Nearbuy Systems Raises $1Mil

So there’s a market out there called the micro-location sector… who knew? NearBuy Systems is just one of the start-ups chasing after the mobile Internet gold rush, and I would only imagine there’s just a handful of companies hot on this specific trail… but it’s early yet.

This sounds like the kind of mobile device marketing play that every VC will have to seriously contemplate  adding to it’s portfolio. They better make a decision fast, because the gates are open.

As an investment goes, I can’t say that I could argue with it. Personally I’d rather have 4 wisdom teeth pulled out and Justin Bieber blaring simultaneously rather than encounter a store with this technology running rampant in it [nothing personal Beebs]. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t invest in it.

As many people as there are like me, that are completely unimpressed with location type social networks, there’s certainly one if not several shopaholics who will eat this up. Maybe there’s more people like me, that purposefully sought out the Places setting in Facebook in order to kill the switch, and therefore maybe this idea isn’t going anywhere. But I wouldn’t count on that.

Certainly it’s a worthwhile $1 million gamble to Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and a number of smaller VCs who plunked down that number. The deal was announced just hours ago.

To me this sector combines 2 of the things I most want to be left alone from- Internet companies trying to track my every move, my every purchase, my every burp (I’m keeping it clean), my every debit swipe… and at the same time those that want to throw a pop-up banner ad in my face at every possible turn.

As if pop-ups aren’t bad enough on your PC, the mobile marketing sphere is only just revving up to that level of rage inducing nuisance. The only saving grace is that it is likely [at least initially, hopefully for all time] that a shopper would have to opt-in in order to be marketed to inside a store about the products on its shelves. Is that too optimistic?

But given that coupons and savings are hot right now, and that this is a way to invest in an idea that sort of runs parallel to the daily deals market that is en fuego at the moment… like I said above I wouldn’t bet against this sector. If Nearby Systems can come to dominate the space, they are going to be a monster breakout story.

National Venture Capital Association

Second quarter 2011 stats from the July MoneyTree-NVCA report came out Wednesday. The data could get tongues wagging about Internet and other bubbles, but the NVCA’s own analysis runs counter to that view.

While Q2 Internet investment was the highest in 10 years [like that's a bad thing], the numbers are nowhere near the 2000 bubble inducing levels. In the first quarter of 2000 venture capital firms pumped in $13.6 billion split between 977 companies.

This year’s Q2 Internet investment total was split just 275 ways, and the total pot was $2.3 billion. The comparison is part of the reasoning behind the NVCA insisting that current Internet investing is overall pretty healthy. If anything the numbers could be viewed as too low for good health, but certainly it isn’t the classical bubble model, usually denoted by a stampede for tulips.

Also noteworthy in the report are the sector results for medical devices and biotech [life-sciences]. The space once ruled the entrepreneurial field but has taken a backseat for funding the Internet and other areas for some time. But the sector is showing strong signs of life which many are prematurely also decrying as a bubble.

Q2 saw a significant jolt into the life-sciences category with $2.1 billion split by 212 deals. The numbers are an improvement, but isn’t that what we’re hoping for? They are certainly not bubble type numbers considering, as the NVCA points out, that a large percentage of life-sciences deals this year are later stage.

Truth is VCs are more worried about exiting with portfolio companies already on board rather than in scooping up all the newbie bio-techs with just a hint of value. Bubbles? What bubbles?

NanoMR May Save Lives

NanoMR Inc. based in Albuquerque, New Mexico announced on Monday that it has received $13 million in Series B financing. New investors Excel Venture Management and Healthcare Ventures led the round, and existing backers Dow Chemical, vSpring Capital and Sun Mountain Capital all participated.

NanoMR CEO Victor Esch was quoted in the official press release, speaking about where the funding will be most helpful – “We are extremely excited to partner with Excel and Healthcare Ventures to advance our development of diagnostic products for the clinical microbiology market.”

Specifically, the funding will be applied to producing commercial grade medical instruments for micro-biology clinics, performing NanoMR’s own pre-launch requisite clinical tests on instruments, and product launch preperation.

Mr. Esch went on to describe how the new team of investors can propel NanoMR – “Our new investors have great expertise in helping to transform new technology advances into leading edge health care companies.”

The lions share of the company’s work in micro-biology is in bloodstream infections, a potentially deadly affliction. 250,000 deaths a year , many of them preventable, are ascribed to these infections.

The key is in isolating pathogens, which has in the past been a time consuming proposition. This is critical in handling the infection because examining the pathogens is what leads to an early diagnosis.

NanoMR’s technology is said to reduce to under 2 hours what previously would have taken at least 48 hrs to determine. The time saver aspired to will almost certainly be a  future life-saver for many. The possibility remains that such technology can save hundreds of thousands of patients and many millions in hospital costs.

