Many parents today recall childhoods where we were pushed out of the house by our parents, while told simply to “go outside and play.” But our children seem to be growing up in a different world: one filled with scheduled activities, hovering parents, and a lot of screen time. A new startup called Tinkergarten, now backed by half a million in seed funding, wants to change that… Read More
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Social marketing company Brand Networks continues to gobble up the competition — it just announced that it’s acquiring Shift in a $50 million cash-and-stock deal.
Back in 2013, it acquired Optimal, another social media advertising company. Brand Networks founder and CEO Jamie Tedford (pictured above) said “the success of our own business on-boarding Optimal” made him… Read More
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Aspect Ventures, a fund started by Accel Partners’ Theresia Gouw and Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s Jennifer Fonstad, said today that it has closed its first $150 million fund. Guow spent 15 years at Accel Partners as a partner, while Fonstad spent 17 years at Draper Fisher Jurvetson as a managing director. They set out to raise a fund in February last year, which will be geared… Read More
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Vouch, a so-called “social network for credit” founded by ex-PayPal and ex-Prosper alumni, now has an additional $6 million in Series A funding to continue to grow its business. While there are a number of alternative lending startups on the market today, Vouch’s differentiating factor is that it leverages a person’s social connections in order to determine their… Read More
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The action camera category has a clear leader in GoPro, but others like Contour aren’t taking GoPro’s dominance lying down; the Utah-based maker of POV camera has joined forces with iON Cameras, a New Jersey-based maker of similar devices, in a merger that could help both remain competitive in a space where everyone from Sony to HTC is entering the ring. Contour made a return to… Read More
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Chances are you often switch between your calendar and email apps on your phone in order to tell someone when you are available. Scheduling meetings has been a pain point for years, and popular calendar app Sunrise is tackling this issue with a new feature called Meet. This is the first major release following Sunrise’s acquisition by Microsoft. Read More
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Apple has settled a court case with A123 Systems (via BBC), a battery company based in Massachusetts from which Apple hired some senior employees. A123 had filed a claim accusing Apple of poaching its engineers, particularly those leading key projects at the battery firm. The basis of the suit was that A123 claimed Apple was hiring the employees in order to build its own “large-scale… Read More
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Nintendo knows a money-maker when it sees one, and its Amiibo interactive toys are just that. The figurines are getting special editions based on their early success, and the Silver Edition variant is the first-such collector-focused cash-in. The Mario – Silver Edition Amiibo is a bit reminiscent of Metal Mario, but this is a plastic figure similar to the existing versions, albeit with… Read More
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Pocket Gems announced today that it has taken an investment from Chinese Internet company Tencent. The funding will allow the mobile gaming company to expand globally, including into China.
The companies did not disclose the size of the deal, but The Wall Street Journal reported that Tencent invested $60 million for 20 percent stake in Pocket Gems. Read More
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Apple is making the beta of its new App Analytics product available for all registered developers, starting today. The program lets developers provides users with access to a selection of metrics regarding their app and its usage, including what types of devices are accessing their software, and from where in the world they’re using them. The native analytics feature don’t appear to… Read More
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