We've raised a $5.6M Series A from Union Square Ventures and Flybridge | Hacker News Reader

We've raised a $5.6M Series A from Union Square Ventures and Flybridge

firebase.com

170 points_pius64 comments

These guys, they are amazing entrepreneurs. I don't say that lightly. Read about James and Andrew story in Haiti here http://darineich.com/startups-beanbags-earthquakes-and-fires...

Sounds like a good match with USV.

Thanks for the link, I didn't know about this story - I just received an email from James and now I feel even more honored. I am doing quite a lot with Firebase these days and this makes me want to use it even more.

Come to think of it, this surprises me.

Trivia: Chip Hazard is also one of the VC "bad guys" in Phil Greenspun's writing about the downfall of Ars Digita:

http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/

Edit: I have no idea if that actually means something; it's just a name I remember from Greenspun's writing.

I'd take that article with a grain of salt. There's much omitted from that account and it happened 12 years ago.

What's your take on this? From the fact that you are pointing this out would you say he hasn't changed his spots? (I know nothing about him which is why I am asking..)

No idea at all. Edited the comment to make that clearer. I have zero professional exposure to any of these people.

On USV, my dealings have shown them to be incredibly hands off. Had a case where I made a deal suggestion to USV v. one of their famous investments. They said "I've thought they should do something like this for years, they won't but we respect that it's their decision". (Or something like that not an exact quote obviously..) Which is to bad (for me) because that investment recently had a big big announcement.

Chip Hazard is a great name, like something out of a 90's PC game, like Duke Nukem or something.

It appears in the movie Small Soldiers - http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0015025/

Another one I like is "John Hummer" from Hummer Winblad.

A memorable name can be an important asset. It can be a branding if it makes a strong positive impression. Of course like anything lacking one can be overcome once you gain a reputation. [1]

I know someone whose last name is "Bogus" believe me nobody ever forgets that name.

[1] Fred Wilson, Paul Graham

I find it amazing that a company can get over $5 million without yet charging for their product. But then again, they kind of just did get people to pay for their product, just not customers/end users...

The investors clearly see a payoff down the road. It happens, you know.

And these investors are pretty good at seeing where things are going, understanding their value - and then supporting them to get there.

They're not. The baseline probability of profitability for these types of companies is incredibly small. However, the potential profit that you might make for any one of these companies is extremely high (usually by selling the company, not by the company's inherent ability to turn a profit) - so invest in multiple companies and if you're lucky the 'big one' will beat your losses many times over.

You don't think they have more prominent wins in their portfolio than most other VC portfolios out there?...

But what is the actual amount for "more"? If it's 20% success instead of 10% it's still not a good chance of success for the individual company.

VC funding, to my eyes, has a huge amount in common with Horse Racing.

Yes, though regression to the mean might suggest that they won't be so lucky in future.

"Albert was the only investor we pitched who immediately made a Firebase app"

Now that's kind of cool for a VC!

He's one of a tiny minority of VC partners who actually write code. His site is http://continuations.com.

VCs code!?

A tiny minority of them do.

The wiser ones seem to be developers themselves, creative problem solvers - at least at one point.

Many are former developers/entrepreneurs. Now they're VCs.

Maybe they wised up? :P)

Ha. Well, it's a natural progression I feel if you're an idea person - you end up with too many ideas than you could ever do on your own, so instead you can support teams that are highly passionate, and working on problems you (hopefully) understand.

You should take a minute read about the dude whose comment you replied to

Also, https://github.com/spullara

Greg McAdoo (Sequoia) http://www.appdata.com/ios_apps/devs/148071-greg-mcadoo

This is an incredible team.

The reason why I love seeing this is because these guys fall squarely in the category of work hard, iterate for years and get rewarded. This wasn't an overnight success. Rather, it's the result of an extremely smart team committed to making something great. I'm really excited to see what they come up with over the next few years.

Thrilled to have watched this product and this team grow to this phase. This technology still amazes me.

Keep on killing it, guys!

Congratulations James and Andrew, from a long-time user of Envolve (the precursor to Firebase).

Yep, very happy for you guys. If I wasn't working on my own stuff, Firebase would clearly be the very first startup I'd apply to work with.

Congratulations team!

Question for readers - how does an individual get to become an investor in these sorts of rounds? I note Union Square led this round, but there's no place for me to register my interest in funding similar projects on their web site (nor most other VCs from what I can tell).

Is it a case of hanging out with the right people and have $1m plus to burn (which I don't) or is there another way?

Mostly being an accredited investor and hobnobbing with the right people

I love Firebase but I don't see how I could build a serious web app without server-side logic. How do you for example handle validation?

We let you define server-side logic (for security and validation specifically) using our Security Rules API: https://www.firebase.com/docs/security/security-rules.html

Node.js and Firebase work very well together.

This is great news. I think we've only seen the beginning of what these guys are building.

I like this investment a lot more than andreessen horowitz' Meteor investment.

Well, why?

Firebase tried it so hard. Had opensource competitors and they still succeeded. Let this be a lesson to everyone else.

To a firebase hater, I know someone indirectly, whose product you bought and silenced. No good move, sir.

Nice marketing on their web site.

(Need to update the investor page though, currently not showing USV./)

https://www.firebase.com/about.html

Fixed :) https://www.firebase.com/about.html

Congrats! Glad to see you ended up with such excellent investors, and will be looking forward to continued improvements in Firebase! Looking forward to more progress making all web apps realtime.

I'm interested in the pricing decision. How big is the market for apps that are popular but free or unable to support the higher prices? I wonder if any thought went into a plan for them?

They have a free plan, the onus is on you to stay within those limits or upgrade.

Yay! Just started using Firebase on a new project of mine a couple weeks ago, and loving it. I'm glad to see it's certain to be lasting :-)

Congrats guys, haven't heard of your platform before, definitely trying your real-time chat API shortly.

Looking into how your product compares with Parse...

Parse + Firebase == Unstoppable

Wow what a combo.

How would that work?

I heard that Flybridge was unable to raise money for another fund and that they're "on fumes."

How about backend of Firebase? Can you guys tell something about it ? (Just Curious :)))

Are people mostly developing full sites on Firebase, or just mini-apps?

I love what these guys are doing and their technology. Congrats guys!

Way to make me feel stupid for missing the seed :)

The Firebase team is amazing, congrats to them!

Congrats guys, that's a lot of cash!

Backends are a thing of the past.

Hell yeah :)

Loving the iOS SDK. That's 100% the way to go. Parse for real-time apps.

Awesome job guys! Congrats!

Congrats!

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