Portfolio

CURRENT INVESTMENTS

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Google's mission is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful. This mission, which began as an idea in a Stanford University dorm room, has been fulfilled and is expanding daily. Now Google is widely recognized as the world's largest information provider, especially since its acquisition of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

Google's utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best known brands almost entirely through word of mouth from satisfied users. It has changed the face and nature of the internet search industry, and some of its innovations, notably The Google Toolbar and Google Adsense, are revolutionizing online browsing and advertising, as well.

Google in the News

Jan 11 12...UW campus debuts on Google Street view (Seattle Post Intelligencer)
Jan 10 12...Search, plus Your World (Official Google Blog)
Jan 04 12...Google+ Growth Numbers In Spotlight (InformationWeek)
Jan 03 12...Google launches political hub for 2012 elections (The Washington Post)
Dec 21 11...Google’s Greener Energy, Products & Scrapbook (Technorati)
Dec 20 11...Google investing $94 million in Sacramento-area solar plants (Los Angeles Times)
Dec 15 11...Google Hangouts Go Mobile (InformationWeek)
Dec 14 11...Is Google+ Really a Social Media Game Changer? (Mashable)
StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 6 million+ other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people - and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

StumbleUpon in the News

Jan 05 12...Review: StumbleUpon (for iPhone) (PC Magazine)
Dec 06 11...Top 5 Things to Know About the New StumbleUpon (StumbleUpon Official Blog)
Dec 05 11...StumbleUpon Launches Major Redesign, Welcomes Brands (Mashable)
Nov 22 11...StumbleUpon is on (Kindle) Fire! (StumbleUpon Official Blog)
Nov 14 11...StumbleUpon Stumbles On With Paid Discovery (MediaPost Publications)
Nov 07 11...Next Big Thing in Tech? StumbleUpon CEO Stops By (MarketWatch)
Nov 07 11...StumbleUpon: Where Randomness Meets Serendipity (Business 2 Community)
Oct 27 11...StumbleUpon Drives More Traffic Than Facebook Or Twitter – Plus Infographic (Business 2 Community)
Nebula is dedicated to enabling all businesses to easily, securely and inexpensively deploy large private cloud computing infrastructures. The company has developed a hardware appliance that allows any business to easily build a massive private computing cloud from hundreds or thousands of inexpensive computers. Nebula was founded in April 2011 by Chris C. Kemp, Steve O'Hara and Devin Carlen, and named after a project that Kemp started at NASA Ames Research Center.
24/7 Customer provides BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) to mostly North American companies from Asian call centers, located mainly in India.

The company's clients include... "financial services, technology, telecom, retail and service industries, including a number of Fortune 500 companies".

24/7 Customer in the News

Dec 13 11...A Lot of India's Innovation is Invisible (Forbes)
Oct 17 11...24/7 Customer Offers Predictive Customer Experience Technologies (TMCnet.com)
Sep 14 11...24/7 Customer to hire 5000 social, interactive media advisors (The Times of India)
Sep 05 11...Q&A: Shanmugam Nagarajan, 24/7 Customer (Business Standard)
Jul 20 11...Startup Narratives: PV Kannan, founder of 24/7 Customer (StartUp Beat)
Jul 15 11...Case study: Analytics at work, 24/7 (Express Computer)
Jun 23 11...24/7 Customer Appoints New Managing Director for Europe (Press Release)
May 31 11...Home agents, extended BPOs (The Hindu Business Line)
Zazzle is a retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products, created on-demand and shipped within 24 hours. This process is made possible due to years of R&D, proprietary manufacturing systems, and hard core software development. According to the company's website, each product they ship is made – literally – one at a time, right after ordering. They'll even let you "design your own".
Naukri maintains India's most popular online careers website. It provides a forum where employers, placement agencies and job seekers can exchange information quickly, effectively and inexpensively. At Naukri, you can advertise for a job, search for a job, browse through resumes, place your resume, place your home page, visit employers' home pages and visit other Indian and International career sites. In addition to online job placement and recruitment, Naukri offers matrimonial & real estate classifieds and related services in India and Dubai.
ClearTrip is a travel booking service with one objective -- making travel simple... The company has integrated with numerous travel and accommodation providers in order to be able to offer an all-encompassing travel experience. They guarantee all rates and reservations, and offer both straightforward business travel and "theme packages" for those looking for adventure.

