Rustic Canyon

Drywall, plasterboard, wallboard—whatever you call it, the substance that covers billions of square feet of American homes hasn’t changed since its invention in 1917. Dry-
wall factories still roast ground-up gypsum rock in 500°F kilns, spewing out 20 billion pounds of greenhouse gases a year. So Serious Materials created EcoRock: a drywall that congeals without heat, uses recycled materials that don’t require mining, and holds up even better.

The company’s chemists tested 5,000 recipes before they came up with EcoRock’s stew of 20 materials. The fly ash, slag, kiln dust and fillers—85 percent of which are industrial by-products—react chemically when mixed with water and bind together into a paste that’s poured into sheets. The oven-free process uses just 20 percent of the energy of the typical method. And without the starch and cellulose that’s mixed into ordinary gypsum boards, EcoRock is impervious to termites and mold. It costs about the same as high-end drywall, so it may find a home in houses both green and mainstream. $14–$20 per 4x8-ft. sheet; seriousmaterials.com

Local VCs Assess Wall Street, Technology Investment Climate

How is the instability on Wall Street affecting local venture capitalists? According to some local Southern California venture investors, it absolutely is affecting how they are thinking about the investment environment.

John Babcock, a Managing Director at Rustic Canyon, told us that "while panics are a regular part of free markets, we are definitely into uncharted territory here in terms of the size and speed of the government response to prevent systemic market failure. " He explains, "Our partnership is spending time evaluating the impacts on our portfolio and our outlook on future investments."

"The biggest single issue is probably more psychological, than anything, "Robert Kibble, Managing Partner of Mission Ventures told us, explaining, "the result will be--and already is--that venture capitalists are going to be more cautious, which is they are going to be less likely to fund companies without solid, relatively near term, revenue generating business models." Kibble, who was returning from a board meeting of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Friday, said the topic was definitely on the minds of other venture capitalists on the board of the NVCA.

The question is, what does this mean for entrepreneurs and companies looking for investments?

"I expect that we'll see a situation similar to 2001 where Series A investments continue to be made at a relatively steady pace," Babcock told us, but also said there might be "a compression on pricing for Series B and later rounds." Plus, Babcock says the new money in investments will demand more process, and/or lower valuations.

Kibble said that he expects that "Companies who would have been funded easily one or two years ago, might find it much harder to get funding today." Nevertheless, he said that his firm, and others with money, are still very active.

Kibble "The bigger issue is the IPO market," he said, saying the closed IPO window--and regulations like Sarbanes Oxley--are still the more serious problem for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, and causing lots of issues for the industry as a whole.

Geothermal Co ThermaSource Raises $41.5 M In Private Equity

By: Staff Reporters

8/13/2008 – ThermaSource LLC, a geothermal drilling, engineering and consulting company, raised $41.5 million in private equity financing.

Riverstone Holdings LLC, US Renewables Group and Rustic Canyon Partners participated in this round of funding.

The Santa Rosa, Calif.-based company will use the money to purchase geothermal drilling rigs and to develop drilling services, including engineering, mud-logging, cementing and exploration, it said in a statement.

The company didn't return a request for comment.

Riverstone and US Renewables initially invested $20 million in the company in February 2007. The company has raised $93 million in equity and debt in the past two years.

The company expects to double employment, from 210 to more than 420 by the end of the year, as it expands operations domestically and internationally.

New York-based Riverstone, an energy and power-focused private equity firm founded in 2000, has approximately $13.7 billion under management and works with The Carlyle Group to sponsor the Riverstone/Carlyle energy funds. Carlyle has more than 60 funds with more than $81.1 billion under management.

New York-based U.S. Renewables acquires, develops and operates renewable power and clean fuel assets, and has more than $575 million under management.

Southern California-based Rustic Canyon invests in early-stage clean technology and media companies and has $900 million under management.

http://www.thermasource.com

4HourSearch - A week ago Yahoo VP of Platforms Sam Pullara released Yuil, a search engine that looked nearly exactly like recently launched (and overhyped) Cuil, but powered by Yahoo’s BOSS. The search engine actually managed to produce better results than Cuil by many accounts, but it was not to be - lawyers stepped in and Yuil was taken down only hours after it first went up. Pullara ripped the guts out of of Yuil and redid the layout to be less tempting to DMCA-hungry lawyers, leaving us with 4HourSearch (which was apparently created in 4 hours).

NewsLine - Dipity has combined BOSS with the Daylife news API to create NewsLine, an interactive timeline that places news events in chronilogical order. The result works surprisingly well, especially for current events. Earlier this year Dipity released TimeTube, a similar mashup that displays YouTube videos across a timeline. We covered TimeTube here.

