Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s new and mysterious startup called Jelly still isn’t saying what it’s up to, but it has announced funding. According to details posted to the official company blog this morning, the team has raised a Series A from a notable lineup of investors in a round led by Spark Capital, with additional investment from SV Angel, and a group of angels that includes Square CEO Jack Dorsey;Reid Hoffman; Bono (what!), Evan Williams and Jason Goldman via Obvious; Al Gore; Emmy-winning director Greg Yaitanes; and Afghan entrepreneur Roya Mahboob.

As a part of the funding, Spark General Partner Bijan Sabet now joins Jelly’s board of directors.

The company explains that it chose the angels for their diversity of experience, something that’s important to Jelly’s team as well as to its product, whatever that may be:

“We chose angels like Al Gore, a Partner at KPCB and Chairman and Co-founder of Generation Investment Management, Greg Yaitanes, a Hollywood director, and Roya Mahboob, an entrepreneur doing amazing work for women in Afghanistan partly because they work in divergent fields. Knowledge diversity is something we prize highly and is also something that will be represented in our product.”

The post also revealed that the Jelly product is only in the early prototyping phases right now, which is one reason why the company has yet to reveal product details to the general public.

The additional funding – no amount was provided – will be used for hiring and development, as is par for the course.

Jelly has already been busy on the hiring front as of late however, having recently hired former Twitter engineering manager and Fluther co-founder Ben Finkel as Jelly’s co-founder and CTO, as well as Kevin Thau, the man responsible for Twitter’s new app, Twitter music.

Though details as to what Jelly is up to are scarce, earlier hints seem to point to some sort of “social good” intention with the service, like perhaps offering a way for users to connect to social causes and show off their contributions. Stone recently explained that “People are basically good—when provided a tool that helps them do good in the world, they prove it.”

Philanthropy and volunteering don’t have many central homes on today’s web, as TechCrunch previously noted in a discussion about Jelly’s possible plans – save for something like Causes, which works on top of Facebook’s open graph, having never taken off as a standalone service of its own. In fact, social media-based activism has been under fire for years as being a poor substitute for real-world action. Liking and sharing and posting and re-tweeting does not necessarily have the desired impact on effecting change, though it may raise awareness.

Today’s announcement from Jelly still gives no hints as to how it plans to help people “do good in the world,” only noting that the proliferation of mobile devices is a big factor in its plans. “As mobile devices have taken an increasingly central role in our lives, humanity has grown more connected than ever—herein lies massive opportunity.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Get ready for a whole lot more Pebble. The smartwatch company just announced several software enhancements for the Pebble and a $15M Series A led by Charles River Ventures. Pebble is not going to sit around, scared of iWatch rumors. They’re plowing forward on their own accord and committed to providing the best platform possible for developers and consumers.

“We are pledging to support the developers hacking on Pebble,” stated Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky told me in an interview. “We want to make the Pebble the go-to place for developers.” And with that the company released its first SDK last month and is following it up today with several big improvements.

The cash injection will be used to increase the company’s software engineering team’s headcount and allow the company to scale to meet still-growing customer demand. CVS’ Partner George Zachery is joining Pebble’s board of directors, a move that excites Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky.

“George is the one that shared our vision of wearable computing,” Eric told me in a chat this morning. Several angels also participated in the round, but Eric indicated that Charles River Ventures funded the majority of the Series A. This round of funding joins the $375k the company previously received from four angel investors, including Paul Buchheit, a partner at Y Combinator, and Tim Draper of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. And don’t forget about the $10.3M Pebble raised on Kickstarter.

“The tremendous response we received from Kickstarter backers validated our belief in the value of a smartwatch as a wearable computer, but also in the value an open platform brings to truly personalizing the watch to their daily activities”, said Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder in a released statement today. “This new investment will help us build out the Pebble development ecosystem and deliver on Pebble’s extraordinary potential.”

Pebble is still working on fulfilling the 85,000 orders placed on Kickstater. To date 70,000 have reached early supporters. “It’s pretty crazy thinking there are 70,000 Pebbles out there,” Eric told me proudly. “Tens of thousands” of additional orders have been placed, Eric said.

The company is aiming for retail availability in four to six months.

Pebble also announced several software enhancements for its smartwatch today. The SDK, which the company appropriately calls the PebbleKit, enables third party apps to send and receive data from the smartwatch.

This two-way communication is a huge step forward for the smartwatch, allowing the watch to display a large variety of information including weather and sports scores or even act as a remote control for the phone itself. Until now, apps were limited to basic functions like just display a watch face or displaying a simple game of snake.

