Category Archives: Sutter Hill Ventures

Acquisitions, Business, Public Companies, Reed Elsevier Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, VantagePoint Venture Partners

Interesting web buy for Dun & Bradstreet Corp

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Today Dun & Bradstreet Corp., a major business information company, said it has bought AllBusiness.com for $55 million in all cash deal.

Based on this the company subsequently raised its 2008 revenue outlook to account for the acquisition.

Dun & Bradstreet bought the online media and e-commerce company in an effort to expand its Internet business and presence. The purchase will have no effect on the company’s 2007 financial guidance, but AllBusiness is expected to generate about $10 million of incremental revenue in 2008. Dun & Bradstreet expects the acquisition to add to earnings in 2009.

Dun & Bradstreet raised its guidance for core revenue growth in 2008 to between 8 percent and 10 percent, before the effect of foreign exchange, from previous guidance of 7 percent to 9 percent growth.

The company also reaffirmed earnings-per-share growth, before non-core gains and charges, of 11 percent to 14 percent in 2008.

Shares rose 15 cents to close at $90.03, and continued to gain in aftermarket trading, jumping $2.37, or 2.6 percent, to $92.40.

AllBusiness.com is an online media and e-commerce company that operates one of the premier business sites on the Web. The site has received critical acclaim and notoriety from The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business 2.0, Fortune, The New York Times, US News & World Report, USA Today, and other publications. AllBusiness.com helps business professionals save time and money by addressing real-world business questions and presenting practical solutions. The site offers resources including how-to articles, business forms, contracts and agreements, expert advice, blogs, business news, business directory listings, product comparisons, business guides, a business association and more.

Business professionals can access AllBusiness.com’s content and services through a number of channels, including the AllBusiness.com Web site; RSS feeds and email newsletters; and through its partnerships with leading Web properties.

Their content, products and services are featured on a number of sites, including: BusinessWeek, CBSNews, NYTimes, SFGate.com, Washington Post, and Yahoo!. AllBusiness content also appears in the print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle as part of their business advisor program.

AllBusiness is based in San Francisco, California and backed by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Reed Elsevier Ventures. Kathy Yates is the CEO of AllBusiness.com

AllBusiness is said to generate high-quality traffic (perhaps business heavy) by publishing rich content on the Web and leverages its expertise in search engine optimization to generate higher listings of its content on each search inquiry. The company is reaching more than 2 million unique monthly visitors, and it monetizes its traffic through online display advertising by national advertisers. The AllBusiness acquisition also provides a platform to generate cross-selling opportunities for D&B products aimed at small business professionals, which is the key online market that D&B serves today.

2 million uniques per month web site sells for $55M is not a bad deal after all if we offset the fact it was earlier bought for $225M in 2000. The acquisition deal is probably also including the brand name and web site maturity (launched in 1999) as well as the library of content rich articles and business information.

If anything its evidence that there’s not a web 2.0 bubble, valuations now are much more sensible then during Web 1.0 (Buying in 2000 for $225M  and selling in 2007 for $55M).

D&B (listed on NYSE:DNB) is the world’s leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, enabling companies to Decide with Confidence  for over 165 years. D&B’s global commercial database contains more than 115 million business records. The database is enhanced by D&B’s proprietary DUNSRight’s Quality Process, which provides the customers with quality business information. This quality information is the foundation of D&B’s global solutions that customers rely on to make critical business decisions.

In s similar deal, a couple of months ago, business.com was bought by R.H. Donnelley for $345M off its slightly over 5M unique visitors per month and about $15 Million dollars a year in revenue. The Dow Jones and the New York Times were both bidding on the company.

Via

[ http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles…d91f9bdb06b003.htm ]
[ http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/software-services-applications-search-engines/4974054-2.html ]
[ http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/company-structures-ownership/4974051-1.html ]
[ http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/04/the-ghosts-of-web-10-are-being-acquired-allbusinesscom-sells-for-55-million/ ]
[ http://www.allbusiness.com/2984615-1.html ]
[ http://www.dnb.com/ ]

Ban Capital, Brookside Capital Partners, Charles River Venture, Funding, Sutter Hill Ventures

China-based video-sharing Youku takes $25 million, totals $40M

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In its the third round of funding for the company Youku raised $25 million which is pretty large amount for a China based web site. We remember large scale funding happened before for a couple of other China Internet companies one of which is Maxthon, the China based browser organized as donateware (part of Charles River Venture’s portfolio). Brookside Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Ban Capital, led the round with previous investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Farraloon Capital Management and Chengwei Ventures also participating. Youku’s previous two rounds were for $3 million and $12 million, giving the video-sharing site a total of $40 million in funding to date.

Youku.com is a rapidly growing Chinese YouTube-style video sharing site. It is one of the larger Chinese video sites, with more than 70 million video plays a day according to Pacific Epoch. Youku also has a lot of big-time connections. Victor Koo, the chief executive of Youku, used to be the chief executive of Sohu, and the two companies have a business relationship. Farallon Capital, the hedge fund, led an initial round of $3 million in March 2006. Bain Capital venture subsidiary Brookside Capital Partners led this latest round, with other investors including Chengwei Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. Also the well-known Sutter Hill partner Len Baker is on Youku’s board.

The investment money is said to be used towards infrastructure and operations, according to the company. There is a belief that part of the money will go for improving the copyright protection methods, which for a country like China are more than important. Google’s YouTube is also heading towards the Chinese market trying to increase its market share there.

The site was hard to open from outside China.

In other news Sohu.com Inc. (Nasdaq: SOHU), China’s leading online media, communications and search company and Youku.com, China’s leading online video website, announced today that they entered into strategic cooperation to jointly foster the development of the online video industry in China and to promote video-based citizen journalism and user generated content among Chinese online users.

[ via Mashable ]

[ via Paidcontent ]

[ via Venturebeat ]