Highest funded US Startups from 2006 to 2008(revotra.com)
revotra.com
Highest funded US Startups from 2006 to 2008
http://revotra.com/2008/10/highest-funded-startups-from-2006-to.html
9 comments
It seems as though this list is more accurately a list of web and energy startups, as there are companies that have raised money between 2006 and 2008 that is greater than 25 Million. Pacific Biosciences for example has raised ~$100 Million
(http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/14/fast-gene-sequencing-in-tw...)
It seems to me as though the list is not of the companies that raised the most money in the past two years, but rather the a list of companies that raised the most money that TC follows.
(http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/14/fast-gene-sequencing-in-tw...)
It seems to me as though the list is not of the companies that raised the most money in the past two years, but rather the a list of companies that raised the most money that TC follows.
godtube is funny, its kinda like conservapedia. Its a good business decision for the guys who did it, because they cash in on rightwing ignorance, who think youtube/wiki produces all its content and spin it with liberal bias.
Its the same people who think blogspot needs to be sued because someone made an offensive post on one of their accounts
Its the same people who think blogspot needs to be sued because someone made an offensive post on one of their accounts
If you believe that viewing certain things is wrong, then pre-filtered content is of value to you. Does Godtube particularly cater to "ignorance"?
Now, Conservapedia is ridiculous, but the only people I've seen take it seriously are liberals in search of a caricature to attack.
Now, Conservapedia is ridiculous, but the only people I've seen take it seriously are liberals in search of a caricature to attack.
the hannity/limbaugh crowd takes conservapedia VERY seriously
Yeah, but nobody takes them seriously.
So the people who wrote Conservapedia did it as parody?
I guess that'd make more sense.
I guess that'd make more sense.
If you ever want a laugh, read conservapedia's terms of use.
That's because this list is incomplete. This guy appears to have just gone through crunchbase and made a list of companies, sorted by the size of their latest funding round.
I know of several startup biotech companies that have been funded recently. None of their executives blog or twitter, however.
I know of several startup biotech companies that have been funded recently. None of their executives blog or twitter, however.
Nanosolar actually makes low-cost printed solar cells.
OANDA is American? I could have sworn my office is downtown Toronto ;)
Out of those 161, I've only heard of 32. Out of those 32, I only use 3 more than once
You'd be surprised. You probably use several of these startups without even realizing it. For example, CDNetworks is a large content delivery network. And if you've ever stumbled across those annoying parked domains you've probably availed yourself to OverSee's services.
On reading your comment, I'm sure the VCs of the none-32 are kicking themselves at making such bad investments.
I would like to see a list of the LOWEST funded US Startups from 2006 to 2008.
I'm guessing there are lots more self-funded startups that are started for effectively nothing.
The average initial startup investment in every industry is $25,000. Usually using the founders savings.
Right, but the question posed above was "I'd like to see the lowest funded startups". I'm sure there are some folks living in dorms or with the parents and using university computers for their servers. Starting up is essentially "free" in that case, modulo time.
Come to think of it, doesn't this describe Google for the first 2 years of its existence?
Come to think of it, doesn't this describe Google for the first 2 years of its existence?
Hi!
I went through most of them and I found Plastic Logic the most interesting. They have a very thin "epaper" coming out next year that looks like it has potential to be a great disruptive product.
CNN seems to like it too, http://www.plasticlogic.com/
CNN seems to like it too, http://www.plasticlogic.com/
Also interesting and related :
a) Sony's "Flexible Full Color Paper Screen"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6bkmPjVF-k&feature=relat...
b) Readius's "Polymervision 3GSM e-paper"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_m36Gr4jzM&feature=relat...
a) Sony's "Flexible Full Color Paper Screen"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6bkmPjVF-k&feature=relat...
b) Readius's "Polymervision 3GSM e-paper"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_m36Gr4jzM&feature=relat...
How is Slide so low on the list? Their public $50M was a SECOND round of funding.
I bet that the companies on this list that actually make good-old-fashioned material things, like Nanosolar, pay off triple the average return of the Net startups.
I'm really tempted to take that bet...
The virtue of web startups is that marginal costs are effectively zero. So once you've paid off your fixed costs (i.e. have basically any revenue model that actually works), you're profitable. If something like FaceBook, with $150M in revenues, is not profitable, it's usually because they're empire builders and hire many more people than they actually need to keep the site going. That's easily fixed by laying off people.
Solar companies, in addition to having large R&D costs, also have large variable costs. And they're competing against fairly low-cost alternatives, like oil and natural gas. To be profitable, their variable costs need to undercut oil prices, and they need to have enough left over to pay for R&D, overhead, and cost of capital.
"Make something people want" is only a golden rule of startup success in software. For everything else, it's "Make something people want, cheaply".
