The economy has a lot of people worried, including Silicon Valley who has seemingly avoided any catastrophes thus far. Despite the fact that nothing dire has happened, there has been an ominous feeling that looming over the valley and in particular a lot of startups.
Sure there are some moderate success stories out there like Yelp, Facebook, SugarCRM, and SlingBox, but the jury is still out on a lot of startups that have made a lot of noise but future’s are very debatable.
This week two of the more prominent valley startups made some noise by announcing major fund raising rounds.
First up is Ooma who brought in am impressive $16 dollars, bringing their total to $42 million raised. Their have been rumblings about the company’s sustainability but $16 mill should keep them going as they get traction via retail providers like Best Buy.
The more intruiging story is Digg, who just 2 months ago was rumored to be close being purchased for $200 million by Google. Google walked away from the deal, and now Digg is selling the story that they would rather stay independent anyways. Kind of sounds like me me spinning that I would rather be single. Digg brought in a whopping $28 million which should give them enough time to figure out how the hell are they going to make any money?
I am also privvy to knowledge of 2 other startups raising some capital which have not been formally announced. These are moderate series A rounds in 2 seperate sectors which serve as another encouraging sign that the VC’s aren’t gun shy in this down economy.
Hopefully we will begin to see some healthy exits instead of scenes like this…
