Startups
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TechCrunch Is Headed To Grand Rapids For A Mini-Meetup And Pitchoff
Join John Biggs and myself next week in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a mini-meetup and pitch-off. We’ll be at Start Garden’s new space on Thursday, May 21 from 5:00 – 8:00. The bar opens at 5:00 and the pitches start at 5:30. The event is free to attend and I’m sure the open bar will feature some great Michigan beers. Please RSVP here. Five local startups will present… Read More
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Tinkergarten Is Using Technology To Get Kids Back Outdoors
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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Brand Networks Acquires Social Ad Platform Shift For $50M
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 Closes Its First $150 Million Fund
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 Raises $6 Million Series A For Its Social Network For Credit
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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Sunrise Launches Meet, A Sleek Feature To Schedule Meetings From Your Phone
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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Tencent Backs Mobile Gaming Company Pocket Gems
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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Our Four Favorite Companies At The 500 Startups Batch 12 Demo Day
Thirty companies pitched their products and business to investors in the press today, and they all had impressive stats for revenue, addressable markets, and growth. Still, some startups just hit the right buttons with their pitches and got gears turning in our heads. YC’s Meadow Partners With Sidecar For Speedy Deliveries of All Your Medical Marijuana Needs
Meadow, a YC-backed startup in the medical marijuana space, is partnering with Sidecar to do quick medical marijuana deliveries throughout the city of San Francisco. It follows recent moves by much bigger companies like Google and Uber, which are diving headfirst into the delivery space with services like UberRush and Google Shopping Express. Read More
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Shervin Pishevar and Scott Stanford’s SherpaVentures Is Raising $175M For A Second Fund
SherpaVentures, the venture fund run by Shervin Pishevar and Scott Stanford, is raising a new $175 million fund, according to a filing with the SEC. This is the second fund from SherpaVentures for investing in startups at the Series A or Series B stage, and it is just a bit more than the $150 million it raised in Fund I. In addition to these main funds, Pishevar and Stanford have a $250… Read More
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