Sequoia Calls Portfolio Companies to Healthier Business Operations
Profy — ... Sequoia Capital is one of the best-known names when it comes to venture funding of startups in the Silicon Valley so everything the firm does is considered as having strong implications for the entire industry. So it is no wonder that the players in the industry are more than worried today now that ...

VCs Instill Fear in Silicon Valley
Wired: Epicenter — Two prominent investors have communicated a similar, ominous message to their companies this week in light of the financial crisis on Wall Street:  buckle up, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Sequoia Capital (who has backed YouTube among its other ventures) held a meeting yesterday explaining ways companies could cut costs, where entrepreneurs and CEOs were greeted with an image reading “R.I.P: Good Times,” reports GigaOM. And angel investor Ron Conway emailed a warning to his portfolio companies explaining that raising capital will ...

Watch This Slide Show
A VC — I've always felt that Sequoia was the best venture capital firm in the business and this slide show shows exactly why that is. It's chock full of data and charts and advice. Kudos to the team at Sequoia who put it together. ...

Turns out, Sequoia raised more money than any other VC firm
VentureBeat — A shakeout in the venture capital industry appeared to take hold in the third quarter of the year, even before the latest decline in the stock market began. And we’ve also learned one more reason why Sequoia Capital may have reacted as quickly as it did with its terrifying R.I.P. message to companies: Sequoia raised more money than any other venture firm in the third quarter. This gives it an unexpectedly large warchest to invest in a risky economy, but it also means its partners may have less time to focus on existing companies (Sequoia had been hiring more ...

VC confidence hits a new low — again
VentureBeat — Venture capitalists’ confidence continues to drop, according to Professor Mark Cannice of the University of San Francisco. Cannice’s Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index, which has been compiled quarterly for nearly five years, has hit a new low — for the fourth consecutive quarter. Cannice says he surveyed 33 Silicon Valley VCs in September to calculate the index, which now stands at 2.89 on a 5-point scale. This is hardly surprising news, given the state of the overall economy. Last week, Sequoia Capital gave its portfolio companies a ...

More job cuts hit Silicon Valley: Zivity and hi5
VentureBeat — Even as the startup world watched bubbles popping in other industries over the past year, we hoped it wouldn’t hit us quite as hard. But it looks like we were hoping in vain. During the past week, a number of startups have announced job cuts as they prepare for what will likely be a long recession. Here are latest two that we’ve heard about. Zivity, an adult-focused social network featuring tasteful photography of female nudes, has cut a third of its staff: Co-founder Cyan Banister says that cuts were made across the board, and that the layoffs are a ...

Real estate site Zillow cuts 40 employees
VentureBeat — This week’s flurry of startup cutbacks continues with Zillow, the real estate site best-known for estimating the value of people’s homes. Today, the Seattle startup announced that it’s cutting 25 percent of its staff. That adds up 40 employees, according to local tech reporter John Cook. Chief executive Rich Barton writes that Zillow’s traffic was actually up 42 percent in September compared to the same period last year, and that the company’s cash reserves are healthy. (For a web startup, Zillow is very well-funded, with a total of $87 ...

Q&A with SearchMe’s Randy Adams, on making cuts and surviving
VentureBeat — Earlier today, we reported that visual search engine startup SearchMe had laid off 20 percent of its workforce. Lots of startups are laying off workers this week, but SearchMe is led by long-time Valley veteran Randy Adams. He survived the bursting of the last tech bubble, so he wasn’t just responding to general sentiments of fear, but to his own past experiences. Adams has done everything from helping Yahoo to secure its initial backing from Sequoia Capital, to serving as director of engineering at Adobe, to founding successful startups like Internet Shopping ...

AdMob raises $15.7 million funding to increase lead in mobile advertising
901am — AdMob announced that it has achieved cash flow positive results and secured a new $15.7 million Series C investment round, led by Sequoia Capital’s Growth Fund with existing investor Accel Partners participating, to expand its global leadership position. The company has experienced strong growth over the past year, more than tripling the number of ads served on a monthly basis to 4.5 billion in September 2008. Fueled by this funding, AdMob will make significant strategic investments to increase the company’s clear lead in mobile advertising, including: • Accelerating the ...

