Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Untitled

Attracting the right type of co-investors (Status.Net)

Our portfolio Company Status.Net just announced that it raised $2.3M in initial funding to date. While some will argue that such an amount is on the low side for a tech startup, especially when comparing it to other microblogging platforms that raised dozens of millions in funding, others will argue they are doing it right! And I think it’ awesome when a Company is able to attract the right amount of funding it needs to execute, and at the same time get it from the right type of investors.

In a nutshell, Status.Net develops and supports medium to large enterprises with open source microblogging tools. Its products include the StatusNet Enterprise Network support subscription program and the Status.Net Cloud Service software-as-a-service offering. Its early clients include: Motorola, Mozilla, Shit my Dad says, and is already on a run rate of over 10,000 downloads per month. I’d say that’s a pretty good start.

But when building a Tech Company from scratch, it’s as important to build the right team to execute as it is to attract the right type of investors to support the vision. Evan Prodromou has an amazing vision of how Corporations around the world should integrate microblogging into their applications and communications platforms. And on the other hand, Scott Switzer of Firstmark Capital has the deep experience of having built a leading open source ad platform – OpenX, and will provide Evan with a leg up on massively deploying a profitable open source platform. Scale for growth is critical for Status.net.

When we (iNovia Capital) first seed funded the Company, it was on the basis of our belief in Evan’s vision for Status.net, his capacity to attract the right team and because the guys over at Montreal Start Up where there to help kick-start this Company. Now, the Company is kicking into second gear with the support and knowledge of the FirstMark Capital guys. And we are looking forward building an Enterprise software category leader.

Check out the full Press release here:

http://www.inoviacapital.com/news.php?langID=&pre_id=84

Or learn more about the Company and this funding round at:

    http://tcrn.ch/9GNl7Z

   http://status.net

Posted via email from Chris's posterous

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