The investment comes on the heels of Yahoo’s $1.1
billion acquisition of blogging company Tumblr, showing the high
prices fast-growing services that targeting Internet users can
command. The valuation for WordPress was similar, Fortune
reported. A spokeswoman for WordPress declined to comment.

WordPress powers the blogs at companies such as CNN.com and
Techcrunch, a spokeswoman said.

The investment bought out shares of existing shareholders,
including early employees, rather than directly funding the
company, wrote WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg in a blog post.

“Allowing early investors to lock in some returns releases
any short-term pressure there might be on the company for a
liquidity event and allows us to focus fully on the long road
ahead,” he wrote in his post.

The investment is part of a crop of financing where
nontraditional investors make bets on venture-capital backed
companies. They include private-equity firms such as Riving
Traverse Management, which last year led a $200 million funding
round in payments service Square, and mutual funds such as T.
Rowe Price, which has invested in companies including micro blog
service Twitter.

Many of these investors “come in with the ability to write
checks larger than the entire size of most VCR funds,” wrote
Mullen.

More top blogs run Word Press than any other publishing
platform, according to a 2012 study conducted by Kingdom, a
website monitoring service. Blogs it cited in the study include
technology sites such as Tech Crunch and Boingboing and
Hollywood news site Deadline.

While many organizations use Tumblr, it is heavily
associated with individuals updating friends and others on their
activities and interests, social-media style.

And while Tumblr’s revenue is advertising based, the bulk of
WordPress’s revenue comes from fees to users who upgrade beyond
its basic free service. It also derives significant revenue from
charging large media companies to host their entire blogging
platforms, said Automattic Chief Financial Officer Stuart West
in a telephone interview. He declined to disclose figures.

Like Tumblr, WordPress is growing fast, with 50 million
users today compared with 4 million five years ago, the company
said. Tumblr launched five years ago and today has more than 100
million blogs in its network.

The largest single audience group for WordPress is users
aged 25-34, according to consultancy comScore. For Tumblr, the
largest group is users aged 18-24.

Earlier this year, Tiger led a $444 million equity
investment in online survey company SurveyMonkey as part of a
financing round that also allowed early investors and employees
to cash out. Tiger partner Lee Fixel handled his firm’s
investment in both SurveyMonkey and Automattic.

Tiger extended its offer to WordPress in April, before
Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr was announced, West said.

Automattic’s venture backers include Polaris Partners, True
Ventures, and the New York Times Co.

Google’s discussions with Waze, which one of the sources told Reuters remained fluid and could change in tenor at any time, come amid reports Facebook is willing to pay $1 billion for the crowd-sourced service, which relies on information provided by its 47 million members to craft its mobile-oriented maps.

By buying Waze, the Internet search giant would prevent the company from falling into the hands of Facebook, which is delving deeper into mobile technology as it tries to grow its user base.

Mapping services are among the five most-used applications on smartphones and are crucial to engaging and retaining mobile users. The key advantage of owning, rather than licensing, a mapping service is that it allows for the product to be tailored and personalized for users.

“Whoever holds the mapping data is going to be a hot commodity,” said Brian Proffitt, author of several books on mobile technology and an adjunct instructor of management in the University of Notre Dame. “As larger vendors acquire mapping data, businesses and consumers will discover that it’s more difficult to gain free access and correct errors.”

Waze’s real-time traffic information, generated continuously from data on users’ smartphones about traveling speed and direction, is considered a particularly valuable asset that poses a threat to the search giant’s existing offering, Google Maps.

“Sometimes the best offense is defense,” said a third source close to the situation, explaining Google’s motivation to acquire Waze.

Still, Marcus Thielking, co-founder of rival mapping service, skobbler, said Facebook could easily develop a real-time traffic service similar to Waze’s, thanks to its massive social network of more than one billion users.

As a result, he said, it would be “shortsighted” for Google to acquire Waze strictly to keep it away from Facebook.

“I can’t really see much sense in a Google acquisition, especially not at a price that’s close to what we’re talking about,” said Thielking.

Indeed, deals are heating up in the tech-startup space. This week, Yahoo Inc announced a $1.1 billion acquisition of widely used blogging service Tumblr, in one of the largest purchases this year of an Internet company.