RIP: The Controlled Message
VentureBeat — [Editor's Note: It's been several weeks since Sequoia Capital's ominous meeting with its portfolio companies warning of tough times ahead. Not much has changed since, but the message has sunk in across Silicon Valley. While Sequoia was full of directives for withstanding the downturn -- many illustrated by scary looking charts -- communications consultant Lou Hoffman says that advice might be overlooking the obvious. Below, he offers up some common sense to skittish startup execs.] Most of you have seen the slide set Sequoia Capital delivered to its anxious startups earlier ...

LinkedIn lays off 10 percent of staff
VentureBeat — Business networking site LinkedIn is joining the long list of companies that have announced cuts in the last few weeks — it has laid off 36 employees, or about 10 percent of its total staff. Kay Luo, the Mountain View, Calif. company’s senior director fo communications, told Reuters that the cuts are a preemptive measure to make sure LinkedIn remains cash-flow positive. And the decision comes from company executives, not investors, she said. Still, it’s worth noting LinkedIn’s backers include Sequoia Capital, the venture firm that gave the now ...

Media-hosting site ImageShack has raises $15M from Sequoia
VentureBeat — ImageShack, a site where users can host their images and videos, has raised $15 million from Sequoia Capital, a reliable source tells us. The sizable backing from one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious venture firms is pretty darn impressive, especially for yet another site in the crowded online photo market, and at a time when web investments are falling. If the news sounds a little familiar, it’s because TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld reported an unconfirmed rumor of Sequoia backing ImageShack for $10 million back in May. Chief executive ...

Did textbook site Chegg raise $15M from Kleiner Perkins? Not exactly
VentureBeat — We’re hearing that a funding rumor going around about used textbook site Chegg isn’t quite right. It sounds like Chegg has some new venture backing, but the details of TechCrunch’s story reporting that Chegg raised $15 million from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers is wrong, multiple sources tell us — including Chegg chief executive Osman Rashid. “The TechCrunch story is not accurate and that is all I can say at this point,” Rashid says. “We will be doing an announcement in due time on our funding round.” ...

Standing in the Slush, Part One
The Next Web — Slush Helsinki has gotten off to a great start, with the heavy snow yesterday doing little to dampen people’s spirits. We started off with presentations from some of the heroes of the Finnish startup scene: Risto Siilasmaa of F-Secure, Monty Widenius of MySQL, and Ilkka Paananen of Digital Chocolate. After insightful and introductions, Matt Marshall of VentureBeat moderated a panel with all the entrepreneurs. A common thread in the three entrepeneurs’ comments were the difficulty raising funding. While all three were successful ...

Aster Data raises $12M for cheap warehousing
VentureBeat — Aster Data Systems, which stores data for social networking site MySpace (and others), has raised $12 million in a second round of venture funding. The Redwood City, Calif. startup offers “frontline data warehousing,” which basically means storing all of a company’s data for business analysis. Aster dubbed its dubbed system nCluster because the data is spread across clusters of cheap servers. The company says nCluster offers three key innovations compared to competitors like Teradata, Netazza, and DATAllegro: It can run on relatively cheap ...

Report: Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia cutting back
VentureBeat — The National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers won’t be releasing their report on fourth quarter venture investments until later tonight, but Private Equity Hub has already published a list of the 10 biggest investors using the same data from Thomson Reuters. Pretty much all of the firms shrank their investments compared to the previous quarter; Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the two biggest names in venture capital, both funded less than half the companies that they did in Q3. Now, the number ...

More funding for mobile ads: AdMob raises $12.5M
VentureBeat — Mobile ad network AdMob has raised a $12.5 million addition to its latest round of venture funding, bringing its third round to $28.2 million in all. In a blog post announcing the funding, chief executive Omar Hamoui says the new cash will help AdMob “cement our leadership position by making the investments that will help us to come out of this challenging economic environment even stronger than when we went in.” The San Mateo, Calif.-based company is already one of the biggest names in mobile advertising, and despite our concerns about how the economic turmoil ...

Meet the new Midas List, same as the old list
VentureBeat — Forbes released the latest edition of its Midas List yesterday, and it’s full of familiar faces. The top four spots are literally identical to last year’s list, with Google backers John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins), Michael Moritz (of Sequoia Capital), Ram Shiram (of Sherpalo), and Stanford Prof. David Cheriton holding on to their titles as the titans of venture capital. The lack of movement isn’t too surprising, since VCs didn’t exactly make a lot of money in 2008 — in fact, it was the worst year for venture liquidity ...

