Led · Equity · Apr 2022

johnnie-O is a premium lifestyle apparel company offering polos, button-downs (featuring the patented “Tweener Button”), bottoms, swim, outerwear and PREP-FORMANCE™ gear for men and boys. The brand emphasizes omnichannel distribution, with e-commerce contributing significantly alongside growing wholesale and johnnie-O retail store channels. Its logo and brand positioning have generated a loyal consumer community and strong engagement across channels. The company reported sales and EBITDA growth of more than 80% in 2021, reflecting superior financial performance and consistent sales and profit growth. johnnie-O plans to continue to drive and broaden the brand in 2022 and expand its presence across all channels. The collection is available online and at specialty retailers and golf and racquet clubs across the United States.

Participated · Series E · Sep 2014

DataStax is the commercial company built on Apache Cassandra and offers Astra, a serverless database, alongside Astra Streaming for streaming workloads. After hiring CEO Chet Kapoor in October 2019, Kapoor and chief strategy officer Sam Ramji refocused and modernized the product line and made acquisitions including Kesque for streaming. The company emphasizes an open-source data stack for real-time applications and deep engagement with the Apache Cassandra and Pulsar communities. DataStax is pushing into cloud serverless offerings to simplify developers' experience and capture growing NoSQL and real-time application demand. Management sees these product moves as a path to substantially higher revenue over time, and investors have continued to back that strategy. DataStax is the commercial face of the open-source Apache Cassandra database, providing an enterprise-grade distribution and paid customer support. The company has extended Cassandra with features to help companies build applications, and offers tools for security, search, repair, best practices, monitoring and application development. A free version of Cassandra remains available while DataStax sells an enhanced, fee-based experience to customers. The company cites real-world deployments—Comcast used DataStax and Cassandra to power new set‑top box experiences such as live sports scores overlays. DataStax also remains a significant contributor to the open-source Cassandra project while commercializing enterprise capabilities. Financially, the company announced a $106M Series E, bringing total funding to date to over $190M. DataStax offers enterprise-grade and community-edition database distributions built on Apache Cassandra, focusing on high performance and scalability. The company is the chief committer to Apache Cassandra and invests heavily in the open-source project to grow usability and the community. It recently released version 3.1 of its software, which promises higher data load capacity, faster search, and improved usability. DataStax plans to use new funding to build out globally and expand community activity, including meetups in Asia and Latin America. The company is finding growing demand as organizations migrate from relational databases to NoSQL environments. Management has signaled that the business is being prepared for a potential IPO, though timing will depend on market conditions. DataStax provides a Big Data platform based on the open-source Apache Cassandra database and leverages Cassandra, Solr and Hadoop technologies. The platform is designed to enable continuous availability, deep analytics, real-time search and high-velocity throughput. Led by CEO Billy Bosworth, the company counts customers including Netflix, Pearson Education and Constant Contact. DataStax said it will use the new capital to further enhance its Big Data platform and to increase global customer acquisition. The company raised $25M in a Series C round and has raised $38.7M to date. DataStax is headquartered in San Mateo, CA. DataStax provides Apache Cassandra, an open source distributed database management system, and has launched DataStax Enterprise, a distributed and scalable platform powered by Cassandra for enterprise real-time and analytic workloads. Led by CEO Billy Bosworth and co-founder/CTO Jonathan Ellis, the company serves over 100 customers including Netflix, Cisco, Rackspace and Constant Contact across web, financial services, telecommunications, logistics and government verticals. DataStax is based in Burlingame, CA and also has offices in Austin, TX and Stamford, CT. The company closed an $11M Series B round to support expansion of Apache Cassandra adoption. New investor Crosslink Capital and existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners participated in the financing. In conjunction with the round, Eric Chin of Crosslink Capital was added to DataStax’s Board of Directors.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2012

Cenx provides Lifecycle Service Orchestration solutions that automate fulfillment and assurance of advanced data services across software-defined and virtualized networks. Its platform bridges physical and virtualized network functions and supports multi-vendor SDN and NFV environments. The company’s solutions use real-time big data analytics and web-scale computing technologies to dynamically fulfill, visualize, navigate and assure data services. Cenx is led by President and CEO Ed Ogonek. The company raised $12.5M in Series D equity and plans to use the proceeds to accelerate global market and portfolio expansion. The financing underscores Cenx’s focus on scaling its orchestration and assurance offerings internationally. CENX provides industry-first Carrier Ethernet Interconnect Systems & Services that enable wireless and wireline operators to build, manage and optimize Ethernet/IP networks cost-effectively. Its solutions target 4G mobile backhaul and enterprise Ethernet access, addressing operational challenges associated with buying off-net Ethernet access services and migration from TDM. CENX emphasizes automation and deep analytics to accelerate design, ordering, provisioning, integration, test and turn-up, and to assess Ethernet SLA compliance for improved end-user experience. The company says its systems can support broader vendor coverage, multiple classes of service (Multi-CoS), and could deliver 25% or more annual opex savings for Ethernet mobile backhaul and enterprise access. CENX has participated in MEF work and standards development over the past ten years. Headquartered in Chicago, the company will use new funds to expand system, engineering and support resources to serve a growing list of tier-1 wireless and wireline operator customers.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2012

LifeLock provides identity-theft protection services to consumers and partners with financial organizations and telecommunications companies to evaluate and mitigate identity risk. The company acquired ID Analytics, which develops technology to predict identity risk associated with credit applications and also offers consumer protection services. LifeLock used $100 million in new equity financing toward the acquisition and says LifeLock and ID Analytics generated combined revenue in excess of $200 million in 2011. ID Analytics will operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of LifeLock. Management positions the acquisition as strengthening LifeLock’s consumer identity-protection business and enabling delivery of next-generation identity risk management solutions. The company has raised a total of $178 million to date. LifeLock offers identity-theft protection services and markets a $1 million “service guarantee” to subscribers. CEO Todd Davis has promoted the guarantee by publicly advertising his social security number as a marketing tactic. The company has faced at least one high-profile incident in which Davis’s identity was stolen and used to obtain a $500 payday loan, prompting lawsuits and public debate over the guarantee. Regulatory filings and PE Data Center pegged LifeLock’s recent financing at a valuation of about $306 million. LifeLock recently raised $40M in a financing and has previously raised at least $31.5M from Kleiner Perkins, Goldman Sachs and Bessemer, taking total capital raised to more than $71M. Symantec has entered a partnership to bundle LifeLock with Norton products, offering Norton customers a free 30-day LifeLock service, 10% off membership and two free movie tickets.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2010

The Big Deal is a Groupon‑style daily deals service launched in summer 2010 by Angie’s List that offers steep discounts on local services once a minimum number of buyers commit. Only businesses that have been featured on Angie’s List and carry an average grade of B or higher can offer deals, focusing the product on rated service providers such as painters, movers, electricians, and other home and professional services. Angie’s List members receive deeper discounts than non‑members (example: a three‑room paint job listed at $599, $499 for members; a whole‑house electrical safety inspection listed at $115, $89 for members). As of the article, The Big Deal operates in 32 cities but had live deals in only 17 of those cities, with notable gaps in markets like San Francisco, Seattle, and Orlando. The company had aimed to expand to more than 50 cities by the end of 2010. Financially, The Big Deal raised significant outside capital in 2010 to support expansion efforts.