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90% of Colorado VC dollars in Q1 flow into Boulder Valley

April 23, 2008

According to a MoneyTree Survey (via BCBR), “eighteen companies in the Boulder Valley received venture capital funding totaling $266.8 million during first quarter 2008.” This doesn’t include angel investment - we’re just talking about reported VC investment.

Outside of Boulder Valley, just eight more Colorado companies were funded in Q1 meaning that nearly 70% (18 of 26) of the statewide deals were done in the Boulder area. Looking at the dollars, a staggering 90% ($266.8M of $297.7M) went to the Boulder area deals. The nearly $300M invested by VCs in Colorado was reported as the highest level since 2001. Much of that was driven by a single $130M renewable energy investment.

By my quick count, about $35M was invested last quarter in a wide range of web and software companies such as HiveLive ($5.6M), Tendril Networks ($12M), Filtrbox ($500k), Collective Intellect ($6.6M), and Mark Sawyer’s post @Last/Sketchup/Google effort Vico Software ($3M).

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Collective Intellect raises an additional $6.6M

April 16, 2008

TechCrunch is reporting that Collective Intellect has raised another $6.6M. This brings the total financing to $9.2M. This is the second significant deal that was participated in by GroTech Capital which recently invested $5.6M in HiveLive.

Previous coverage of Collective Intellect is here, including a podcast with the head honchos that I did in November, 2006.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Umbria acquired

April 2, 2008

Umbria (new media intelligence and sentiment analysis) announced today that it has been acquired by JD Power for an undisclosed amount.

The 40 person Umbria team should continue to operate from Boulder, according to Tech Rockies. Other Colorado companies in a related space include Collective Intellect and Filtrbox.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Storage Markets - collective intelligence for the storage industry

October 22, 2006

storagemarkets.gifStorage Markets of Boulder was founded in January, and is building a prediction market in order to help spot trends, anticipate future prices, values and events, and to generally predict the future of the storage industry.

“A prediction market is an online financial market where traders buy and sell a virtual security that is usually tied to the outcome of a future event… Storage Markets will use such as market to serve the storage industry.” : Founder John Ives.

When you first check this out, it almost feels like a gambling or gaming site. Someone poses a question such as “when will iSCSI and Fibre Channel cross paths in terms of market share?” and market insiders make predictions by purchasing “securities” (representing the potential outcomes) with virtual “Bit$” tokens. John went on to explain that the traders in the system take these questions very seriously and are naturally competitive. Traders can actually win real cash prizes by winning trading contests, bolstering their self-image and feeding their desire to participate further.

Storage Markets, however, isn’t in it to earn Bit$. John explained that while the company is still experimenting with the business model, it will initially look like a market research firm. People who want to buy market research can pose questions to the community, get reports that analyze the trading behavior, and data mine the system for other nuggets.

The company just finished a “small angel round” in order to complete their experimentation with the business model, and plans to go through another round to continue moving forward.

There seems to be several new companies emerging in Colorado that are based on the principles found in The Wisdom of Crowds, including Storage Markets, Collective Intellect, and Market Force Information.

You can get more info on Storage Markets by listening to the 12 minute interview that I did with founder John Ives on Friday (below).

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 2 Comments 

Podcast Episode #4 reposted (Collective Intellect)

September 18, 2006

After my recent switch to Mac, I edited episode #4 of podcast with Collective Intellect using GarageBand. Previously, I had been using Audacity on my PC. The difference was that GarageBand output a MPEG-4 file instead of a simple MP3. After posting it on ClickCaster, I discovered that it wouldn’t necessarily be distributed in the same way. People may have had to come and click on a video start button on the ClickCaster site unless their podcatcher handled that file type automatically. Catchers like iTunes worked just fine, handling it on the fly.

I first noticed this because the podcatcher on my Tivo didn’t show this latest episode at all. So, I have reposted Episode #4 as a straight MP3 here. Many of you who subscribe to the podcast may have already received and/or listened to this episode; sorry about the duplicate if this is the case. You can listen with the ClickCaster player below as well.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |