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Significant launches in recent Internet history

2001

• 2001 – Wikipedia
• 2001 – Meetup.com
• 2001 – Dot Com Bubble Burst

2002

• 2002 – Friendster

2003

• 2003 – WordPress
• 2003 – Facebook
• 2003 – MySpace
• 2003 – LinkedIn
• 2003 – Howard Dean Meetup Group

2004
2005

• 2005 – YouTube

2006

• 2006 – Twitter
• 2006 – Demand Media

2007

• 2007 – Whrrl

2008

• 2008 – My.BarackObama.com
• 2008 – LiveStrong.com

Internet Dot com Founders

• Amazon.com – Jeff Bezoz
• AOL – Steve Case became CEO, 1991
• Alexa – Brewster Kahle, Bruce Gilliat
• Broadcast.com – Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner, 1998
• Compete – Bill Gross
• comScore – Gian Fulgoni, Magid Abraham
• DPReview – Phil Askey, 1998
• Demand Media – Richard Rosenblatt, Shawn Colo
• Friendster – Jonathan Abrams, 2002
• Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, 2003
• Google – Larry Page (Standford), Sergey Brin (Standford), 1998
• Hulu – Jason Kilar (Amazon)
• Internet Archive (Way Back Machine) – Bewster Kahle
• LiveStrong – Lance Armstrong, Demand Media
• LinkedIn – Reid Hoffman (PayPal), Jeff Weiner (Yahoo), 2003
• MySpace, Brad Greenspan, Chris DeWolfe, John Berman, Tom Anderson (eUniverse), 2003
• Micro Solutions, Mark Cuban
• Meetup.com – Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker, Peter Kamali
• Twitter, 2006
• Wikipedia – (Larry Sanger, Jimmy Wales (Bomis), 2001
• WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, Ryan Boren, Donncha O Caoimh, Mike Little, 2003
• Whrrl – Jeff Holden (Amazon), Darren Vengroff (Amazon)
• Yahoo!, Jerry Yang (Stanford), David Filo (Stanford), 1995
• YouTube, 2003

Funding Milestones for Internet Start-ups

• Amazon.com
  • 1997, IPO (AMZN)
• Compete
  • 2008, $20M led by Founders Fund (Ken Howery), Polaris Venture Partners (Mike Hirshland)
• Demand Media
  • 2006, $355M led by Oak Investment Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors, Goldman Sachs
• Digg
  • 2005, $2,8M Greylock
  • 2006, $8.5M Greylock
  • 008, $28M Greylock
• Friendster
  • 2003, $12M initial funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital
  • 2006, $3M additional funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital
  • 2006, $10M additional funding led by DAG Ventures
  • 2008, $20M additional funding led by IDG Ventures
• Facebook
  • 2004, $500,000 by Peter Thiel (PayPal)
  • 2005, $12.7M venture capital funding by Accel Partners
  • 2005, $27.5M additional funding by Greylock Partners
  • 2007, $240M investment by Microsoft (1.6%)
  • 2007, $60M investment by Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing
• Google
  • 1998, $100K by Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems
  • 1999, $25M by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital
  • 2004, $1.67B by IPO (GOOG) giving it a market capitalization of $23B
• Huffington Post
  • 2008, $25M by Oak Investment Partners
• LinkedIn
  • 2004, $10M Greylock
  • 2007, funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, European Founders Fund
  • 2008, $53M Greylock
  • 2008, $53M additional funding by Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners
  • 2008, Post-money valuation of approximately $1B
• Prosper
  • 2005, $7.5M Benchmark Capital
  • 2006, $12.5M Benchmark Capital
  • 2007, $20M Benchmark Capital
• Whrrl
  • 2006, (prior to launch), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Trilogy Equity Partners, Bezoz Expeditions, iFund
  • 2008, $15M second round of funding by Deutsch Telekom, Reliance, DAG Ventures

Dot Com Valuation

• LinkedIn – 2008 sold 5% for $53M translating post-money valuation of $1B
• Facebook – 2007 sold 1.6% for $240M to Microsoft giving it an implied value of $15B

