location based blog: raise

Showing posts with label raise. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Now Square Is Looking To Raise $50 Million At A $1 Billion Valuation

square reader apple store

Payment processing company Square is looking to raise a new round of up to $50 million with a $1 billion valuation, multiple sources tell Mike Arrington at TechCrunch.

Square has been selling the latest version of its tiny credit card reader since last fall, and just rolled out an iPhone app called Card Case that could replace the loyalty and discount cards that merchants use, and an iPad app that could replace the cash register.

Founder Jack Dorsey recently tweeted that Square is processing more than $3 million in transactions per day. A picture of the company's dashboard back in April revealed it was pulling in about $60,000 in revenue per day on $2 million in transactions, so that means it's probably close to $100,000 per day.

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Now Square Is Looking To Raise $50 Million At A $1 Billion Valuation

Backlink: http://www.businessinsider.com/square-looking-to-raise-50-million-at-1-billion-valuation-2011-6

Thursday, March 24, 2011

How The #*&% Did Color Raise A Crazy $41 Million For Its First Round?

banana phone woman

An iPhone photo app called Color announced last night that it raised $41 million from Sequoia Capital and Bain Capital pre-launch.

To use a favorite expression of Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowly, that's banana town.

We tested Color this morning.

It's OK.

How could this have happened?

A VC you've heard of but doesn't want us sharing his name for obvious reasons, has a purely speculative theory:

I just couldn't grok why the best early stage investor [Sequoia] would put that crazy amount of money in a pre-launch company and moreover do it alongside one of the worst [Bain]. But then figured it out.

I have no facts at all about this but bet you Sequoia seeded it and then Bain came in at higher price and got them to agree to say they did it jointly. Basically Bain paid $40 million to look Like Sequoia's peer and get Valley mojo they desperately need. No other way this could have happened.

Update: CNET's Caroline McCarthy tweets at us: "Sounds like a good theory, except that a Color exec told me Sequoia's $$ was nearly triple Bain's." So we're back to: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

How The #*&% Did Color Raise A Crazy $41 Million For Its First Round?

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/nttTHjOVaNs/how-the--did-color-raise-a-crazy-41-million-for-its-first-round-2011-3

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Accel Plans To Raise $2B In New Funds This Year

Jim Breyer

Leading VC firm Accel Partners is trying to raise four new funds with a value of $2 billion this year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Two of the funds will focus on growth companies and early-stage ventures, and two on China.

Accel has big investments in Facebook and Groupon, both of which are expected to have huge IPOs within the next 18 months, and has had some big sales of portfolio companies, including AdMob to Google for $750 million in 2009 and Diapers.com to Amazon for $545 million last December.

This track record should give Accel a shot at raising the huge new funds at a time when many big institutional investors are pulling back from Internet investments.

Join the conversation about this story »

Accel Plans To Raise $2B In New Funds This Year

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/utD6G48bglw/accel-plans-to-raise-2b-in-new-funds-this-year-2011-2

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Demand Media Prices IPO: Could Raise Almost $140 Million

richard rosenblatt demand media

Demand Media has priced its IPO in a new S-1 filing with the SEC, and now estimates the IPO could raise almost $140 million for Demand and its shareholders. (Via Kara Swisher.)

Demand itself expects to raise about $60 million, and could be worth about $1.3 billion after the IPO. (Roughly 5X its 2010 revenue.)

Specifically, Demand Media is offering 4.5 million shares from the company and 3 million shares from current shareholders. And the underwriters -- Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- have the option to purchase up to another 1.125 million shares from both Demand and its selling stockholders, in what's known as the "greenshoe."

Demand estimates the IPO share price between $14 and $16 per share, which means at the high end of the range, the IPO could be worth almost $140 million.

Demand says, "We expect to receive net proceeds from this offering of approximately $58.1 million, based upon an assumed initial public offering price of $15.00 per share, which is the mid-point of the range set forth on the cover of this prospectus, and after deducting underwriting discounts and estimated offering expenses payable by us."

As Kara Swisher notes, Demand also addresses the controversial accounting techniques it uses to recognize costs over 5 years, a longer period than is typical. It's sticking with them, argues that it's in the company's best financial interest to so do, and says it will regularly review "the operating performance of content published."

One big risk is Demand's reliance on Google for traffic and "a significant portion" of its revenue. The word "Google" is listed 62 times in its S-1 filing.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also: