Jeff Clavier's Software Only

LinkedIn raises a $10M Series B - Greylock leads

Another embargo is over: LinkedIn has announced this morning that they have raised $10M from Greylock, with participation from Sequoia - their sole Series A investor, and 14 individuals. Some names are familiar (Marc Andreesssen, Joe Kraus, Loic le Meur, Peter Thiel,...). David Sze, an extensive LinkedIn user and a great guy, will be representing Greylock on the Board.

I have been a big fan of LinkedIn for a while, and have personally extracted a lot of value from it, in several occasions. As I explain in the case study though, LinkedIn really works when you connect with people you know/have met/worked with in the past. Otherwise trusted referrals don't mean much. So don't get mad at me if I suggest that we meet first if you ask to connect to me on LinkedIn.

As to the Premium services, and how we'll get to pay for them, watch this space, I am sure that this will come at some point.

Congratulations to Reid, Konstantin, Jean-Luc, Allen and the team.

Six Apart picked their VC: August Capital - $10M Series B

The embargo is over: Six Apart has finally announced from whom they have raised their series B. Surprise, surprise: David Hornik, and August Capital, have put in $10M, as a sole investor. This tells you how much these guys believe in the potential of the company, doing a $10M series B solo is not that common.

I am delighted by the news because I have many friends involved in the company: Reid, Loic, Andrew, and of course, David. I also think that August is the right VC to help this company, which has established itself as the de-facto leading blogging platform, realize its potential. As many of us blogged about, it is critical for promising companies to pick the right VC. This is not a possibility that all entrepreneurs and companies have, but SixApart did have it. I remember this amusing episode at BlogOn where I saw Mena and Ben being schmoozed by many of the VCs who were participating to the conference. That kind of "danse" tells you one thing: there is a funding going on. (I actually remember chatting to David about that fact, and the only thing I got was a big smile - go figure why).

JotSpot: The Application Wiki

Joe Kraus, one of the co-founders of Excite, has unveiled today his new company: JotSpot at the Web 2.0 conference. Joe had joined the blogosphere a couple of months ago, creating a blog focusing on entrepreneurship (and cookies).

He is up there on the podium, claiming that he has not slept for two days… That's what happens when you officially launch your company, and your product (in beta). The company also announced a $5.2M funding by Tier 1 VCs: Redpoint and Mayfield. Geoff Yang (who backed Joe at Excite) and Allen Morgan (also an investor in Tribe.net and Pluck - which announced today the close of its $8.5M series B) have joined the board.

Wikis have been around for a while, and have gained increased visibility in the enterprise, noticeably through the efforts of Ross Mayfield, the CEO of SocialText (someone at the Web 2.0 conference came across him and said "Oh, the wiki man"). According to Joe, wikis have been growing in popularity over the past year (25.000 downloads in May 04, counting the 8 most popular wikis - 6 times more than a year ago).

Bill Gross unveils Snap at Web2.0: Now THAT looks like a next generation search engine

Bill Gross, from the Idealab fame, has presented today his latest creation: Next Generation search engine Snap. In his rapid chatting style, he pleased the attendance of the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco by very quickly demonstrating the key differentiation points of this TRULY AMAZING technology. It was as though suddenly many of those features that we had been wishing for as search engine users had finally been delivered to us, in one fell swoop.

Disclaimer: I have not had time to check the relevancy of results, the breadth of the index, etc. But it really looks cool.

Bill Gross explained that the challenge was to provide more relevant, actionable, results. And whilst the breakthrough brought by the current generation of search engines was to build an index of the accessible web, and use prices and link strength as a way to rank results, more was required.