Due diligence between Waze and Facebook had been under way and a term sheet signed after six months of discussions, Israeli business daily Calcalist reported this month.

But talks stalled over Facebook’s demand that the Waze team, working in Israel, relocate to California, the publication reported days later.

Last year, Apple Inc began offering its own maps, in competition with Google’s more widely used application.

There had been media reports earlier this year that Apple was in talks to acquire Waze, but both companies declined to comment on Friday.

Google also declined to comment.

MAPPING CONUNDRUM

Waze has enjoyed years of spectacular growth. About 12 percent of its users hail from the United States, and it also has high penetration in Italy and Brazil. Its user base has skyrocketed to 47.5 million now, from about 7 million in 2011.

Four-year-old Waze was the brainchild of Ehud Shabtai, a software engineer with a degree in philosophy and computer science from Tel Aviv University, who hit upon the idea when he realized commercially available GPS software could not reflect real-time conditions speedily enough, or provide certain useful data – such as speed traps.

According to Waze’s website, Shabtai teamed up with entrepreneurs Uri Levine and Amir Shinar to found Waze in 2008. It has raised $67 million in funding to date from firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Blue Run Ventures, Hong Kong media and real-estate mogul Li Ka-shing’s Horizon Ventures and semiconductor company Qualcomm Inc. According to Calcalist, Microsoft Corp owns 10.2 percent of the company, but Waze did not comment on that.

Waze Chief Executive Noam Bardin and a small staff now operate out of their U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto, California, while about 90 employees are based in home country Israel.

The startup partnered with Facebook in October 2012, when Waze released an updated version of its app that allowed users to share their drive with their Facebook friends.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Google’s discussions with Waze, which one of the sources told Reuters remained fluid and could change in tenor at any time, come amid reports Facebook (FB.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is willing to pay $1 billion for the crowd-sourced service, which relies on information provided by its 47 million members to craft its mobile-oriented maps.

By buying Waze, the Internet search giant would prevent the company from falling into the hands of Facebook, which is delving deeper into mobile technology as it tries to grow its user base.

Mapping services are among the five most-used applications on smartphones and are crucial to engaging and retaining mobile users. The key advantage of owning, rather than licensing, a mapping service is that it allows for the product to be tailored and personalized for users.

“Whoever holds the mapping data is going to be a hot commodity,” said Brian Proffitt, author of several books on mobile technology and an adjunct instructor of management in the University of Notre Dame. “As larger vendors acquire mapping data, businesses and consumers will discover that it’s more difficult to gain free access and correct errors.”

Waze’s real-time traffic information, generated continuously from data on users’ smartphones about traveling speed and direction, is considered a particularly valuable asset that poses a threat to the search giant’s existing offering, Google Maps.

“Sometimes the best offense is defense,” said a third source close to the situation, explaining Google’s motivation to acquire Waze.

Still, Marcus Thielking, co-founder of rival mapping service, skobbler, said Facebook could easily develop a real-time traffic service similar to Waze’s, thanks to its massive social network of more than one billion users.

As a result, he said, it would be “shortsighted” for Google to acquire Waze strictly to keep it away from Facebook.

“I can’t really see much sense in a Google acquisition, especially not at a price that’s close to what we’re talking about,” said Thielking.

Indeed, deals are heating up in the tech-startup space. This week, Yahoo Inc announced a $1.1 billion acquisition of widely used blogging service Tumblr, in one of the largest purchases this year of an Internet company.

Due diligence between Waze and Facebook had been under way and a term sheet signed after six months of discussions, Israeli business daily Calcalist reported this month.

But talks stalled over Facebook’s demand that the Waze team, working in Israel, relocate to California, the publication reported days later.

Last year, Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) began offering its own maps, in competition with Google’s more widely used application.

There had been media reports earlier this year that Apple was in talks to acquire Waze, but both companies declined to comment on Friday.

Google also declined to comment.

MAPPING CONUNDRUM

Waze has enjoyed years of spectacular growth. About 12 percent of its users hail from the United States, and it also has high penetration in Italy and Brazil. Its user base has skyrocketed to 47.5 million now, from about 7 million in 2011.

