Monitor110
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Monitor110 was a US web monitoring service for financial professionals, founded in 2003. Its algorithm scanned some 40 million online sources to catch new trends by 'listening in' on blogs and online conversations containing keywords related to the financial markets. Backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and other investors, the company raised about $17 million. Monitor110 closed down its operations in July 2008.
02 / Monitor110 FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Monitor110 suffered from a cluster of classic startup mistakes. There was no clear leadership: the company was directed by two people with different backgrounds and different decision-making perspectives. Early publicity — including coverage in the Financial Times — came before a thoroughly tested release, raising expectations and making the team reluctant to ship anything less than perfect, so feedback from customers arrived too late. The algorithm also struggled with spam and duplicate posts that could diminish the platform's value. In its final months, investors promised a bridge loan that never materialized — Draper Fisher Jurvetson instead funded Monitor110's direct competitor Skygrid — leaving the company out of cash with no path forward.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Monitor110 is founded to sell web-monitoring services to hedge funds and financial professionals.
- Series C
Monitor110 raises $11 million in a Series C from new and existing investors for market monitoring.
- Shutdown
Monitor110 closes its operations in July 2008 after cash runs out; promised bridge financing from DFJ never arrives while DFJ backs competitor Skygrid.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Monitor110 raised about $17 million in total, including an $11 million Series C in 2006. No audited loss figure with disclosed subject, period and basis was extracted from available coverage — the $17M is total capital raised, not loss.