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VC Profile: Accel Partners

Investor Profile /

Headquarters: Palo Alto, California Sectors: Software, Mobile, Enterprise Software, Financial Technology, Design, Big Data, Internet of Things, Security, Media Description: Founded in 1983, Accel brings more than three decades of experience building and supporting hundreds of companies. Accel’s vision for entrepreneurship and business enables it to identify and invest in the companies that will be responsible for the growth of next-generation industries. Accel is a leading early and growth-stage venture capital firm, powering a global community of entrepreneurs. Accel backs entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a world-class, category-defining business. “The first partner to entrepreneurs around the world who have the uncommon brilliance, dedication and fearlessness to re-imagine it – and discover what comes next.” Recent Investments: HolidayMe $7M / Series A OpenGamma $13.3 / Series D (Lead) Moglix ₹280M / Series A (Lead) Propeller Aero $3.1M / Seed (Lead) Website: //accel.com Connor Theilmann joined Accel in 2014 and focuses on consumer hardware, vertical software, infrastructure, cybersecurity and mobile businesses.  Connor started a company called Emerald Exam (desktop software for secure in-class testing) and an app called “Treat” (a mobile, student discount card).  He grew up in Dallas and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Top 5 Big Data Investors of 2016

Investing /

The 5 Big Data investors of 2016 include Highway1, Microsoft, Alphabet, Mercedes Benz, and Benoit Marrel with a combined number of investments of 161.  Microsoft and Alphabet led 15 of the rounds. The top 5 held a portfolio of 146 companies with the difference being exits.   Investor Name Number of Investments Number of Lead Investments Number of Portfolio Companies Highway1 83 – 77 Microsoft 74 14 65 Alphabet 2 1 2 Mercedes Benz 1 – 1 Benoit Marrel  1 – 1 Total: 161 15 146  

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Top 10 Texas Big Data Ventures from 2016

Fundraising, Investing /

Big Data continues to see strong growth.  In 2015 there 462 deals funded at $5.6B. Big Data companies in Texas raised $284M in 2016.   Of the top 10, Austin has 6 companies totaling $210M as follows: Company Name Total Funding Headquarters Location Civitas Learning $88,949,999 Austin, Texas, United States Continuum Analytics $45,000,000 Austin, Texas, United States Dachis Group $37,500,000 Austin, Texas, United States Worksoft $32,000,000 Addison, Texas, United States CognitiveScale $25,000,000 Austin, Texas, United States PROS Holdings $25,000,000 Houston, Texas, United States UpSnap $9,900,000 The Woodlands, Texas, United States ImageVision $7,519,000 Anna, Texas, United States UnaliWear $7,100,000 Austin, Texas, United States InforcePRO software $6,551,147 Austin, Texas, United States Total $284,520,146    

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Company Spotlight: Edgecase

Company Spotlight /

Edgecase is redesigning the way product data is looked at in the massive ecommerce market. Creating a unique shopping experience with their ability to combine big data with Product Intelligence Platform. By combining these two elements they are able to do away with retailers missing over 50% of the product data that they believe is fueling their ecommerce sites. Retailers then invest heavily in many of these products to only fail to represent the effective fashions that shoppers are looking for. Edgecase is now resolving this gap through their innovative solution. Creating and maintaining quality product attribute data is a main challenge to almost all retailers. Product data can be drawn from multiple sources and come across from various platforms. Keeping up with the growing big data is what most retailers are able to do but, Edgecase is changing this by allowing retailers to be more strategic and engage in better dialogue with the consumers. With improving product data and making it more understandable for the consumer, each party becomes more helpful to one another creating a better experience on both ends. Edgecase is the first platform technology solution to solve this data challenge by combining machine intelligence with innovative crowd management to cleanse and enrich product data at scale. Product Intelligence Platform delivers world-class product data enrichment at a fraction of the cost and time found in other labor intensive, error prone alternatives. Edgecase is generating exceptional ROI for leading brands such as HSN, Pier1 Imports, L’Oreal, Crate&Barrel and The MensWearhouse. Currently they are pursuing a $5M investment to help accelerate their sales and marketing in order to quadruple their bookings for the following year. They are looking for investors for experience in the retail sector, an appreciation for the power of data and the ability to lead a round with participation from current investors.

