The best news since 2000 in venture and IT

1. Google showed strong revenue growth -- 27%, from a high base -- and huge positive cash flow

 2. LivingSocial  Expects $1 Billion In Revenue This Year

3. Hulu On Track To Generate $500 Million In Revenue This Year

4.Groupon's sales in 2010 were around $750 million, but it is expected to book $3 to $4 billion this year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. It has been valued as high as $25 billion.

5. Funding for social, gaming triples to $875M
LivingSocial, Beyond Oblivion, OnLive, TidalTV and Lockerz top the list of biggest consumer rounds


Here are the five largest rounds raised by consumer information service companies:


Hungry Machine, the company behind daily deals site LivingSocial, raised $200 million in new funding from existing investors Amazon and Lightspeed Venture Partners along with some new participants. The number reported in the media a couple weeks ago was actually $400 million, but the extra $200 million went toward share repurchasing, a Dow Jones representative tells me. Since it’s capital used to purchase shares from existing shareholders, the firm doesn’t count it towards new funding. (Washington, D.C.)
Digital music marketplace Beyond Oblivion raised a $77 million round led by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (New York, N.Y.)
OnLive, provider of an on-demand game service, raised $40 million from smartphone maker HTC. (Palo Alto, Calif.)
Video advertising optimization company TidalTV raised $30 million led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from Comcast Interactive Capital and Valhalla Partners. (Baltimore, Md.)
Social commerce site Lockerz also raised $30 million--of a planned $45 million--from Liberty Media Corporation and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. (Seattle, Wash.)

As evident in the four of the rounds above, it’s not just VCs and an ocean of angels pouring tons of extra funding into companies these days, but also major corporations like Amazon, News Corp., HTC and Comcast.

“Large deals for capital-intense industries -- such as renewable energy, healthcare and information technology -- drove the investment increase in the first quarter,” noted Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource. “Venture capitalists, however, were not the only investors giving venture-backed companies sizable cash infusions. With acquisition prices on the rise, corporations are more inclined to invest and they funded three of the 10 largest deals confirmed during the quarter.”

In total, corporations, venture capital firms, angels and the rest invested $6.4 billion in 661 deals for U.S.-based venture companies during Q1 2011, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, a 35 percent rise in investment and five percent decrease in deals when compared with the same quarter last year. The median amount for a round rose to $5 million, a slight increase from $4.4 million a year ago, but about the same as the 2009 figure.

Investment deals in the healthcare sector raised $1.6 billion over 148 deals, a 21 percent increase in capital but a six percent drop in deals. IT companies raised $1.6 billion over 212 deals, a 16 percent increase in capital and 10 percent increase in deals. And energy companies raised $742 million over 33 deals, nearly doubling capital invested in Q1 2010.

Statistic data about vc largest quarter since 2001

Walmart buys social media startup Kosmix for $300 million

Kosmix runs a social media platform that organizes content by topic. 

There's actually two big reasons for the acquisition, with the second one most important:

• Team. Kosmix was founded by the team that started Junglee, one of the first price comparison search engines, which was acquired by Amazon. The company will form the basis of a newly formed WalmartLabs division. So to work on innovative projects Walmart is getting entrepreneurs with a great track-record and knowledge of online commerce and social media, which makes tons of sense. But the biggest reason is...
  
• Social commerce is becoming a reality. People have been talking about "social commerce" since people have been talking about "social", but it's fast becoming a reality.

Venture market 2011 - the strongest quarter since 2007

In 2011 the first quarter was the strongest since 2007.

VC-backed IPOs raising an average of $98.3 million.

109 venture-backed companies were acquired.

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