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Monthly Archive for February 2010

Announcing TEC 2010

February 17, 2010

Our mission at True is to make entrepreneurs’ dreams come true. It is a bold and ambitious objective and, to make it even more challenging, we do not just focus on the entrepreneurs we fund. Rather, we would like to help all entrepreneurs, including the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. This was our thinking 12 months ago when we conceived the initial True Entrepreneur Corps (TEC) internship program. Our goal was to create an opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs to plug into Silicon Valley and the heart of innovation for an eight week period to see what the inside of a startup looks like and feels like. We wanted the TEC interns to meet as many influencers in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as possible, we wanted them to get a crash course on venture capital, and we wanted to deliver an internship experience that they would never forget. Oh yeah—and we wanted to do all of this for college students finishing their sophomore and junior years so that they could return to campus and use the remainder of their undergraduate experience to prepare for a career as an entrepreneur, if they so chose. TEC 2009 was a great success, and we learned a lot. This year, we are using that learning to create an even bigger, even better TEC program.

The requirements for TEC 2010 are the same as they were last summer: we are looking for smart, motivated, creative undergraduates in the classes of 2011 and 2012 who are eager to join a startup for eight weeks to share their talents and experience firsthand what it is like to be a part of the True entrepreneurial network. Students should expect to work on a variety of projects across engineering, marketing, research, business development, and other areas, depending on their backgrounds and individual company needs.

More information on TEC is available here, including application materials for 2010. There are also links to profiles of the 2009 group, the blog they wrote chronicling their summers in and out of the office, and a video they produced that gives prospective applicants a great feel for the kind of experience they are in for. The deadline for this year’s applications is April 2, 2010.

The continuation of the TEC program is another step that we are pleased to take to help provide support for young entrepreneurs and for the companies with which we are privileged to work. We look forward to meeting this summer’s TEC class in June and encourage interested students or other affiliated university staff members to contact us at TEC [at] trueventures [dot] com with questions or comments about the program.

Welcome Scott, Steven, Michael…

February 17, 2010

Welcome Scott, Steven, Michael, Adam and Urban Airship to the True Family! http://bit.ly/9cENLZ

Urban Airship Secures $1.1m in Funding

February 16, 2010

Huge congrats to Founders Scott Kveton, Steven Osborn, Michael Richardson, and Adam Lowry for their new round of funding for Urban Airship. We could not be more excited about partnering with such a visionary group. Their traction since starting a little over nine months ago has been nothing short of impressive – 1500 customers, over 100 million messages pushed, and over 10 million devices served!

The official press release is here in addition to the company’s blog post.

With the introduction of the iPhone and Android, the mobile landscape has changed dramatically, creating robust new platforms for innovation. Most of the talk has been about the wave of cool new apps and deservedly so. We seemingly hear about a new app store being created at every turn.

What has received less attention is the underlying software infrastructure required to enhance these very applications and enable them to run reliably and with scale. At True, we are strong believers in the next wave of mobile infrastructure with Urban Airship playing right at the center of this massive opportunity.

We look forward to continued innovation as the company expands across multiple platforms and form factors including the iPad, augments and to some extent reinvents the SMS experience, and brings more rich, relevant content to the mobile user.

More importantly, we look forward to working together with such a great group of entrepreneurs!

RT @michaelmontano: College st…

February 12, 2010

RT @michaelmontano: College students: apply for TEC and join a @trueventures portfolio co (like @backtype) this summer http://bit.ly/8aabnp

RT @akumar: “only two VCs have…

February 12, 2010

RT @akumar: “only two VCs have done SaaS Series A deals since Q4 ’08 meltdown” @trueventures is one of them http://j.mp/awdqgd

I just favorited this http://t…

February 10, 2010

I just favorited this http://tweetphoto.com/10971942 check it out! #TweetPhoto

I just voted for http://tweetp…

February 10, 2010

I just voted for http://tweetphoto.com/10971942 check it out! #TweetPhoto

Congrats to Danny and team: aw…

February 4, 2010

Congrats to Danny and team: awesome launch! http://tcrn.ch/bQTUwI. Exceptional idea, world class team.

Welcoming Scale Venture Partners to BrightRoll

February 4, 2010

Today BrightRoll announced it’s $10 million Series C round of financing led by Scale Venture Partners. Rob Theis is leading the deal for Scale, and will be joining me, Vince Vanelli of KPG and David Welsh of Adams Street on the Board.

We’re incredibly proud of Tod, Dru, Charlie, Lewis and the team at BrightRoll who have built this company from a raw idea into the leading global online video ad platform. BrightRoll recently surpassed Hulu in terms of viewership, and Tod has built this company with a fraction of the capital used by his competitors.

I first me Tod through Plaxo in 2003, where he was Director of Revenue for Plaxo and I was on the board (through an investment I made at a prior firm). We worked closely together on several initiatives over a couple year period, and Tod always demonstrated his tenacity, smarts and raw talent. I was also lucky enough to get to know Dru really well in the early Plaxo days too, largely because I was always a “problem user” of Plaxo products because I had so many computers. Dru spent countless hours debugging my setups, and we became friends.

When they decided to leave Plaxo and start BrightRoll in mid-2006, I counted myself lucky to a) get the call and b) have True’s first fund raised so that we could invest in his idea from day one. I remember calling him to tell him we’d take all of the available room in his seed round, and if anyone dropped out, we’d take that too. At True, we place an unbelievable emphasis on Founders, so my prior experience with them meant a lot.

The BrightRoll journey has been as challenging as any other startup, but at every turn Tod and Dru have displayed an exceptionally clear vision for the industry, and they’ve built the company with quality and care. The team is also serious about building a real business. About one month into our seed investment, Tod called me to report on the first month’s revenue. I’m normally not one to expect revenues so soon in our seed deals, so I congratulated him and laughed a bit about my surprise. He commented that he found my surprise surprising: he just didn’t understand how so many web 2.0 startups of the time were unable to focus on revenues.

BrightRoll has been strong since the beginning, but in early 2009 we at True decided to aggressively invest behind the company. We thought the downturn presented a particularly ripe opportunity for expansion and growth, and we at True (as well as KPG and Adams Street) stepped up to fund this expansion (in a very Founder-friendly fashion). This was part of our “make the strong stronger” strategy in 2009. This was scary to some but seemed smart to us, largely due to the tremendous talent that Tod had built on his team. It didn’t hurt that he’s pursuing a great market, and did so with tremendous discipline (Brightroll’s been profitable for awhile now).

2009 was a great year for the company, and with our new financing we look forward to continued growth.

We were lucky to have many options for this recent financing, but the Scale team early on demonstrated an understanding of the company and market opportunity that was unique. At True we have a lot of respect for Rory, Kate, Sharon and Rob, and we really like what they’re building. We’re very pleased to have them on board with us.

Congrats to Tod, Dru and the entire team on an important next step towards building an exceptional company.