Mayfield Fund News: 4th Quarter 2008
In this issue:
• In the News
• Mayfield View: We share the results of 20 responses to our CEO Survey
» Mayfield Raises $395 Million Fund XIII
» Mayfield Appoints 3 new EIRs
» Funding: Black Arrow Raises $20 Million
» Funding: Gigya Raises $11 Million
» Funding: KickFire Raises $20 Million
» Funding: Mimosa Systems Raises 17 Million
» Funding: PacketDesign Raises $12 Million
» New Investments: Mayfield Invests in WideOrbit
» Exits: Cisco Acquires Pure Networks
Mayfield View:
We believe that the innovation, resilience and experience of the CEOs of our portfolio companies will play a crucial role in helping them navigate the road ahead. Read on for insights, in their own words:
CEO: Howard Marks
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Acclaim Games advances the "free-to-play" space through fostering strong, online communities which both play in and develop diverse game universes. Through strategic community relations and customer service, Acclaim Games achieves brand loyalty and community.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Scaling the revenue by releasing many games
What has been an unexpected opportunity? US players like web-based games more than download games.
What is your guiding principle? Free is better
Who has been a mentor to you? Steve Wynn
Name your favorite link: www.google.com
Name your favorite drink: Pinot noir wine
CEO: Murthy Nukala
Describe your company in 1 sentence: We are a technology company that helps our clients transform their online customer acquisition efforts through the use of innovative sparse-data algorithms.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Taking advantage of the tremendous opportunity for performance marketing over the next 24 months by building the right executive muscle.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? The combination of a recessionary macro-environment along with a dislocation of the online media landscape through advanced math techniques is creating a tremendous opportunity for performance marketing leaders like Adchemy.
What is your guiding principle? We have 6 company values that can be found at http://adchemy.com/pages/join-us.php. These are: Play to win... as a team. Dare to Simplify. Decide with Data. Learn. Then Teach. Be Long Term Greedy. Never Compromise Integrity.
Who has been a mentor to you? My father is my true north, my tether, my anchor.
Name your favorite link: www.cricinfo.com
Name your favorite drink: Cuba Libre (rum and coke, Cuban style)
CEO: John Powell
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Open Source alternative for Enterprise Content management
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Credit Crunch Community Customer conversion and retention
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Sharepoint protocol made possible by EU
What is your guiding principle? Sociobiology: The New Synthesis 1975, Harvard University Press, (Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition, 2000 ISBN 0-674-00089-7) This book was the basis for my final year dissertation.
Who has been a mentor to you? Bernard Liautaud, Geoff Squire (Oracle)
Name your favorite link: http://www.ted.com/index.php/themes/evolution_s_genius.html
Name your favorite drink: Laphroaig Single Malt Scotch Whiskey
CEO: Tom Kemp
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Centrify is the leading provider of auditing, access control and identity management solutions that centrally secure an organization’s cross-platform environment using Microsoft Active Directory.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Figuring out to improve sales productivity
What has been an unexpected opportunity? I am hoping the economic uncertainty will weed out some of our weaker competitors and cause our bigger competitors to not invest in the market.
What is your guiding principle? Tell the truth - it makes it easy to remember what you told someone.
Who has been a mentor to you? Various board members
Name your favorite link: http://www.mgoblog.com
Name your favorite drink: Newcastle Beer
CEO: Murugavel
Describe your company in 1 sentence: The leading internet company in India running multiple successful verticals.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? We are looking at aggressive growth and the challenge is to manage the growth.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Identified the ways to grow the business substantially just by looking at things differently.
What is your guiding principle? Do your best and take the outcome in a positive way.
Who has been a mentor to you? Successful people in different walks of life
Name your favorite link: TechCrunch
Name your favorite drink: Water
CEO: Alicia Morga
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Innovative digital marketing company focused on the Hispanic market.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Scaling
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Retailers
What is your guiding principle? "Be the change you want to see in the world." – Gandhi
Who has been a mentor to you? I take my inspiration wherever I can find it. Basically, I want to be Yogen Dalal when I grow up.
Name your favorite link: www.latingossip.com
Name your favorite drink: Dirty martini
CEO: Yaniv Bensadon
Describe your company in 1 sentence: The first and largest consumer-to-consumer Tech Support site in the world covering 1M products.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Hiring the best executives and team.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? The fact that a big part of our traffic comes from organic search.
