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Jeremy Levine

Jeremy Levine73 posts

Jeremy Seth Levine is a venture capitalist born in 1974. He graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a BS in Computer Science and Economics, and worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Co. and an associate at AEA Investors from 1995 to 1999, when he joined internet company Dash. He joined Bessemer Venture Partners in 2001 and led the company’s investments in Yelp and LinkedIn. He has also served on the boards of Pinterest.com, Wikia, GraceNote, Soap.com, Diapers.com, Onestop, Shopify, and other startups. He is married with three children, and is based in Larchmont, N.Y., and Silicon Valley.

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Nov 2014

One billion views

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Wikia passes one billion page views and 70 million unique users in a month, mostly from gamers.

19 Sep, 2014

Craigslist business ideas

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Levine tells Pando Daily that the next billion dollar business idea is on the front page of Craigslist. He compares the site’s link to sell and buy tickets with StubHub, and accommodation services to AirBNB:

And the best example of it is arguably Uber. There is a link on the homepage of Craigslist or within any one city on Craigslist for transportation. I think it’s even auto transportation. So you could actually for fifteen years now arrange for someone to pick you up and take you someplace on Craigslist. But no one did it, I mean a few people did it, but not like we use Uber.

27 Aug, 2014

Wikia: doubles valuation

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Wikia says the $15 million Series D round doubles its valuation. It doesn’t give the overall figure. Page views pass 1.8 billion from 120 million global unique monthly users, and there are 34 million pages of content across 200 languages, with 400,000 fan communities.

Wikia Series D financing

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Bessemer joins Digital Garage, Amazon, and Institutional Venture Partners in the $15 million round as Wikia looks to break into Asia. Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab and a board member at Digital Garage, becomes an advisor for its expansion into Japan along with other Japanese investors and firms.

31 Jul, 2014

Yelp reports first post-IPO profit

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Yelp reports profit of $2.7 million for the three months ended June 30, or four cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $878,000, or a penny a share. Analysts had expected a loss of three cents a share.

7 Jun, 2014

Wikia breaks top 20

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Wikia breaks into the QuantCast Top 20. Levine:

Tortoises (not just hares) can even win on the Internet

May 2014

Pinterest overtakes Twitter

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Pinterest overtakes Twitter as a social destination for American women, with more than 30 million active monthly. About 80% of their activity is on mobile. Levine:

Nice milestone

16 May, 2014

Pinterest raises $200M at $5B valuation

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The company announces Series F funding from its existing roster including SV Angel, Bessemer, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital, and Valiant Capital Partners. Total financing is $764 million, and the company is working on building out its ad monetization system and its search functions.

12 May, 2014

Promoted Pins add revenue

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Pinterest starts Promoted Pins to add revenue, appearing in users’ search and category feeds. The mix of brands reflects activity on the site. Fashion features heavily, with Gap, Banana Republic, Lululemon Athletica, and Old Navy participating. Food makers Nestle , Kraft, and General Mills are also participating, along with Expedia.com and Walt Disney resorts in the travel category.

9 Apr, 2014

Forbes interview

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In an interview with Forbes magazine, Levine talks about how he finds successful entrepreneurs:

There isn’t a goto way of assessing and saying, ‘Ok, here are the six criteria this founder matches.’ But, in almost all cases, there is something exceptional about the person. And sometimes it’s not one person, sometimes it’s two, and they have this incredible way of complimenting each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeW9BwF4aNc

8 Apr, 2014

Ingram Micro equity stake

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The distribution giant buys an equity stake of undisclosed size as it looks to add cloud and virtualization capacity for customers that include technology resellers and IT professionals. Under the terms of the deal, Ingram will provide resellers with unified commercial terms and product support.

1 Apr, 2013

Court pares Intego suit

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U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel pares the lawsuit against Bessemer, cutting more than half of the claims by Intego parent Neutral Holdings, but rejects Bessemer’s motion to dismiss several claims against it. (A summary of the claims is here.) Neutral Holdings attorney Philippe C. M. Manteau:

This opinion is especially important for non-U.S. entities seeking investment from U.S. venture capitalists by providing these foreign entities with an adequate level of comfort and predictability as minority shareholders in cross-border ventures.

18 Jan, 2013

Cisco buys Parallels stake

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Cisco buys a 1% stake, giving the software provider a seat on the Parallels board.

30 Nov, 2012

Joins Wikia Series C round

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Bessemer participates in a follow-on investment with Amazon and Institutional Venture Partners, supplying over $10.8 million. The site now supports 250,000 communities and 20 million pages of user-generated content, 100,000 videos, and 14 million photos. Wales says the site is making a profit:

[It will remain] profitable for years.

17 Sep, 2012

Louisville Slugger hires OneStop

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The iconic baseball bat maker hires the company to build its new website after going over about half a dozen proposals collected by its ad agency, MEplusYOU of Dallas. Kyle Schlegel at parent company Hillerich & Bradsby says Onestop immediately stood out because of its intimate knowledge of the e-commerce business and the Slugger brand. The buildout is due to be finished by January and will give customers a wider range of purchase options and a better browsing experience.

31 May, 2012

Intego lawsuit

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French company Transeo LLC files a lawsuit in Federal District Court in New York asserting that three limited partnerships controlled by Bessemer breached fiduciary duties and contracts through abuse of a dominant position as controlling shareholder of Neutral Holdings, Inc., the holding company of Intego. Levine attends court sessions for Bessemer.

9 May, 2012

Beyondtrust buys eEye

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The network access and virtual PC privelege provider doesn’t disclose financial terms, but says the combined company will have $70 million revenues, up from a projected $50 million at Beyondtrust without the deal. Maiffret keeps his CTO position. Bessemer is bought out and Levine leaves the eEye board for his fourth major exit.

4 Apr, 2012

Wikia redesign

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The site adds hub pages separating content into entertainment, gaming, and lifestyle categories, allowing advertisers to expand beyond individual articles to category verticals and the front page and encouraging higher, more targeted traffic.

2 Mar, 2012

Yelp shares debut

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jeremy-levine-yelp-ipo-debutsYelp debuts on the NYSE, with shares jumping 63.9% from the IPO price to close at a $24.58. The closing price places the company’s market value at $1.47 billion.

1 Mar, 2012

Yelp unprofitable

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The company remains unprofitable ahead of its IPO, reporting a full-year net loss in 2011 of $16.7 million on sales of $83.3 million. In 2010, it lost $9.6 million on $47.7 million revenue. It has also cut cut half its sales staff. Other internet companies have successfully gone public despite questions about their business model, and Yelp pushes ahead with IPO plans.