InSITE Alum Vic Singh’s NearVerse Raises $1M
By · CommentsTechCrunch reported on 4/1/2010 that NearVerse, co-founded by InSITE Alum Vic Singh, had raised $1M for further development of its proximity based mobile social network LoKast.
Funding came from Meakem Becker Venture Capital (interestingly, whose Managing Director Glen Meakem is the brother of InSITE Board Member and Kodiak Venture Partners Managing Partner Chip Meakem – all roads lead back to InSITE).
Read the full article at Techcrunch.
– Rich Powell, InSITE Board Member
InSITE 2010 Honors and Elections
By · CommentsOn Tuesday, April 13th, InSITE hosted it’s 10th Anniversary Celebration and closing dinner. We were thrilled to be joined by many special guests including:
Alex Cohen, InSITE Founder and GC and CCO for On Deck Capital
Andrew Moss, InSITE Alumni and Founder of BuyWithMe
Ben Lilienthal, InSITE Alumni and Founder of Vapps
Bronson Lingamfelter, InSITE Alumni and Associate at Rose Tech Ventures
Dan Lifton, InSITE Board and COO at Quality of Life Labs
David Pashman, Legal Team Leader at Meetup
Dawn Barber, InSITE Board and Founder of NY Tech Meetup
Josh Spodek, InSITE Alumni and Founder of Submedia
Karl Alomar, InSITE Past President and CEO at China Export Finance
Mac Lipscomb, InSITE Board and Operating Partner at InSITE Sponsor RRE Ventures
Mark Davis, InSITE Alumni and Associate at DJF Gotham Ventures
Matt McCooe, InSITE Alumni and Managing Partner at Chart Venture Partners
Molly Siems, InSITE Alumni and Account Manager at Fly Communications
Pete Karlen, InSITE Board and VP at EarthWater Global
Robyn Soto, InSITE Board and Director at Tishman Speyer
Sacha Ross, Associate at InSITE Sponsor Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Vic Singh, InSITE Alumni and Co-Founder of NearVerse
Vinay Jain, InSITE Board and Associate at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom
Zubin Canteenwalla, InSITE Alumni and Associate at NGEN Partners
InSITE presented several special awards:
Fellow Achievement Award: Shirley Xu
For special service as a first year InSITE Fellow, including leading our first VCAP Special Project Team and volunteering to serve as Special VP for Alumni Companies to survey their funding success, which showed that InSITE Companies had raised more than $215M in venture financing since 2000.
Alumni Achievement Award: Andrew Moss
For extraordinary accomplishments in entrepreneurship since graduating from InSITE (and NYU Law in 2001), particularly founding BuyWithMe in 2009 and raising a $5.5M Series A round.
First Annual Inductee into the InSITE Hall of Fame: Paul Tumpowsky
For guiding InSITE through 10 highly successful years as Chairman of the Board including developing the organization’s core program and relationships with sponsors, startups and supporters throughout the NYC venture community.
A full list of InSITE honors is available here.
Current InSITE Fellows and Board Members elected ten new executives to run the organization in 2010 – 2011 and two out-going Fellows to serve as Young Alumni Board Members:
Lastly, InSITE thanks the outgoing Class of 2010:
Christian DiCarlo, Columbia MBA
Duncan Welstead, Columbia MBA
Geetika Agrawal, NYU MBA
Godfrey Powell, Jr., NYU MBA
Haley Boruszak, NYU MBA
Jane Kang, NYU JD
Jeff Hui, Columbia MBA (who will stay on with InSITE as a Young Alumni Board Member)
Jennifer Gootman, NYU MBA
Justin Heyman, Columbia MBA
Kesha Cash, Columbia MBA
Max Eckstein, Columbia JD
Jane Kang, NYU JD
Ricky Opaterny, NYU MBA
Rob Schneider, Columbia MBA
Roy Simkhay, Columbia MBA
Ryan Orton, Columbia MBA
Shawn Khazzam, NYU MBA
Tony Leotti, NYU JD/MBA
Vinay Ganti, NYU JD/MBA
– Rich Powell, NYU JD ’10, signing off as 2009-2010 President; thanking all the past Execs, Team Leaders, Alumni and Supporters for another great year; and wishing the best of luck to the stellar 2010-2011 Execs
Jason Finger Sits Down with InSITE
By · CommentsJason Finger, Founder and, until February 2010, CEO of Seamlessweb; recently named Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Bessemer Venture Partners; and, most importantly, NYU JD/MBA ’99, sat down with InSITE last Wednesday night.
As I’m sure anyone who has met him will quickly attest, Jason is a profoundly nice guy, and was willing to speak with us on a wide range of topics from his time in a law firm to founding a remarkable company to turning down his first exit opportunity.
Jason first discussed his background and how starting out working at a law firm and seeing the inefficiencies there inspired him to write the business plan for Seamlessweb:
Jason next discussed leaving the law and raising his first friends and family, and later institutional, rounds of funding, as well as about the early technical challenges of building a scalable enterprise platform for the ordering system:
Jason then described growing and expanding the business to the consumer side, and its 2006 sale to Aramark, as well as his recent transition from CEO to his new job as E-I-R at Bessemer Venture Partners:
Jason later went onto discuss the process of scoping a business model as an entrepreneur as opposed to as an investor, as well as the sometimes delicate interpersonal issues that arise when a group of friends starts a business together:
The rest of the talk is available at InSITE’s YouTube Channel.
Jason then joined us for drinks at InSITE’s local watering hole, Cassidy’s:
— Rich Powell, President 2009-2010
InSITE Board Member Mac Lipscomb Joins RRE Ventures
By · CommentsInSITE’s very own Board Member, Mac Lipscomb, who many Fellows remember from their very first InSITE session for his annual “14 points” lecture on the perfect funding pitch, has just joined InSITE Venture Capital Advisory Program Sponsor RRE Ventures as Operating Partner.
RRE is re-aligning to reemphasize their efforts here in NYC. Mac gives InSITE a great shout-out in the press release.
Mac has given a great deal of time and energy to InSITE since our founding 10 years ago, and recently retired as a leader of the Communications Industry Practice at Accenture and formally joined the InSITE Board. The InSITE community congratulates him on this major move.
– Rich Powell, President 2009-2010
Fred Wilson Again Cites InSITE Talk on A VC
By · CommentsFred Wilson again discussed his Third Annual InSITE talk on A VC on Sunday, 3/7.
This time, related to the point about the challenges of living and conducting business very publicly online he discussed with us, he laments the time and energy he has to put into reviewing videos of his talks (often very early in the morning – sorry about that Fred!) uploaded after events.
While this means that far more people can watch the talk than could attend in person, it comes at the cost of those speaking have to carefully manage the content given the much wider audience.
– Rich Powell, President 2009-2010