Appirio raises $10M to bring business into the cloud
VentureBeat — Appirio, a startup that integrates online business applications and platforms, has raised $10 million in a third round of funding. The San Mateo, Calif. company developed three of the seven bestselling applications in Salesforce.com’s AppExchange, including the No. 1 app, which synchronizes users’ calendars in Salesforce and Google Apps. It also developed an application that integrates Facebook with Salesforce, allowing companies to recruit and market on the social network. And oh yeah, it provides various professional services to help companies move ...

BIA/Kelsey Commentary: Wardak on The Money Supply and The Media Business
BIA/Kelsey Blog — Last Fall, a report from Sequoia Capital was widely circulated, strongly suggesting that companies sit on their capital and wait out what was sure to be a very slow and painful period. Now it’s gotten worse. For the past several weeks, other analyst reports have been circulating. They suggest that we’ve entered into a period of “deleveraging,” when debt ratios are eating parasitically into capital. This has lead to deflation, and has made it all but impossible to spend, and to achieve growth. For our BIA/Kelsey community of local media ...

The Chip to Solar March Continues, Intermolecular Enters Solar Fray
Earth2Tech — Intermolecular, a company that has developed a process used by semiconductor companies like AMD to speed up research and development of chip technology, says it’s ready to expand into the solar market. It is already “deep in discussions” with several potential thin-film and ...

TKG Data and Analysis: A Weekly Recap
BIA/Kelsey Blog — Here is a recap of posts from last week, in case you missed any. Click below to read each post in full. Behind the Forecast Numbers Earlier this week I went to hear an economist talk about his take on the current economy and his perspective on how soon it would recover. Long story short, I believe the speaker, who had outstanding credentials, was overly optimistic. (I really believed he may have been on vacation in some secluded island for the past year.). (read more) Sensis Continues to Defy Global ...

Economic downturn drives merger of teen sites Stardoll and Piczo
VentureBeat — Girl teen-site Stardoll, backed by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures, is acquiring Piczo, a social networking site that focuses on teen users. The amount is undisclosed, but the transaction was a mix of cash and equity. According to Stardoll CEO Mattias Miksche, who is based in Stockholm, Sweden, said the acquisition was driven by an apparent interest by Stardoll’s users to express themselves in more ways, including through publishing. It didn’t hurt that the economic downturn means that assets such as Piczo are coming at a lower price. ...

Cotendo launches “next generation” content delivery network
VentureBeat — The world of content delivery networks — i.e., services that help videos and other content to website visitors — is already dominated by established players like as Akamai Technologies and Limelight Networks. But a startup called Cotendo is launching a new network that it says will be more responsive and transparent than any fo the competition. Lending credence to those claism, Cotendo is also announcing its second round of funding — $7 million from Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital, two of the biggest names in the venture business. ...

Mark Zuckerberg, top VCs drop off Forbes’ billionaire list
VentureBeat — Financially, it’s been a tough year for almost everyone, even the absurdly rich. Some of the tech world’s richest men are billionaires no more, according to Forbes’ new list of the world’s billionaires. Among the most notable dropoffs (for VentureBeat readers) are Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz, and venture capital pioneer Arthur Rock. Last year, Zuckerberg (then 23) was estimated to be worth $1.5 billion, making him the world’s youngest billionaire. Now he’s lost at least $600 million and is ...

Y Combinator gets a $2M shot in the arm from Sequoia, angels
VentureBeat — Seed-stage venture firm Y Combinator is branching out in its funding strategy today, raising about $2 million from Sequoia Capital and a handful of angels investors. Previously, the firm was funded solely by founders Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Jessica Livingston and Trevor Blackwell. The money from Sequoia will be funneled into a new investment arm of Y Combinator, which will increase the number of companies it can fund each year from 40 to about 60. With an average investment of $15,000 in each startup, the $2 million should sustain the firm for the next two years. In the past, ...

