Revolution Growth Raises $450 Million To Fund East Coast Startups

Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis have just announced investor commitments totaling $450 million in the new Revolution Growth fund.  The team plans to use the money primarily to invest in East Coast companies with innovative and disruptive business models that come packed with potential for explosive growth.  Given that Leonsis and Case invested (separately) in Groupon (Leonsis) and Living Social (Case), and have done quite well on both, the odds are good that they will put money into more consumer facing startups.  They are looking to make a smaller number of investments, 10-12 over five years, so they can be more hands on with their investments.  Twenty-four institutional limited partners invested in the fund.  More.

Related: The Washington Post’s Thomas Heath did a great write-up about the new fund earlier today.

Ring.io Announces $100k Raise

Ring.io, McLean, VA, has just announced their raise of $100k in additional early funding from the Northern Virginia based CIT Gap Funds group based in Herndon, VA. You may recall that Ring.io’s Co-ounder & CEO, Sam Aparicio was the recipient of the 2010 Social Matchbox Founder’s Board award as part of the 2010 Social Matchbox Startup Launch event held in Washington, DC.  Ringio’s product is a CRM and telephony solution that helps small businesses to collect, manage and present in real-time the most relevant pieces of information about the person calling.

The Ring.io team is a great example of an early stage Washington area team bootstrapping and raising early capital locally.  Ring.io Co-Founder & Chairman Michael Zirngibl was was also an early investor in the company and he says that Ring.io is gearing up for a larger raise in 2012.  Sam and Ashish Soni, the third Co-Founder who is also the President & CTO also kicked in early money.  In addition to that, the team reached out the Baltimore Angels group as well as Friends and Family to raised additional early stage capital.

Tom Weithman, the VP & Managing Director over CIT Gap Funds pointed out that the organization offers entrepreneurs access to hard-to-find investment money in an effort to support the economic prospects of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  CIT Gap Funds sponsored the 2011 Social Matchbox Startup Launch series and is a great resource that is open to companies with headquarters located in Virginia.  If your startup is based in Virginia and you would like an introduction there let us know – send a note to contact@socialmatchbox.com.  TEDCO (The Economic Development Corporation of Maryland) is a similar investment vehicle for Maryland based companies.

Editor’s note: Angel.com was not sold to Microstrategy – so the sentence suggesting this has been removed.

Update: Ringo’s Michael Zirngibl has assumed the CEO role and Sam is now the COO.

How Profiles on Social Matchbox Work

We have had a few weeks of feedback from quite a few people who responded to our call for people to test out the new job seeker and community profiles.  In response, a ton of improvements were made and even more are scheduled to be released after we finish testing them in the next couple of weeks.

We also learned how people were using Social Matchbox profiles and have a few suggestions and comments on how to make them work for you even better so that when we open up profiles to Social Matchbox founders and Washington area startup company teams you and they will get the most out of the experience.

For starters, you really want to make sure people know how to reach you and what their options are.  Just click the add a comm info option below your name or click edit on your profile page and you can add something straight into your comm info section there.  For example, putting a link to your blog in your summary isn’t the best way to do that.  You should add your blog to your comm info section which is at the top of your profile.  You can add an email address, phone number, skype id, IM id, your blog, your portfolio, or a link to a social media profile.  We recommend Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook – not everyone uses one or the other and some people prefer one medium over another.  Pretty much anything goes as long as people can reach you that way.  No snail mail please (someone asked me to snail mail them last week and wasn’t sure how to respond to that, not one of our community members mind you).

Help people find you be adding roles and skills:
If you are an Information Architect that is a role to add.  If you are a Graphic Designer or Web Developer, add those roles too.  Just don’t add things like “Intern” or “Freelancer” to your roles, it really helps if you add things that are intuitive.  Also, don’t add roles as skills or skills as roles.  For example, Graphic Designer is not the same as Graphic Design.  One is a skill and the other is a role.  If you can program in Python or Ruby on Rails, add those ask skills.  We are working on putting some things in place to simplify this, but for now this should be helpful.  If you have questions ask via the Chat button in the bottom left corner of the page or send us a note via contact@socialmatchbox.com.