Four-year-old Waze was the brainchild of Ehud Shabtai, a software engineer with a degree in philosophy and computer science from Tel Aviv University, who hit upon the idea when he realized commercially available GPS software could not reflect real-time conditions speedily enough, or provide certain useful data – such as speed traps.

According to Waze’s website, Shabtai teamed up with entrepreneurs Uri Levine and Amir Shinar to found Waze in 2008. It has raised $67 million in funding to date from firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Blue Run Ventures, Hong Kong media and real-estate mogul Li Ka-shing’s Horizon Ventures and semiconductor company Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O: Quote, Profile, Research). According to Calcalist, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) owns 10.2 percent of the company, but Waze did not comment on that.

Waze Chief Executive Noam Bardin and a small staff now operate out of their U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto, California, while about 90 employees are based in home country Israel.

The startup partnered with Facebook in October 2012, when Waze released an updated version of its app that allowed users to share their drive with their Facebook friends. (Editing by Bernadette Baum)

GrubHub and Seamless, which allow consumers to easily order
online from various restaurants, are part of a group of
fast-growing businesses that standardize local services under a
national umbrella. Think restaurant reservations, where
OpenTable dominates, or car services, where privately
held startups such as Uber are making significant inroads.

“Internet sites are able to aggregate local merchants, and
we’re right in the sweet spot,” said Matt Maloney, GrubHub chief
executive, in a phone interview.

The services did not disclose financial terms of the deal,
which is subject to regulatory approval. It is expected to close
by August, the services’ executives said.

Online takeout services allow consumers to browse hundreds
of menus online, along with reviews by fellow diners, and then
order from the service, which notifies the restaurant. The
services store payment information, cutting back on the time it
takes to order food. Restaurants like the services because they
cut back on phone calls at peak times.

Last year, GrubHub and Seamless coordinated $875 million in
takeout sales, resulting in more than $100 million in combined
revenue, they said in a statement.

But the overall U.S. takeout business is worth around $69
billion annually, with most of those sales coming from diners
picking up the phone and calling the restaurant. “Our number one
competitor is the paper menu,” Maloney said.

Both companies have attracted significant backing, including
more than $84 million for Chicago-based GrubHub from investors
such as Benchmark Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

New York-based Seamless’s backers include private-equity
firm Spectrum Equity, which paid $50 million two years ago for a
minority stake in the business.

GrubHub is the larger of the two services, covering 20,000
restaurants in 500 cities. Maloney, its founder and chief
executive, will become CEO of the combined company, while
Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as president.

Seamless currently works with 12,000 restaurants in 40
cities, including in London.

The combined company will have 600 employees.

Other players in the sector include New York-based
Delivery.com and London-based Just Eat.

IPOs Tableau Software Inc and Marketo Inc
both soared more than 50 percent in their first day of trading.

Brethren enterprise companies, which sell services to
businesses rather than individuals, have risen 37 percent, on
average, in the two years since their IPOs, compared with 13
percent for consumer companies, according to market data firm
Ipreo.

The companies are being buoyed by new technologies like
mobile and so-called “cloud” computing, trends that are creating
tremendous business opportunities for young enterprise firms,
investors say, leading them to grab market share from incumbents
like Oracle Corp and SAP AG.

“If there is disruptive technology that provides a return on
investment, companies will buy it,” says Paul Deninger, senior
managing director at investment advisory firm Evercore Partners
Inc.

The frenzy kicked off last year with the IPO for Splunk Inc
, an analytics company that doubled its IPO price of $17
on the first day of trading.

Strong IPOs followed from firewall security company Palo
Alto Networks Inc and human resources software company
Workday Inc.

Big acquisitions have also gotten the attention of
investors, like the $689 million sale of social media marketing
company Buddy Media to software company Salesforce.com Inc
.

Other hot enterprise companies that are still private
include data-storing company Nimble Storage, which raised $41
million last September from venture capitalists;
software-services firm Cloudera, which raised $65 million in
December; and cloud-storage company Box, which raised $150
million last year.

CONSUMER DISAPPOINTMENT

Tableau, which raised $254 million in its IPO after
increasing both the price range and shares offered, saw its
stock soar nearly 54 percent after opening on Friday. Marketo
jumped 55 percent as it raised $79 million.

