DAG Ventures

DAG Ventures

Type	Private
Industry	Venture capital
Founded	2001
Headquarters	Palo Alto, USA
Website	www.dagventures.com

DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. It is known as a "coattail" fund for co-investing in later-stage private financing rounds alongside more prominent top-tier venture funds such as Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Accel Partners.^[1]

Background

Founded in 2001 as an offshoot of San-Francisco based Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, DAG invests primarily in the fields of energy, information technology, and life sciences.^[2]

Investments

Funds

Like many venture firms, DAG has raised a series of different closed-end funds, each with different money sources and investments. Its third fund of approximately $477 million closed in 2005.^[1]

Portfolio

A partial list of investments includes:

• AdBrite, invested $23 million in 2007.^[3]
• Amyris Biotech, lead $70 million round, 2007^[4]
• Bittorrent, lead investor. DAG eventually negotiated for most of its investment money to be returned.^[5]
• CallVision, an Internet billing and customer relations management site^[2]
• DisplayLink, co-investor, 2009^[6]
• Friendster, lead $10 million round, 2006.^[7][8]
• FireEye, Inc., co-invested with In-Q-Tel, 2009^[9]
• Grouper, a video-sharing site^[2]
• Kosmix, co-invested in 2007^[10]
• Lithium Technologies, co-invested in 2010^[11]
• Matrix Semiconductor^[2]
• Metacafe, co-investor in $30 million round, 2007^[12]
• Mevio, co-investor in $15 million round, 2008^[13]
• Mint.com, lead investor in $14 million round, 2009.^[14][15]
• Oakley Networks^[2]
• oDesk, co-investor^[16]
• OpenX, co-investor in $31 million round, 2009.^[17]
• Plaxo^[2]
• Proofpoint, Inc., leads $28 million round, 2008.^[18]
• Seeking Alpha, $7m as lead investor, November, 2009.^[19]
• Trapeze^[2]
• Xoom, lead investor in $20 million round, 2007^[20]
• Whrrl, co-investor in $7 million round, 2008^[21]
• Yelp, Inc. - invested $15 million in 2008.^[22]
• YuMe, co-investor in follow-on round, 2009.^[23]
• Zimbra^[2]

References

1. Matt Marshall (July 2, 2007). "Money pours into venture funds, but selectively". Venture Beat.
2. Matt Marshall (2008-08-12). "DAG “Coattail” Ventures is raising an $800M fund". Venture Beat.
3. "DAG Ventures travels well-worn path". The Deal. 2007-11-30.
4. Andrea Quong (2007-09-18). "Amyris Closes in on $70M". Red Herring.
5. Tameka Kee (2008-12-15). "BitTorrent Renegotiates Third Round; Takes $10 Million Less Than Before". Paidcontent.org.
6. "DisplayLink gets $8M venture round". Bizjournals.com. 2009-12-09.
7. "In Search of New Friends". Reuters. 2006-08-22.
8. Dawn Kawamoto (2006-08-21). "Friendster scoops up $10 million in funding". CNET.
9. J. Nicholas Hoover (2009-11-18). "In-Q-Tel Invests In Cybersecurity Company". Information Week.
10. Matt Marshall (2007-12-11). "Kosmix riases $10M more for search sites in health, autos, more". Venture Beat.
11. O'Malley, Gavin (January 8, 2010). "Social Media Tools Provider Lithium Raises $18M". MediaPost.
12. Alexandra Berzon (2007-08-21). "How to Brew $30M". Red Herring.
13. Joseph Weisenthal (2008-07-09). "Mevio, Formerly PodShow, Raises $15 Million Third Round". Paidcontent.org.
14. Joseph Tartakoff (2009-08-12). "Mint Raises $14 Million For Its Online Finance Service". Paidcontent.org.
15. Vivek (May 23, 2007). "MyMint.com acquires Mint.com; raises $5 million". Startup Squad.
16. Patrick Hoge (2009-09-27). "ODesk pulls up a chair for freelancers". San Francisco Business Times.
17. Richard Tyler (2009-06-22). "Solid businesses have plenty of fans". London Telegraph.
18. "Proofpoint gets $28M in new funding". San Jose Business Journal. 2008-02-27.
19. Alaska Miller (2009-12-01). "Seeking Alpha Bags $7 Million In Funding". Business Insider.
20. Matt Marshall (2007-09-28). "Xoom, money transfer site, raises $20M more". Venture Beat.
21. Tricia Duryee (2008-05-27). "Pelago Secures $15 Million In Funding For Mobile Social Network On A Map". Paidcontent.org.
22. David Gelles (2009-12-19). "Google close to deal to buy Yelp". Financial Times.
23. Patrick Hoge (2009-09-04). "Video ad firm YuMe gets $5M". San Francisco Business Times.

External links

• dagventures.com - official site