Tags are helpful too, add as many as you think will help:
If you are a freelancer or open to freelancing, tell people the kinds of arrangements you can do via Tags – 1099, C2C, freelance are all pretty standard for freelancers.  C2C is short for Corp to Corp, in other words you have your own corporation or can bill yourself through a company (if not 1099 means you are an independent contractor).  If you are into Golf or Tennis then put that. I constantly read about startup founders and teams who have things like sports or video games that they play in common.  I put Golf and Starcraft on my profile. I suck at both, but I’m an amateur with expert ambitions so I figure that might be a link between me and someone interesting who is looking at my startup.  You can also use tags to spell out the types of startup things you are interested in so that people can find you through a tag search.  For example: GIS + Seeking Co-Founder might help you get noticed by someone looking for a co-founder working on a GIS startup.  Sweat Equity + Ruby on Rails would help someone looking for a technical co-founder or team member to find you.  If you put 1099 + Ruby on Rails then someone could find you for a project that way too.

Be specific about where you went to school and what you studied:
You would be amazed at how many people look at where someone went to school for alumni connections. I had an inside track with a big west coast startup years ago when I was looking for an inside track because of my college connection, it really surprised me but it paid off.
I would be sure and add enough details about your professional experience so people know where you are coming from.  Be sure to add in where you went to college too.  All of this can be helpful.  Even the most random majors are important in many circumstances.

Last, but not least, I would recommend taking a few minutes to make your profile statement say a what sorts of things you are interested in or open to.  If you are open to sweat equity work for a startup then spell it out. If you happen to prefer 1099 projects involving PHP then say it.  I know a ton of people who are looking for things at any given moment, but tehir biggest challenge is taking the time to write a good introduction to other people.  Think of this as that introduction.  If someone can read your summary and know when and why to talk to you then that is a big help.  The same goes for job seekers.  If you are looking for a full time job or internship then say it.  Don’t be shy about telling people where you want to be and what type of companies you are open to.

All of this is one big evolving scenario.  We started this big experiment with Social Matchbox four years ago as a job fair for startups and it turned into a startup launch series with people who show up looking to meet their peers and to find people to hook up with so they could get into startup mode themselves.  We are going to try to take some of the offline networking and move it online so that the conversation continues between events.  Your feedback and help with this will make or break the effort.  Tell us what we can do to make things better and we will listen to your feedback and act on it if we can – that is how Social Matchbox evolved and how it will continue to do so for years to come.

Tips for A Successful Investor Pitch

The number of people looking to pitch investors is way up right now.  The number of Washington area companies getting funding is also up a bit.  The reason why both are not way up has something to do with the number people who are ready to pitch.  Here are a few tips to help you figure out when you are a bit closer to being ready to pitch your startup to an investor.

For starters, if you have the phone number off the website of the investor and a powerpoint deck that does not make you ready.  I’m always surprised when people decide to just call up a VC and ask for an opportunity to pitch them.  This is a really bad idea.  You should always find someone you know who can make a warm introduction.  If you don’t know someone then you are not networking and you should start going to startup and investor related events.

The next most common thing that happens is that the founder does a ton of research on how much it costs to do marketing, but they don’t do any segmentation analysis or research into the cost of sales and marketing staff.  The base numbers are great to have, but investors want to know that you have taken the time to drill down and narrow things a bit.  They also want to know that you have spoken to people who have sold and marketed to the right crowd.  Text book data and expectations don’t hold up in the real world.

Something that is more important than all of the above is the fact that napkin startups DO NOT get funded in the Washington, DC area for mortals, much less super hero types.  If you want to defy the laws of nature and physics then you don’t have too many options in this market.  Even if you moved out West, the odds are still pretty slim.  What this means for founders is that you really have to build a working protoype and get some customers on board before you start looking for investment dollars.  This is no joke.

This is just a handful of tips for making sure you are ready for that winning pitch.  There are a ton of them.  Best of luck!  Just remember to be patient.