Intrepid Learning Solutions recognized as Top Training Outsourcing Company
 
(Seattle, Washington – July 21, 2008) Intrepid Learning Solutions, a leading provider of learning and performance solutions, has been named by TrainingIndustry.com for a fifth consecutive year to the influential list of “Top 20 Companies in the Training Outsourcing Industry.”
 
TrainingIndustry.com, the market’s leading source of objective information around the learning and training landscape, evaluated data from over 400 companies before determining this year’s Top 20 providers.  According to TrainingIndustry.com, the companies selected this year demonstrate comprehensive abilities and proven records for developing and delivering the highest quality of outsourced training services.
 
The selection process entailed evaluation of 25 corporate competencies and business capabilities to identify those providers best suited for world-class outsourcing engagements.  Among the assessment criteria: 
 

• Experience in managing multi-year training business process outsourcing engagements

• Recognition as a leading outsourcing provider in the training industry

• Demonstrated strategic alignment of training BPO services with client business goals

• Capability to deliver multiple BPO training services

• Talent of corporate leadership and professional staff

• Strength of clients

“Intrepid is recognized for its ability to provide comprehensive managed learning services to its impressive and growing list of clients,” says Doug Harward, Founder and CEO of Training Industry, Inc.  “When we evaluate companies for the Top 20, Intrepid stands out for its incomparable capabilities in learning strategy analysis and consulting; best practices research, application of learning metrics, and alignment of learning initiatives with strategic business performance goals.  The company truly is a premier thought leader in the industry,” continues Harward.     
 
“Intrepid is honored to be on the list for the fifth consecutive year.  We are committed to continuing to find new and innovative solutions to the critical learning and performance challenges that major global organizations face,” Vikesh Mahendroo, President and CEO, Intrepid Learning Solutions. 
 
 
About Intrepid Learning Solutions
Intrepid Learning Solutions is a leading provider of learning and performance consulting, outsourcing, and research services to global companies. With industry-leading expertise in learning management, business process outsourcing, and research, Intrepid delivers transformative business results for its clients. For more information about Intrepid, visit www.IntrepidLS.com 
 

Contact:
Heather Muir
Marketing & Communications Manager
Intrepid Learning Solutions
hmuir@intrepidls.com
206-838-9363 

Pasadena-based Perfect Market, which operates a marketing service for
publishers, said today that it has raised $15.6M in a new venture capital
round. The round came from Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners,
with participation from Square 1 Bank and Idealab. According to Perfect
Market, the new funding will go towards company operations and for the
company's product development initiatives. Larry Orr of Trinity and Nate
Redmond of Rustic Canyon Partners have joined the company's board along
with the funding. Perfect Market said it will focus on helping publisher
create additional revenue from underutilized content.

PERFECT MARKET RAISES $15.6 MILLION IN VENTURE FINANCING FROM TRINITY VENTURES AND RUSTIC CANYON PARTNERS

Company Delivers Service to Expose Web Searchers to High Value Archived Content, Providing More Targeted Impressions to Advertisers and More Revenue to Publishers

PASADENA, CALIF. – JULY 9, 2008 – Perfect Market, Inc., a marketing services firm for publishers that specializes in "lighting up" underutilized content and creating additional revenue from these assets, announced today that it has raised $15.6 million in new venture funding. The financing is from Trinity Ventures, based in Menlo Park, CA and Rustic Canyon Partners of Santa Monica, CA, with additional participation from Square 1 Bank and founding investor Idealab of Pasadena, CA. The new funds will be used for company operations and to further the company’s product development initiatives. Larry Orr of Trinity Ventures and Nate Redmond of Rustic Canyon Partners have joined the company’s board of directors. With their large libraries, content publishers, particularly publishers with an offline presence, have been sitting on a potential goldmine of ad revenue, but have lacked an efficient and meaningful way of driving traffic to and monetizing this underutilized content. Perfect Market has developed a potent blend of technical and economic intelligence to address this problem and provides publishers with a simple way to extract additional value from their existing libraries. By exposing publisher content to a wider audience, Perfect Market’s service brings the web searcher high value, branded content that was difficult or impossible to find previously. “We’re thrilled to have the backing of such well respected partners,” said Julie Schoenfeld,president and CEO of Perfect Market. “All three partners bring a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise – Trinity, who I’ve had the pleasure of partnering with on previous endeavors, has built an extensive portfolio around digital media and Internet services; Rustic Canyon brings a deep experience and understanding of media, both content and distribution; and Idealab with their successful history in the search advertising industry. We’re poised to successfully leverage their combined resources, and their support further validates our business model and approach.” Perfect Market’s end-to-end service delivers and monitors results immediately, yet requires very little from the publisher to get started. Any publisher with a large content library is a potential partner. Most importantly, the service is a no-risk proposition for publishers. The program is structured to enable publishers to utilize the service with no upfront capital outlays or investment of scarce IT resources. Additionally, Perfect Market’s service fully complements existing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) programs.“We’re excited at the opportunity to invest in Perfect Market and work again with Julie Schoenfeld and the talented team she is building,” said Larry Orr, managing director at Trinity Ventures. “The company’s proprietary technology positions it to present publishers with a method to utilize their millions of archived pages, while in turn delivering valuable content to end-users and more targeted impressions to advertisers. Perfect Market offers a very compelling answer to the age of rapidly growing content and declining ad revenue rates.” “Perfect Market has developed an intuitive approach to capitalize on the vast amounts of underutilized – and under-monetized – content that exists throughout the Internet and offline in the content libraries of publishers,” said Nate Redmond, partner at Rustic Canyon. “Their innovations present a tremendous opportunity to publishers looking to leverage their existing content in a way that’s simple to deploy and offers a substantial monetary upside.”

