Agile VC

My idle thoughts on tech startups

Agile VC: 

My idle thoughts on tech startups

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I like to say that “there are only co-founders” — it’s extraordinarily rare for a successful business to have just a sole founder. But not all co-founders are equal in terms of title, ownership, responsibilities, and so forth.  As a […]

Lee Hower
December 4, 2014 · 4  min.

Most folks reading this will know that many startups were built in part with the help of venture capital. Most attention goes to tech companies ranging from Google to Genentech, but some non-tech companies like FedEx and Starbucks also raised VC […]

Lee Hower
October 29, 2014 · 7  min.

eBay announced today plans to separate itself into two companies, one the core eBay marketplace business and the other is the PayPal payments business.  This is a move that’s been contemplated by folks both inside the company and outside for […]

Lee Hower
September 30, 2014 · 3  min.

GrabCAD today announced their acquisition by Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS).  All of us at NextView extend our congratulations to founder Hardi Meybaum and the rest of the GrabCAD team.  There’s a variety of coverage of it in the tech press (BetaBoston, […]

Lee Hower
September 16, 2014 · 2  min.

One of our portfolio companies, Plastiq, announced yesterday that they raised a $10M Series B led by Khosla Ventures and are planning to move their headquarters from Boston to San Francisco.  We’re thrilled for the company to have a great investment […]

Lee Hower
July 16, 2014 · 3  min.

Those of you who know me are probably aware that I’m a rabid soccer (football) fan.  I’ve been a devoted fan of Arsenal for nearly two decades, former MLS season ticket holder (both San Jose Earthquakes when I lived in […]

Lee Hower
June 24, 2014 · 2  min.

My first two posts on this mammoth S-1 covered a high-level sizing of Alibaba and a deeper dive into some of Alibaba Group’s governance which in some ways mirrors the Politburo structure.  Today I’m going to analyze monetization across Alibaba’s various […]

Lee Hower
May 22, 2014 · 4  min.

We’re launching a series of platform initiatives here at NextView in 2014.  Today we’re pleased to announce the first in a series of Growth Guides. What’s a Growth Guide?  Well our focus here at NextView is helping exceptional seed stage […]

Lee Hower
May 15, 2014 · 1  min.

One of the first things that caught my eye when I started reading the Alibaba Group S-1 was a section on page 7 of the filing regarding something called the “Alibaba Partnership”.  It quickly struck me that the Alibaba Group’s corporate […]

Lee Hower
May 9, 2014 · 3  min.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Alibaba officially filed to go public yesterday.  I believe this may be the most anticipated tech IPO of all time… some may argue Facebook was a bigger deal, but Alibaba’s offering has been “in process” […]

Lee Hower
May 7, 2014 · 4  min.