SARcode Funding a Boost to Biopharma Moral

SARcode, a bio-pharmaceutical company headquartered in Brisbane, California announced yesterday it has closed on a Series B round of financing for a whopping $44 million.

The haul is a decisive win for bios in general, as all the talk, hype and IPO buzz in VC and PE these days has been centered around tech…  mobile technology, cloud based SaaS and a multitude of Internet and social media plays.

As a consequence, bio-pharmas had been taking a back seat to tech for some time in terms of investing also… this after having reigned supreme just a few short years ago at the top of the pile.

The current round of funding for SARcode was led by new backer Soffinova Ventures with a bit of help from another new investor Rho Ventures. Existing investors Alta Partners and Clarus Venture Partners also participated.

SARcode is focused on topical treatments for “dry eye”, a condition that afflicts millions worldwide. SARcode’s inflamation targeting compound SAR 1118 will be the major beneficiary of the funding, as further clinical development is warranted.

NEA Plants Flag in NYC

Premier venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates has announced it will go forward with some freshly opened digs in the current number 2 and rising tech start-up capital New York City. The Chevy Chase, Maryland top shelf VC opened a satellite office in Manhattan this week.

The Big Apple has been making noise over the last couple of years as both an atmosphere where innovation [particularly in tech] is fertile, and also where the VCs which treasure such an atmosphere plant their flag. New York’s so called Silicon Alley, a thinly veiled reference to the mother of all innovation hubs Silicon Valley in Menlo Park, California has been on the rise of late drawing notable firms, including Google.

NEA is a worldwide powerhouse among VC’s and New York is by no means their first home away from home. The company has 2 offices in California [including one in the aforementioned Menlo Park] in addition to offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, Shanghai and Beijing.

NEA’s new Manhattan office in Chelsea [a particularly hot neighborhood for VCs] will focus on New York Metro area entrepreneurial pursuits.

Maker Of Dolphin funded by Sequoia

With a seemingly endless supply of liquidity, especially for Internet and mobile start-ups, an incredibly active Sequoia Capital is at it again. The top tier venture capital firm has just plunked down $10 million in Series A  financing on mobile web start-up MoboTap.

Despite being highly active in the Internet and mobile spaces, this is Sequoia’s first investment in a browser. Matrix Partners also contributed to the round.

MoboTap is the maker of the mobile Dolphin Browser which it launched strictly on the Android platform in March of 2010. In just more than 5 quarters since the first release, Dolphin has acquired more than 8 million users.

The size of the sector and the money hanging in the balance is no joke, as in 2010 (for the first time) sales of smartphones exceeded that of personal computers on a worldwide basifor the first times . That marks a 75% increase in mobile devices in just 2010 over 2009. Overall there were just over 300 million such devices sold in 2010 alone.

MoboTaps Dolphin browser is said to be so widespread because of its intuitive nature and ease of use on small screens. The company intends to use the current funding to further develop the Dolphin product and to put it in front of a more worldwide audience, especially China where the opportunity for growth is huge.

Zeltiq Aesthetics Files For IPO

Zeltiq Aesthetics, a Pleasanton, California start-up that aims to provide a non-invasive alternative to cosmetic surgery and liposuction to remove unwanted body fat filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Wednesday to go public. Details of the offering including underwriters and share price are not yet available.

The company’s pioneering CoolSculpting technique, as its name implies, uses a precise cold temperature application to remove fat in typical problem areas. As it was described on the company’s website “CoolSculpting is the first and only noninvasive, clinically proven procedure to selectively reduce fat layers in problem areas that include muffin top, love handles and back fat.”

The company employs just about 100 on its staff but is said to be in hiring mode. With obesity on the rise in the States and a conflicting obsession with fitness and cosmetic procedures, the company may be on to something. In 2010 Americans spent nearly $11 billion on cosmetic procedures.

The company earns revenue both from the CoolSculpting equipment is sell to doctors, and in fees for each procedure conducted. While it has yet to turn a profit, the company is said to be closing the gap on its red ink, mainly by increasing revenue dramatically. Revenues for 2009 were just $1.9 million versus $25.5 million in 2010.

While a time frame is not identified in the SEC filing, several venture capital firms stand to make significant exits when Zeltiq begins trading publicly. The company’s largest backers are Advanced Technology Ventures, Frazier Healthcare Ventures,Venrock, and Aisling Capital.

Foursquare Able to Locate $50Mil

Foursquare Labs Inc., a social network revolving around locations and activities of interconnected “friends” has raised $50 million in a fresh round of financing. The number is more confirmation of just how sizzling the social networking sector is, especially when combined with another ultra hot investing field, mobile tech.

And the new round has lead backers of repute in venture capital circles, names that speak to the continued strength of appetite among elite VCs for all things social Internet. Andreessen Horowitz was recently named the number one VC firm in an internal industry poll, and Union Square is also a top 10 firm.