About Perfect Market, Inc.
Perfect Market, Inc. is a marketing services company that helps online publishers monetize their large libraries of archived content with little or no risk to the publisher. The company applies proprietary processes to this problem, including cutting edge economics, natural language and machine learning algorithms. The Perfect Market solution fully complements existing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) programs by delivering underutilized web archives to end-users and advertisers. By bringing to light valuable content that might not otherwise be found, Perfect Market improves the search experience for end-users, provides targeted impressions to advertisers and brings new revenue to the publisher's bottom line. Lead investors include Idealab, Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon and Square 1 Bank. Perfect Market, a network company of Idealab, builds on Idealab’s achievements in the search industry such as its creation of the paid search model through Overture Services, acquired by Yahoo! in 2003. Perfect Market, Inc. is based in Pasadena, CA. Additional information may be found at www.perfectmarket.com.

About Trinity Ventures
Trinity Ventures, a 21 year veteran in the venture business with more than $1 billion under management, partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build great companies. Trinity Ventures focuses on early-stage technology investment opportunities with a particular emphasis on the Digital Media, Internet Services, Mobility, Security and Software markets. Trinity has invested in well over 100 ventures, including such leading companies as Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN), Blue Nile (NASDAQ: NILE), Crescendo Communications (acquired by Cisco: CSCO), Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems: SUNW), Illustra (acquired by Informix, now part of International Business Machines: IBM), LoopNet (NASDAQ: LOOP), PhotoBucket (acquired by News Corporation: NWS), Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai Technologies: AKAM), Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), and Sygate Technologies (acquired by Symantec: SYMC).

About Rustic Canyon
Rustic Canyon Partners invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are turning ideas into transformational companies. The investment team works collaboratively, drawing on a diverse set of experiences as successful entrepreneurs, managers, and strategic and financial advisors. With over $800 million in funds under management, Rustic Canyon is one of the largest venture capital firms based in Southern California.

About Idealab
Idealab's mission is to create and operate pioneering technology companies. Founded in 1996 by entrepreneur Bill Gross, Idealab provides a broad range of operational support to its companies, allowing the operating company management teams to focus on getting to market quickly and cost effectively and to take advantage of the serial start-up experience of the Idealab team. Bill Gross and Idealab have founded companies such as eSolar, Inc., Energy Innovations, Overture Services, Inc., CitySearch, Picasa and Internet Brands. Current operating companies are providing innovative technology solutions in industries such as software, search, robotics, 3D printing and alternative energy fields. Additional information may be found at www.idealab.com.

Perfect Market is a trademark of Perfect Market, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2008 All rights reserved.

Press Contact:
Claire Barton
Nadel Phelan, Inc.
831-440-2406
claire@nadelphelan.com

By: Jason Kincaid

TimeTube is a new mashup from Dipity, the interactive timeline site, that takes the mostly unsorted mess of videos that is YouTube and arranges them by date, offering a useful (and often unexpected) perspective on recent events.

Links to each video are situated across a horizontal timeline, with emphasis placed on the most popular videos (they appear bigger). Users can expand or contract the timeline to isolate a particular time period, and the viewing window features a handy “next event” button.

The site is a great diversion. The featured searches, ranging from Global Warming to David Hasselhoff, are all impressive, but half the fun comes from finding your own gems using the keyword search (recent scandals work best). I’m particularly fond of Eliot Spitzer’s TimeTube, which provides a nice contrast between his cheery political ads and the infamous Client Number 9 debacle.

TimeTube seems like it could be a handy reference for getting quick overviews on current events, but at this point it won’t be much more than a novelty for most people. Videos are placed according to when they were uploaded, which isn’t always indicative of when the events shown were actually taking place, making the validity of the timeline shaky at best. That said, if the site can figure out a way to keep dates consistent, TimeTube could evolve into a powerful tool.