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Jason's Return to VC
Back in 1996, when Jerry Colonna and I had just formed Flatiron Partners, we wanted to find a "net native" who could help us do due diligence on emerging web services. The person Jerry came up with was none other than Jason Calacanis.
He helped us do the work on Geocities which became our biggest win at Flatiron Partners. Jerry had brought the Geocities deal into Flatiron from his stint at CMGI, who seed financed Geocities. The deal we did was $10mm pre, $18mm post. The company raised a big follow-on round, went public, and was sold to Yahoo! for $3.5bn. We made 56x our money.
Jason didn't see any of that gain because he'd long moved on to start Silicon Alley Reporter. But we stayed in touch and he covered the venture business closely at SAR and then morphed that business into Venture Reporter which he sold to Wicks.
From there it was on to Weblogs Inc and then to AOL.
And now he's in bed with Sequoia, the top VC firm in the world. I think he'll last as long at Sequoia as he did at Flatiron, about 2 months. Because god knows he's got 20 ideas in his mind for his next startup. Jason is an entrepreneur, not a VC. At least not yet.
It's quite a story for a boy from the working class streets of Brooklyn. Say what you will about Jason, and I have said it all and more to his face, he makes stuff happen. It's great to see him take it to the next level.
Comments (8) | Posted December 5, 2006 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
Enough about Jason is Flatiron named for your flat hair at the time :)
Posted by: howard lindzon | Dec 5, 2006 10:59:41 PM
That picture is amazing! I feel like I took a trip on the wayback machine.
Posted by: Andrew Parker | Dec 5, 2006 11:11:32 PM
Ah yes, Jason back when he wasn't a 250lb chubster. Yes, it will indeed be interesting to see whose business model he copies and sells off next.
That aside, while I do think this guy is a complete huckster (Fred, you're being too nice), it is a bit encouraging to know that if you simply know how to promote yourself, people will buy in--even if there's really nothing there. The big story behind this? Peter Rojas (or Kevin Rose for that matter) is actually the guy Sequoia should have snapped up. Which actually means, Nick Denton is the guy Sequoia should have snapped up/bought out. Which of course means, expect Rojas to leave AOL shortly and join Jason in order to continue giving Jason some actual tech cred.
Posted by: James | Dec 5, 2006 11:54:56 PM
wow. I never really follow the "behind the scenes" net stuff too closely, but I do notice that anywhere he's mentioned, he draws comments like the one from "James" above.
But the idea that he copies people is stupid and, even if true, "so what?" Can't more people than Nick Denton get rich(er) off of weblogs? Sheesh. Personally, I say good for Mr. C.
Posted by: scott | Dec 6, 2006 8:12:37 AM
I cannot wait to see what he comes up with next. Perhaps he will put Mahalo.com to good use (now that he owns it).
Posted by: WillK | Dec 6, 2006 9:10:20 AM
Is that 3rd button a fashion faux or is that how you distinguish yourself from bankers? ;)
Posted by: jl | Dec 7, 2006 8:02:22 AM
Good free on Geocities!
Posted by: Dustin | Dec 31, 2006 5:00:26 PM
Drat! *Good read on Geocities.
Posted by: Dustin | Dec 31, 2006 5:01:17 PM
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