Ventures
Governing Dynamics is a forward looking & pioneering early stage technology venture fund. We specialize in disruptive Web Services, Web Exchanges & Market Places, Clean Tech & Communications services. We empower innovation & invest in creative people who want to change the world. We combine managed investments where we develop young visionary companies with co-investing with other leading funds in a more traditional VC model.
Managed Investments
Active Since 2008
GroundLink is a global technology leader that aggregates, manages and executes ground travel services worldwide. GroundLink's marketplace provides access to 45,000 ground travel vendors - the largest network of its kind. Our state-of-the-art technology enables retail customers, web publishers, corporations and travel agencies to easily find, price, book and pay for any ground travel worldwide!
Groundlink received an investment from The Comvest Group
Active Since 2011
Name.Space, based in New York City, has developed and deployed an advanced system of domain name registration, operating new Top Level Domains (TLDs) since 1996, lighting up new domain names in real time, bringing automation and high efficiency to the new nameservice industry.
Name.Space is committed to working with our clients to enable their access to the net, preserve their rights to privacy and free speech, and to provide trusted, low-cost, high value services.
Active Since 2004
Transit Wireless (TW) is the exclusive provider of GSM/CDMA/WiFi and other wireless services to the 7,000,000 daily commuters in the NYC subway system. As a neutral host TW operates the service on behalf of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. This $200m project was founded and funded by GD since 2004.
Exit 2005 of +10X
Arbinet - TheXchange is the world's largest electronic marketplace for communications trading. Founded by Alex Mashinsky in 1996 it raised over $240M and has over 130 employees and 1000 carriers who conduct over $500m in transactions via Arbinet. Alex served as the company CEO until Jan 2000 and is a board member and large shareholder. (nasdaq - ARBX)
Arbinet went public in 2004 doubling on its first day of trading.
Portfolio of Investments
Communications
Active 2010
Cloudmark, Inc. is a global leader in carrier-grade messaging infrastructure and security solutions, delivering the industry's fastest, most accurate and most scalable messaging platform for fixed, mobile and social networks.
Active 2008
IntelePeer™ provides SIP Trunking and voice peering infrastructure to directly exchange voice traffic over IP or legacy TDM networks between any application and any telephony device.
Active 2001
Q-Wireless is a software company developing wireless infrastructure. The company is a 25% partner of http://www.transitwireless.com/ which won a 10 year $200m contract to build the wireless systems to enable 277 underground NYC subway system stations to provide GSM/CDMA/WiFi/WiMax wireless communications.
5X 2001
Elematics was founded by Alex in 2001 and raised $23m from Warburg Pincus. The company has created the leading technology necessary to allow real time optical provisioning and network management in a multi carrier and multi vendor environment. Alex is serving as the companies Executive Chairman and its technology architect.
Active 2000
VenturiFX is an investment vehicle created by Alex Mashinsky and Jeff Parness to create leading edge telecommunications companies, it creating the ideas that accelerate the Venutri effect (FX) created by the convergence of the telecom and computer industries. VenturiFX invested the seed capital behind Elematics and Qratings.
2X 1998
Comgates is the world leader in media gateways and soft switch technology, It was spun off Arbinet in 1998 and raised 13M$ in capital. Alex Mashinsky serves as a board member and advisor to the company. In Jan 2004 Comgates was sold to Telco (NYSE - BVC)
Technology Component and Services
Active 2010
nScaled provide cloud data centers to organizations with confidential data and zero tolerance for downtime or data loss.
Active 2010
WiSpry is a fabless RF semiconductor company that has developed truly disruptive technologies for the wireless market.
Active 2009
MiaSolé is a pioneer in the development of Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) thin film photovoltaic products.
Active 2005
Yitran is leading supplier of Power Line Communications (PLC) integrated circuits (IC) and enabler of "no new wires" communication over existing electrical wiring.
Entertainment & Media
Active 2011
Dubset is the next generation of internet radio, curated by the world's top DJs. Discover new music recorded live at premier clubs and exclusive events, find and follow new DJs, and create your own custom channel with your favorite mixes.
Active 2010
maniaTV launched in September 2004 as the world's first internet television network, delivering original premium pop-culture entertainment programming to the Internet savvy youth audience.
Active 2010
Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide.
Active 2009
Auditude is a technology company working to make online video better, from A to V.
4X 2009
Slide creates virtual worlds where users can have fun and even make a profit. Sold to Google 2010 for over $200m.
Active 2008
Hapnin.com is a hyper-local, time-sensitive, events platform.
Active 2008
DigiMeld Inc., through its web portal DigiMeld.com, delivers video programming to a global audience or a select geographic region at their convenience.
Active 2007
China Mobile Media (CHMO.OB) is a leading integrated multi-channel sales and marketing company in China with a proven track record of developing and selling proprietary branded digital mobile devices.
Active 2006
eBuddy is a web application that enables you to chat with your MSN, AOL and Yahoo buddies without having to install any program or Java applet. To use the web version of eBuddy, all you need is a JavaScript enabled browser on your computer and it works even if you are behind a firewall.
Advertising, Search, & Information
Active 2010
Mojiva is the world's premiere mobile ad network.
Active 2010
Marketbright's solution enables companies to improve their demand generation activities through self-service campaign execution and automated lead scoring and management, and gain visibility into campaign metrics via real time dashboards.
Active 2010
Intelius is an information commerce company. We provide consumers and businesses with predictive intelligence for important everyday decisions.
Active 2009
Cellfire.com is the premier destination for valuable savings on groceries, shopping, restaurants, and entertainment.
Active 2007
Use our new people search engine to find everyone all in one place. Locate old friends, classmates, lost loves, or colleagues at MyLife.com.
