Rapportive is sold to LinkedIn for $15million giving a windfall to Cambridge University Alumni.
Rahul Vohra, Sam Stokes and Martin Kleppmann met in Cambridge, UK, and crossed the pond to join Y Combinator to start Rapportive. Rapportive “shows you everything about your contacts right inside your gmail inbox” by bringing together info from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.
Rapportive was started in January 2010, battled through Y Combinator and in August 2010 raised over $1million from an impressive list of investors: “Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, Scott Banister, Jason Calacanis, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Cancel, Dharmesh Shah, Shervin Pishevar, and Roy Rodenstein. Also participating are Dave McClure’s new fund 500Startups, Nivi & Naval Ravikant’s VentureHacks, Charles River Ventures, Kima Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, and BOLDstart Ventures.” I think that the founders had to leave the USA to gain their visas – reminds me of the start of Duofertility but this time with the founder having to return to New Zealand to apply for a work visa in the UK.
Not one Cambridge Angel appears in the list of investors despite some of them funding Rahul Vohra in at least one of his two earlier start-ups.
Do you have to go to Silicon Valley to start a social network company? Should you go?
As I keep saying in these posts, the most interesting fact is the number of investors involved in the round – I count 14 investors. Spread the risk, crowd the expertise and so offer a high valuation for the talented founders. Too many people in Cambridge, UK, talk down investors.
Let us try and reverse engineer the Equity Fingerprint.
Round 1: Founders have one third each.
Round 2: Y Combinator invests $20k for 10% – I think that is their normal term – leaving the founders with 30% each.
Round 3: Now for the guessing; what terms did the 14 investors go for? Y Combinator companies have done well and Martin Kleppmann had already started and sold a business (I think to Redgate Software). I guess for between 20% and 40% so let us go with 30% valuing the company around $2million pre and $3million post investment.
Note: no mention of great number of staff hired so guess that there were no options offered and all was achieved by the three founders.
Payday: The Founders started with 33% each, diluted to say 30% after Y Combinator and then down to say 20% after the investment round. So each founder ends up with 20% of $15million, around $3million, for two years work and no doubt lots of pizzas and sleeping on floors! Let us hope that they remain good friends.
Interesting for me as I suggested to Rahul Vohra that he should finish his PhD as starting companies was a risky business. So he made it third time lucky – not that I believe in luck except for health. He upped and off’d to Silicon Valley and the “boy done good” to use a phrase. Certainly puts the pressure on some of his contemporaries who are still building and some who can only dream of selling.
Also shows the strength of the social network business where you can scale a business with few employees or in this case, zero!
Come back to Cambridge, UK, soon and reveal all the secrets so people can stay in Cambridge, UK, be funded by angels and other investors in Cambridge, UK, and so help pollinate the Cambridge Cluster.
LinkedIn was started by Reid Hoffman, a great supporter and founder of Silicon Valley comes 2 Cambridge.
Where was Cambridge Enterprise? Supporting entrepreneurs who generously donate to the University or backing patents?
Hat tip: Crunchbase
25 Comments
at 12:58 pm - 14th February 2012 Permalink
The developers and producers wouldn’t get behind a proposal that would essentially limit how much time a user can play the game, especially since there isn’t enough non-EXP related content in the game to make such a limitation worthwhile. Limited trading… that’s more plausible since there are already trade restrictions in effect. It really depends on how drastic the limitations you’re aiming for are.
http://www.promovareweb.org/
at 5:12 pm - 3rd March 2012 Permalink
First … I know this is more of a statement then a question but you could always delete it and move on or understand what I am trying to say.
Second… I respect you guy’s (the GM’s) a hell of a lot over the last few years. You went from not showing you give a damn to bending over backwards to show the community that you are in deed listening to them. Well to me just you Athenrye.
cribbble
at 12:20 pm - 5th March 2012 Permalink
I wanted to thank you for this great read!!
at 1:18 pm - 5th March 2012 Permalink
se of 3rd Party Tools, to block purposely the account
Knowing that the true owner has no complaints/report in (Cheat report, Post cheater screenshots)
icon design
at 1:38 pm - 2nd April 2012 Permalink
Simply put, the patch isn’t ready for release yet. As I’ve mentioned before, unless a specific release date is given, then the content update point is ballparked to a general idea of when it might be ready to go. The CSW and Under the Castle patches, however, have not cleared the testing phase to make sure they actually work. They’re chock full of bugs and glitches that render them totally unplayable, so we have to spend a lot of time searching through the coding to find all the errors to report back to the developers. For instance — prior errors included all skills in the game simply not working, the Delos warp gate not functioning, animations being misplaced from the character model, start point/respawn location errors, the game client immediately crashing upon activation, and other such glaring issues. We’re working non-stop on getting this mess fixed and the content will not be released until it’s in a presentable state.