Jajah holds strong, dials up $2.8M to expand VoIP services
VentureBeat — Jajah, a voice over internet protocol communication service, has taken in $2.75 million of an anticipated $5 million fourth round of funding, reports peHUB. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company provides service to millions of users, much like competitors mig33 and Jaxtr. Last April it scored a deal with Yahoo to provide phone-to-PC calling capabilities to the 90 million people who use the search giant’s messenger product. Jajah has seen impressive growth over the three ...

Announcing TechCrunch50 2009
TechCrunch — It’s that time of the year again. We are pleased to announce the opening of business for the third annual TechCrunch50 event, to be held once again on September 14-15, 2009 in San Francisco, California. Last year we hosted 250 start-ups pitching to nearly 2,000 attendees, including 200 VCs, corporate buyers and angels and more than 150 members of the press. All the details are at TechCrunch50.com. Attendees will enjoy an action-packed agenda, including pitches, panels, working breakfasts, lunch sessions, and after-parties at the beautiful San Francisco Design Center ...

AdMob launches iPhone Download Exchange to give and get free ads
VentureBeat — Mobile ad network AdMob is launching a way for developers who don’t have the money for a big advertising campaign to get attention in Apple’s increasingly crowded iPhone App Store — an advertising exchange it calls the AdMob iPhone Download Exchange. The concept is pretty simple: If you’ve got an application with ad space, you can serve ads that promote other applications from the Download Exchange, and in return, you’ll get free ads on other applications yourself. The exchange uses AdMob’s technology to ensure it won’t serve ads to ...

Car battery maker A123 scores $15M more from GE
VentureBeat — A123 Systems, maker of the lithium-ion batteries — primarily for hybrid and electric cars — has nabbed another $15 million in funding from General Electric, marking the seventh time the conglomerate has invested in the capital-rich startup. This brings the total of A123’s recent round of financing to $69 million. The Watertown, Mass.-based company says it plans to use the money to construct battery factories in Michigan close to its key automotive clients. These days, it’s rare for a company to actually be bringing manufacturing jobs to ...

Jawbone doubles its strengths with Prime headset
VentureBeat — San Francisco-based Bluetooth headset maker Aliph has introduced its third generation headset, the Jawbone Prime. Along with offering four different colors, the company has also reworked its signature noise cancellation technology and fit options, which will make the device more adjustable for a wider range of consumers. ...

Plug and Play startup incubator eyes $20M for seed fund
VentureBeat — The Plug and Play Tech Center, a Palo Alto, Calif. accelerator program that provides office space, mentorship and a fundraising springboard for about 200 startups in the Silicon Valley, says it plans to raise $20 million for its own seed investment fund, to be called Plug and Play LLC. And its looking to its partners and several other capital firms — Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Sequoia Capital among them — to make it happen. It seems that the time is ripe for this type of operation, with many larger firms opting to provide small, early-stage amounts to young ...

Profitable: Sugar Inc raises $16M, buys Shopflick and those NBC shares, expands to LA
VentureBeat — Sugar Inc, a women-focused media company, is in the middle of a big expansion. It has closed a new, $16 million round from existing investor Sequoia Capital and used some of that money to buy back shares from another investor, NBC Universal. It also used some of that money to purchase of women-focused “indie” video-driven shopping site Shopflick. The founder and chief executive of that company, David Grant, is becoming the president of a new, Los Angeles-based unit of Sugar Inc. Grant, also a former FOX Network executive, will be working with Hollywood media companies ...

Mahalo plans to pay users that add “topic pages” to search engine
VentureBeat — Mahalo, the underdog search engine that depends on human-generated content for a spam-free experience, has decided to pay its users that add more content to its network. Right now it only has 100,000 pages in its system and draws 5 million unique monthly users. The only way it will grow is if it leverages its userbase to expand its horizons. To do so, the Santa Monica, Calif. company says it will allow users that create and maintain original content to keep 50 percent of the advertising revenue brought in by the pages in question. For example, Mahalo runs an Answers service, much like Yahoo ...

Mahalo to pay users that add content to search engine
VentureBeat — Mahalo, the underdog search engine that depends on human-generated content for a spam-free experience, has decided to pay its users that add more content to its network. Right now it only has 100,000 pages in its system and draws 5 million unique monthly users. The only way it will grow is if it leverages its userbase to expand its horizons. To do so, the Santa Monica, Calif. company says it will allow users that create and maintain original content to keep 50 percent of the advertising revenue brought in by the pages in question. For example, Mahalo runs an Answers service, much like Yahoo ...