Pebble also released the Pebble Sports API, enabling developers to build GPS-enabled smartwatch apps similar to the RunKeeper app announced a couple of weeks back.

Since releasing its initial SDK back in April, Pebble states the kit was downloaded over 8,000 times, resulting in over 5,000 unique watchapps with 300,000 installs during the last month. Owners are clearly hungry for more Pebble features.

The Pebble was supposed to usher in a new era of productivity by strapping a communication device to our wrist, but the initial feature set was limited even with the first SDK release. However, Pebble is keeping at it and today’s funding announcement and software development release should result in a big harvest of fresh apps.

“Everyone is talking about wearable devices,” Eric explained. “We’re very happy that Pebble is a platform people can build on today.”

Wearables is the next big thing. There’s no denying that. Even if Apple skips the iWatch device, Google Glass and others are pushing forward the thought of wearable computing. But the Pebble is here today and developers have latched onto the platform, outing custom watch faces, games, and apps. With the Pebble, the future is here now.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Wearable computing looks more and more like the inevitable future, so today Stained Glass Labs launches to help entrepreneurs develop apps and businesses around Google Glass and similar devices. The incubator and accelerator will offer mentorship, office space, and one day maybe funding as well.

Stained Glass Labs is spearheaded by Redg Snodgrass, who formerly supported innovation and developers at Alcatel-Lucent, and worked at startups Skout and Taploid. The group aims to give entrepreneurs “the tools, the technology, the connections, and the support to take [wearable computing] products to a main stream market.” Those hoping to join Stained Glass Labs can apply now. It’s looking for both idea-stage companies to incubate, and funded startup with a product in the works to accelerate.

To aid those admitted, Stained Glass Labs will provide office space plus inroads to PR. It has also assembled a team of mentors “who have been successful entrepreneurs from all sides of the industry to be a sounding board and helping hand.” The mentors include Charles Hudson of SoftTech VC, Jacob Mullins of Exitround (and formerly Shasta Ventures), Greg Gopman of AngelHack, Ashwin Navin of BitTorrent, Julie Mossler of Waze, and Andy McLoughlin of Huddle.

Though the organization has no equity investment component, so those admitted don’t have to give up a stake, Stained Glass Labs wouldn’t legally be able to talk about it if they were raising a fund. One interesting quirk is that the incubator has a preference for second-time entrepreneurs rather than rookies.

Stained Glass Labs will operate in a similar space as the better-established powerhouse partnership Glass Collective, which will see Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and Google Ventures sharing wearable computing startup funding deal flow.

Right now, Stained Glass Labs seems a bit half-baked, but it has a lot of potential. Wearable computing will spawn a huge ecosystem of startups. If Snodgrass and his incubator can forge relationships with these companies early on, they could gain power as the startups grow alongside the wearable wave.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

By now you’ve probably seen that 500 Startups Accelerator has a new class of startups, its sixth. And it’s got a ton of international folks taking part and that is fucking awesome. You know what’s not so awesome? The video that accompanied its announcement.

This video, like those which came before it, was put together by the startups themselves. It’s a spoof on Macklemore’s Thrift Shop, which has been done before. And yes, it’s 2013 and startups continue to torture us with their horrible rapping, but whatever. My problem isn’t with concept behind the video, but with the content of the message included within.

Get over the jokey nature of the spoof and listen to the lyrics closely and you’re faced with an unintentionally cynical view of the startup ecosystem and today’s frothy early-stage investment climate.

At the heart of all of this is the chorus:

“I’m gonna raise some funds / Only got twenty dollars in my pocket / I – I – I’m raising, looking for millions / This is fucking awesome.”

Note, the goal here is not to build lasting companies. There’s some talk about creating products that are the future, that will be used by everyone and your grandma, but those lyrics are drowned out by incessant demands for more and more cash.

The most damning part of the spoof is the implication that the main goal of these startups is to raise seed funding and then a Series A, which will increase the paper value of the company for their investors. Or, worse, selling quick to a big player like Facebook, Google, or, god forbid, Yahoo.

Sure, VCs do care about returns, but I’m willing to bet that “All I care about is makin’ my investors green” is not a mantra on which lasting companies are built. Nor is “give me your money, I’ll double your money” or “follow us on Angel List, if you don’t you won’t make shit.”

