Latest Success Story: Numecent announces $15.5M Series B Investment

Cloudpaging leader, Numecent, have just raised $15.5M in series B funding bringing their total investment accrued to approximately $38M.

We first encountered Numecent back in 2012 when they approached us looking for seed funding for their cloudpaging technology concept that enabled native Windows applications to be delivered from the cloud. We were impressed by the fact that Numecent’s clients would have no need to download or install any software on a PC at all; and, applications would be delivered 20-100x faster than a conventional download.

We raised them £900k in seed funding and are now delighted that their promising technology is continuing to receive the recognition and investment it merits. On top of the Series B funding, Numecent was named a winner of the Red Herring Top 100 North America award, was chosen among the top 20 virtualisation solutions by CIO Review magazine and was cited as one of the 12 data-centre technology companies to watch by TechTarget.

Want to know more about Numescent? Watch the video below:

The Biggest Reason Startups Fail

Ask a sample group of people why startups fail, and, assuming they have a vague understanding of the modern world,  they’ll give you a host of different reasons. Misfiring team. Poor product. No market. No business model. Delusional founder etc. And undoubtedly, they are all true depending on the circumstances in which the particular startup failed.

But there is a root problem to many of these problems. And it’s a simple one: a lack of tracked data, or perhaps simply a wilful ignorance of it. Data is the only means of empirically measuring the performance of your startup and building good practices upon proven foundations. In other words, tracked data gives you actionable insights where you would otherwise be guessing. Build upon what you already know to be true and your chances of avoiding ultimate failure will be much greater.

What this means is that failing on a low key level can be invaluable for the knowledge it provides; and as such, a failure can be considered a success if you properly understand and learn from the data you receive. Knowing what not to do can thus be as important as knowing what to do throughout the early stages of your venture.

This is the important point about success and failure. Micro-failures are useful stepping stones to ultimate success provided the data is tracked and learnt from after each attempt. As Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, puts it; “If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

Latest Success Story: what3words Gets £2.5 million Series A Funding Led by Intel Capital

Over the course of the last year we raised £600k in seed funding for one of the UK’s most promising tech startups, what3words. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you’ll want to watch their video (below) to get in the know about the extraordinary developments they’ve made in geo-location technology, mapping the entire planet into 57 trillion 3m by 3m squares, each with its own three word label.

On the back of the successful seed round, what3words has gained significant traction including contracts with leading geographic information system providers. Their success piqued the interest of Intel Capital who alongside existing Angel Investors have filled a Series A round in the region of £2.5 million.

Here’s the TechCrunch article with more of the details: TechCrunch: what3words Series A

A Pocket Guide to How Investors Think

Understanding how investors think is an essential tool for every entrepreneur. Only when their thinking processes have been demystified can you attempt to negotiate with confidence.

This infographic, visualised from investor Paul Graham’s famous essay “The Hacker’s Guide to Investors” by Anna Vital from Funders and Founders, is your pocket guide to getting inside their heads.