Want To Pitch Marc Andreessen, Roelof Botha or Marissa Mayer? Apply For Your Shot At TechCrunch50 By June 30
TechCrunch — Ning’s Marc Andreessen, Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha and Google’s Marissa Mayer will return to our third-annual TechCrunch50 conference Panel of Experts September 14 - 15 in San Francisco. Our experts judge the fifty startups launching at the event and discuss each of the demos on stage as a group. Marc, Roelof and Marissa have been experts since our first conference, and we receive lots of positive feedback to have them return each year. We have an amazing line-up of new and returning experts, and additional judges will be announced over the coming ...

Conformia sells intellectual property to Oracle, disbands
VentureBeat — Conformia Software, maker of software used to manage software cycles end-to-end, has sold its intellectual property assets to Oracle for an undisclosed amount. The company, which specialized in drug development processes, appears to now be defunct. Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle, on the other hand, plans to merge this technology with its existing Oracle Agile Product Lifecycle Management product, which also assists and monitors drug development from beginning to commercialization. Conformia previously raised $34 million in capital from Foundation Capital, Mentor Capital ...

Submit Your StartUp To TechCrunch50 NOW For Your Chance to Pitch Kevin Rose, Sean Parker and Yossi Vardi
TechCrunch — Digg founder Kevin Rose, Founders Fund partner Sean Parker and leading Israeli angel investor Yossi Vardi will return to our third-annual TechCrunch50 conference Panel of Experts September 14 - 15 in San Francisco. Our experts judge the fifty startups launching at the event and discuss each of the demos on stage as a group. Yossi, Sean and Kevin were experts last year and return based on popular demand with Roelof Botha, Marc Andreessen and Marissa Mayer. We have an amazing line-up of new and returning experts, and additional judges will be announced over the coming ...

Real estate site Trulia says traffic is still growing
VentureBeat — Trulia, the real estate website backed by prominent venture firms Sequoia Capital and Accel, published some numbers today showing that despite continuing problems in the housing market and the general economy, the San Francisco startup has been having a strong 2009. That continues a pattern we’ve seen already, with Trulia claiming record traffic and revenue back in January, due in part to interest from investors looking for real estate deals. Now the company says that momentum has continued over the first six months of the year, with visits growing 40 percent ...

Web pioneer Andreessen raises $300M for new venture capital firm
VentureBeat — Marc Andreessen, the entrepreneur who co-founded the first significant Web browser Netscape at 22, is moving on to his next profession: Venture Capitalism. Andreessen (pictured left) with his long-time business partner, Ben Horowitz (right), have raised $300 million in fresh capital to form a firm they’ve called “Andreessen Horowitz.” They’ll invest the money in a way they say is more suitable to today’s needs. They’re particularly enthusiastic about investing in Silicon Valley, saying it is unparalleled in its software prowess. I spoke with ...

OpenDNS takes funds to prevent outages, block sites
VentureBeat — OpenDNS, a Domain Name Service provider that helps users avoid ISP outages and block specific web domains, has raised an undisclosed amount of first-round funding from Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners. Founded in 2006, the San Francisco-based service reported that it was handling 7 billion DNS queries a day, bringing in as much as $20,000 a day — that was a year ago. Today, it says it manages 15 billion queries. In addition to its two primary functions, the company’s service corrects typos in URLs, automatically redirecting to the proper page, and blocks web sites ...

eMeter takes $32M to help utilities switch to smart meters
VentureBeat — eMeter, maker of software that helps utilities integrate data channeled from new smart meters in residential and commercial areas, has brought in $32 million in a third round of funding to meet rising demand. While this financing, provided by Sequoia Capital and Foundation Capital, will help the San Mateo, Calif. company expand its marketing efforts and deliver more product, it says it’s still waiting for utilities to receive their chunks of the $4.5 billion in stimulus money allocated to smart-grid programs. That’s when smart metering conversion will pick up ...

Voice messaging startup Bubble Motion confirms $6M in funding
VentureBeat — Bubble Motion, a company that allows users to send voicemails as if they were SMS text messages, announced today that it has raised $6 million in a third round of funding. Based on a regulatory filing, we first covered the Mountain View, Calif. company’s funding in June, but now Bubble Motion has confirmed the news and identified the new investor, Palomar Ventures, which led the round. Here’s the company’s concept: If you want to send your friends a text message, but want it to have a little more personality or voice (literally), you can send a voice ...