There’s also the question of the role of the Accelerator itself. If Paul Graham is being criticized for saying YC’s Demo Day makes bad companies look good, what does one say about 500 Startups when it blatantly revels in the fact that the core mission of its startups seems to be cashing checks?

I’ve got respect for the 500 Startups crew and applaud the founders for putting a video together on a short deadline. But these lyrics make me wonder about the toxic startup culture that produces such a thing.

As one of my colleagues wrote on our internal message board: “500 Startups, and not a single person to say, ‘Hey guys, maybe this music video isn’t a good idea.’”

Here are the lyrics, a blatant glorification of wealth accrual to rival The Great Gatsby:

I’m gonna raise some funds
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I – I – I’m raising, looking for some millions
This is fucking awesome

[Verse 1:]
Nah, walk up to a meeting like, “What up? I got big traction”
My hockey stick’s higher than scoble’s amsterdam vacation
market size fit, users on their seat, punching cards in
cahingin-caching

Rollin in’, with my team, creating products that will be
the future but all i care is makin my inve stors green
Ima close my round now, Ima close my round now,
No for real I’m closing – ask your friends – can I get their checks now?

give me you money, ill double your money,
show me your market illl double your market,
your mommy your daddy , your cousin your aunty
everybody will be using my product

[2X]
I’m gonna raise some funds
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I – I – I’m raising, looking for some millions
This is fucking awesome

[BRIDGE]
Hey Tech Crunch write us up
So we can blow this up
Don’t dare to get us wrong
We are 500 strong

Hey seed funds check us out
Do it quick, or you’ll all miss out
follow us on Angel List
If you don’t you won’t make shit

[2X]
I’m gonna raise some funds
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I – I – I’m raising, looking for some millions
This is fucking awesome

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

CapLinked, a startup offering workspaces for managing business deals, announced today that it has closed a $2.1 million Series A.

The company previously said that it raised a $1.6 million round from FF Angel (the seed-stage fund operated by Founders Fund), Siemer Ventures, 500 Startups, and others, so this is basically a $500,000 addition. The new investors include Conversion Capital, Inflection Ventures, The Artesian Group, Googler Chris Harris, and AccessDNA founder Lee Essener.

CapLinked pitches itself as an easier-to-use, cheaper alternative to the big providers of virtual data rooms. It creates online workspaces for managing deals, such as merger and acquisitions and investor reporting, where the various parties can communicate and exchange files securely. Customers include Thomson Reuters, Sun Capital, and NextView Ventures.

And yes, in the funding press release, co-founder and CEO Eric Jackson says he used CapLinked software to manage this very deal. The company has now raised a total of more than $3 million.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Cloud storage company Box has acquired HTML5 document embedding service and Y Combinator alum Crocodoc, both companies announced in a press briefing today. Financial terms of the deal, which was a cash and stock transaction, were not disclosed; however, Box CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie said that it was a successful exit for investors. Crocodoc has raised a little over $1 million in funding from Y Combinator, SV Angel, Paul Buchheit, Joshua Schachter, Dave McClure, Steve Chen and XG Ventures.

What Is Crocodoc?

Crocodoc was founded in 2007 by four MIT engineers, but eventually pivoted in 2010 to kill off Acrobat. The startup’s initial Flash-based technology allowed you to upload a PDF, and receive a version of the same document in your browser, which you could then share with coworkers and annotate with notes, highlighting, text, and a pen tool, with changes that show up to other users in real time. In 2011, Crocodoc launched this technology in HTML5 for mobile embedding.

Last year, Crocodoc debuted a new version of HTML5 embedding technology specifically designed for the scale and demand of consumer and business web and mobile applications. Using Crocodoc, PDFs, PowerPoint or Word documents can be embedded into any web or mobile app using a simple iFrame or JavaScript library (no plug-ins, downloads, or desktop software required). The technology features fast, crystal-clear rendering and advanced security, including 256-bit document encryption, on-premise storage options, and multiple deployment options, including SaaS and private cloud.

More than 100 companies, including Dropbox, LinkedIn, Yammer, Facebook and SAP, license (and pay for) the startup’s document-embedding technology, and Levie says the company has been able to build a “strong business model.”

For example, Dropbox has used Crocodoc’s HTML5 document viewing solution to allow their users to view documents in their web browsers and mobile devices without having to download large files or use desktop software (you can see an example here). Via LinkedIn’s Recruiter product, Crocodoc enables recruiters to upload candidates’ resumes in Word and PDF formats without having to download files and open them using desktop software.

