Miscellanous Musings Posted at the Request of Another SI Member.
It's too bad that of the VC's listed as investors in N*ABLE Technology, "... None of these are premier names....". Humm, let's just look at one of the VC's listed.
As the Red Herring article states Mr. Campbell of Techfarm was one of the top 20 entrepreneurs of '97 along with Bezos of Amazon.Com, Haley Minor of CNET, Kim Polese of Marimba, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp., just to name a few. Here's a little more...
Gordon A. Campbell is the President of Techfarm, a privately held firm that advises, helps manage, consults, assists in raising capital, and invests in seed and early stage development technology start-ups. Techfarm also helps form alliances with customers, suppliers and distribution partners. Campbell founded Techfarm in 1993 to create a new model for technology start-ups which would focus on semiconductor and software opportunities. Gordon Campbell has founded and been involved in the start up of many Silicon Valley companies, the most notable of which are SEEQ Technology and CHIPS and Technologies, Inc. In 1981 Mr. Campbell founded SEEQ Technology where the company pioneered the advanced development of non-volatile memories and communication chips. As President and CEO, Campbell took the company public in 1983 and propelled it to a $200,000,000 market capitalization. In 1985, Mr. Campbell founded CHIPS and Technologies ("CHIPS"). As Chairman, CEO and President, he brought CHIPS to profitability in twelve months, and led the Company to an initial public offering in just 22 months. CHIPS defined and pioneered the concept of chip sets for PC systems' logic, graphics, and communications. This concept was so successful that CHIPS achieved sales of $300,000,000 less than four years after its founding and this concept remains the fundamental architecture for every personal computer manufactured today. Still a major shareholder, Campbell retired as Chairman of CHIPS & Technologies, Inc. in 1995. In his twenty-five year career, Mr. Campbell has been a driving force in the evolution of both the semiconductor industry and the personal computer industry. Campbell has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as Entrepreneur of the Year for his achievements and by major business and technology publications as a leading pioneer in high-technology. Following his studies at the University of Minnesota, Campbell held positions in management, sales, marketing and engineering at Intel Corporation, Motorola, Intersil and Honeywell. Mr. Campbell currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Exponential Technology and 3Dfx Interactive. Among others, Campbell also serves on the Board of Directors of 3Com Corporation and Bell Micro.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
What the top 20 entrepreneurs of 1997 are doing this year.
By Christina Stubbs
The Red Herring magazine
July 1998
JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON.COM Amazon.com held its much-anticipated initial public offering (Nasdaq: AMZN) on May 15, 1997. Offered at $18 per share, the stock has traded as high as $95. Amazon.com is widely considered one of the most successful electronic commerce ventures to date.
GORDON CAMPBELL, TECHFARM The first of Techfarm's companies to go public, 3Dfx Interactive, had a strong IPO (Nasdaq: TDFX) in June 1997. In September Mr. Campbell started the $45 million Techfund, which focuses on seed funding for PC and information technology companies.
BRIAN DOUGHERTY, WINK COMMUNICATIONS Wink raised a $20 million third round of private placement funding in August 1997. Mr. Dougherty says the company is planning to go public by the end of this year.
ROB GLASER, PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS Progressive Networks became RealNetworks, held a successful IPO (Nasdaq: RNWK), and acquired Vivo Software, a streaming-media tools developer.
SETH GOLDSTEIN, SITESPECIFIC The CKS Group, a marketing and communications company, acquired SiteSpecific in June 1997 in a stock deal worth $6.5 million. Mr. Goldstein has moved on; he was planning to launch Root.net, an "Internet concierge service" designed to help people manage their lives using the Internet, in May.
BILL GROSS, IDEALAB In addition to starting three more companies (GoTo.com, Cooking.com, and Ecall) through Idealab, Mr. Gross is now managing partner of Idealab Capital Partners, a venture capital fund focusing on Internet commerce and other early-stage Net companies.
MARK HOFFMAN, COMMERCE ONE Commerce One raised a third round of $13.3 million in September and is in the process of raising an additional $15 million.
NAVEEN JAIN, INFOSPACE This year, Mr. Jain says, has been "an unbelievably wonderful joyride." Since last July he has joined the boards of two startups, Xoom Software and GlobeCom, and InfoSpace has expanded its content to include classified advertising, news, and chat.
JERRY KAPLAN, ONSALE OnSale went public (Nasdaq: ONSL) in April 1997 priced at $6 per share; a secondary offering was held in October 1997, with shares selling for $28.25. The company now hosts seven auctions per week.
NED LERNER, MULTITUDE Multitude's first offering, FireTeam, a multiplayer Internet game in which players talk to each other via headsets, is in beta testing.
HALSEY MINOR, CNET In September CNet launched the latest of its 11 Web-based offerings, a free online search and navigation service called Snap.
RUPERT MURDOCH, NEWS CORPORATION According to the News Corporation's 1997 annual report, Mr. Murdoch plans to continue expanding his vast programming empire by increasing efforts to distribute information electronically.
JONATHAN NELSON, ORGANIC ONLINE Organic has opened a new office in New York and now has 200 employees. The company is still privately held and has not raised any new venture funding.
KIM POLESE, MARIMBA In October Marimba raised a second venture round of $14.5 million. Ms. Polese was voted one of Time's most influential people of 1997.
DAVID POOL, DATACHANNEL DataChannel has released several new products and has formed partnerships with Oracle and Microsoft.
HENRY SAMUELI AND HENRY NICHOLAS, BROADCOM On April 18 Broadcom made a dramatic market debut (Nasdaq: BRCM): 3.5 million shares were offered at $24, closing at $53.63.
LOWELL TURRIFF, APTOS SEMICONDUCTOR In the past year Aptos has reached profitability and introduced eight new products. Mr. Turriff speculates that the company will soon be raising additional funding.
XEROX PARC The Palo Alto Research Center, a spokesperson said, is continuing its mission to improve life through technology innovation. Its purpose has been further defined with its "atoms to culture" philosophy, in which the creation of this technology impacts people's lives at all levels.
MAGDALENA YESIL Earlier this year Ms. Yesil joined U.S. Venture Partners. She also sits on the boards of ValiCert, a digital certificate validation company, and NetAccess, an enterprise software developer based in Israel.
ALEJANDRO ZAFFARONI, CAREER ENTREPRENEUR Mr. Zaffaroni is semiretired: he remains CEO of Symyx Technologies and Maxygen, and he devotes time to the Zaffaroni Foundation and to Technogen and Associates, a biotech VC partnership.
RAY DOLBY, ANTIENTREPRENEUR Not surprisingly, Mr. Dolby ignored our requests for an interview. |
