Blurtt – an Austin, Texas based startup has joined the Archimedes accelerator program. The company is in stealth and will launch in early 2012. We are pleased to welcome CEO Jeanette Cajide and her team to the Archimedes family.
Category Archives: Companies
just.me closes $550k in seed funding
We are happy to announce that just.me, Archimedes Labs first incubated company, has graduated to independent status. Keith Teare will become CEO of just.me. The investor list is an all star cast – True Ventures, Google Ventures, SV Angel; Betaworks; Crunchfund; Don Dodge; Patrick Gannon; Michael Parekh; Steve McArthur and The Four Horsemen LLC.
just.me…..is focused on the post-PC social network.
just.me will launch in early 2012
edgeio launches at PC Forum
Although there has been significant discussion on the web about edgeio for several weeks, the company had not formally launched until today. edgeio has formally launched the company at PC Forum in Carlsbad. There is a post on the edgeio blog with a 2 minute video clip of the infomercial that preceeded the formal presentations.The company announced $1.5m in angel funding, led by Ron Conway and including investments from:
Dan Burstein of Millenium Technology Ventures
Frank Caufield Jr. of Darwin Ventures
Jeff Clavier of Softtech VC
Ron Conway
Auren Hoffman
Localglobe II
Louis Monier
Sam Perry
RSS Investors
Michael Tanne
Transcosmos Inc.
… and others not disclosed.
This is the first Archimedes company to secure funding. I (Keith Teare) will be serving as CEO of edgeio and will be discontinuing active work with Archimedes for the time being. I’m thrilled by the challenge of taking edgeio from an idea I had in late 2004, through to a funded company and a launched platform. Many thanks to all those who have helped, but especially to:
Mike Arrington
Matt Kaufman
Vidar Hokstad
Fred Olivera
The VeriSign “real time web” team
Jeremy Zawodny
Jim Piktow
Dave Winer, Dave Sifry, Scott Rafer, Bob Wyman, Salim Ismail, David Hornik, Louis Monier (all of whom saw the early prototype almost a year ago). And the investors who have shown confidence in me and the team.
EasyNet bought by BSkyB
I have been meaning to post on this for a while and didn’t do so because I wanted to wait for the dust to settle. This seems like a good time.
My old company Easynet has been acquired by BSkyB for something around $375m. I was co-founder of the company, in 1994, with my friend David Rowe. David remains CEO. I left about 12 months after our IPO, in 1997, to start RealNames. 
Firstly, congratulations to David and his team. But especially to David. He is an incredibly focused entreprenuer who, despite the market cap getting up to $2 billion or so during 1999 remained dedicated to building out a genuine competitor to the Telco incumbents across many markets in Europe.
BSkyB’s acquisition is testimony to that focus. They need an infrastructure capable of driving a triple play (voice, video and data) connection to homes and businesses throughout Europe. because of EasyNet’s DSLAM presence in many telco head ends, there was really no better optioon.
I can claim no credit for the sale, it’s all down to what David and the team have accomplished over the years since I left. And i get no benefit from it – I sold my shares a long time ago. However I’m still feeling proud. I helped David found a great company. we established it as the first consumer ISP in Europe. Highlights for me include being chosen by Microsoft to launch Windows 95 with them; getting our first customer, 6 weeks after having the idea, and banking our first $10 check; meeting lots of great entrepreneurs in CYBERIA (our cybercafe chain at the time); going public without raising venture capital; my time with David and Eva (his partner) debating strategy and tactics; being on a public company board, and realizing it wasn’t what I excelled at. And so many others.
Again, congratulations to all at the company. And good luck with a future with the Murdochs. Bound to be more interesting times ahead.