Re-Shaping of the Data Center: The Scoop on the 3Par Bidding War
This morning HP announced they were trumping Dell’s bid for 3PAR, offering a whopping 33% on top of Dell’s 85%+ premium. I’ve read lots of chatter about why, but I think much of the analysis misses the...
View ArticleNice Day for NYC and FirstMark
We’ve enthusiastically spoken about the momentum in NYC and our support for the ecosystem. This morning we had a couple of good events transpire. First was the announcement of the World Economic...
View ArticleBuy Me Or I’ll File
The 3Par saga is finally over, and the Company with the larger resources and most similar channel won. HP is buying 3Par for $33/share or $2.4B in value. This is over 3x where the Company’s stock was...
View ArticleDistribution: Pressure in the Middle
One big theme that we continue to see unfold is the pressure on the distribution part of the value chain. The whole value proposition of the Internet is that it allows you to connect with all of the...
View ArticleA Reflection on Boomi
This was a long overdue post, but it’s been a busy year. Fitting this comes as we head into Thanksgiving. Our investment in Boomi came at an interesting time. There were plenty of scars from the...
View ArticleNew Investment: Shopify
One of the key trends we have been following at FirstMark is next generation retailing and e-commerce. We’ve seen rapid adoption of consumers buying online across categories, and it’s no longer...
View ArticleOffline to Online: The Internet Inside
I recently tweeted about the acquisition of HauteLook by Nordstrom. I think this is one example of many we will see in the coming years of large scale, “offline” incumbents buying their way into the...
View ArticleHere’s to Bamboom!
We are very excited today to announce our investment in Bamboom Labs. This opportunity brings together all things one could ask for in a venture investment – a great team, a big, disruptive idea, a...
View ArticleLot18, Wine, And Next Gen Retail
It’s been a busy 2011 for FirstMark. We’ve had some big exits, some great new investments, and seed companies blossoming into market leaders. On that last theme, I’m excited to congratulate the Lot18...
View ArticleThe Evolution of the Retail Store
Reading today about Apple redesigning their store experience got me thinking about the role of the store in the future. New online companies are exploding into multi-billion dollar vertical categories...
View ArticleWhat Changes the Second Time Around?
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged but I’m trying to get myself back on it again. I thought I’d kick off on the backs of our seed investment into appRenaissance announced today. The CEO of...
View ArticleEducation: A Call to Arms
Busy days at FirstMark, on the heels of announcing a seed investment earlier in the week, I am very excited today to announce our investment into StraighterLine. StraighterLine is an online, low cost,...
View ArticleDemocratizing Education Technology
Today, we’re announcing an investment in Schoology, a next generation collaborative learning platform that combines the elements of a learning management system, a social networking platform, and...
View ArticleExcited to Announce AppRenaissance!
Sometimes the best journeys are the ones into the unknown. I remember catching up with Bob Moul after he had left Dell late last year. He had spent a lot of time focusing on Philadelphia’s startup...
View ArticleAPIs First
Lots of discussion about whether a service should be “mobile first” or “web first”. I tweeted it actually should be “API first”, and I got a lot of reaction to that comment and asked to expand. First...
View ArticleThanks and Congrats Aveksa!
Today is one of those wonderful bittersweet moments in venture. When a team you’ve worked with for many years and is firing on all cylinders gets acquired in a fantastic exit. This is the case with...
View ArticleSun Rising in Healthcare?
One of the hardest things in venture is timing. Pick the wrong time to disrupt a segment, and the result is a lot of optimism and lost investment dollars. Pick the right time to disrupt and you can...
View ArticleNew Investment: BioDigital
I am excited to announce one of our latest investments, BioDigital. BioDigital is one of several investments we have made at the intersection of healthcare and technology. I laid out our rationale at...
View ArticleNew Investment: Gravie
Well, we foreshadowed we’d be doing more around the intersection of healthcare and technology. On the heels of our BioDigital and Recombine announcements, I’m excited to publicly announce our newest...
View ArticleNew Investment: ROLI
I am excited to announce our investment in ROLI, the inventor of the Seaboard. The Seaboard is a beautiful redesign of one of the world’s most iconic instruments – the piano – for the modern digital...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....