Talk:Madrona Venture Group

Conflict of interest
At least one major contributor to this article appears to have a close personal or professional connection to the topic, and thus to have a conflict of interest. Conflict-of-interest editors are strongly discouraged from editing the article directly, but are always welcome to propose changes on the talk page (i.e., here). You can attract the attention of other editors by putting request edit (exactly so, with the curly parentheses) at the beginning of your request, or by clicking the link on the lowest yellow notice above. Requests that are not supported by independent reliable sources are unlikely to be accepted.

Please also note that our Terms of Use state that "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." An editor who contributes as part of his or her paid employment is required to disclose that fact. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:47, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Edit Request on 4 February 2019 COI
Hello! I apologize for making edits earlier without disclosing my COI, after reading through the guidelines and the Manual of Style I realized my mistake and have disclosed it on my talk page.

As thus, I'm putting in my request for edits here instead- I have tracked down a number of external sources to replace the sources that were previously linked to Madrona-owned assets, as well as added information about notable companies and people that have worked with Madrona that have their own Wikipedia articles. All of the information I am about to suggest can also be found in a draft on my Sandbox located here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Erikashaffer/sandbox. Erikashaffer (talk) 18:24, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

First of all, the number of investments and number of companies is currently out of date, given that it pulled from a 2014 Crunchbase source. Five years later Madrona has invested in more than 110 companies and made more than 300 investments. Would it be possible to update this to something like the following?

''Madrona has made over 300 investments in 110 companies since its inception. ''

Secondly, part of what makes Madrona notable is its importance to the Seattle and PNW economy. As such, I recommend adding to the lead if possible?:

''It is one of the most active venture funds in the Pacific Northwest, and Madrona-backed companies represent about 40% of all dollars invested in the Seattle region. ''

In addition, the article is currently missing information on the history and founding which would help make the article more notable. Three founders out of four are notable and have their own wikipedia articles, and the size of the fund is significant. More than that though, four of the startups it has been involved with have gone public. Perhaps a history section would make more sense? I would suggest something like the following if it fits to replace the current Company section:

History

''Madrona was founded in 1995 in Seattle, Washington, by Tom Alberg, Paul Goodrich, Gerald Grinstein, and William Ruckelshaus. It has raised more than $1.6 billion in capital through seven different funds. ''

Madrona has had four startups go public since 2016: 


 * Redfin 
 * Smartsheet 
 * Apptio 
 * Impinj

''In 2014, Madrona launched a startup studio, Madrona Venture Labs, as an in-house startup incubator. Its most recent fund, Madrona Fund VII, raised $300 million. In 2018, Madrona opened Create33 in downtown Seattle as a 'founder center.' ''

The investments section is also a bit out of date. I understand that Wikipedia is not supposed to be a brochure for the company, and thus only included investments that have their own wikipedia articles as well. Would something like the following work?

''Madrona has made more than 300 investments in 110 companies as of January 2019. Notable companies the firm has invested in include:''
 * Amazon 
 * Animoto 
 * Booster Fuels 
 * Context Relevant 
 * ExtraHop Networks 
 * Julep 
 * Mixpo 
 * Netbot 
 * The Riveter 
 * Rover.com 
 * Seadragon Software 
 * Skytap 
 * TeachStreet 
 * Z2Live 

Kris Engskov is also no longer the Starbucks Director of Public Policy, he's moved on to be the President of Aegis. Would the following suggestion work?

''Kris Engskov, formerly Starbucks Director of Public Policy, now President at Aegis Living. ''

There are also a number of current notable employees who have their own Wikipedia pages, would a current notable employees section work?

Notable employees

''In addition to the four founders there are several other notable employees. S. Somasegar is a managing director while John W. Creighton Jr., John McAdam, and Sujal Patel are strategic directors. Oren Etzioni, Professor of Computer Science and Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, is a venture partner along with Dan Weld, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. ''

Once again, I apologize for editing without revealing my COI earlier- I'm fairly new to Wikipedia. I appreciate your time with helping me to improve this article so it meets notability standards and is fully accurate. Erikashaffer (talk) 18:38, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Reply 11-FEB-2019
Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Please read the enclosed notes within the proposal review section below for information on each request.  Spintendo   02:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

18-FEB-2019
Thank you so much for your help! Clarifications on notes within the review are located below:

For this section: It is one of the most active venture funds in the Pacific Northwest, and Madrona-backed companies represent about 40% of all dollars invested in the Seattle region.

I understand the issues with Mr. Cook's numbers, would this revision using alternate sources be more acceptable to show notability?

It is one of the most active venture funds in Washington state and is one of the country's top early-stage venture capital firms.

For clarification on this section: It has raised more than $1.6 billion in capital through seven different funds. Clarification needed.