Partly, disappointment over underperforming IPOs from
consumer Internet companies like Groupon Inc, Zynga Inc
and Facebook has helped stoke excitement about the
enterprise start-ups.

“There was a rush to enterprise companies to compensate,”
says Keval Desai of venture firm InterWest Partners, an early
backer of Marketo.

But it’s about more than a backlash against consumer
companies, according to investors.

“The thing about enterprise is as long as it works, it will
proliferate through more organizations,” says Tim Curry, a
partner at law firm Jones Day who works with technology
companies. “It’s not affected by the whims or caprices of
consumers. If it works, companies will continue to buy it.”

One of the biggest reasons for the enthusiasm involves the
cloud, or the ability to access data on the Internet from remote
servers rather than from their own computers in house – and the
savings and flexibility that come with it.

As a result, companies do not need to maintain their own
software applications and data services, instead buying them on
a fee-based, short-term basis. That shift has created big
opportunities for start-ups.

“We’re finding a tremendous amount of innovation,” says
Kevin Spain of Emergence Capital Partners, an investor in
red-hot cloud-storage startup Box and others. “Innovation across
multiple fronts – product innovation, business applications, new
markets, new verticals.”

Ironically, some enterprise companies, particularly in
software, are becoming much more like consumer companies than
their predecessors.

Individuals within a corporation start using the software
for free without getting managers or information-technology
departments involved. Once a business reaches a critical mass of
users, the enterprise company can start charging for the
product.

That’s how Box reached 150,000 business clients and a
valuation upwards of $1 billion, and how Yammer reached 200,000
organizations and was worth $1.2 billion by the time Microsoft
Corp bought it last year.

Yammer’s acquisition illustrates another reason investors
like enterprise companies: the rich non-IPO return on investment
that bankers have come to call “the M&A parachute.”

Other examples of big companies trying to buy expertise in
disruptive technologies include SAP’s acquisition of cloud-based
SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion in cash in December 2011 and
Oracle’s acquisition of cloud-based rival Taleo Corp for about
$1.9 billion in February last year.

Musk leads one of the world’s best known “green” companies, electric carmaker Tesla. A Tesla spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday that the South African-born entrepreneur preferred not to elaborate on his reasons for leaving FWD.us.

Zuckerberg announced the formation of FWD.us last month, saying it was focused on bipartisan policies to bring about comprehensive immigration reform and improvements in the U.S. education system.

Fwd.us bankrolled three television ads on behalf of senators who have been playing a key role in the immigration debate.

The ads were focused not on immigration but rather on the senator’s general positions, including one’s support for the Keystone XL pipeline, which has created a backlash among some progressive groups. Backers say the pipeline project would boost North American energy security and provide thousands of construction jobs. Opponents argue that it would lead to higher releases of greenhouse gases.

The spots quickly drew the ire of liberal and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and MoveOn.org, who earlier this week pledged to pull ads from Facebook for two weeks.

The Fwd.us website removed Musk’s name on Friday after a Reuters inquiry. It was unclear how much Musk, who also chairs solar-energy company Solar City, had donated.

David Sacks, founder of business networking site Yammer and a former colleague of Musk’s at payment service PayPal, also dropped off the list of the FWD.us backers on Friday. FWD.us spokeswoman Kate Hansen earlier confirmed that a second funder had withdrawn support but declined to elaborate. Sacks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We recognize that not everyone will always agree with or be pleased by our strategy – and we’re grateful for the continued support of our dedicated founders and major contributors,” FWD.us spokeswoman Hansen said in a statement.

“FWD.us remains totally committed to supporting a bipartisan policy agenda that will boost the knowledge economy, including comprehensive immigration reform.”

A Facebook spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

FWD.us boasts an impressive list of backers, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, though it operates as a special type of non-profit group that does not have to disclose its donors. Run by Zuckerberg’s old Harvard roommate, Joe Green, FWD.us’s political operation is managed by a group of Washington insiders with leadership roles in both Republican and Democratic organizations.

It joins other technology groups and alliances lobbying Congress for more H-1B visas for high-skilled workers and easier hiring of foreign math, science and engineering experts.

