Significant news in the online presence/reputation management space came across the wire at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference last week in Boston, as VendAsta announced $8.25 million in Series B funding to accelerate the company’s holistic identity/reputation/social management solution.
In just over two years, it has established a deep network of local publishers (Cox Media Group, …

This afternoon at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local BIA/Kelsey launched its version of the Shark Tank start up competition, the LOCAL Liftoff Awards, where three finalist companies gave a short pitch, followed by a brief grilling by celebrity judges Randy Parker, the co-founder of Constant Contact, and David Kidder, author of the “Start-Up Playbook.”
Conference participants can vote …

This afternoon at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local, David Kidder, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and author of the “Start-up Playbook” offered some tips that separate the truly great entrepreneurs from the also-rans. Some of his advice includes:
* Don’t do things you aren’t good at.
*Focus. Do a few things well, not everything poorly.
* Build pain killers, not vitamins. …

Today’s BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local Conference began with a pre-conference workshop on “Valuation and Funding in Local Digital Media.”
The workshop began with a rundown of BIA/Kelsey’s new M&A database, which includes an analysis of 598 deals, including 438 deals with values, totaling $16.75 billion in deal value, covering the years 2011-12. The database allows BIA/Kelsey to …

In a reflection of the industry’s ongoing interest in developing SMB promotional and loyalty services, Yodle founder Nate Stevens’ venture fund announced last week that it is putting $1.7 Million into Punchey, a new mobile-oriented payments and promotions platform.
The 12 person, Boston-based firm was founded in late 2011 and is focused on SMB “upstream marketing …

The card-linked loyalty and rewards space is seen by a lot of the smart money as the next Groupon. Today, we saw new money being poured into FiveStars ($13.9 Million), LevelUp ($9 Million) and LocalBonus ($900,000). The companies have now raised $16 million, $21 Million and $1.4 Million respectively — about half the $78 Million …

via CNN
If anybody wonders whether the considerable “legs” of Facebook justify a valuation now set for $83 billion, have a listen to a terrific BIA/Kelsey webinar on Facebook’s IPO, featuring Trada CEO Niel Robertson Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom and Plink Cofounder Peter Vogel (and BIA/Kelsey analysts Jed Williams, Matt Booth and Jeanne Dattilo).
People have to …

One of the big bets in 2012 is that merchants will transition from one-time deals to loyalty efforts that keep bringing customers back. Swipely is one of the more ambitious efforts in a loosely defined space that also includes players such as Cartera Commerce, Edo Interactive, LevelUp, CardSpring and Kostizi.
Swipely’s ambition is to provide a …

Manta announced today that it received a $44 million minority equity investment from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners. The exact proportion of the holding sold to the firm is undisclosed, but its minority stake puts the valuation of Manta at a minimum of $90 million. Jon Kossow and David Su of Norwest …

Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers, which is playing a major role in Google’s vital local strategy, along with Google Places, …

Yelp is IPOing today at $15 a share, allowing it to raise $123 million on a valuation of $900 million — $400 million more than it was apparently offered by Google a couple of years ago.
We know from the S-1 that Yelp earned $58.4 million in net revenues in the first nine months of 2011, …

By now, much of the connected universe, and certainly all of technolphilia, is aware of Facebook’s IPO, which seeks to raise up to $5 billion (and perhaps eventually $10 billion) when its shares go public this spring. The net effect is a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion for the 8-year-old social network.
Mining the …

Local isn’t easy, or even worthwhile. Chris Devore, Seattle-based co-ounder of Judy’s Book, wants to remind entrepreneurs to stay away. In a new blog post, Devore gives three top reasons NOT to do a local + online start-up:
1- There’s no money in it.
2- It doesn’t scale.
3- It’s too obvious.
“Combine expensive, high-touch selling, small budgets and high churn …

Source: Washington Post. Case, Leonsis and partner Donn Davis
Universities stimulate major business zones in various cities. So do airports. Hence the Dulles tech corridor in D.C. So does the success of major companies.
People leave with their stock options and develop their own companies. Witness Wang in Boston, Microsoft in Seattle, AOL in D.C., …

Yelp’s S-1, which was issued last week as a run-up to a $100 million IPO, reveals a lot of new data about the reviews leader. The big question about Yelp has been whether it can grow against increased pressure from Google, and also begin to take market share away from traditional media players such as …

In the wake of Groupon’s successful IPO, Angie’s List is apparently set to issue its own IPO on Thursday. The offering would raise up to $113 million for the Indianapolis-based company, which provides members-only reviews of services and medical providers. For us, the big question is whether consumers will continue to be willing …

With Groupon going public, the promotions space is getting tremendously revved up. Hoping to get in on the action are promotional relatives of the deals space, including providers of grocery “cents off” coupons, retail weekly sales (circulars), retail rewards and Buy One Get One Free. While most of these don’t do much with local advertisers, …

Facebook Head of Groups Justin Shaffer told attendees at Where 2.0 that one of Facebook’s goals is to develop the largest database of “interesting” places. The collection of places has “really been the focus” of his division for the past four to six months, he said. At the same time, the database of places is …

As it turns out, the daily deals landscape is more sophisticated than many first thought. New contours are emerging, each replete with opportunity and threat. Bluntly branding the space as “the next big thing” or a “can’t-miss opportunity” lacks the necessary strategic discernment in an industry replete with competitors and fortressed with high barriers to …

 
With several recent tech valuations raising eyebrows — Quora at $86 million, Twitter at nearly $8 billion to name just two — a word that’s been tossed around Silicon Valley a lot these days is “froth.” Sean Moriarty, entrepreneur in residence at Mayfield Fund, told the ILM East audience, however, that not all froth is …