Matrix Partners closes ninth fund at $600M
VentureBeat — Matrix Partners announced today that it has closed its ninth fund at $600 million, with plans to finance consumer internet, software and telecommunications startups. This is a pretty impressive feat for any fund considering how difficult it has been for most firms to raise money since the downturn. Matrix simply says it is fortunate to have committed limited partners. Maybe this is because it’s been around for thirty years and has an established reputation. Even when returns have been meager, it hasn’t had trouble scraping together investments. Then again, in the toughest of ...

Rayspan Raises $12.5 Million from Sequoia, Khosla Ventures
Xconomy — IT, VC, Mobile Wade Roush wrote: San Diego-based Rayspan said today that it has collected $12.5 million in Series B funding to finance its work on advanced materials that could be used to make smaller, more sensitive, and more versatile ...

Rayspan raises $12.5 million to filter out noise in cell phones
VentureBeat — Rayspan has raised $12.5 million to further its technology for filtering out antenna interference so that cell phones can get better reception. The second round in funding comes from Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital. To date, the company has raised $25 million. It’s a sizable round and it’s good to see money going into a company that is built on science and technology research — a rarity in our web-focused venture world today. San Diego-based Rayspan has been working on the technology since it was founded in April 2006. Its licensees began shipping ...

Quantenna adds new funds for wireless video chips
VentureBeat — Quantenna, maker of chipsets used to improve video functionality in televisions and laptop, has added an unspecified amount to its third round of funding, which previously amounted to $13.8 million. Based in Fremont, Calif., the company has now raised $44 million to date ($2 million more than it reported having in April), according to VentureWire. Its backers include Grazia Equity, Sequoia Capital, Sigma Partners, Southern Cross Venture Partners and Venrock. ...

MobileIron gives companies more control over their smartphones
VentureBeat — Even though the importance of smartphones in large, “enterprise”-size companies continues to grow, Bob Tinker, chief executive of a startup called MobileIron, says those phones have never been well-integrated into enterprise IT. Naturally, he thinks MobileIron (which boasts several impressive venture backers) is going to change things. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company is launching its Virtual SmartPhone Platform today, purportedly takes each smartphone used by every employee and created a virtualized version that runs on the company’s data center. That, in turn, gives a ...

AdMob’s 100 billionth ad marks a mobile ad turnaround
VentureBeat — Three and a half years after mobile ad network AdMob was founded by serial entrepreneur Omar Hamoui, the company is about to serve its 100 billionth ad today (Friday). That’s 14 ad impressions for everyone on Earth. AdMob claims, probably rightly, to be the world’s largest mobile ad server, even ahead of Millennial Media, which serves the ads for America’s most-subscribed wireless carrier, Verizon. ...

CalPERS commits $60M to Khosla’s new seed fund
VentureBeat — The California Public Employees’ Retirement System announced today that it has committed $60 million dollars to Khosla Ventures for its new seed-stage fund. The firm, based in Menlo Park and founded by former Kleiner Perkins higher-up Vinod Khosla, has invested in 70 early and late-stage companies to date with a strong focus on the cleantech area — including the solar, energy efficiency, battery and biofuel spaces. It has raised $250 million for its seed fund to date. A few other items pop out in the document CalPERS has provided explaining the investment. Chief among them ...

Sequoia Capital investing in…Chinese vegetables and dairy?
VentureBeat — Huh, well Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, has taken an agrarian turn. It has just invested $63 million into a publicly traded Chinese dairy company, American Dairy Inc., which distributes infant formula, milk powder and soybean, rice and walnut products in China. Sequoia Capital has steadily been diversifying its geographical focus, increasing its investments in places like China and India. And because technology startups are not as attractive in those regions, it’s backing companies that have nothing to do with ...

Employee smartphone manager MobileIron raises $11M more
VentureBeat — MobileIron, a company that helps corporate IT departments manage employee smartphones, originally caught my eye because of it had the backing of some impressive venture firms — Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Storm Ventures. Now the Sunnyvale, Calif. company has raised an $11 million second round co-led by the same firms. MobileIron had its official launch just a couple of weeks ago. The company’s key technology involves the creation of a virtual version of each employee’s smartphone that runs on the corporate data center, allowing ...

