I woke up to two big local Boulder deals.  The first hour of my day (usually 5am – 6am) is “reading time” – online newspaper, catch up on email, blogs – so I always get a good dose of “whatever new happened” first thing in the morning before my run.  M&A activity in Boulder is always a highlight, and there were two fun deals today.

Our local amazing shoe company – Crocs (which sports a number of now very wealthy angel investors (one of them refers to his Crocs stock as “his shoe money”) – acquired Jibbitz for $10m plus a $10m earnout.  Congrats go to Sheri and Rich Schmelzer, who created Jibbitz in their basement in 2005, created a phenomenon that road on the “soul” of Crocs, got the business up to $2m / month in revenue, and scored a great exit.  Rich and I worked together for several years on an ill-fated company called Xaffire (which was ultimately acquired by Quest Software, but not for very much.)  Nice comeback Rich!

Another minute, another deal.  Gilead Sciences acquired Myogen for $2.5 billion.  I’m indirectly an investor in Myogen through my investment in Sequel Venture Partners – this is another nice win for Sequel and the Boulder biotech scene (Sequel was the lead investor of the first round of Myogen.)  Congrats Dan, Sequel, and all the folks at Myogen.  Bill Freytag (Myogen’s CEO) and his management team have a monster win on their hands.

Lest I forget the Pepsification of Boulder.   Last week, everyone’s favorite local soft drink company – Izze – was acquired by Pepsi for $75m.  Once again, I was an indirect investor through my investment in Greenmont Capital – congrats to Todd Woloson – Izze’s CEO and co-founder for creating an awesome company (and incredible beverage).  In addition to Greenmont, my friends at Tango were also investors – drink up everyone!

Congrats to my friend Scott Maxwell who just launched his new venture capital firm – OpenView Venture Partners.  I’ve gotten to know Scott over the past few years while working together with him on the Microsoft Emerging Business Team Venture Capital Advisory board. 

Scott is a tireless, deeply focused, thoughtful, and supersmart guy who has developed and perfected his unique approach to venture capital investing at his previous firm Insight Venture Partners.  His performance and track record shows and I am happy to count myself as an investor in his new fund.

Scott – I’ll see you in Redmond on Wednesday and give you a proper congrats then.