Posts Tagged ‘Mohr Davidow Ventures’
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012
 Atlanta-based Kabbage, Inc., an online provider of working capital for small businesses, has raised a $30 million in Series C financing. That brings the total the company, which provides capital advances to small businesses, to $56 million in equity.
The financing was led by Thomvest Ventures, the venture capital arm of Peter Thomson, Founder and Managing Director of Thomvest Ventures and a director of Thomson Reuters. All major existing investors, including UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Mohr Davidow Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, Warren Stephens and David Bonderman participated in the round.
In addition, Ron Conway’s SV Angel also recently invested in the company. Kabbage has received a total of $56 million in equity to date.
Kabbage has a unique, patented funding platform that awards a “Kabbage score” determined from dozens of data sources to evaluate a businesses’ performance. Qualifying businesses can receive a capital advance in less than seven minutes.
“Kabbage has completely redefined small business finance in less than two years,” said Peter Thomson. “Its disruptive business model and technology platform is providing much needed working capital to small businesses quickly and efficiently, helping to drive the overall economy.”
 Kabbage chairman Marc Gorlin spoke at last year’s Internet Summit in Raleigh and Kabbage has presented at TechMedia’s Southeast Venture Conference. “Entrepreneurs and small businesses are the backbone of this economy,” Kabbage Chairman Marc Gorlin tells the TechJournal. “That’s where most jobs are generated.”
Since launching its platform two years ago, Kabbage has grown rapidly and now fuels over $800 million in annual sales for its small business customers. Kabbage customers are very active, taking an average of 10 advances per year to help them grow.
The company has made about 30,000 cash advances to about 60,000 merchants.
“Our customers love us,” Gorlin says. Apple’s Net Promoter Score (a customer loyalty metric) is 74, ours is 75. We treat them like people.”
Its customers are generally doing well, too. After its customers take cash advances from Kabbage, they see their revenue go up by as much as 266 percent, Gorlin says.
He explains that Kabbage works quite differently from banks. “Historically, banks look at credit scores,” Gorlin notes. “We look at how long they have been selling on which marketplaces, how active they are on Facebook and Twitter, how they deal with customer service issues, how often they ship through UPS and other channels, and how engaged and on top of their business they are.”
In the future, Kabbage will expand into the offline world, looking for data on businesses that don’t necessarily sell on the web. It will also expand to the United Kingdom this year and is planning some hiring.
In the last four months, Kabbage has been awarded “the Most Innovative Company in Financial Services” from PYMNTS.com, “Top 100 Private Company in North America” by Red Herring and “Top 10 Innovators of the year” by Bank Technology News – adding to its numerous industry awards for innovation and disruption.
Tags: Atlanta, BlueRun Ventures, capital advances, Kabbage, Marc Gorlin, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Ron Conway, small businesses, SV Angel, Thomvest Ventures, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Warren Stephens
Posted in Georgia, Internet/New Media, Money | No Comments »
Monday, December 19th, 2011
 A report released today by PrivateEquityCompensation.com indicates the private equity and venture capital markets are continuing to enjoy increases in compensation and that the trend will extend to 2012.
For the second year in a row, private equity professionals reported a solid increase in total earnings over the previous year, with the cash earnings averaging $248,000 USD, which came in the form of both increased base salaries and bonuses.
The average expected increase was 6 percent and, again this year, more than 40 percent of professionals expected double-digit increases over last year. Despite the increases, over half of the respondents indicated they have some concerns over private equity job security.
Employees at smaller firms reported higher earnings and some guaranteed bonuses. “We believe the demand for private equity talent in the larger firms is forcing the smaller firms to keep pace, in order not to lose their most talented players,” saysDavid Kochanek, publisher of PrivateEquityCompensation.com.
Different from past reports, the venture capital firms led the charge in base compensation increases; the downside this year was that their average bonus decreased. “That’s not totally unexpected as last year we reported that VC firms were paying the highest bonus percentages of all the firm types,” said Kochanek.
Will this positive trend continue? “We believe 2012 will bring with it increased base salaries and healthy bonuses once again,” said Kochanek. “Expect continued demand for investment professionals and talented, operationally focused players to work in portfolio companies – even if the economy continues to show lackluster improvements.”
About the Report
The 2012 Private Equity Compensation Report is based on an industry survey conducted in October and November 2011. Data was collected directly from hundreds of private equity and venture capital partners and employees.
