Two new investments: Rapleaf and Wikio
I was meant to mention it much earlier but last week went by so fast! I have joined the investors syndicate behind the Series A of Rapleaf, the startup headed by my friend Auren Hoffman. Rapleaf is looking at developing a comprehensive portable reputation system for Internet communication and commerce - a major piece of infrastructure that is yet to be built, and I am excited to be involved in that project. Matt Marshall has more about the funding, and the TechCrunch review is here.
Another investment that just closed (yes, I have done quite a few recently – more to be announced) is the initial round of financing of Wikio, a European startup that has developed a news search engine bringing together a number of functionality included in Google News, Topix.net, Digg and Memeorandum. I had written about it when the service entered a closed beta (and before I investigated a potential investment). It is now open to everyone… who speaks French. The English, German, Spanish and Italian versions of the service will be available later in the summer. I am pleased to do join my friends Loic Le Meur and Martin Varsavsky in this syndicate, backing Pierre Chappaz (founder of Kelkoo that he sold to Yahoo in 2004 for $600M) and a great product team led by Wikio founder Laurent Binard.
It may be useful to just list your investments on a single page so that everyone can check that out.
Posted by: Bud C | June 19, 2006 at 12:52 PM
do you sleep
Posted by: howard Lindzon | June 20, 2006 at 10:25 PM
well done. Rapleaf is a winner
Posted by: ouriel | June 21, 2006 at 12:27 AM
Jeff -- We're really psyched to have you as an investor in Rapleaf. you've already been so incredibly helpful. you are truly a value-add angel.
Posted by: Auren Hoffman | July 10, 2006 at 04:56 PM