Sidestep travel site gets $15M : Round led by Norwest Venture
Sidestep started as a toolbar for travel comparison shopping in 1999 and I was one of the early adopters! They didn’t even have a website: the only way to use them was to install the toolbar and the worst part was that every virus scan would tag their toolbar as a malware.
I stayed with them for several years but stopped using them when they stopped including Southwest’s fares in their comparison shopping. What’s the point of comparison shopping if the one of the major low cost providers is not included in the comparison! Southwest has remained independent from most search engine aggregators, so I am not blaming SideStep for it, just recognizing that SideStep’s usefulness was diminished because of third party constraints. I still use them for car rentals and hotels and thankfully, they now have a decent website.
The new funding of $15M will be used to expand into the European and Asian travel markets, said Rob Solomon, CEO. Currently, the site chiefly serves the United States and the United Kingdom. In addition, he said, he plans to expand the infrastructure to support user reviews.
They have raised a total of $39M by now. I am surprised that they are not profitable yet; I understand that they expect to be in black starting the second quarter of 2007.
The major competitors include Kayak and Mobissimo. In the review category, it competes with travel social networking sites like WAYN (which was recently funded with $10M+) and Tripadvisor.
This round was led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). The round participants also include Trident Capital, Leader Ventures, and Saints Capital .
Company: Sidestep
CEO: Rob Solomon
Location: Santa Clara, California
Funding Raised: $39M
Venture Capital Firms: Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). ,Trident Capital, Leader Ventures,and Saints Capital.
Tags : Venture Capital
Tim Draper : Our pick for the most entertaining VC!
Tim Draper of Draper Fischer and Jurvetson wins our prize for the most fun venture capitalist around. Known for discovering major powerhouses like Hotmail and Skype, long before the concepts of free email and free net based phone calls took off in a big way, he has been showing his lighter side more, both in his speeches and in the investments he and his firm are making.
At a recent keynote address for the yearly conference of TiE Southwest , he had the audience in splits with his rendition of his signature song - The Risk Master - a song he wrote to celebrate the indefatigable spirit of the Entrepreneur. Okay, one half of the audience was enjoying the show, immensely. The other half, namely those who had come for a serious lecture on the finer points of investing from the start-up star maker, just looked plain shell shocked!
Tim Draper told us that he had recorded the song along with a famous, mystery musician, whom he will not name right now. We hear that there will be an official release of the song, at some point.
Earlier we wrote about his $1M funding into a South Asian entertainment site - DesiHits.
Now adding to further fuel to his party guy image is his $1.1M investment into the non-tech startup JimmyJane which manufactures upper end personal items ( AlarmClock , in classic techno-geek fashion, classifies the company under “peripherals”….).
Besides creating mega companies, Tim Draper heads up an Extreme Kart racing team at DFJ.
We wish Tim Draper luck in his singing career!
Tim Draper’s song Risk Master can be heard at http://www.theriskmaster.com/
The chorus of The Riskmaster goes:
He is the Riskmaster
Lives fast drives faster
Skates on the edge of disaster
He is the Riskmaster
Tags : Opinion, Radical Personalities, Venture Capital
Meraki - Roofnet implementer gets $5M from Sequoia Capital
MIT media lab and its alumni have come up with some interesting projects: One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Roofnet are two notable ones. I will reserve my judgment on the OLPC for some other post but MIT’s open source Roofnet project, which essentially connects different routers to provide a mesh for uninterrupted wireless connection has some potential.
However, I think the Roofnet’s potential can only be realized if there is some control over what routers can be deployed in a given area. For example, it would be nice if I can make a wifi calls when I go for a walk in my neighborhood. But its not going to happen because even though all my neighbors have wifi, they are not sharing it. In fact one is advised not to share the network connecition for security concerns. Now, think of the same situation in a campus environment or in a public environment where one is trying to cover the whole city and has some say in the type of router that can be used.
Meraki, which implements Roofnet, sells routers for $50 that automatically become a part of the mesh. But a $50 router is not an incentive any more when you can go to Fry’s and buy Belkin or LinkSys router for almost the same amount. Sure, Maraki router has backend protocol for meshing built in but is that really good? Also if you look at the specs of the Meraki router, it only has 60mW power and the antenna is 2dBi, that’s puny and not optimal for a mesh environment. What it needs is about 10 dBi antenna and stronger, variable power profile.
In a nutshell, in reviewing Meraki, its a neat open source concept, it is useful in certain situation but the current implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
Other players that have tried something similar include Fon and DeviceSpace; Whisher (splinter group from Fon) and Ruckeus Wiress, none of them have had stellar record.
Google invested $1M a while ago but it was more of a bridge financing. Meraki just completed $5M series A from Sequoia Capital.
We wish Sanjit Biswas and his team a great success. By the way, love the form factor and cutness of the mini router!
Desi Hits: South Asian Entertainment Portal and Social Networking Site receives $1M Funding
San Francisco-based South Asian entertainment and social networking site DesiHits has received $1 million in first round funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Trident Capital.
The term Desi refers to subculture from South Asia. Desi Hits has a urban twist to it but it competes with several others in the same genre including WahIndia, which received angel funding and will be relaunching the site. Badmash.com, desiparty.com and others are targeting the same audience.
To Desi Hit’s credit, their podcast and vidcast has seen a great run on iTune and has acquired some following. Desi Hits has Bollywood gossip, celebrity interviews, music videos and streaming clips targeted at the South Asian audience in the US.
“We, at Trident Capital are really impressed with the founding team behind Desi Hits! With their intense passion, insight and expertise in capturing the diversity and depth of contemporary Desi-inspired entertainment in a powerful format, we are confident that they will be a leader in this next wave of social networking,” said Trident Capital managing director Evangelos Simoudis.
This is really dejavu (or desi-javu). I was actively involved in a similar effort called GoYogi in late 1999. With a total staff of 70+, go yogi tried to capture the south asian matrimonial market and did a great job of providing cutting edge news and current event information. The launch of goyogi.com was attended by Kapil Dev, the captain of the Indian Cricket team.
I remember drafting the term sheet for the purchase of goyogi.com by Excite, Inc. I don’t recall the exact numbers but it had at least six zeros in it. Excite got into its own problems at that time and the deal was never consummated but I have very fond memories of passion and hard work that the people put in there.
On the path of reminiscing, I had the opportunity to buy bollywood.com for $1,000 in 97-98, somehow it slipped away!
There is certainly a need for a good desi social networking site which is not a matrimonial site. I don’t think Desi Hits is going to be it, but I wish them success. I have seen them go from a blogger site to a funded company and I will watch them with great interest!
Desi Hits
San Fransisco
$1M
Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Trident Capital.
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