New York investor/incubator Betaworks raises new fund

Betaworks is a small but well-connected New York investor/incubator firm that’s making a name for itself. It has put money into a number of well-hyped (and incidentally, also New York-based) startups including dating service turned social gaming site Iminlikewithyou, local news site Outside.in, joke e-greeting card company Someecards and music recommendation service Songkick.

Most prominently, it backed Summize, the search engine for Twitter — that Twitter bought this summer for $15 million. Betaworks, which uses the buzzword-laden phrase “business accelerator platform” to describe itself, has just raised another $10 million to $15 million from prominent angel investors, Silicon Alley Insider reports.

VentureBeat, SAI

Well, I would say the things we have done, if they are “well-hyped” at all (dont think they are), are innovative and potentially large businesses.

And, we are not a fund, because not only do we invest, we also build things.  And the structure, from a corporate perspective, is totally different.  We probably haven’t done the best job of explaining it, really in short we build businesses, and attempt to do that in a scalable, focused and accelerated manner using our specific skills, a very product centric focus, and the network of companies we have.  That’s the main strategy.  How we do that - invest, build, acquire, etc. - is just a tactic, a detail.

  1. y2bk reblogged this from betaworks and added:
    wow, summize sold...$15M. betaworks:
  2. betaworks reblogged this from rafer and added:
    Rafer’s comments below on why betaworks’ structure may matter. Part of the points he makes below, yes, were reasons for...
  3. rafer reblogged this from betaworks and added:
    Rafer sez: Betaworks is also “not a fund,” because it’s not a fund. It’s a holding company that has no inherent need to...
  4. betaworks posted this