The Convergence of Digital and Physical Customer Interactions in Today’s On-Demand Economy
A look at the convergence of digital and physical customer interactions in today’s on-demand economy.
Ascent Portfolio Company Invaluable Inks Important Deal with eBay
Our portfolio company Invaluable just announced a partnership with eBay. We congratulate Invaluable CEO Rob Weisberg and the entire Invaluable team for this extraordinary accomplishment. This partnership recognizes Invaluable’s leadership of the online live auction market. The combination of eBay’s 145 million active buyers with Invaluable’s auction house network should provide enormous benefit to both companies. As […]
Innovation & Immigration: The Lesson of WhatsApp
My partner Matt Fates and I have been traveling through Europe this past week as part of the fundraising process for our new fund. After a busy prior few weeks of domestic travel, I am eager to return home, but I do so with enhanced perspective. While Putin intended the Sochi Olympics to dominate the […]
The New Mobile Enterprise Reality
The statistics don’t lie: 2013 was the year of mobile. More than two billion mobile devices were shipped globally last year. The number of mobile phones now matches the world’s population, and mobile devices overtook PCs both in units sold and as the most common means for accessing the Web. Global mobile traffic now accounts […]
StartApp Hits the Billion Download Mark
Ascent portfolio company StartApp has been on an incredible ride over the last 18 months, and recently achieved its biggest milestone yet in its young history: one billion downloads. (As the linked video clip persuasively notes, this is a very big number.) The rapid growth of StartApp speaks to the mobile industry problem it solves. […]
The Battle for Mobile Operating System Supremacy
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it… Given that Apple’s blockbuster introduction of the iPhone six years ago effectively created the smartphone market, it’s astonishing that Android today reigns supreme. Within the U.S., depending on which figures you wish to reference, Android has anywhere from an eight-to-twelve percent lead over Apple […]
2012 a Year of Record Growth for V.i. Labs
Our portfolio company V.i. Labs recently issued a press release that highlighted the Company’s strong performance in 2012. See the release here. We are very pleased with the Company’s performance and congratulate the management team for a strong year. Software piracy remains an enormous problem for software providers. According to estimates from multiple analysts, the […]
StartApp Named One of 2012’s Fastest Growing Startups
Business Insider recently released a list of the “5 Fastest Growing Startups of 2012,” comprised of emerging companies with the potential to “transform industries and the business world at-large.” We’re thrilled to see one of Ascent’s portfolio companies on the list: StartApp, which Business Insider deems “poised to significantly impact the mobile industry.” StartApp’s mobile […]
Infographic: ClickFox Finds Shoppers Get Better Customer Service Online
Last week Ascent portfolio company ClickFox published the below infographic, which shows two major trends at work simultaneously: how Big Data insights can illuminate consumer behavior and how retail is evolving from bricks-and-mortar to multi-channel commerce, which Ascent calls “More clicks, less bricks.” ClickFox leveraged more than 500 million consumer behaviors across their customer base […]
Young Turks in the Enterprise
There was a widely circulated news item recently that tried to explain the mindset of this year’s college freshmen, noting that, for them, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Kurt Cobain have always been dead. (Message to this generation: please do yourself a favor and delete a few LMFAO and Lady Gaga tunes from your iPod in […]