The full report can be found at www.privateequitycompensation.com
The Report has grown to be the most comprehensive benchmark for private equity and venture capital compensation practices. Some of the participating firms over the years include: Actis, American Capital, Bain Capital, BlackRock, Carlyle, Century Capital Management, Comcast Ventures, DuPont Capital Management, EdgeStone Capital Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Hilco Consumer Capital, Mission Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, North Atlantic Capital, RBS, Safeguard Scientifics, SV Life Sciences, Siemens Venture Capital, and Wellington Partners.
Tags: Actis, American Capital, Bain Capital, BlackRock, Carlyle, Century Capital Management, Comcast Ventures, DuPont Capital Management, EdgeStone Capital Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Hilco Consumer Capital, Mission Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, North Atlantic Capital, PrivateEquitycompensation.com, Priviate equity compensiation report 2011, RBS, Safeguard Scientifics, Siemens Venture Capital, SV Life Sciences, Wellington Parters
Posted in Money, venture capital report | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
 ATLANTA– Kabbage, Inc., a provider of working capital for online merchants, today announced it has secured $17 million in Series B funding, led by Mohr Davidow Ventures. Existing investors participating in the round include BlueRun Ventures, David Bonderman, founder of TPG Capital, Warren Stephens, CEO of Stephens Inc., and the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund.
Several individuals also participated in the round including Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square. Kabbage will use this funding to pursue additional marketplaces, distribution relationships, new financial products and international expansion.
“All businesses, but especially those online have an unquenchable thirst for capital to grow,” Kabbage Chairman Marc Gorlin told the TechJournal in an interview. “That thirst is not being quenched by the banks. They don’t understand the data for online businesses, and even if they did, they’re not in a position to provide advances or loans under $100,000 profitably.”
He adds, “Kabbage is doing what banks don’t.”
Thousands of online merchants advanced working capital
“Thousands of online merchants have obtained working capital and grown their businesses since our push into the market in April 2011,” said Rob Frohwein, Kabbage Founder and CEO. “Although small business fuels the majority of growth in the U.S., it is extremely difficult and time consuming for these businesses to apply for and actually receive financing from a traditional bank. Kabbage fills this need by providing money to these businesses in a quick, easy and painless way, helping them to further grow their businesses and boost the economy.”
Kabbage currently supports merchants operating on eBay, Amazon and Yahoo! platforms and over the next six months will add support for merchants operating on or through a variety of other channels including Facebook, Etsy, Shopify and Marketplace at Sears.com.
Gorlin points out that the company has advanced funds to online retailers such as a woman selling refurbished boots and an Atlanta seller of toy trains who does business on eBay and Amazon. “He had a truck coming back from Boston to Atlanta that $15,000 from Kabbage helped him fill for the return trip. “He since doubled his money,” Gorlin says. “Payback to Kabbage has been unbelievably good.”
Kabbage uses automated data sources to analyze the health of an online merchant’s business including transaction history, customer traffic and reviews, and products to deliver working capital within seconds of the merchant’s completed application. With Kabbage’s release of profile building in May, merchants can now proactively add information to their Kabbage account to immediately increase their access to capital.
“Small and medium businesses are the growth engine of the economy and more and more of these businesses are operating online,” said Bryan Stolle, General Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures. “By using rich, multi-source data and advanced analytics to more fairly and accurately assess business performance, we believe Kabbage’s financial products will enable more businesses to expand inventory, hire new employees, and grow, thereby helping the economy get back on track.”
“There is a rapidly growing delta between small-to-medium businesses’ need for working capital and its availability from traditional sources. The knowledge gained from working with companies like Kabbage helps UPS refine its strategy of enabling global commerce,” said Joe Guerrisi, VP of Corporate Marketing at UPS.
Gorlin said Kabbage wasn’t looking to raise new money, but a number of funds approached the company after seeing what it was doing and the customers and data it was pulling in. “We thought it wise to go ahead and secure the capital now,” he said, “to get into more marketplaces faster.”
He continued, “Not a day goes by when some international company doesn’t contact us.” While Kabbage has yet to fund an international online retailer, the company plans its first several trips abroad in the next six weeks.
In addition to the funding news, the United States Patent & Trademark Office recently granted U.S. Patent No. 7,983,951 to Kabbage, entitled “Apparatus to provide liquid funds in the online auction and marketplace environment.” [Please see today’s announcement “Kabbage Issued U.S. Patent”.]
Tags: Amazon, BlueRun Ventures, David Bonderman, ebay, fianancing, Kabbage, Marc Gorlin, Mohr Davidow Ventures, online retiailers, Rob Frohwein, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund
Posted in Amazon, Georgia, Internet/New Media, Marketing, Money | No Comments »
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