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by Randy Hawks on February 16th, 2012 
February 15, 2012 guest post originally published at: peHUB
Recent attacks against leading GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney depict him essentially as a brutal, bare-knuckled capitalist when he ran Bain Capital. They shed a very unflattering light on the private equity world. Romney rivals have cast him as a “vulture capitalist” that took over companies, aggressively sold significant assets and fired workers to maximize profits.
This is highly exaggerated hyperbole. The fact is, . . .
→ Read full post: A VC Leaps to Private Equity’s Defense
by Randy Hawks on February 1st, 2012
My hearty congratulations goes to our portfolio company ecoATM, who won The Crunchies Award for Best Clean Tech Startup in 2011 last night. The San Diego-based startup, which makes an intelligent self-serve kiosk to evaluate and purchase used electronics from consumers, bested a field of five finalists that also included Array Power, Alta Energy, EcoMotors and Hara.
The Crunchies, of course, is a big deal. Hosted by GigaOm, Venturebeat and . . .
→ Read full post: ecoATM Wins 2011 Crunchies for Best Clean Tech Startup
by Randy Hawks on January 16th, 2012 
January 16th, 2012 source: GigaOm
We are excited by the promise of EcoATM as I mentioned in a prior post. Although a lot of these kiosks won’t be in place for a couple of years, they are gaining traction. As reported by Katie Ferenbacher in the GigaOm article, the company’s secret sauce is the kiosks’ ability to automatically estimate — using electronic and visual techniques — a . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company EcoATM featured in article: The Internet of Things meets cell phone recycling
by Randy Hawks on December 19th, 2011
This week ecoATM (www.ecoatm.com) began deploying its revolutionary recycling kiosks in Northern California. Up until now, I’ve been telling folks how intriguing this company and its recycling kiosks are, but they had to travel to Southern Cal to see them installed in retail malls. Now local folks can go to a mall, get realtime pricing on their used cellphones from the worldwide recycle/refurbish markets and trade in for cash….on the spot! It is a very . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company ecoATM moves to Northern California: Turn in those cellphones for CASH!
by Randy Hawks on August 23rd, 2011 
Our portfolio company, Sentilla raised $15M in a Series C funding we announced today. We were happy to support Sentilla which is the leading provider of IT infrastructure software that discovers, monitors, analyzes, plans and automates data center workloads. The funding round was led by SingTel Innov8 Ventures, the corporate venture arm of the SingTel Group. This new infusion of capital will be used for sales and marketing expansion. Here’s the press release, and . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures Portfolio Company, Sentilla Raises $15 Million in Series C Funding
by Randy Hawks on August 17th, 2011 
Venture capital is about nourishing the growth of highly promising young companies to help build a better economic future. So I was naturally pleased to host a group of summer interns at Claremont Creek recently because they were interested in learning more about venture and how we work.
The group has been involved with the Community Internship Program at ShotSpotter, a Claremont Creek portfolio company and the market leader in gunshot detection . . .
→ Read full post: ShotSpotter Community Internship Program Includes A Look At Venture Capital
by Randy Hawks on August 3rd, 2011
Our portfolio company Shotspotter, the market leader and innovator in gunshot detection and location technology and acoustic surveillance, recently announced the findings of the ShotSpotter Gunshot Location System Efficacy Study, a first-ever analyst report on the capability and effectiveness of the gunshot location system as a critical technology for public safety, police and law enforcement.
The study was endorsed by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) and . . .
→ Read full post: Study Reveals Key Benefits Of Shotspotter Gunshot Location Solution
by Randy Hawks on March 18th, 2011 March 17, 2011 source: this post by Randy Hawks originally appeared on peHUB
– “Let’s be entrepreneurial and act like an incubator for urban change. Let’s not be afraid for some ideas to fail. Let’s use base-lining and data analytics to measure and correct.” -
These are quotes you might hear coming from a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, someone immersed in a place where innovation is the cultural norm. In fact, these quotes are from . . .
→ Read full post: Applying Entrepreneurship to Urban Revitalization
by Randy Hawks on February 16th, 2011 February 16, 2011 source: this guest blog post originally appeared on peHUB
There has been a lot of buzz around highflying companies allowing sales of their stock on secondary trading platforms. There have always been opportunities for individual secondary sales in private companies but nothing to match the current level of action. Before, occasional private party sales were allowed by company boards for purposes such as individuals buying a new house and funding . . .
→ Read full post: The Argument for the Secondary Market
by Randy Hawks on November 8th, 2010 Current Challenges
As the Managing Director investing in security, I find it disheartening that the economic recession of the last two years has dampened enthusiasm for security investment by corporate enterprises and government. But as the economy has stabilized, and some beginnings of reinvestment have emerged, I see new opportunities arising; although not as many as in year’s past.
This presents a challenge to early stage companies who are bringing new products and services to market. . . .
→ Read full post: Security Investment Perspective
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