Rather than directly representing the companies its backers are involved with, FWD.us is funded by individuals who have personally attached themselves – and their cash – to the cause. Zuckerberg has become the group’s public face, among more than three dozen big-name supporters.

Politically, Zuckerberg has carved out bipartisan credentials, visiting the White House and hosting a town hall for President Barack Obama but also staging a fundraiser for Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey who some see as a 2016 Presidential hopeful.

The latest controversy was sparked by ads for Republican Senators Marco Rubio from Florida and Lindsey Graham from South Carolina as well as Alaskan Democrat Mark Begich. FWD.us helped fund two separate entities to run the ads.

Rather than focusing on raising public awareness over immigration reform and its benefits for the technology sector, the FWD.us ads promote lawmakers who the groups thinks will be key players on the issue.

In doing so, the ads highlight a number of positions held by the senators, including supporting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in Graham’s case, and drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Preserve in Begich’s.

The ads could help inoculate the lawmakers against challenges from within their parties as a result of their stand on immigration reform. Graham and Begich are up for re-election in 2014.

Fwd.us co-founder Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist at Accel Partners, defended the group’s efforts.

“Our advertising decisions are being made by a very smart team of political operatives who know that passing major reform will require some different and innovative tactics,” Breyer said in an emailed statement.

For the most part, donors have stayed out of the nitty gritty of how FWD.us operates.

“It’s a really gnarly, gnarly thing having to deal with Washington,” venture investor and Fwd.us co-founder Chamath Palihapitiya said at a conference last month. “I’m glad that other people other than me are dealing with it who have the patience and the resolve to figure it out.”

(Reporting By Sarah McBride and Alina Selyukh; Editing by Ros Krasny, Mary Milliken and Claudia Parsons)

Musk leads one of the world’s best known “green” companies,
electric carmaker Tesla (TSLA.O: Quote, Profile, Research). A Tesla spokeswoman told
Reuters on Friday that the South African-born entrepreneur
preferred not to elaborate on his reasons for leaving FWD.us.

Zuckerberg announced the formation of FWD.us last month,
saying it was focused on bipartisan policies to bring about
comprehensive immigration reform and improvements in the U.S.
education system.

Fwd.us bankrolled three television ads on behalf of senators
who have been playing a key role in the immigration debate.

The ads were focused not on immigration but rather on the
senators’ general positions, including one’s support for the
Keystone XL pipeline, which has created a backlash among some
progressive groups. Backers say the pipeline project would boost
North American energy security and provide thousands of
construction jobs. Opponents argue that it would lead to higher
releases of greenhouse gases.

The spots quickly drew the ire of liberal and environmental
groups, including the Sierra Club and MoveOn.org, who earlier
this week pledged to pull ads from Facebook for two weeks.

The Fwd.us website removed Musk’s name on Friday after a
Reuters inquiry. It was unclear how much Musk, who also chairs
solar-energy company Solar City, had donated.

David Sacks, founder of business networking site Yammer and
a former colleague of Musk’s at payment service PayPal, also
dropped off the list of the FWD.us backers on Friday. FWD.us
spokeswoman Kate Hansen earlier confirmed that a second funder
had withdrawn support but declined to elaborate. Sacks did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We recognize that not everyone will always agree with or be
pleased by our strategy – and we’re grateful for the continued
support of our dedicated founders and major contributors,”
FWD.us spokeswoman Hansen said in a statement.

“FWD.us remains totally committed to supporting a bipartisan
policy agenda that will boost the knowledge economy, including
comprehensive immigration reform.”

A Facebook spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

FWD.us boasts an impressive list of backers, including
Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) founder Bill Gates and LinkedIn LNKD.O
founder Reid Hoffman, though it operates as a special type of
non-profit group that does not have to disclose its donors. Run
by Zuckerberg’s old Harvard roommate, Joe Green, FWD.us’s
political operation is managed by a group of Washington insiders
with leadership roles in both Republican and Democratic
organizations.

It joins other technology groups and alliances lobbying
Congress for more H-1B visas for high-skilled workers and easier
hiring of foreign math, science and engineering experts.

