Brad Feld Talks About His Rise To The Top

Eric Strait, Tech Hustlers

So who is Brad Feld? Well, if you are in the startup community and don’t know who he is, then I forgive you for living under a rock…it must be awfully dark under there.

Okay, take a breath…because he has been to the mountaintop and back! So before Brad became a startup entrepreneur and an investor rock star, he was an executive at AmeriData Technologies after it acquired Feld Technologies. Feld Technologies was a firm he founded in 1987, that specialized in custom software applications.

Since then, Brad has been a renowned early stage investor and entrepreneur for over 20 years now. Brad is one of the Co-Founders and Managing Directors of the Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital. Prior to that, he founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies and later became a venture affiliate of the predecessor to Mobius Venture Capital. (Crunchbase) He is also the co-founder of TechStars, an accomplished world-renown author and blogger, and an avid marathon runner that has completed 22 marathons as part of his mission to run a marathon in each of the 50 states.

So there you have it, the nuts and bolts of the career of Brad Feld.

My interview with Brad Feld is one of my favorites to date. Why? Because as one of the leading startup investors in the world, he could have been the biggest douche bag ever, and he is simply one awesome guy. To me the highest compliment you can receive as a person, is to be one who is approachable, friendly, and kind. I mean not many people can say that they would be like Brad is and was with me, achieving the success he has. I know people who are broke, and act like they are God’s gift to earth, and act like the biggest douche bag you have ever seen. You have to realize, Brad does not need publicity! He not only accepted to do an interview with me, but he did it happily! So next time you choose to be a jerk, reconsider and help grow the startup community by supporting fellow entrepreneurs whose aim is to help others succeed!

Okay, sorry about that but I always have to give props where props are due!

So why don’t you sit back and listen to the podcast and hear the often unknown and hidden life of the great Brad Feld.

Click here to listen to the podcast

Boulder Startup Mobiplug Gets $2.7M Series A Putting Home Control In Your iPhone

When a startup lands itself in the Boulder flagship Techstars program and then catches the eye of startup evangelist and venture capitalist Brad Feld it’s typically a recipe for greatness. Just check out how well Orbotix, the creators of the “Sphero Ball” have done since their time at Techstars.

Another recent Techstars Boulder graduate is following in the robotic balls footsteps by landing an impressive Series A round and a top level executive. Mobiplug, a company that brings home monitoring, control and automation to the palm of your hand via an iOS app, just landed the capital it needs to accelerate development. They also landed the leader they need to take the startup to the next level.

Feld’s Foundry Group led the $2.7 million dollar round. TechCrunch reports that Bullet Time Ventures, SK Ventures, Social Leverage, and Clarion Direct Investment, among others, participated in the round as well.

Mobiplug also announced that serial entrepreneur Tim Enwall, most recently CEO of Tendril, is now at the helm at Mobiplug.

Mobiplug consists of a small black box, that serves as a control hub, and an iOS app. Through the combination of the hub and the app, the user/home owner, can control everything from the lights, to the thermostat, electrical outlets, sprinklers and more. This can be done in the home or remotely, providing an extra element of security to the user’s home.

New CEO Enwall said in a statement:

“Getting wirelessly-enabled household items like locks, thermostats, lights, outlets and shades made by different manufacturers and based on different protocols to talk to each other is an enormous problem to solve, which is keeping this market from exploding. We’re fixing that.”

The Foundry Group’s Ryan McIntyre is joining Mobiplug’s board of directors. He also served as Mobiplug’s mentor during the Techstars program.

“I was really impressed by the co-founders and their ability to solve the thorny technical and interoperability problems that are currently holding back the home monitoring and control and Internet of Things (IoT) industry from mass adoption,” McIntyre said in a statement. “And when Tim Enwall decided to join Mobiplug, we felt confident that the addition of his experience and leadership to this already talented core team could really disrupt the market and lead this growing space.”

Linkage:

Source: TechCrunch, DailyCamera

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Boulder: Foundry Group Closes Third Annual $225M Fund

The Foundry Group, the venture capital group founded by Startup Colorado Co-Chair and Techstars Co-Founder, Brad Feld has announced that they’ve just completed raising their third annual $225M Fund.

As our friends at PE Hub are quick to point out the fanfare around the announcement was exactly the same as the previous two years. That’s perfectly fine with us though as Feld and his team are extremely busy and just about everything that he does is focused around funding, promoting and pushing entrepreneurs and Startups, and a lot of them are “everywhere else”.

For instance, Feld still serves as a mentor at TechStars and several other accelerators that are part of the Global Accelerator Network.

As far as the fund itself goes it will continue to invest in US based Startups and technology focuse companies. They prefer to invest in themes that have long term growth strategies in place rather than looking for the next Instagram. They often provide follow on funding for Techstars graduates. For example, The Foundry Group invested $5 Million in Orbotix Series B Round. Orbotix was mentored by Feld at TechStars. They created the Sphero robotic ball that even President Obama is a fan of.

Other notable investments include Cheezburger, Urban Airship, FullContact and Zynga.

Linkage:

Check out Feld’s blog here

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Foundry’s Jason Mendelson, Now Bullish On Michigan Startup Scene

The Michigan Growth Capital Symposium was held this past Tuesday and Wednesday in Ypsilanti. Xconomy’s Sarah Schmid reports that over 450 founders, entrepreneurs, VCs, and others in the Michigan startup community showed out for the event.

Among them was the managing director and co-founder of Foundry Group, Jason Mendelson who gave a keynote address entitled: “The Velocity of the Midwest Venture Capital Ecosystem: Sleeping Giants or Momentary Blips?”

During his speech he was very positive about the current startup scene in Michigan. Mendelson is no stranger to the state of Michigan. He was born in Detroit and graduated from the university of Michigan. While this weeks talk was all positive, it wasn’t always that way for Mendelson and his native state.

After graduating from law school at the University of Michigan, Mendelson wanted to stay in Michigan but he quickly found that the state, so deep rooted in the auto industry, didn’t care if someone had the next million dollar idea. At that time no one cared about anything except seniority.

So like any aspiring entrepreneur Mendelson made a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley, an experience he doesn’t speak to highly of.

Mendelson said that the competition in Silicon Valley was so harsh that the only pleasure in life came from relishing in others’ failure. Mendelson described Silicon Valley to Schmid as “toxic” ultimately causing him to leave in 2006 and head for Boulder Colorado.