The virtue of web startups is that marginal costs are effectively zero. So once you've paid off your fixed costs (i.e. have basically any revenue model that actually works), you're profitable. If something like FaceBook, with $150M in revenues, is not profitable, it's usually because they're empire builders and hire many more people than they actually need to keep the site going. That's easily fixed by laying off people.
Solar companies, in addition to having large R&D costs, also have large variable costs. And they're competing against fairly low-cost alternatives, like oil and natural gas. To be profitable, their variable costs need to undercut oil prices, and they need to have enough left over to pay for R&D, overhead, and cost of capital.
"Make something people want" is only a golden rule of startup success in software. For everything else, it's "Make something people want, cheaply".
Web startups have costs that are far from zero - as your example mentions, Facebook is not profitable because they retain too many people - but it is precisely their large work force that maintains their competitive lead in the social networking sphere. If they pared down their headcount to merely "sustain the server farms and fix bugs" size the company would disappear very quickly, having been out-done by someone else.
They're not empire building, they're doing what they need to survive.
The lack of costs on the web is precisely why web startups have some of the highest costs of all. Hosting is cheap, bandwidth is almost free. The only way Facebook avoids being out-done by two college kids in a garage is because they have big money backing them, and are building out like mad.
On the flip side, traditional startups sell something that is of intrinsic worth. Most web apps have very little intrinsic worth, and is easy substituted - they have no patent-protected edge over the competition, and the COST of cloning an innovative feature is FAR less than the cost to reverse-engineer an ingenious new solar panel.
They're not empire building, they're doing what they need to survive.
The lack of costs on the web is precisely why web startups have some of the highest costs of all. Hosting is cheap, bandwidth is almost free. The only way Facebook avoids being out-done by two college kids in a garage is because they have big money backing them, and are building out like mad.
On the flip side, traditional startups sell something that is of intrinsic worth. Most web apps have very little intrinsic worth, and is easy substituted - they have no patent-protected edge over the competition, and the COST of cloning an innovative feature is FAR less than the cost to reverse-engineer an ingenious new solar panel.
Right, but they have variable costs that are close to zero, i.e. the marginal cost of servicing one extra customer is zero. (In practice, it's a bit more than that - you're looking at fractions of a cent for bandwidth, servers, ops people to maintain those servers, etc.) I worked it out for my startup, based on previous websites that have gotten traffic, and it came to something like $1/month/200 registered users, or $0.05 CPM.
Their fixed costs are high, but usually VCs invest to pay those fixed costs, after the startup has already started getting traction.
Their fixed costs are high, but usually VCs invest to pay those fixed costs, after the startup has already started getting traction.
That may be true - and I would agree with you if the startup in question was selling a service to paying customers - e.g. eBay or Amazon. The cost of supporting an extra customer is quite small in their cases, and being online certainly gives them an advantage over brick and mortars.
The problem is that most web startups don't sell anything. They give their most valuable work away for free in the vain hope that showing ads or selling premium accounts will magically rescue them from inevitable collapse.
If you're not making any significant amount of money off a single user, it doesn't really matter HOW low your marginal cost is, you're still screwed. I have very little faith in companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and the such - their per-user costs are ridiculously low, but so is their per-user revenue.
The problem is that most web startups don't sell anything. They give their most valuable work away for free in the vain hope that showing ads or selling premium accounts will magically rescue them from inevitable collapse.
If you're not making any significant amount of money off a single user, it doesn't really matter HOW low your marginal cost is, you're still screwed. I have very little faith in companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and the such - their per-user costs are ridiculously low, but so is their per-user revenue.
I'm not sure solar has really taken off big time yet has it? Surely there is a massive investment into research+design before any return is seen?
Solar is pretty much in the process of taking off.
The world market grew by 62% year over year last year.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/Marketbuzz2008-intro.htm
The world market grew by 62% year over year last year.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/Marketbuzz2008-intro.htm
So this guy just stole a list that Techcrunch republished? Why are we linking to him and not the original?
Seatwave - 33 MM. Really?
I love Yodlee, but 35 MM seems slightly ridiculous.
I love Yodlee, but 35 MM seems slightly ridiculous.
Some of the interesting ones:
Nanosolar: High-efficiency solar cells
Gridpoint: Something to do with power grid management
Plastic logic: Flexible displays
eSolar: Solar thermal power
HelioVolt: More solar cells!
SulfurCell: More solar cells!
GodTube: Christian Videos. Seriously, this one sounds like a joke, but it exists and somebody gave it $30 million.
Fisker: Electric cars.
Admittedly a rather high percentage are still web-based software of some kind. And an awfully large percentage of those remaining are related to energy.
Another interesting (if worrying) trend: I couldn't find any biotech on the list at all (there might be a few, I didn't look at everything but I checked the names for bio-sounding things).