Oak Investment Partners has
backed more than 10% of the WSJ
list of the Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies! 6 out of 50! What’s even
cooler is that we’ve got quite a number of exciting, substantial, profitable
companies that didn’t make the list.
If you click on any company
in the list, you get a photo of the CEO and a nice summary of the company.
Here are the 6 Oak companies
in the list of 50:
#10: nGenera. Many people are familiar with Don Tapscott and his
forward-thinking books like Wikinomics. I just discovered that he has
over 13,000 followers on Twitter!
But Don is just the tip of the iceberg at nGenera, which is at the forefront of
helping our major organizations transform themselves into more effective, collaborative
enterprises.
#14: Ventana. Oak backed Athena Health, a company that is revolutionizing
the automation of medical offices. Athena is now public and doing very well.
When Todd Park, who co-founded Athena (along with Jonathan Bush) was ready to
try something new, he ended up starting what is now Ventana, which promises to transform
the relationship between consumers and health care providers. And then Todd got
called to serve as the CTO of the US Dept of HHS! But the company is in good
hands with their capable and dynamic CEO, Gio Colella.
UPDATE: Ventana has a new name: Castlight Health.
#22: Huffington Post. This is a completely
amazing company. I’ve written about
them a bit in the context of the media-i-zation of the world. People seem
to think of Huffington Post in terms of old media companies, or left-wing
politics, or some other verbally-oriented perspective. But my
blog post about nerds and yakkity-yaks gives the most relevant perspective –
they have an amazingly powerful tech team who keeps pushing the edge of what’s
possible in on-line media. When you see how Paul Berry and his team do it on
the inside, it’s even more impressive. They’re nicely integrated with
editorial, just like they should be, and like similarly powerful tech teams so
rarely are. And we can't forget (who could?) Arianna, who as of this moment has over 394,000 Twitter followers.
#29: Boston Power. The WSJ explained why
this company is hot, and I don’t think I could say it better. “It's in
the competitive Lithium-ion battery space, but backer Oak Investment Partners
has deep pockets and its board member, Bandel Carano, has a strong track
record.” Boston Power is on the road to making,
for example, all-electric cars truly practical.
#46: iCrossing. I’ve already blogged about this
company over
and over
again. They are the clear leaders in their fields – yes, more than one!
#47: SmartDrive. SmartDrive is a classic
innovative, industry-transforming venture. It makes our roads safer for
everyone, protects good drivers when they get in bad situations, detects bad
drivers before really bad things happen, and on top of everything else helps
reduce the amount of fuel consumed. It’s very satisfying to have a company that
delivers such a clear range of benefits, leveraging the latest technology and
an effective service model.