Customers can also customize the appearance and behavior of Crocodoc’s viewer and access built-in commenting, annotations, highlighting and drawing tools. Crocodoc, which now has seven employees, says that it has powered 189 million document previews and 14 million document annotations.

Also worth noting — earlier this year, Crocodoc launched a new version of its converter, which uses both HTML5 and scalable vector graphics (SVG). With the last version of the player, text was overlaid on top of the image using HTML web fonts. The newer version displays everything in the document as HTML5 and SVG, making for crisper lines and shapes in the converted documents. Documents also load significantly faster, as the browser won’t have to load a large image to display.

Why Crocodoc?

As Levie explained today, Box acquired Crocodoc because the company wants to reimagine what documents look like in the cloud. “We’re focused on building the simplest way to let businesses store and manage documents anywhere, and were looking for ways to change how users interact with content,” he says.

We’re told that Crocodoc will continue to be operated and licensed to existing and new users, but Box will integrate Crocodoc’s technology into its own cloud storage platform to allow customers to have a seamless use of the embedder and viewer. And there’s much more that Box and Crocodoc CEO Ryan Damico want to do with the product within the Box family. Damico, who will become Box’s director of platform, will be running content services for the company, and the entire Crocodoc team will be joining Box.

Next up for the product? Damico explains that more secure documents viewing, mobile collaboration, real-time presentation, form-filing and document authoring will all be added in the coming year. Levie says there will also be a new version launching later this year with new viewers like a flip-book-like technology, as well as a carousel experience for documents. There will also be new branding around the Box Platform, he added.

Sam Schillace, Box’s VP of engineering who was also one of the founders of Google Docs, explains that Crocodoc’s technology doesn’t look or feel like enterprise software. “It looks so beautiful and polished, and it is a standard all have to shoot for when viewing documents,” he says.

With 15 million users, and 150,000 businesses across retail, health care, financial services and more, Box is growing fast as it eyes a potential public offering in the next year. Part of growing further will be around adding compelling experiences to the user experience. Levie says that 2 billion content events happened in Q1 alone, so thinking about new ways to improve content experiences makes sense. And Crocodoc is an interesting move considering that its technology is used by one of Box’s main competitors, Dropbox.

It’s no secret that Dropbox has its own ambitions around content, as explained by AllThingsD earlier this year.

But Box believes that they, along with Crocodoc’s technology, can be the leader in improving every experience you have with documents on the Internet. Similar to the way that YouTube remade the online video experience and Facebook and Flickr reimagined the photo experience, Box wants to make embedding documents less clunky.

You can check out Crocodoc’s experience below:

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

CircleUp, a startup that connects investors with retail and consumer companies that wouldn’t attract traditional venture funding, has raised a $7.5 million Series A.

The round was led by Union Square Ventures. New backer Google Ventures also participated, as did previous investors Rose Park Advisors, Maveron, and David Topper. Union Square’s Andy Weissman is joining the CirlceUp board, while Google’s David Krane is becoming a board observer.

The company launched about a year ago, and since then it says 12 companies have used the platform to raise more than $10 million in total. Those companies include 18 Rabbits granola bars, baby food maker NurturMe, and Willa Skincare.

What links these companies, according to CEO and co-founder Ryan Caldbeck, is the fact that they’re “too small for private equity” and “aren’t the right industry to pitch Sand Hill Road.” Nonetheless, they’re real, growing businesses, usually with more than $1 million in annual revenue and growing more than 70 percent, and they want access to more funding to fuel their growth.

When CircleUp first launched, we described the model as “AngelList with a crowdfunding twist” — like AngelList, it connects accredited investors with businesses, but it also serves as the broker-dealer, allowing the actual transactions to take place through the CircleUp site.

I asked if the company might look at expanding to a broader audience of investors once the JOBS Act is fully implemented. Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Rory Eakin said CircleUp is taking a “wait and see” approach, but that it’s “not optimistic” because of the additional requirements on businesses that want to raise money this way. On the other hand, he said he’s excited about the JOBS Act’s loosening of restrictions around general advertising, which creates an opportunity “for small businesses in particular to reach out to customers and supporters and inform them of a potential capital raise.”

CircleUp previously raised $1.5 million.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Ron Conway, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny meet new startup founders practically every day as investors at renowned angel funding firm SV Angel. So when they came backstage at this week’s Disrupt NYC event after their on-stage talk with Michael Arrington, I asked them to talk about the most inspiring up-and-coming founders they’ve met with lately — people who may be flying a little more under the radar than the Jack Dorseys of the tech scene at the moment, but could very well be the next big thing.