Building a startup 5,000 miles from Washington, DC

I am writing this post from a gorgeous, modern co-working space in Santiago, Chile, and, yes, it is the middle of Spring in November down here in the southern hemisphere.  I am from Rockville, MD, and – while I miss my family and friends in the DC-area greatly – I am constantly reminded of the cool situation I’ve found myself in.

The leap

My high school friend and I finally took the leap out of our nine-to-fives into entrepreneurship when we learned about a program called Start-Up Chile.  Through this impressive initiative, the Chilean government aims to make Chile the innovation hub of Latin America.  To achieve that goal, Start-Up Chile provides entrepreneurs from all over the world a one-year work visa, co-working space, networking opportunities and $40,000 in equity-free funding in the form of a reimbursable grant (i.e. you spend it, then get it back in about a month).  All they ask for in return is that the entrepreneurs spend six months in Chile while they build their companies and engage with local Chilean entrepreneurs.

We thought it sounded pretty cool and applied last February for the June/July round. To our excitement, we got in. And in July, we quit our jobs, packed our bags and convinced our girlfriends to join us for a six-month adventure in that really narrow country on the west coast of South America.

Much more than $40,000

I know it is cliché when talking about start-up accelerators/incubators (like Y Combinator, TechStars, Launchbox Digital, etc.) to say that it’s not about the money; I’m learning more and more that it’s really not all about the money though.

I’m working alongside over 100 entrepreneurs from incredibly different backgrounds, and everybody seems willing to help each other out, sharing nuggets from their own areas of expertise.  My new friend, a New York corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur and Start-Up Chile participant, took a look at our contracts. A team of two former Silicon Valley coders gave us their two cents on which credit card processor is most tech startup friendly.  Things like this happen everyday.

That being said, $40,000 equity-free is awesome, and it is definitely enough to get your startup up and running.

Post-program flexibility

After the program there is no obligation to stay in Chile.  I know entrepreneurs whose startups didn’t work out but have stayed because of the great opportunities (which there are many) in Chile.  You’re free to go back wherever you call home and continue building your business. Since we love the DC area and its growing startup scene, that point about the program was great for us to hear.

Scott Thompson is the co-founder of Bungolow, a free members-only travel club providing amazing deals at Latin American hotels and resorts. Bungolow is a Start-Up Chile participant and was founded in 2011. Scott is from Rockville, MD.

newBrandAnalytics Raises $26 Million in Series B Funding Round

newBrandAnalytics, a Washington, DC (near Gallery Place) based startup that is two years old has just announced their raise of $26 Million in Series B round funds.  The company provides social media monitoring for companies that involves algorithms with the goal of distilling customer feedback across these sites into something useful to brand owners.  The team is currently distributed between the US and Israel, including staff in California, Texas, Illinois, and here in the DC area.

This funding round was lead by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and had participation from Revolution Ventures (Steve Case), The Entrepreneur’s Fund, Quest Hospitality Ventures, Ted Leonsis and others. The company raised Angel and Series A money prior to this round, though the numbers were much smaller according to the team. They asked us not to share the exact prior figures, but the numbers were respectable.

The founding team includes Ashish Gambhir, Kam Desai and Neil Kataria.  The team’s prior experience includes building and selling an ecommerce company.

Use NextGame and Check Into Recreational Opportunities

Back in September, the team from NextGame launched at the annual Social Matchbox Startup Launch event.  Their offering won the crowd over by offering something that was both practical and fun.  We all find ourselves looking for things to do and places to hang out after work and on the weekends which is exactly what the NextGame mobile app is all about.

The app accomplishes this by allowing users to search for and schedule pick up games for their favorite recreational sports.  You can also create private, invite only, games. The app’s search feature leverages your phone’s location based technology through a feature called ‘Scout’ which helps you find games and activities nearby.  In addition, you and your friends can share your whereabouts for the purpose of spontaneous activities.

Co-founders include: Andrew Chang, Shareef Tahboub, and Tareq Taboub.  The trio is based in Virginia.

Check them out and download their app HERE.