emailing
at 12:28 pm - 22nd May 2012 Permalink
That an interesting post. I never thought about this before. But, looking back at different situations, this might be right. Keep it up friend!
at 10:46 am - 2nd June 2012 Permalink
Cambridge played a significant role in the early part of the English Civil War as it was the headquarters of the Eastern Counties Association, an organisation administering a regional East Anglian army, which became the mainstay of the Parliamentarian military effort prior to the formation of the New Model Army. Thanks.
at 8:11 am - 7th June 2012 Permalink
The two ancient universities have many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In addition to cultural and practical associations as a historic part of British society, they have a long history of rivalry with each other. Thanks.
at 3:04 pm - 13th June 2012 Permalink
This is interesting blog, that is the thing I’m looking for over the net.Your blog is great.Thank you for sharing.
at 10:40 am - 22nd June 2012 Permalink
The curriculum is prescriptive, and is based on a more general syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to achieve a particular grade or standard. Thanks a lot.
at 9:20 am - 26th June 2012 Permalink
Your blog is awesome. Thank you so much for giving plenty of useful content. I will bookmark your blog site and will be without doubt coming back.
creative instinct
at 11:07 am - 13th August 2012 Permalink
This is a nice blog. Thanks for the information you post.Keep posting. Thanks for sharing.
at 4:41 am - 24th August 2012 Permalink
http://www.idealobd.de/universal-diagnostic-tool/928-volvo-vida-dice-diagnostic-obd2-tool.html VIDA DICEhttp://www.idealobd.de/mileage-program-tools/639-digimaster-3-digimaster-iii-original-odometer-correction-master.html Digimaster 3http://www.idealobd.de/obdii-code-reader/1153-elm327-scanner-software-elm-327-usb-plastic.html elm327
at 9:38 am - 24th August 2012 Permalink
Thanks for the great buttons. First-class job.Keep posting. Thanks for sharing.
at 11:05 am - 12th November 2012 Permalink
“I absolutely acknowledge the affectionate of capacity you column here. Thanks for administration advice that is in fact helpful. Good day!”
at 1:33 pm - 23rd January 2013 Permalink
Hi… that was great stuff.. I really like this subject. Could you tell me more … I would love to explore.
at 1:34 pm - 23rd January 2013 Permalink
I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it, I have you bookmarked to check out all the new stuff you post.
at 1:34 pm - 23rd January 2013 Permalink
Want to thank you for interesting content dude. Keep writing
at 9:14 pm - 4th March 2013 Permalink
We are confident about our exam damps and we will refund the full amount back to you if you fail your exam. 642-457, cca-410, ccd-410 After Years of experience we develop easy to learn questions & answers, Audio and Video case study Material guides.
at 12:51 pm - 5th March 2013 Permalink
such great thoughts and a wonderful reminder to watch the words I use – to be positive and kind and use words to build up rather than tear down.
at 12:55 pm - 5th March 2013 Permalink
Thank you for this great information, you write very well which i like very much. I am really impressed by your post.
at 12:56 pm - 5th March 2013 Permalink
This is a very helpful post; i hope this really helps me to complete my project..
at 11:38 pm - 15th March 2013 Permalink
We deals in HP, Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, SAP, IBM, EMC, Adobe, oracle certification dumps and have a set of 3000 satisfied clients around the globe, 644-068, 644-066, 642-999, We provide updated and easy to learn study material for all major certification tests. We have no match in market because of its innovative quality that fulfills the exact need.
at 11:26 am - 29th April 2013 Permalink
Very cogent commodity for us, I anticipate the representation of this commodity is in fact superb one. This is my aboriginal appointment to your site.
at 11:27 am - 29th April 2013 Permalink
Hi, acknowledge you for administration this abundant info. Was just browsing through the net in my appointment and happened aloft your blog. It is absolutely actual able-bodied accounting and abdicate absolute in answer with a actual simple language..
Home furniture | Cheap office furniture | Office furniture catalogue
Post a Comment