What’s fantastic is that each partner had a favorite, and they all named names — so it was pretty interesting to hear. Conway pointed to Georg Petschnigg of FiftyThree, the startup behind hot iPad app Paper; Pokorny named Arjun Sethi of MessageMe; and Lee said he has been very impressed by the co-founders of Science Exchange, Dan Knox, Ryan Abbott, and Elizabeth Iorns.

And that wasn’t all we discussed. We also talked about why the firm is optimistic that the tech industry’s brightest times are still ahead, the New York companies that SV Angel has been talking to during their current trip out east, how Conway’s increasingly active work in the political realm influences his interactions on the business side, and more. Check it all out in the video embedded above.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I’ve found that when people visit San Francisco, it’s not unusual to hear them ask something like: “No seriously, is there a coffee shop on every block in this city?” Yes, San Francisco likes coffee. So do a lot of cities. Busy people thrive on coffee, especially in the tech industry. In fact, some would even say that a substantial amount of coffee is an essential ingredient to success.

Phil Jaber would agree with that statement. After a long love affair with the brew and decades spent testing out his own blends, in 2003, he founded Philz Coffee. What was started out of a corner grocery store has today grown into a budding coffee chain, with 13 stores now open and serving across the Bay Area — one of which you’ll find in Facebook’s headquarters.

With all the coffee flowing through the Bay Area, Philz has stood out by combining varietals to make a bunch of fantastic tasting blends that are made without using a bunch of machinery. These blends were invented by Phil himself, and while they’re not patent-protected, they’re secret family recipes that you won’t find anywhere else, Phil’s son Jacob Jaber and current Philz CEO tells me.

Philz is a proponent of the drip coffee method and, while that may sound like a “hipster” practice to those outside of the Bay, it’s pretty fantastic and has taken off in the Bay Area. Some connoisseurs swear to it as the only way to make and drink it.

As a sign of just how hot the specialty coffee market is getting (at least in San Francisco), fellow Bay Area boutique coffee chain, Blue Bottle, took home $20 million in venture capital in October from Index Ventures’ Mike Volpi, True Ventures’ Tony Conrad and serial entrepreneur Bryan Meehan, among others. At the time, the coffee chain had expanded to ten stores of its own.

When asked if Philz sees Blue Bottle as a competitor, Jaber said that he doesn’t — that the success of one is a positive for the other, and that the market for this kind of branded, personalized coffee experience is huge. In other words, he thinks there’s plenty of room for both to get enough people caffeinated to pay the electricity bills.

Today, Philz Coffee is adding some growth capital of its own. Although the company isn’t ready to disclose the exact amount, Jaber says that the company has raised an eight-figure round that’s on the lower end of the spectrum. From what we can gather from sources, it appears to be in the $15 to $25 million range. The lead investor in the round is Summit Partners, and as a result of the firm’s investment, Summit Managing Director Greg Goldfarb will be taking a seat on the startup’s board of directors.

Jaber says that the company will also be looking to add a much smaller angel round on top of the growth equity investment, which they hope to close in the near future. While the angel investor list remains unclear, we were able to learn that it comes from entrepreneurs and executives in the consumer tech and retail spaces.

When asked why they decided to partner with Summit, the CEO tells us that the firm understood Philz’ ethos better than anyone else, both intellectually and viscerally, which was important to them, especially as it’s a family business and a passion of both Jabers. Of course, it also helps that the father and son duo will retain control of the company, with Summit taking a minority interest rather than a controlling share.

Philz’ name has slowly begun to spread of late, thanks to partnerships the company has struck with Virgin America, for example. If you’ve flown on a Virgin America flight recently and had a cup of coffee, you were drinking one of Phil’s blends.

With the new capital in its coffers, the company will look to strike a handful of partnerships like that one to increase distribution and awareness among coffee fans. To that end, Philz is also going to begin expanding outside of the Bay Area. Plans are still in motion, but Jaber says that you’ll likely see Philz begin to expand in California first, and into the surrounding states. They want to start close to home first. So you won’t be seeing Philz in Prague any time soon, unfortunately, but LA? San Jose? And you cities on the West Coast? Look out. Philz crazy tasty blends may end up on your streets sometime in the near future.