Rather than directly representing the companies its backers
are involved with, FWD.us is funded by individuals who have
personally attached themselves – and their cash – to the cause.
Zuckerberg has become the group’s public face, among more than
three dozen big-name supporters.

Politically, Zuckerberg has carved out bipartisan
credentials, visiting the White House and hosting a town hall
for President Barack Obama but also staging a fundraiser for
Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey who some
see as a 2016 Presidential hopeful.

The latest controversy was sparked by ads for Republican
Senators Marco Rubio from Florida and Lindsey Graham from South
Carolina as well as Alaskan Democrat Mark Begich. FWD.us helped
fund two separate entities to run the ads.

Rather than focusing on raising public awareness over
immigration reform and its benefits for the technology sector,
the FWD.us ads promote lawmakers who the groups thinks will be
key players on the issue.

In doing so, the ads highlight a number of positions held by
the senators, including supporting the controversial Keystone XL
pipeline in Graham’s case, and drilling in the Alaska National
Wildlife Preserve in Begich’s.

The ads could help inoculate the lawmakers against
challenges from within their parties as a result of their stand
on immigration reform. Graham and Begich are up for re-election
in 2014.

Fwd.us co-founder Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist at Accel
Partners, defended the group’s efforts.

“Our advertising decisions are being made by a very smart
team of political operatives who know that passing major reform
will require some different and innovative tactics,” Breyer said
in an emailed statement.

For the most part, donors have stayed out of the nitty
gritty of how FWD.us operates.

“It’s a really gnarly, gnarly thing having to deal with
Washington,” venture investor and Fwd.us co-founder Chamath
Palihapitiya said at a conference last month. “I’m glad that
other people other than me are dealing with it who have the
patience and the resolve to figure it out.”

(Reporting By Sarah McBride and Alina Selyukh; Editing by Ros
Krasny, Mary Milliken and Claudia Parsons)

((sarah.mcbride@thomsonreuters.com)(415 677 2547)(Reuters
Messaging: sarah.mcbride.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: USA IMMIGRATION/TECHNOLOGY

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the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Recent weeks have seen the birth of a few new blogs poking
fun at America’s crucible of technology, among them
whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com, a relaunched version of
the classic Valleywag.com, and, perhaps most discussed,
jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com

Call it the zeitgeist. To a certain class of steely-eyed
observers, Silicon Valley’s overvalued startups, its kingmakers,
and those who get caught up in its hyped products need taking
down a peg.

A sampling: “I love Quora. Like I love Prince Harry: for his
sad, never-be-king desperation,” wrote the anonymous scribe
behind Jesus Christ Silicon Valley in musings about a
question-and-answer service little used outside Silicon Valley
that has nevertheless raised $50 million.

A spokeswoman for Quora declined to comment on the blog or
whether company founders had read it.

At the reborn Valleywag, editor Sam Biddle took aim at Larry
Ellison and the movie “The Wind Gods,” which documents the
Oracle chief executive’s sailing exploits in the America’s Cup.

“There’s been something missing in his aggrandizing oeuvre,”
Biddle wrote. “Maybe an invite from Larry Ellison to the
premiere of a movie about Larry Ellison.”

An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment.

Valleywag, a widely read blog owned by Gawker Media that
shut in 2008 due to low advertising, relaunched in April.

White Men Wearing Google Glass is the simplest site, little
more than a growing gallery of photographs of men sporting the
new wearable Google computer. Individually, the photos might not
catch the eye, but collectively they manage to look ridiculous.
“In its favor, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon
Valley guys would be having affairs or buying unsuitable
motorbikes,” reads the site’s sparse copy.

Trenchant commentary once filled blogs about Silicon Valley,
but many died out in the mid 2000s. Think F*ckedcompany or
Uncov, blogs about troubled companies of the dotcom era and
beyond that died in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Perhaps the best known: the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, a
blog written anonymously by a writer using the pen name Fake
Steve Jobs. It took almost a year before his identity as
then-Forbes writer Dan Lyons was uncovered in 2007.

Over the past five years or so, the digerati have gone
relatively easy on Silicon Valley. Those who have poked fun at
the Valley range from AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher to commentators
with Twitter handles like crazydrunkvc and Vinod Coleslaw – a
parody of the well-known venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. But
they are mild compared to the musings of today’s new crop, who
seem to find inspiration in the booming start-up economy.

