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Hyper9, an Austin, Texas, firm formerly known as InovaWave Inc., relaunched in June. The startup develops software that uses a search engine to access information involved in managing virtual environments. The search engine approach is designed to improve monitoring, reporting and trouble-shooting, says the company. Hyper9 has raised $9 million from investors including Matrix Partners and Silverton Partners (the investment and philanthropic organization of Bill Wood, the former Austin Ventures partner). Hyper9 is the third business software company Maples (pictured) has invested in over the last year. Last month, he invested an undisclosed sum in Egnyte Inc., which provides on-demand file servers for small businesses, and about a year ago, he invested in DemandForce, which makes an Web-based customer relationship management system aimed at small businesses, such as dentists' offices and auto repair shops. (Maples Investments' typically invests between $500,000 and $1 million per company, sometimes going as high as $1.5 million.) "A lot of the high-profile investing of small money has been in consumer Internet," Maples says. "But what I call 'low-burn experimentation' spans all technology. I believe low-burn experimentation is going to be a very disruptive force in business software and services." Maples, 40, began his career as an entrepreneur focused on business software and services, with early stints at Silicon Graphics and Tivoli Systems, which went public in 1995 eventually was acquired by IBM Corp. [IBM]. In 1997, he co-founded Motive Inc. [MOTV.PK], a broadband software company that went public in 2004 and that is currently being acquired by Alcatel-Lucent SA [ALU]. Maples says his technology career began in high school when he started a company that made software and games for the original IBM PC. But his interest in tech may well have begun at birth, as he's the son of Mike Maples Sr., a well-known tech executive who worked for years at IBM and retired from Microsoft Corp. [MSFT] as executive vice president of the worldwide products group and still acts as a consultant to Microsoft and other companies. After leaving Motive in 2004, Maples worked with VC firms, including Foundation Capital and August Capital. "In that process, I became interested in the gap in the venture business between angel investors on the one hand who typically don't invest more than $250,000 and VCs who typically don't invest less than $5 million," he recalls. Maples began making angel investments late in 2005, with one of the earliest being in Odeo Inc., Evan Williams' ill-fated podcasting company. Maples was so impressed with Williams' buying out his investors when Odeo didn't work out late in 2006 that Maples vowed to invest in his next venture. That turned out to be Twitter. Other companies funded by Maples as an angel investor in 2005 and 2006 included Kevin Rose's Digg Inc., Aggregate Knowledge and YuMe Networks. "Some of those companies started to do well, and it was exciting, and a lot of people suggested that I raise my own fund," Maples says. Under the moniker Maples Investments, he closed a $10 million fund in 2006 and a $36 million fund in 2008. Two other Kevin Rose ventures, Revision3 and Pownce, are in the firm's portfolio. These days, all of Maples' investments are done through the firm. He sees today's business software startups facing the same issues consumer Internet firms did a few years ago. "In the early days of Digg, we asked, 'How can we double our user base every four weeks without spending money on marketing?' Egnyte and Demandforce are asking the same questions today for business software and services." -- Mary Kathleen Flynn For more on Mike Maples Jr.'s investment in Hyper9 see Aug. 6 press release from Hyper9 Comments
From: IMFreakz,
I never know about the man behind twitter before reading this article. Hope I can be next Mike Maples Jr. :D Now I try to test my skill in Busby SEO Test and hope can have a great position
Posted on:
January 2, 2009 8:33 AM
From: songs,
its a very useful post. we know may thing behind twitter.its seem to be one of the interesting articles. thanks
Posted on:
August 23, 2009 3:14 PM
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Mike Maples Jr. may be best known for backing consumer Internet startups -- he, along with 
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yea, I hope I can follow the move of Mike Maples Jr. someday. Anyway thanks for this useful article :)
regards,
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