Posts Tagged ‘Chegg’

Juvo Capital 2011 Roundup

December 31, 2011 | Posted by: Talmadge

In 2011, Juvo Capital deployed over $25 million into 11 new investments and 5 follow-on investments bringing our total portfolio investment to $36 million to date. Our investments in 2011 included:

AQUSH (new and follow-on)
Browsium (new and follow-on)
Chegg (follow-on)
Dropbox (new)
eSalon (new)
Facebook (new)
Fenix International (new)
Gogobot (new)
Moshcam (new)
Pollenware (follow-on)
Redfin (new)
Serious Energy (follow-on)
Silver Spring Networks (follow-on)
Social Annex (new)
YouNow (new)

     

    In terms of liquidity events, 2011 was a good year. We had exits in LinkedIn and Tesla Motors which together turned an initial $3.9 million investment into $17.1 million for a ~4.4x return and a ~340% IRR. In addition, we have two companies, BrightSource and Silver Spring Networks, in our portfolio that filed S1′s to go public in mid-2011 however the process has been long and drawn out. Silver Spring Networks recently raised an additional $30 million clearly suggesting the IPO is not imminent. To balance the positive with the negative, we also took markdowns totaling $1.0 million for three investments (two late stage, one early stage) that look unlikely to create value long-term.

    At this time, we don’t have a particular investment focus for 2012, although online video is growing significantly both in terms of consumer interest and monetization, and we continue to look for interesting opportunities as they arise. One of the key questions is can any consumer facing video company build a substantial audience outside of YouTube, and soon Facebook. We have two new investments in online video, YouNow and one to be announced shortly, which reflect this thesis.

    As we look forward to 2012, the Facebook IPO looks certain to happen and it will be interesting to see whether the event drives an upsurge in VC investing. We believe we have several candidates which will have the option to go public in 2012, and we look forward to liquidity events just as the Patterson Cycle ramps towards the 2014 peak.

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