Ya estamos de lleno en el 2014 y las inversiones en startups españolas se siguen sucediendo. A continuación, nuestro informe resumen mensual. Si nos hemos dejado alguna o hay algún dato incorrecto, no dudéis en indicárnoslo, rápidamente actualizaremos el listado.
Descripción: Red Wifi colaborativa creada a partir de personas que comparten altruistamente una porción de sus conexiones Wifi privadas. La tecnológica, de origen español y fundada por Martin Varsavsky, ha levantado más de $70 millones de inversión desde 2006.
In this review of failure, we’ve looked in our venture capital database to find the most well-funded startup companies that ultimately failed or that had an undesirable exit, i.e., an asset sale or in some cases an acquisition for less than the total funding raised by the company.
As you’ll see below, the reasons for failure are varied but a few common threads do emerge such as running out of money, inability to generate sustainable revenue, bad product-market fit and losing to competitors.
And then there were some uncommon and more tragic causes of failure including:
Index Ventures recently backed the computing education-focused hardware startup Kano – via one of its partners, Saul Klein. Today the firm is putting some money behind a more mainstream education startup, called Gojimo, that’s targeting mobile as a delivery and engagement platform for learning.
This year, the World Economic Forum is pleased to present 36 leading start-ups selected as Technology Pioneers 2014. The class is particularly diverse, providing new solutions to a number of challenges, including technologies for a greener and more sustainable planet; the deployment of precise and targeted therapies in the treatment of cancer and other diseases; the rethinking and redesign of how we deliver education; a robotics renaissance; the creation of a more personalized Internet experience; and the initiation of a “sharing” economy, to name a few.
Does anyone dispute that 2013 has been the year of the tech company? LinkedIn has surged over 100%. Twitter and Zulily popped more than 70% and 80% respectively on the day of their recent IPOs. Even Facebook’s stock, once completely out of favor, has doubled in value over the past six months.
Not every 10-month old startup can say that it has crossed a handful of oceans and international borders to purchase a 93-year-old factory — or raised $122.5 million to do so. Yet, not every Internet startup is trying to make waves in the prosaic world of shaving, where 85 percent of the market is controlled by a couple of weathered giants like Gillette and Schick. What’s more, while adopting a purely online and direct-to-consumer model can help startups cut out that pesky middle man, to truly reduce the friction and high costs in the market and iterate more quickly, you have to control manufacturing.
Fuhu makes a cute soft-sided tablet for children. But cuteness isn't what produced three-year growth of 42,148 percent.
Robb Fujioka is too busy, working too fast, to be watched. Underlings are lined up. One wants sign-off on a package design. Another needs guidance before a supplier negotiation. But a reporter (me) has asked to observe a meeting or something, his marketing person reminds him--to get the flavor of the company. So he has her use the walkie-talkie she and other managers carry to call 24 of them in for an impromptu meeting. Within minutes, they file in like obedient children. He gives me a look. There, happy?
Spanish Wi-Fi sharing company Fon has raised $14 million from Qualcomm Ventures.
It’s an indication that Fon’s collective approach to sharing bandwidth, while slow-growing, still has some attraction to investors — particularly a strategic investor like Qualcomm, which makes chips for broadband wireless communications. It might also be finding some traction now that the notion of “collaborative consumption” is catching on, thanks to startups like AirBnB and Lyft — although Fon predates those startups by several years.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two years since it picked its inaugural class of entrepreneurs to respond to trends in healthcare. Now the health IT accelerator in New York Blueprint Health is gearing up for class number five.
Looking back on its first graduates, Dr. Brad Weinberg, who co-founded the program with Mathew Farkash, noted that seven of the original nine companies are still in business. Five are generating revenue. Looking at its alumni of 39 companies with which it’s invested, 36 of them are still in operation and 80 percent are turning a profit — a record he would challenge other healthcare accelerators to beat.
While creating a new breakthrough social network has proved difficult, the battle for shaping the first breakthrough aggregator of social network feeds – the gateway to our online lives – is still ongoing. So is the battle for becoming the big aggregator of others’ online lives, such as celebrities, musicians and sports stars – some extremely reliant on their social media buzz – and that is where the Roslyn, New York-based Rouse Social is trying to break into the market.