Andreessen and Union Square were earlier investors in Foursquare, as was O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures who also participated this round. Needless to say, the “Facebook on Wheels” Foursquare has every reason to feel confident with its prospects. New and noteworthy investor in its own right Spark Capital also contributed to the latest round.

Just this week Foursquare had a major score, linking up with American Express to offer special deals to its card members. Add another hot sector to the list that Foursquare has its hands in. The $50 million round places the company’s value around $600 million.

DrChrono Medical Records Software

DrChrono, a start-up with eyes on making waves in digital medical records has announced that it closed a seed round of financing, its first institutional round.

The funding was sourced by several prominent venture capital firms and angels, including General Catalyst, Charles River, 500 Startups and other individuals, two of whom are Gmail/Google alumni. The round totaled $675k for the Y-Combinator start-up.

The idea is to simply medical records keeping for both doctor and staff, and likely has a future on the  patient facing side also. For doctors its one stop shopping for an overarching records system.

From the official press release “DrChrono is a free healthcare platform built on the iPad. DrChrono’s electronic health record [EHR] handles everything a doctor needs to run their practice, including medical records, electronic prescribing, medical billing, and patient management.” Simplifying all software and giving at a central location is the key.

So far the system is geared mainly for iPad and iPad2, and getting the whole idea “cloud ready’ seems to be a priority and a draw for cloud hungry investors. The software is also said to be the first of its kind for tablets in terms of speech to text dictation.

The Undeclared War

Unless you are still in the camp that believes Google+ isn’t similar to the German’s creating the Atlantic Ocean leviathan destroyer called “Bismarck” in 1936, well … you’re just in a very small camp.

Highlighted by some remarks made by Google founder and current CEO Larry Page in yesterday’s Google earnings call, the relatively low profile and restricted battles going on back and forth between Google and Facebook on a technical level are more than just shots across the bow.

They are indications that an undeclared war is underway, and the only question is how long the larger war will remain undeclared, and what will it take to make the hostilities more honestly referred to by each corporation’s brass.

Any pretense that these Internet super-powers are playing nice is closer to the Soviet Union and United States official status as allies in 1945, rather than the close association maintained to this day with our friends the Brits.

Page took a nasty swipe at Facebook’s position in response to a question about the future of social networks, specifically that they will be open. This is a huge issue and it may also be the biggest weapon Page has at his disposal in the larger war.

Page responded by saying Google aims to improve  ”the overall social experience and making it more like how you would share in real life. That’s different than what’s out there now. We are getting rave reviews for that.” Wow, talk about a thinly veiled reference.

How do you really feel Larry? I bet you he would love to tell us, but the war thus far is more Jiu-Jitsu than the more overt Boxing at this stage. Want more overt? He almost went there with his next quote:

“Google as a company believes in users owning their own data and being able to easily move it out of Google. Some of our competitors don’t believe in that. We think users will eventually move to services that are in their best interests and that work really well for them.” Jeez. Sounds polite right? It’s actually a very barbed and damning statement couched in gentlemanly verbiage.

Do you prefer a hot war to a cold one? Then you may be in store for a real treat. The data portability issue has been the main source of contention for a while, and while the temptation is to really want to despise Facebook for its position on this issue, don’t buy the awe shucks tone from Google either.

Google’s position about openness may in fact be the best route for the Internet long term, but don’t believe for a second that Google doesn’t see it as their biggest hammer to pound Facebook into the junkyard of social network history. Google has a nuclear option available, being that they utterly control search. But that’s a weapon that is completely off the table.

Google has built everything it has, their entire reputation, on their high-minded handling of bias. Using their incredible power in search to make Facebook kneel might not only be illegal [a whole other discussion], but it would undoubtedly be the single biggest mistake in Google history… quite possibly a silver stake through the heart.

Given Google’s central position in all things Interent, it puts Google+ in the driver seat now in terms of open ended social network growth. All new Social Internet start-ups are likely to fall in line with Page’s open mandates. That may not seem so important just now… unless you are looking at the long view. Remember, the long view is all that matters to a company that stands to be the single most important entity (outside of a handful of Nations) in this century.

Over time [remembering how young the 21st century is] Google’s open stance rewards it with a steady flow of allies. Facebook is in a real tight spot in that respect, and it’s no wonder we are beginning to see some claws come out at The Social Network. Until the launch of Google+, the war was just a series of small battles.

Google+ changes all that. Imagining Google as the Allies this time, this is not quite D-Day, but it is the initial aerial assault on the morning of June 6th. The war begins officially when Google+ comes out of its current restricted mode.

Whether or not the war goes undeclared, and whether or not the front pages of the digital news rags read “It’s War”, a fully operational Google+ is an invasion against The Social Network’s continent.