Venture Capitalists & Angel Investors

• Accel Partners (Facebook, Responsys, comScore, Prosper, Coremetrics, Kayak, Netvibes, Truste)
• Bezoz Expeditions (Whrrl, 37Signals, Twitter, TeachStreet)
• Benchmark Capital (Friendster, Twitter, oDesk, Yelp, Metacafe, Prosper, MySQL, Pentaho)
• Bessemer Venture Partners (LinkedIn, Skype, BlueNile, Wix, Diapers.com)
• DAG Ventures (Friendster, Whrrl, BitTorrent, oDesk, Wetpaint, Yelp, Metacafe)
• European Founders Fund (LinkedIn)
• Founders Fund (Compete, Facebook, Slide, Quantcast) Peter Thiel ($500k-$1M)
• Greylock Partners (LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook, Wink)
• Goldman Sachs (Demand Media)
• IDG Ventures (Friendster, Social Media)
• iFund (Whrrl) specializes in companies that extend iPhone, i.e., build iPhone applications
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Google, Friendster, Whrrl)
• Oak Investment Partners (Demand Media, aQuantive, FastClick, Huffington Post, LoopNet, Shop)
• Polaris Venture Partners (Compete, Automattic, Weatherbug)
• Sequoia Capital (Google, LinkedIn)
• Spectrum Equity Partners (Demand Media)
• Trilogy Equity Partners (Whrrl)
• thefunded.com

Recent Internet Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

• 1997, Yahoo acquires Net Controls, $1.4M
• 1997, Microsoft acquires Hotmail, $500M
• 1998, Microsoft acquires FireFly, $40M
• 1998, Yahoo acquires Broadcast.com, $5.7B
• 1998, Amazon acquires IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
• 1998, Amazon acquires PlanetAll
• 1998, Amazon acquires Junglee
• 1999, Excite@Home acquires iMALL, $100M
• 1999, Amazon acquires Alexa, $250M
• 1999, Amazon acquired Accept
• 1999, Amazon acquires Exchange
• 2000, Microsoft acquires Visio, $1.375B
• 2000, Microsoft acquires Travelscape, $89M
• 2000, eBay acquires Half.com, $318M
• 2002, Yahoo acquires HotJobs, $463M
• 2002, eBay acquires PayPal, $1.5B
• 2003, Yahoo acquires Overture, $1.63B
• 2003, Google acquires Blogger, PyraLabs
• 2003, Amazon acquires CDNow
• 2003, Google acquires Applied Semantics, $100M
• 2004, Google acquires Keyhole, earth viewer renamed Google Earth
• 2004, eBay acquires 25% Craigslist, $13.5M
• 2004, eBay acquires Rent.com, $415M
• 2005, Amazon acquires CreateSpace
• 2005, eBay acquires Shopping.com, $620M
• 2005, eBay acquires Skype, $2.6B
• 2005, Yahoo acquires Del.icio.us, $20M
• 2005, Google acquires Urchin, web analytics renamed Google Analytics
• 2005, News Corp acquires Intermix (MySpace.com)
• 2006, eBay acquires 10% Meetup.com, $10M
• 2006, Amazon acquires Shopbop
• 2006, Demand Media acquires eNom
• 2006, Demand Media acquires eHow
• 2006, Google acquires YouTube, online video site, for $1.65B
• 2006, Google acquires JotSpot, wiki technology for collaborative web sites
• 2007, Microsoft acquires aQuantive, $6.333B
• 2007, eBay acquires StumbleUpon, $75M
• 2007, Google acquires DoubleClick, for $3.1B
• 2007, Google acquires FeedBurner, $100M
• 2007, Google acquires Postini, $625M, renamed Gmail
• 2007, Amazon acquires DPReview
• 2007, Yahoo acquires BlueLithium, $300M
• 2007, Yahoo acquires Zimbra, $350M
• 2007, Yahoo acquires Right Media, $680M
• 2007, Demand Media acquires ExpertVillage
• 2008, Demand Media acquires Pluck, $75M
• 2008, eBay acquires Bill Me Later, $1.2B
• 2008, Yahoo acquires Maven Networks, $160M
• 2008, Amazon acquires AbeBooks
• 2008, Amazon acquires Shelfari
• 2008, TNS acquires Compete for $150M