Cleartrip in the News

Dec 21 12...Cleartrip to focus on travel trade in 2012 (TravelBizMonitor)
Dec 13 11...Now, buy your next family vacation on EMIs (Hindustan Times)
Dec 06 11...e-Commerce spurt spawns new services (Times of India)
Nov 20 11...Travel websites go social (Hindustan Times)
Oct 07 11...Cleartrip makes it to Red Herring’s Top 100 Asia list (Cleartrip Blog)
Aug 16 11...Travel portal cleartrip.com launches EMI payment option (Economic Times)
Aug 12 11...Indian E-Com Thriving On Strong Investments, Start-Up Action (VCCircle)
Aug 03 11...Listening to consumers online and offline (Business Line)
PayMate is an electronic transaction provider. It offers simplicity, security, convenience and flexibility for making payments using a mobile phone. PayMate can be used in conjunction with a member's credit card or debit card account with any of the participating banks and merchants or as a standalone stored value card. The company uses the popular SMS (Short Message Service) communications protocol, which allows the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephones.
Inkling is the world's first end-to-end platform for mobile learning content. Simple tools for content creation, powerful educator tools and a rich learner experience make it the best way to bring learning content to iPhone and iPad.

Inkling puts everything students need, from textbooks to assessment to friends, right at their fingertips, helping them reach their learning objectives more quickly and with better results.

MapmyIndia has long been known as India's premier navigable map provider. In December, 2007, the company introduced the MapmyIndia Navigator, a smart and sleek GPS gadget that uses satellites to determine a user's location. The user can then enter any destination across India, and the Navigator will guide him to the destination, turn by turn, with graphical map instructions supported by voice prompts. Users may also search for points of interest along the way, like gas stations, retail outlets and ATMs.

Online or en route, MapMyIndia provides a pleasurable and life-like mapping experience.

MapMyIndia in the News

Jan 12 12...MapmyIndia Zx250: India's roads get the 3D treatment (CNNGo)
Jan 10 12...MapMyIndia Launches Android Based In-Car Navigation & Entertainment System (MediaNama.com)
Nov 30 11...MapmyIndia launches portable charger for gadgets (Moneycontrol.com)
Nov 15 11...In the right direction (Livemint.com)
Nov 14 11...App Review: MapmyIndia ShowNearBy (The Mobile Indian)
Nov 10 11...MapmyIndia Partners ShowNearby For Location-based App (VC Circle)
Oct 01 11...Route master (Business Standard)
Aug 30 11...MapMyIndia enters tablet market with CarPad (The Times of India)
Pinkberry, founded in January 2005 by Korean Americans Shelly Hwang and Young Lee, is an upscale chain of frozen dessert restaurants headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

The tart, rich, frozen dessert. for which the company is named, has a groupie-like following. The company acknowledges this following by maintaining a "groupie corner" on its website (www.pinkberry.com). The company was the subject of an American Express commercial for a new "Plum Card" aimed at mid-sized business owners in 2007. The commercial stated that "it's amazing how in just three years, [Hwang and Lee] created a cultural phenomenon". (Info from Wikipedia)

ZoomIn is a leading Indian online photo service providing customers with unlimited digital photo storage capacity, simple to use tools for uploading and sharing photos, and great prices on professional quality prints. ZoomIn launched in September 2007 with the goal of becoming the premiere International solution for the world's online photo needs.