TechCrunch50: Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, Tony Hsieh, Tim O’Reilly, and Robert Scoble join Panel of Experts
TechCrunch — TechCrunch50 is just a few weeks away, and it’s time to announce more expert panelists who’ll judge the fifty launching startups. Today we’re pleased to announce Angel investor Ron Conway, LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, O’Reilly Media CEO Tim O’Reilly, and tech blogger Robert Scoble will join us on stage at the event. They’ll join the already-announced announced Marc Andreessen, Roelof Botha, Marissa Mayer, Yossi Vardi, Kevin Rose and Sean Parker. And yes, the experts are already jostling for the right to judge ...

TechCrunch50: Don Dodge, Paul Graham, Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Schroepfer join Panel of Experts
TechCrunch — We’re pleased to announce Don Dodge (Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team), Paul Graham (Cofounder of Y Combinator), Jason Hirschhorn (MySpace Chief Product Officer), and Mike Schroepfer (Facebook VP Engineering) will be joining our on-stage panel of experts at TechCrunch50. They’ll judge the fifty launching startups in front of a crowd of 2,000 or so eager attendees. They’ll join the already announced expert lineup of Marc Andreessen, Roelof Botha, Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, Tony Hsieh, Marissa Mayer, Tim O’Reilly, Sean Parker, Kevin Rose, Robert Scoble, ...

TechCrunch50: Dick Costolo, Satish Dharmaraj, Bradley Horowitz, George Zachary and Lior Zorea join Panel of Experts
TechCrunch — TechCrunch50 is less than a week away, and we’re putting the final touches on what will be a jam-packed two days of startup launches, hallway pitches, and new ideas. We’re proud to announce new Twitter COO and FeedBurner founder Dick Costolo, RedPoint Ventures partner and Zimbra founder Satish Dharmaraj, Google’s social apps guru Bradley Horowitz, Charles River Ventures partner George Zachary and Perkins Cole attorney Lior Zorea will be rounding out our on-stage Panel of Experts at TechCrunch50. They’ll judge the fifty startups that will launch ...

Ruckus nabs $10.7M for Wi-Fi for internet TV
VentureBeat — Ruckus Wireless, maker of Wi-Fi routers for internet television, has brought in $10.7 million of an anticipated $12 million sixth round of venture funding, according to a filing with the SEC. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company did not disclose investors in the round so far, but says it has previously been backed by Investor AB, Motorola Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, and T-Ventures, among others. Ruckus has now raised about $50 million to date. ...

Oorja nabs $500K for methanol fuel cells
VentureBeat — Oorja, maker of methanol fuel cells used to charge batteries for forklifts, pallet loaders and other industrial vehicles, has landed $500,000 in convertible promissory notes, according to a filing with the SEC. Methanol is an alcohol-based fuel that produces zero greenhouse gas emissions. Based in Fremont, Calif. the company markets primarily to large retailers and manufacturers, aviation companies, and distributors, like truckers. According to the company, many companies in these sectors have taken note of the surmounting cost of charging their lead-acid batteries with grid power — electricity ...

Unisfair captures $3.2M to host virtual events
VentureBeat — Unisfair, a firm that hosts virtual events, particularly job fairs that you don’t have to attend in person, has brought in $3.2 million of an anticipated $9.3 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company just bolstered its offerings by integrating Facebook and Twitter into its event experiences. Unisfair’s platform allows you to create a digital character, or avatar, that you can navigate through a faux exhibition hall to interact with others, attend panel discussions and keynotes, or stop by booths set up by other companies. It ...

Financial reporting software maker HyperRoll sells off assets to Oracle
VentureBeat — HyperRoll, developer of software for data aggregation and financial reporting, says it will sell off its intellectual and technology assets to Oracle. Based in Mountain View, HyperRoll was backed by Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners. The deal continues Redwood Shores-based Oracle’s strategy of acquiring smaller companies to expand its own software offerings, particularly its Enterprise Performance Management portfolio. Previously, HyperRoll provided software to help large companies tally up their finances at the end of each quarter to clients like IBM, Miscrosoft and ...