Would this work better:

It has raised more than $1.6 billion in capital through seven investment funding rounds. This may be a better source:

I understand the WP:BALASP issues with the notable companies, but what about the IPO section? It doesn't seem to be addressed in the proposal review and is part of what makes Madrona notable, as these were startups that Madrona invested in which successfully IPO'd:

Madrona has had four startups go public since 2016: 


 * Redfin 
 * Smartsheet 
 * Apptio 
 * Impinj

Thank you again for your time, I truly appreciate it. Erikashaffer (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Reply 7-MAR-2019

 * The issues with Mr. Cook's math are not the only ones. The wording "it is one of the most active venture funds in Washington state" and "is one of the country's top early-stage venture capital firms". My question asks what is meant by the terms active and top? Without clarifying what "active" and "top" means, this seems like a case of WP:AWW.
 * In the case of "Madrona has had four startups go public since 2016" the main point of this mention seems to be that these startups "went public". Without clarification, the reader is left to wonder what it is about going public that makes these 4 firms noteworthy of mention. The metric cited by the Loizos piece does not establish why an accomplishment of 4 IPO's in 20 months is a metric worth celebrating (e.g., "Four Madrona portfolio companies that have IPO’d over the last 20 months — the cloud software companies Smartsheet and Apptio, the real estate site Redfin, and the RFID chip maker Impinj — took on average 12 years to get into the hands of public market investors."). The input that MVG had on these IPO's needs to be delineated better. It may have been the case that they were able to go public due to the efforts and work of the companies involved, in which case the mentioning of their going public would be germane to the articles on those companies, and not necessarily here in this article. Answers to these questions ought to be provided here in the request as part of the reasoning for why they should be included. Thank you! Regards,  Spintendo   21:58, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Edit Request on 9 April 2019 COI
That makes sense.

I’m compiling sources that establish notability in order to remove the notability tag on the article. Is there a better way to show notability for Madrona than the following?

The company has coverage in multiple sources outside of the region in which they operate that are significant, independent, reliable, and secondary and which speak to the effects of the company on venture capital, technology development, startup development, and the Seattle economy.

For example, here are some pieces that have significant coverage of the company (more than just a single line, mention of their investment, or interview with leadership):

1. This piece in Money.com focuses on Madrona’s report on self-driving cars and how implementing a self-driving car lane on the I-5 could be the most effective means of cutting down commuter traffic: http://money.com/money/4516991/madrona-venture-group-self-driving-car-lane/

2. In this piece by the New York Times the author discusses how Madrona Venture Group is the only major venture capital group located in Seattle and discusses its investment in the area: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/seattle-the-new-center-of-a-tech-boom/

3. This Bloomberg article focuses on Madrona Venture Group’s sixth fund, and explains how they were an early backer of Amazon and Redfin, as well as discussing the company’s investment in application intelligence and machine learning and their planned investment in virtual and augmented reality: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/madrona-raises-300-million-fund-for-enterprise-virtual-reality

4. This Bloomberg piece discusses the 2012 fund: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-05/madrona-venture-group-said-to-raise-300-million-for-fifth-fund

5. This piece from the WSJ Venture Capital Dispatch focuses on Madrona’s development of an in-house startup studio focused on supporting new tech startups within the Seattle region: https://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/12/10/madrona-venture-group-launches-studio-to-build-new-startups/

6. This CNET piece discusses how Madrona was one of the few firms chosen by Microsoft to help support its .net push for startup companies: https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-enlists-vc-firm-in-net-push/

7. This WSJ venture capital piece focuses on what Madrona is doing in VR: https://www.wsj.com/articles/DJFVW00120151028ebasaxwrs

8. This piece in TechCrunch details Madrona’s recent IPOs: https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/22/for-madrona-venture-group-four-ipos-in-20-months-and-a-brand-new-fund/

In addition, there is significant coverage in regional sources, such as the Seattle Times, Puget Sound Business Journal, the Stranger, and Seattle Weekly.

Thank you for your help! Erikashaffer (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Reply 9-APR-2019

 * It is recommended that, as a courtesy, you first try asking the editor who assigned the template — in this case the administrator — in order to find out from them if it can be removed. Since they placed the template, they are in the best position to know whether or not the issues which caused its placement have been corrected. You may contact them by placing a new message on their talk page. In the unlikely event that you do not hear back from them after a reasonable amount of time, please reopen this request by altering the  template's answer parameter to read from yes to no. To Justlettersandnumbers: if any of these mentions are appropriate for use in the article, please advise, and I will be happy to add them to the article. Regards,  Spintendo  19:25, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Will do Erikashaffer (talk) 20:05, 9 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the ping, . When I last looked at this, I got the impression that it was of purely local importance, a big fish in a small pond, but not significant outside that pond. So coverage at national rather than local level is probably what is needed. I chose one at random from 's list above, #2, the New York Times "BITS" blog. It has a brief paragraph on this company, with two sentences of actual factual material; the rest is just what somebody said about what might happen (see WP:CRYSTAL). A good way to determine whether the company is notable by our standards would be to nominate it for deletion. However, before I do that, I've a suggestion: Erikashaffer, why don't you look at Notability (organizations and companies), and – if you like – compile a table (like the one shown there) of the ten best references you can find. If about eight of them are all green, I'll be convinced. Hint: Bloomberg, Forbes, Techcrunch etc are normally user-submitted content or rehashed press-releases, and no more independent than PRnewswire. Surprise: the NYT blog page was apparently published in the newspaper, so it's a WP:RS. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:44, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll put that together for you!Erikashaffer (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Updating the logo
I am a representative of Madrona and would like to update the logo included on this page with our updated branding. I'm new to editing Wiki and would love any and all advice on how to make this change. CoralDucken (talk) 20:11, 25 May 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 21:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)