I vividly recall a night in September 2008. I was having a beer with Pete Gombert, CEO of Balihoo, one of our portfolio companies. We were celebrating the recent stretch of good fortune that the company was enjoying. The company was on the verge of closing multi-million dollar relationships with a couple of the largest […]
Archive for the ‘Portfolio’ Category
Jan
13
Apr
07
Why We’re Investing In Orbotix
“It’s fun.” Sometimes, it’s that simple. Making a sphere controllable is no easy feat and the team at Orbotix has some pretty impressive chops when it comes to sophisticated robotics. As a result, we’re excited to announce our newest investment in Orobtix (based in Boulder, Colorado). Orbotix is the company behind Sphero, the world’s first […]
Feb
22
Carefx Acquired by Harris Corporation
Eight years ago, we invested in the Series A financing (Fund I) in Carefx, and we and our limited partners are about to reap the benefits of the just announced acquisition by Harris Corporation for $155 million. Today’s announcement represents the culmination of almost a decade of hard work by all of the people who […]
Feb
17
Lendio - Our Latest Investment
At Highway 12 Ventures, we believe the customer/bank relationship has changed. This phenomenon first started during the dotcom meltdown in 2001-2003 and again saw radical change in late 2008. Historically, most small businesses went to the bank on the corner. That is no longer the case as we have all read about the difficulties small […]
Jan
06
I’ve Seen The Future of 3D Special Effects and Animation
As an investor (if you’re lucky), every once in a while you see something come out of one of the companies you’ve invested in that gives you a “holy shit” moment where you realize that the company has created something that will forever alter the landscape of the market they serve. Yesterday was one of […]
Nov
28
5 Minutes with Matt Warta, CEO of GutCheck
Highway 12 Ventures recently invested in an exciting new company called GutCheck. Anyone who has worked in product development, or any area of marketing knows how important it is to be able to capture and understand the “voice of the customer”. Big companies have traditionally used things like Focus Groups to capture this information. GutCheck […]
Sep
22
Our Newest Investment - Kapost
The world of publishing has been in the midst of transformation for some time now. The web has enabled, and created the expectation, that people can get their news and information much faster and at much lower costs. There is pressure on publishers to provide the immediacy readers want, while at the same time significantly lowering […]
Jul
22
Introducing Our New Portfolio Company Careers Portal
We’re pleased to announce the launch of our new online portfolio company careers portal (www.highway12ventures.com/portfolio/careers). This is a value-add service managed by StartUpHire and is designed to accelerate our portfolio’s recruiting effectiveness by channeling talented individuals to our portfolio companies. Interestingly, the service has the ability to automatically pull existing and new postings from our […]
Apr
13
Our Investment In Goomzee & A Lesson For First-Time Entrepreneurs
Last week, there was a considerable amount of media attention regarding the announcement of our investment in Missoula, MT-based Goomzee. The company has developed a very elegant and innovative mobile marketing platform that helps real estate professionals connect with potential buyers. The platform has applications beyond the real estate market, including retail and auto. Even […]
Apr
05
Our Investment In Cradlepoint
Early in 2009, we made an investment in Boise-based Cradlepoint. For a variety of reasons, we’ve kept this below the radar until now. We are very excited to finally announce our investment in this fast-growing company. Cradlepoint designs and manufactures 3G/4G wireless broadband routers and is a leader in this emerging space. Cradlepoint boasts the […]