Micah Baldwin, CEO and chief community caretaker of Boulder-based Graphicly, a startup providing an immersive social experience and marketplace around digital comics and associated merchandise, recently spoke with me about his company, namely, the $3 million round of funding they announced today. Led by DFJ Mercury, the round had participation from other venture capital firms and angels, including Omaha-based Dundee Venture Capital.
You may remember Baldwin’s name and face as he was one of our speakers at the inaugural Big Omaha in 2009. (See video: “Micah Baldwin at Big Omaha 2009“)
In our interview, Baldwin shared updates around the company, talked about where it’s headed and discussed their objective with this round.*
Baldwin also talked about working with Dundee Venture Capital and its founder Mark Hasebroock, who will be serving on Graphicly’s board of directors. “I needed to have someone that just beat me on the head every day about what we’re doing around marketing, and Mark is that guy,” said Baldwin. More details around the recent funding are listed below.
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Learn more about Graphicly’s funding on TechCrunch, “Digital Comic Startup Graphic.ly Draws Up $3 Million To Take 2011 ‘Beyond The Page,’” and in our article: “Dundee Venture Capital participates in Graphicly’s $3M round.”
Here's an outline of our interview:*
- 0:30 – Background and description of Graphic.ly
- 1:15 – Micah talks about the recent round of funding, who is involved, and what the plans are for the $3 million round
- 2:00 – Baldwin shares his reasons for getting involved with Dundee Venture Capital and the expertise Dundee Venture Capital brings to the table
- 3:40 – Baldwin talks about what he found interesting about Omaha and the amount of wealth here, specifically the upcoming transfer of wealth and opportunities for startups and investors
- 4:40 – Discussion around what is next for Graphic.ly and what's next after this recent round of funding, including fast hiring of developers, a top-notch designer, and expansion of their technology
- 7:18 - Micah shares his thoughts around building an entrepreneurial ecosystem and the three key characteristics needed which include: 1) Capital, 2) Universities, and 3) Entrepreneurs
- 8:38 - "The word startup and the word entrepreneur have been misappropriated."
Graphic.ly is positioned well to do some interesting things over the course of the next several months, and we'll be watching closely especially with its ties to the Silicon Prairie.
*Update November 21 – By request of the subject of this post, portions of our interview which discuss Graphicly's list of advisors were removed.