Barracuda gobbles up Phion to beef up web security offerings
VentureBeat — Barracuda Networks, a Campbell, Calif.-based maker of appliances to block spam and viruses transmitted over the web and email, announced that it bought Austria-based Phion, a publicly-traded company that installs firewalls for enterprises, for about $18.7 million. Barracuda has been backed by Sequoia Capital and Francisco Partners, having raised $40 million in a 2005 first round of funding. ...

Jive’s Social Business Software gets another $12M from Sequoia
VentureBeat — Jive Software, which uses social networking to help businesses collaborate internally and externally, has raised another $12 million from Sequoia Capital. Portland, Ore.-based Jive’s products include sites where employees can collaborate, customer discussion forums, and company social networks. Despite being part the flood of companies offering business social networking tools, Jive seems to have done well. The company says its revenue doubled in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year, and that it’s profitable. Sequoia also provided ...

Twilight of the venture gods: Is Sequoia spreading itself thin?
VentureBeat — Along with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Sequoia Capital is probably the most famous venture capital firm around, but it may have overreached in the last couple years, writes Adam Lashinsky in Fortune. Lashinsky writes that Sequoia attempted to branch out from venture capital into a broader range of investments, with a project modeled on college endowments and dubbed the Heritage Fund. However, Sequoia’s plans collided with last year’s financial crash. The firm has yet to announce the Heritage Fund, the San Francisco office meant for Heritage’s ...

Eventbrite scores $6.5M for online event coordination
VentureBeat — Eventbrite, a web-based company that tracks event invitations, ticketing and RSVPs for large events, has brought in $6.5 million in equity, debt, rights and security from Sequoia Capital, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in San Francisco, it is also backed by European Founders Fund. Bebo founders Michael and Xochi Birch and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim have also contributed to Eventbrite’s now $9.5 million in financing. ...

Advanced Power enters week-long rebranding cocoon
VentureBeat — Advanced Power Projects, a company that revamps power plants to make them greener and more energy efficient, will shutter this week, in hopes of reemerging next week as a brand new company with a more expansive roadmap, according to Dow Jones VentureWire. Based in Fremont, Calif., the company offers a wide array of equipment and services. For instance, it installs steam-injection systems in existing plants to increase capacity and reduce heat rates by 25 percent; it helps lower-emission gas-fired power plants with site selection, permitting, sales and engineering; it acquires underperforming ...

More money for online real estate: Redfin raises another $10M
VentureBeat — Real estate site Redfin announced today that it has raised $10 million more in a fourth round of fudning. The round was led by Greylock Partners, meaning that the firm (which just raised a new fund) is the latest high-profile VC to enter the online real estate market. Real estate search engine Zillow’s venture backers including Benchmark Capital, while Sequoia Capital invested in Trulia. Unlike those companies, Redfin describes itself as an “online real estate broker” — you search for homes on the site, but then Redfin tries to ...

Appirio launches interactive cloud computing map
VentureBeat — Companies often realize the potential of cloud computing but lack the resources and knowledge to proceed with any kind of integration. Enter Appirio, a startup cloud solution provider, that has launched a public tool to bring some clarity to the sometimes daunting cloud. Today, the company is launching an interactive map that it’s calling the first cloud computing ecosystem map. Leveraging its experience consulting with enterprises as they move onto different cloud services and originally built for internal training, the maps goal is to help enterprises gain a basic ...

As Midas List dies, AlwaysOn offers a new selection of top VCs
VentureBeat — Folks wanting to identify the top venture capitalists will have to look at a new source from now on. Forbes’ annual Midas List, in which the magazine ranked the VCs who saw the best returns in the past five years, is reportedly dead. Meanwhile, online network and conference company AlwaysOn has released its own list, the 2009 Venture Capital 100. Forbes’ decision to drop the Midas List was reported by peHUB, which said the mews was confirmed by the magazine. The magazine didn’t give a specific reason for the decision, but peHUB notes that Forbes recently made ...

Outright raises $5.5M to help small businesses with their finances
VentureBeat — Outright, which offers a free online application to help small businesses manage their finances, has raised $5.5 million in a first round of institutional funding led by Sequoia Capital. The firms that invested in Outright’s seed round — First Round Capital, Shasta Ventures, and SoftTechVC — also participated. The Campbell, Calif. company has now raised a total of $7.5 million. ...