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VC Profile: Fraser McCombs Capital

Investor Profile /

Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas Sectors: E-Commerce, Social Commerce, Finance Description: Fraser McCombs Capital (FMC) is a leading automotive-focused investment firm. Founded in 2012 by an automotive entrepreneur and a longtime automotive investor, we have roots in the automotive sector going back decades across all three tiers of the industry. FMC was created to bring capital and mentorship to the underserved automotive startup marketplace, where traditional investment firms refused to participate. We look to invest in new technologies and business models within the automotive vertical. “By leveraging our deep knowledge base, we are able to find connections between key players in the sector on behalf of our portfolio companies.” Recent Investments: Phunware, Inc $19.3M / Series F Phunware, Inc $30M / Series E uParts $2M / Series A (Lead) TRED $1.7M / Angel Website: http://www.fmcap.com Tony Rimas is a Managing Partner with Fraser McCombs Capital, Tony also serves as the Director of Operations for the McCombs Automotive Group the 37th largest dealer group in the United States.  In this capacity, he is recognized for growing McCombs Automotive to the 3rd largest privately held online retailer in the country. Over the last decade he has specialized in B2B sales and management while serving the McCombs Partners portfolio. Tony originated investments in HomeNet Automotive, ClickMotive, and AutoVest.  All of which are best in class solutions to the automotive retail industry.  HomeNet became the market share leader in automotive inventory management; Autotrader.com acquired the company in November 2010. DealerTrack (NASDAQ: TRAK) acquired Clickmotive in October 2012. Tony is also a regular guest speaker at industry events.  His technical background and education includes multiple degrees in Chemistry, Physics, and the NADA Dealer Candidate Academy.

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The Importance of Monitoring Startup Deals

Investing /

by Hall Martin Investors in startups need to monitor the candidate startup before investing so as to better understand the company and to see some consistent progress. As an angel investor, I hear pitches every day.  It’s been a while since I heard a software pitch that WASN’T going to market in two months.  In fact, everyone is “going to market in two months,” but the reality is that most take one to two years to really get traction in a market. When I find a potential investment that looks interesting, I put it on my watch list.  My father was a buy-and-hold value investor in publicly traded stocks.  He had a watch list of 10 stocks that he checked every month. He would look up their earnings, check for any management team changes, see what new products they were offering, and then he would look at the price.  After a period of time, sometimes a few months, sometimes a few years., he would decide to invest or not.  A no meant he took it off his watch list.  A yes meant he invested money and put it in his portfolio. Startups are pretty much the same.  You can track them on their sales growth, team changes,  product development, and  in this case their fundraise.  As you receive reports you can start to build out a list of key traction points– leads, sales, channels, etc.  As one investor said, “I don’t invest in dots. I invest in lines.”  It’s important to build out a picture of how the business is growing. By watching the deal over a period of time, you can better understand it and also hopefully see an upward trajectory at which point an investment makes sense.

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Top Texas Seed Ventures from Q4 2016

Fundraising, Investing /

Top fundings for Q4 of 2016 were led by CognitiveScale, Medici Technologies, Phunware, Twyla, and Trendkite with the top ten fundings totaling $176M. Company Name Money Raised Announced On Date CognitiveScale $25,000,000 10/4/2016 Medici Technologies $24,000,000 11/28/2016 Phunware, Inc. $22,000,000 11/1/2016 Twyla Inc $19,000,000 10/13/2016 TrendKite $16,300,000 11/4/2016 DiCentral $15,000,000 10/4/2016 Ranzure Networks $13,000,000 10/11/2016 ES Xplore $12,000,000 12/7/2016 Tiff’s Treats $11,000,000 11/1/2016 Catapult Health $10,000,000 11/2/2016    

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Top 10 Texas CPG Deals from 2016

Fundraising, Investing /

The Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Industry has experienced a lot of change in the past several years, with in-store sales stagnating, and e-commerce sales gaining impressive traction, but the future of CPG companies looks to be bright.  And with a thriving support community, and even a CPG-focused accelerator, SKU (formerly known as Incubation Station), Texas is poised to continue to push CPG growth through 2017. In the first half of 2016, CPG online sales grew 42% across key categories compared to the first half of 2015. Each year, online sales are contributing a higher percentage to total retail sales. What’s interesting though, is that consumers don’t seem to be spending less in-store, but are simply spending more money online. Below we have highlighted the top 10 deals in the Texas CPG & Retail industries from 2016. In this report, we find that 10 companies alone brought in about $90M in investment dollars to the Texas CPG industry last year.   Company 2016 Funding Twyla $19,265,442 Snap KItchen $12,506,000 ROKA Sports $12,050,604 Tiff’s Treats $11,000,000 Charming Charlie $10,380,005 Mizzen & Main $2,999,710 Snap Drape Brands $2,325,000 Tecovas $1,798,639 The Republic Grille $1,120,000

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