What is your guiding principle? Don't be afraid to think different from the rest. Life is more about a sense of fulfillment than being popular.
Who has been a mentor to you? My uncle
Name your favorite link:
Name your favorite drink: Wine
CEO: Eyal Magen
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Gigya gives people the power to socialize and share content across the web, providing publishers and marketers with powerful tools for increasing audience reach and engagement online.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Scaling our advertising efforts, so more advertisers will buy more frequently and will be satisfied with results.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Raising our round C amid the current financial crisis. This was thanks to our investors who pushed us to start this on time.
What is your guiding principle? "Every employee is a start up within a start up" - everyone needs to prove a point to the rest of the company just like the company as a whole needs to prove a point to the world.
Who has been a mentor to you? Everyone I have worked with. You learn a little from everyone.
Name your favorite link: techcrunch.com
Name your favorite drink: Grande soy chai late :)
CEO: Bruce Armstrong
Describe your company in 1 sentence: We provide the industry's first high-performance analytic appliance for the MySQL open-source database market.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Segmenting the installed base of 11m MySQL customers in order to insure that our initial go-to-market strategy produces the highest return on investment.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Holding the world record in audited TPC-H benchmark results for our market has proven to be very helpful in sales cycles.
What is your guiding principle? Giving customers and ourselves "no place to hide", which translates into producing the highest quality products, targeted at very specific market segments, running disciplined sales cycles, and delivering world-class customer service.
Who has been a mentor to you? Jack Shemer, co-founder and Chairman / President / CEO of Teradata.
Name your favorite link: www.drudgereport.com
Name your favorite drink: Nectar
CEO: T.M. Ravi
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Mimosa provides content archiving and information access applications that enables eDiscovery, regulatory compliance, and information life cycle management for corporations.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Balancing aggressive top line growth and profitability.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Strong demand for archiving across all vertical segments worldwide.
What is your guiding principle? “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” – George Santayana
Who has been a mentor to you? Joel S. Birnbaum (former SVP of HP), Reijane Huai (CEO, Falconstor, former CEO Cheyenne Software)
Name your favorite link: http://www.flamenco-world.com/flamenco.htm
Name your favorite drink: Mimosa!
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CEO: John Welch
Describe your company in 1 sentence: PlayFirst is the premier publisher of "casual games," leading the charge to make gamers out of the mass market.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? We have no overwhelming challenges, although managing risk - specifically how aggressively to grow - is more challenging in a down economy.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? We were very fortunate that the first game we published, Diner Dash, became a category-defining runaway hit. We have successfully expanded the franchise with spinoff properties like Wedding Dash, Doggie Dash and Cooking Dash.
What is your guiding principle? Covey's 7 Habits was an impactive read; I frequently remind myself and my staff to spend more time in quadrant two.
Who has been a mentor to you? Isao Okawa was founder and chair of CSK Corp; he essentially owned SEGA until his death in 2001. Okawa-san lived in Japan during the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At dinner ten years ago he told me that his dream was to unite the children of the world through multiplayer gaming so there would be no more war.
Name your favorite link: www.playfirst.com
Name your favorite drink: DuMOL "ryan" pinot noir
CEO: Fritz Demopoulos
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Qunar is China's first and largest travel search engine and the second largest travel media overall.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Managing our hyper-growth in one of the world's most competitive and dynamic economies.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? The online travel market in China is growing much faster than we anticipated.
What is your guiding principle? We help Chinese consumers make better travel decisions.
Who has been a mentor to you? Philosophically, Rupert Murdoch.
Name your favorite link: www.Qunar.com
Name your favorite drink: Gunner
CEO: Max Levchin
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Slide is the largest developer of applications for social networks.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? An obvious challenge -- the economic downturn -- is really a big opportunity for companies like Slide that can grow smart (e.g., hiring the best talent, maintaining excellent customer service, beating out competitors) during a recession.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? When I started Slide, I didn't know then (but later predicted) that social networks would become the new operating systems of the web and that Slide would become the new EA, Adobe, Intuit, etc. on top of that operating system.
What is your guiding principle? You can't be married to one particular plan; it's the biggest lesson I learned at PayPal. Whatever you do, do it fast and furious, and if it doesn't work, try something else.
