scale corruption. Having claimed last year that its revenues had doubled every year for the last three years, Palantir is likely to still be experiencing a similar rate of growth with the private sector fuelling this. Just recently JPMorgan Chase & Co inducted the company into its Hall of Innovation, recognising its disruptive approach to data analysis. [Read More]
NETWORKED INSIGHTS
In the analytics world alongside the fashion for focusing on ‘big data' is another hot sector - social media analytics. Goldman Sachs has just led a round investing USD20m in just one such startup, Networked Insights, which mines data across social networks to feed into its media-buying platform that attempts to indicate the most effective way to apportion online advertising. Claiming to aid some USD5bn in clients' media spending its customers include Samsung, MTV, MillerCoors and Kraft. Social analytic is a crowded space and Goldman Sachs apparently looked at several companies before opting to invest in Network Insights. Goldman's Gaurav Bhandari: "We had approached the space around the notion that social media is playing a very important role in the advertising industry, looking at how brands can engage with these audiences and capitalize on what is being said and have a more robust media strategy as a result." [Read More]
CONNECTIFY
Connectify develops downloadable software that turns PCs into Wi-Fi hotspots. Its has just received a new undisclosed amount of backing from In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment arm that is linked to US intelligence including the CIA. The new funding will be used to move beyond consumer-facing products and start focusing on virtual private networks. In the same way it creates DIY hotspots through software it wants to create self-made VPNs through a similar method. [Read More]