ZoomIn in the News

Oct 24 11...400,000 Facebook fans! (Zoomin Blog)
Aug 08 11...A new ZoomIn is here! (ZoomIn Blog)
Jul 01 11...Now, gifts are forever (Daily News and Analysis)
May 13 11...Photo Services Start-up ZoomIn To Sell Digicams; Offline Expansion On (VC Circle)
May 04 11...ZoomIn Launches Nationwide Retail Studio Network (Press Release)
Apr 29 11...ZoomIn Photo Studio now at Bangalore Central! (Zoomin Blog)
Dec 13 10...Flip Pocket HD Camcorders Available at Zoomin.com (PC World India)
May 20 10...ZoomIn launches retail studios in five cities (indiaretailing.com)
"As part of India’s largest retail chain, we enjoy the benefits of buying in bulk for the entire group and keep our margins low, so you get a great range of products at great prices. We pass these benefits on to you, so our prices are the lowest we can make – every day."

FutureBazaar in the News

Dec 09 11...Rising online sales make e-commerce sites confident (Business Standard)
Dec 03 11...FutureBazaar.com – the new and improved version! (Future Bazaar Blog)
Dec 01 11...Internet in India: A web of Net Gains (IIFL)
Nov 28 11...Payback Launched at Future Group (Future Bazaar Blog)
Sep 22 11...‘Three out of five retailers looking at e-tailing' (Hindu Business Line)
Aug 01 11...10 Best places to shop online (Siliconindia.com)
Jul 11 11...e-Shopping: Best online supermarkets (The Economic Times)
Jul 07 11...Future to replace eZone stores with new format (Times of India)
InMobi, previously known as mKhoj, is a global mobile ad network that provides Advertisers targeted ways to reach their Consumers through mobile internet sites and provides Publishers of those sites to monetize their traffic from advertising revenue.

InMobi has been rapidly evolving with the efforts of a young team of experienced and highly qualified entrepreneurs who believe that mobile is the future of marketing and has the potential to be even larger than web based advertising.

What is The Bump Technology? A universal interface for device-to-device communication. Now you can exchange your phone number, other people's contact information, or photos by simply bumping two phones together. We are hard at work developing other applications for The Bump Technology.
Headquartered in New York City, Next Jump is building the next generation of e-commerce and advertising technology, and revolutionizing the way consumers and marketers interact online. The company has created the most powerful technology engine for sales achieving the highest conversion rates of browsers to buyers. Over 28,000 merchant partners, both retailers and manufacturers, leverage Next Jump's technology, to create the most targeted, cost-effective and measurable campaigns to reach more than 100 million users. Next Jump acquires its users through a B2B model, with over 90,000 corporations, affinity groups, and institutions including more than 84% of the FORTUNE 100 and nearly 60% of FORTUNE 500 companies. Next Jump has offices in New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, U.K.
KOTAK URJA™ Private Limited, Bangalore, is a concern dedicated to the promotion of Eco-friendly and Environmentally Safe Renewable Energy propagation and implementation globally. It is a KOTAK family enterprise and group concern which are engaged in diverse commercial activities in India and globally in areas of Exports-Imports of Textile Raw materials & Finished Products, Energy Solutions, Engineering Goods, Agricultural Products & Minerals and Financial and Insurance solutions through various group concerns.
As the leading internet privacy services provider, TRUSTe helps thousands of businesses promote online safety and trust, and guides consumers to sites that protect their online privacy. TRUSTe helps both consumers click with confidence and online companies promote their Web site privacy policies online. Thousands of Web sites rely on TRUSTe's privacy, including top-fifty sites like Yahoo, Facebook, MSN, eBay, AOL, Disney, New York Times, Comcast and Apple.

ACQUISITIONS

  • Zecter, owner of ZumoCast and ZumoDrive (sold to Motorola)
  • FlightCaster (sold to Next Jump Inc.)
  • Mint (sold to Intuit)
  • Plaxo (sold to Comcast)
  • Junglee (sold to Amazon.com)
  • Enosys (sold to BEA Systems)
  • Business Signatures (sold to Entrust)
  • Tellme (sold to Microsoft)

PRIOR INVESTMENTS

  • Mevio
  • CombineNet
  • Yodlee
  • Elance
© 2012 Sherpalo Ventures, LLC