Betabeat » enterprise

Flybridge’s David Aronoff Explains Why He Led a $5 M. Series A in NYC Enterprise Standout BetterCloud

Nitasha Tiku — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:00:56 -0400

In a recent blog post about the Series A crunch for consumer Internet startups, Fred Wilson wrote, "now that the momentum/late stage wants enterprise, we should expect the layers below to give them enterprise."

Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage VC firm with a focus on enterprise startups and companies that support infrastructure for consumer-facing startups (like 10Gen), is well positioned to capitalize on that trend. In September, the Boston-based firm opened an office in New York City, moving principal Matt Witheiler out to join the team. And today Flybridge leading a $5.05 million Series A round in BetterCloud, an enterprise startup that provides cloud management tools for Google Apps.

Since launching in the Google Apps Marketplace just six months ago, BetterCloud has picked up 15,000 business clients like The Financial Times, representing more than 5.5 million users.

Greycroft Partners and TriBeCa Venture Partners also participated in the round and Mr. Aronoff, the lead investor, will join BetterCloud's board of directors. Including the $2.2 million seed round BetterCloud raised in May 2012, that brings the company's funding to date to $7.25 million.

BetterCloud flagship product FlashPlanel is a platform that lets Google Apps administrators offer more controls, visibility, and automation. "Google is fairly quiet," about sharing stats on Google Apps adoption, Mr. Aronoff told Betabeat, "so you have to look at some proxies." Like for instance, the fast growth in BetterCloud's user base. "We did some digging in terms of our own research," he said, and announcements about corporate users moving to Gmail and other products were another indicator about the rise of Google Apps.

Despite concerns about the security and privacy, Mr. Aronoff said the reality is that, "The cloud is the inflection point and starting with consumers and moving into business, there’s this inexorable drive of moving off premise."

The other attractive aspect about BetterCloud's business model, he said, was its emphasis on community, partly through interacting on forums for Google Apps. "If you take a consumer-like approach, you can build a rabid very excited," user base that helps seed the way you think about your product. "For the next generation of enterprise software," he said, "The theme is care of the community.

As for that dreaded Series A crunch, Mr. Aronoff said Flybridge has "largely been insulated from it." The firm invests in its portfolio companies through the lifecycle of the startups. "We're still seeing healthy competition in seed deals as they progress and need Series A," he said, calling the BetterCloud round "competitive" as well.

Looking at the consumer side, however, "We’ve been waiting for [the Series A crunch] to come for awhile," he noted. "There’s just not enough venture capital firms to fund them. There’s always competition and market valuation for the best companies, but you're gonna see a bunch of potholes and I’m not sure thats really a bad thing." Companies that can't secure the funds can operate on a shoe string, merge with a competitor, or "go back to the drawing board."

Booting Up: A $2 Billion Valuation for Airbnb?

Kelly Faircloth — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 07:57:31 -0400

Hard to go wrong betting on a huge, sick loft. (Photo: Airbnb screencap)

According to reports, Airbnb is raising a new round. The Valuation? Try "'north of a billion' between $2 billion and $3 billion." It's amazing what you can do with srs bsns revenues. [TechCrunch]

If this list ranking top 50 venture-backed startups is any indication, it's enterprise companies' time to shine. [Wall Street Journal]

Don't look now, but the maps app in iOS 6 isn't the only thing looking a little half-baked: "Burning question I have to ask: what is up with Apple’s Passbook app?" [GigaOm]

Sure, they might give you text neck, but mental health pros are increasingly using smartphones apps as a way to supplement treatment for conditions like OCD. [CNN]

It was reportedly conflict over turn-by-turn directions that prompted Apple to strike out on its own and create a new map app. [AllThingsD]

Shuttle Enterprise Landing in New York, as Seen From the Runway of JFK [VIDEO]

Adrianne Jeffries — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:40:25 -0400

Twilio developer evangelist Rob Spectre was sitting in a plane on the runway this morning at JFK Airport when a large flying object tore out of the sky and thundered overhead. "Holy *shit*. I was right under the Enterprise as it was landing at JFK. Incredible," he tweeted, and scrambled to upload the video to YouTube.

The flying object was indeed the shuttle Enterprise, which touched down without incident in New York this morning after buzzing over Long Island.

"Talk about Irish luck," Mr. Spectre told Betabeat in an email.

In the video, the Enterprise starts as a dot among the clouds and then appears to speed up as it approaches the window of Mr. Spectre's plane. Mr. Spectre and his seatmates can be heard marveling Double Rainbow style: "Holy crap dude. Incredible. That is unbelievable. Ho-ly shit. My God."

Betabeat intern Ben Weitzenkorn also happened to catch a glimpse of a low-flying aircraft over the Hudson as he was coming out of the subway near Times Square this morning. "It was huge and completely unexpected," he said. "It was almost gone before I realized what it was... You don't expect to see an aircraft piggy backing on top of another one like that."