“We over-celebrate our accomplishments out here, and we
over-tear people down,” said Kenny Van Zant, the business
development head at Asana, a business software company founded
by two Facebook alumni who said he had glanced at some of the
new blogs.

Some think the new crop is pushing it too hard.

“When you see it from the inside it makes you want to make
fun of it a little less,” says Philip Kaplan, the founder of
f*ckedcompany. A New Yorker when he wrote it, he has since moved
to Silicon Valley and founded several startups.

But being mean apparently pays when it comes to amassing
readers. “What you have to do is find a sacred cow and line up
the spears,” says Uncov founder Ted Dziuba. “What you have to do
is be totally vicious.”

That, many readers say, defines Jesus Christ Silicon Valley,
which started to get noticed with a withering critique of Dave
Morin, the founder of social network Path.

A spokeswoman for Path declined to comment on the blog,
whose writer Tweets under the handle Jesus94306, the zip code
for part of Palo Alto, home to many tech insider.

Some may call the writer a coward for not putting a real
name behind the posts.

But sound career-related thinking could be behind the
secrecy. Just consider the case of the writer behind the Bitter
Barista blog, a snarky look at customers of a Seattle coffee
shop in Seattle. As soon as his identity came out in February,
the barista got fired.

Uber’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, said the company
was not currently raising money.

Uber allows customers to quickly find rides among for-hire
car services, such as limousines, by using an app on their
phone. It has proven popular in areas where cabs can be hard to
hail, such as its home base of San Francisco, and recently
gained approval to operate in New York.

If the company were to raise funds at $1 billion or more,
it would join an elite group of start-ups that have commanded
10-figure valuations.

Kalanick said the company “has not raised funds or
approached a single investor about raising funds since our
Series B round in November 2011. Any reports to the contrary are
just completely untrue.”

Uber, launched in 2010, has grown rapidly on word of mouth.
At the Disrupt NY technology conference on Monday, existing
investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital called Uber “probably
the fastest-growing company that we’ve ever had,” saying Uber
was growing faster than eBay – another Benchmark
portfolio company – did in its early days.

Technology start-up companies sometimes informally gauge
interest in funding without launching a formal fundraising
process. The source told Reuters that an Uber investor, whom he
declined to identify, had been in touch in early April to gauge
interest in the possible new funding.

Uber is considered by many in Silicon Valley to be one of a
handful of companies with massive growth potential, and
investors have shown a willingness to pay a premium for such
firms.

Companies that have won valuations of more than $1 billion
recently include SurveyMonkey, recently valued at $1.35 billion;
online bulletin board Pinterest, recently valued at $2.5
billion; and payments company Square, recently valued at $3.25
billion.

If the company succeeds, it will join an elite group of start-ups that command 10-figure valuations. The situation underscores investors’ desire to pay premiums for any company they think might become the type of outsized success story along the lines of business network LinkedIn or software company Workday.

Uber allows customers to quickly find rides among for-hire car services, such as limousines, by using an app on their phone. It has proven popular in areas where cabs can be hard to hail, such as its home base of San Francisco.

The service, which launched in 2010, has grown rapidly on word of mouth. At the Disrupt NY technology conference on Monday, existing investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital called Uber “probably the fastest-growing company that we’ve ever had,” saying Uber was growing faster than eBay – another Benchmark portfolio company – did in its early days.

The company got some good news last week when it won approval to operate in New York City. Besides major U.S. cities, it operates in some international hubs such as London, Paris and Singapore.

But Uber faces several challenges, including needing to win regulatory approval, build customers, and build supply on a market-by-market basis.

And for traditional venture investors, who seek to win back at least three times their money, a valuation of more than $1 billion now means they must believe the company will eventually be worth more than $3 billion.

Many companies that have won valuations of more than $1 billion recently have turned at least in part to nontraditional backers such as private equity.

They include SurveyMonkey, recently valued at $1.35 billion; online bulletin board Pinterest, recently valued at $2.5 billion; and payments company Square, recently valued at $3.25 billion.

Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting By Sarah McBride; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)