Active 2007
nSphere is the premier local advertising network specialized in helping businesses find local customers through targeted online advertising.
Active 2005
Linkstorm is an interactive technology and services company that provides online advertising, e-commerce, publishing, and social networking solutions via a next generation hyperlink.
Active 2001
Local Matters (LOCL) is the largest global provider of advanced search and content solutions for incumbent media publishers and directory assistance service providers.
Active 2001
Sold to MyLife.com
Consumer and Business Solutions
Active 2010
Oversee.net® is the leader in Internet Real Estate™, specializing in monetizing, registering, selling and developing domain names.
Active 2010
Doostang is a community of over 750,000 elite professionals with inside access to thousands of jobs from top employers.
Active 2009
Workshare.com provides software solutions to more than one million professionals in 65 countries.
Active 2009
TrialPay lets customers get your goods for free when they make a purchase from big brands like Netflix, Gap, Real and hundreds more.
Active 2008
U.S. Renewable specializes in providing organizations with renewable electronic product and waste recovery solutions..
Active 2005
Lion Cao Asset Management (Lion Cao or LCAM) was launched in the fall of 2005 as an alternative investment management firm that provides institutional quality investment management primarily for wealthy families and institutions worldwide.
Active 2004
Limores is a leading provider of ground transportation in NYC.
Active 2004
IronPlanet is the worlds largest marketplace for heavy construction equipment, the company is backed by Accel & KPCB, the company filed for an IPO in 2010 (IRON)
Alex Mashinsky is an angel investor in The Diamond.
Bio, Medical and Nanotechnology
Active 2010
Nantero is a nanotechnology company using carbon nanotubes for the development of next-generation semiconductor devices.
Active 2009
Baxano is focused on developing minimally invasive tools to restore spine function and preserve healthy tissue.
Active 2009
VoyageMedical.com is a privately-held, venture-backed company developing a high-resolution, direct visualization technology that will impact current intracardiac diagnostic and treatment techniques.
Active 2006
Millenium Biotech Group Inc. (MBTG). Alex is an investor of the company.
Active 2006
SYNOVICS PHARMACEUTICALS (SYVC.OB), a biopharmaceutical company, is dedicated to the discovery and development of biologically active compounds derived from natural sources.
4X 2005
Javelin (JVPH.OB) is a specialty pharmaceutical company committed to the development of drugs to treat intense, moderate-to-severe pain.
Active 2005
Arno Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on creating value through the development of innovative products for the treatment of cancer patients.
4X 2002
Entelos (ENTL.L) partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations worldwide to develop effective new treatments for disease and dramatically reduce the time and cost needed to develop them.
Patents
Alex Mashinsky Anti Portfolio
Most of what I have learned over the years came primary due to my failures. Looking back at the decisions I have made in both selecting ideas to work on and deciding how much to invest in them it is painful to see how many times I have repeated the same mistakes.
It all comes down to decision making and the ability to predict the future and the timing of when things will take off. It is also critical to either do it yourself or only entrust a person who is more passionate than you about the subject.
While most of the projects I failed in where good ideas I usually dramatically underestimated how long it will take for adoption to take place or how much money will be needed. I also have discounted the level of commitment and ability management have presented thinking I could solve things later.
The hardest part I had to deal with was learning to cut my losses and admit my mistakes quickly. Again and again I tried to save these ventures and paid the price of being distracted and drained of resources to only prolong the inevitable.
A focused mind is one of the most powerful forces in the universe my fortune cookie read in a recent trip to a local eatery in Manhattan and I could not agree more.
It is amazing how some lessons take 20 years to learn.
Here is a list of my most spectacular failures and misses. I review them again and again to see what else I can learn and each time as I visit them in a new context a new side of this learning process reveals itself.
2008 Business was great and all my ventures were funded and doing well, I felt invulnerable and agreed to leverage two of my ventures with debt, it turned out to be disastrous as we entered the recession and my lenders refused to be patient. I lost all my equity in one of the ventures and another got refinanced but I have learned my lesson to never put debt into early stage growth companies.
2006 I had a very bad feeling about the housing market for years and finally decided to bet against it by shorting the home builders, I lost money for all of 2006 as they continued to do well and eventually i decided to cut my losses early in 2007 just to see home builders loose over 70% of their value in the following 12 months. I did not make the connection between home builders collapse and the collapse of the banking and financial system which followed. Lesson learned - stick to your guts and beliefs if you have a track record of being right.
2004 I knew there was going to be a better way to publish new information on the internet so I wrote a patent with a new way of publishing information in real time to a list of followers. At the same time I had also started working on GroundLink and had to make a choice between the two ventures. I chose GroundLink while the other idea turned out to become Twitter.
2004
Novacure had the opportunity to invest in this revolutionary cancer treatment process but decided it was too revolutionary.
2002
Skype I got a call from a VC asking about my opinion on a small startup doing a VOIP product, since I know the space too well I did not think the prospects were good.
1999
ICG was the seed investor in Arbinet and I got pre IPO equity but wired the money too late to participate. Stock went from $7 to $212 in 6 months.
1998
Google I was introduced to Sergey by Ester Dyson and after listening to his presentation of how a link based algorithm would provide better search results I said "who needs another search engine, we have AltaVista".
1998
Tradeum I contracted to buy software and negotiated equity upside and co-investment but I switched at the last minute to another firm. Tradeum got sold for $1.2b just one year later.
1996
ICQ Yosi Vardi offered me equity in his company as barter for bandwidth from Arbinet. I said no and ICQ was sold to AOL for $450m a mere 8 months later.
1996
Vocaltech I had the opportunity to invest in the company twice before their IPO.