Who has been a mentor to you? My grandmother. She was insanely competitive and had more tenacity than anyone I've ever met.
Name your favorite link: Wikipedia - I refer to it a dozen times a day.
Name your favorite drink: Americano
CEO: Greg Tseng
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Tagged is a great place to meet new people online.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Maintaining stellar execution
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Changing our focus from social networking to people discovery
What is your guiding principle? That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
Who has been a mentor to you? Reid Hoffman
Name your favorite link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRHxHapwirw
Name your favorite drink: Gatorade
CEO: Sanjay Nayak
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Tejas Networks is a leading innovator of carrier-grade optical networking equipment, serving worldwide customers.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Scaling the company from a $100M revenues to $1Billion revenues and transforming it from a India-centered company to a truly global company.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Still waiting for one! So far, we have had to work hard for creating all the opportunities that have come our way!
What is your guiding principle? Stay positive- if someone in the world can do it, so can we!
Who has been a mentor to you? Dr. Gururaj Desh Deshpande
Name your favorite link: www.indiatimes.com
Name your favorite drink: Fresh mango lassi
CEO: Frank Addante
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Ad Network Optimization service for website publishers to maximize revenue from unsold ad space, eliminate ad network management hassle and protect their brand.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Scaling and international expansion. We now deliver over 11 billion ads each month, manage 1300 customer relationships, 100+ partners and reach 240 million unique internet users.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Meeting Raj Kapoor from Mayfield in Hawaii at The Lobby conference and doing our Series B round much earlier than expected because we were impressed with him and the Mayfield partnership.
What is your guiding principle? Keep it simple.
Who has been a mentor to you? Jack Daniels
Name your favorite link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298
Name your favorite drink: Green drink! Gotta get my veggies - http://www.firstshake.com/
CEO: Dean Wiltse
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Vovici is the pioneer in Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM), providing comprehensive survey software, panel management and online community solutions.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Sales productivity by rep
What has been an unexpected opportunity? They are all expected
What is your guiding principle? Who Says Elephants cant Dance? Louis Gerstner
Who has been a mentor to you? No single mentor, I read extensively
Name your favorite link: google.com
Name your favorite drink: Nice Cab
CEO: Brian Steel
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Monetizing portable media, like audio and video podcasts, with an integrated, cross-platform solution and nationwide ad sales.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Executing rapidly and well on all of the opportunities before us, but doing so in a tumultuous market.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” - Seneca. As a former Boy Scout, I've spent my entire life being prepared...prepared for whatever opportunities might arise in my path. As a result, I've had more than my share of good luck.
What is your guiding principle? "Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself." - Confucius
Who has been a mentor to you? Bob Kavner: father, friend, athlete, chairman of Aptera, board member of Idealab, Pandora Media, and Shop.com, and former board member of EarthLink Networks, Ironport Systems, On Command, and Overture Services, as well as FleetBoston Financial, Tandem Com.
Name your favorite link: www.globalgiving.com
Name your favorite drink: Gin and tonic (Plymouth gin and tonic water ice cubes)
CEO: Rehan Jalil
Describe your company in 1 sentence: WiChorus is a leader in Smart 4G Edge and Core infrastructure technology, that will enables providing personal wireless broadband Internet to billions of people globally.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Balancing growth prospects against global macro-economic environment.
What has been an unexpected opportunity? Leveraging the economic slowdown to further solidify WiChorus' lead position in the marketplace.
What is your guiding principle? Woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have promises to keep; and miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep. (To keep our team's promise to be the most successful company in our market segment.)
Who has been a mentor to you? Daniel Golemann
Name your favorite link: www.wichorus.com
Name your favorite drink: Barrack-Obama-Koolaid (I do like to keep it supplied for next 8 years)
CEO: Tom Patterson
Describe your company in 1 sentence: Wize is a Product Recommendation Web Site that allows you to specifically request what you want.
What is the biggest challenge facing you right now? Finding New Talent...
What has been an unexpected opportunity? The speed at which a Great team can come together and switch product directions...
What is your guiding principle? The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Unleashing human potential based on personality type...
Who has been a mentor to you? Peter Zandan
Name your favorite link: www.psychologytoday.com
Name your favorite drink: Tejava Ice Tea