For more, find Philz Coffee at home here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Startups in the UK are upbeat about the future and usually more profitable (comparatively) than their US counterparts (which tend to focus on growth over revenues). But they find raising Series A money difficult, with 90% of entrepreneurs saying the UK fundraising environment is “challenging”. Those are the findings of a survey commissioned by Silicon Valley Bank (its first such) which has set up operations in the UK. Admittedly the 125 startup executives surveyed is not vast, but it’s likely to be highly targeted given SVB’s historically close relationships with the tech startup ecosystem.

Top line findings of the survey revealed some 83% anticipated positive business conditions in 2013, 39% are looking to raise capital from VCs and Angel investors, but there remains a funding gap between Seed and Series A funding. This latter point chimes with our own anecdotal evidence from TechCrunch sources. It appears Seed funding sources are widespread – it’s now what happens afterwards that’s the issue.

Some 90% of entrepreneurs in the study say the UK fundraising environment is challenging, with over a third blaming a “risk adverse” UK VC ecosystem. Most entrepreneurs surveyed are looking to Angel investors or VCs for their next source of funding (39% for each). Some 14% blamed ‘inexperienced investors’. Companies with fewer than 10 employees are more likely than those with 10 or more employees to look to: Angel investors (49% vs. 12%); the SEIS government tax relief scheme for investors (24% vs. 6%) and the EIS scheme (20% vs. 6%).

Frankly, this feels like an opportunity for US investors to pick up some very competitive deals.

One in five businesses is beating their revenue targets for 2012, and another strong year is predicted for 2013. Some 60% of the respondents say business conditions had improved in 2012 compared to 2011 and 73% met or exceeded revenue targets last year. Of the UK startups questioned nearly half expect their company to be profitable this year. The survey claims “just 26%” of their US counterparts report the same, though sources for that figure were not cited.

More than half (56%) want greater access to government grants and funds designed specifically for startups, while 52% would like to see tax reforms. This latter figure sounds pretty favourable, given recent government changes on tax and funding, such as the SEIS initiative.

Hiring is a key priority for UK based startups. Eighty-seven percent of survey respondents plan to hire in 2013 and 77% say that finding workers with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) skills is “absolutely critical”.

Commenting, Bindi Karia, Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank says while the outlook appears pretty good, “the flipside is that many executives have concerns around how they should fuel the next level of growth, since access to funding and talent are cited as challenges for many startups.”

Joshua March, Co-Founder and CEO of startup business Conversocial (based in Shoreditch at the centre of the so-called TechCity tech cluster) says: “The tech scene in London has evolved dramatically since we started working on Conversocial in 2009. One of the most exciting changes is how much easier it is to hire great developers than just a few years ago. Undertakings like Silicon Milkroundabout and the Tech City initiative, backed by so much government and press support, have turned ‘startups’ into a viable career path.”

Market research firm Koski Research conducted the survey for Silicon Valley Bank in December 2012. For the purposes of the study, UK startups were defined as companies in the innovation sector with less than £25 million in annual revenue and fewer than 100 employees.

Here’s a Summary of the statistics:

A big year:

• 83% anticipate positive business conditions in 2013.
• 18% of respondents say their company exceeded revenue targets in 2012.
• 55% or respondents say revenue met projected targets.
• 66% of respondents say conditions in 2012 were better than in 2011.
• 66% of companies are generating revenue.
• 30% of companies are profitable.
• Of UK start-ups earning revenue, nearly half expect their company to be profitable this year, while just 26% of their US counterparts report the same.

Start-ups are Hiring

• 87% of startups plan to hire new employees in 2013
• 38% of start-up executives say workers with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills are critical , and 23% say management, marketing, and other non-STEM skills are most critical.
• Engineering (69%) followed by Marketing-Sales (41%) are the hardest skills to find.

Fundraising environment

• 90% of entrepreneurs in this study say the UK fundraising environment is challenging.
• Over 1/3 of the comments received from respondents think that this is due to a UK VC ecosystem that is not as mature at the US one (risk adverse).
• Most entrepreneurs are looking to Angel investors or VCs for their next source of funding (39% for each).
• 28% cite a risk adverse culture as a barrier to funding; 22% claim that access to capital is in issue; 14% blame ‘inexperienced investors’.
• Companies with fewer than 10 employees are more likely than those with 10 or more employees to look to:
Angel investors (49% vs. 12%)
SEIS (24% vs. 6%)
EIS (20% vs. 6%)

Attitudes to Government support

• Over half of startup executives think that the Government has a role to play in helping the startup sector. • 56% mention that they would like greater access to government grants and funds, designed specifically for startups
• 52% want tax reforms.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch