Recovering from Hurricane Sandy is no small feat as most of Lower Manhattan is still in the dark without power. I talked with a couple of people working in startups who had to find a place to get back work. But the most difficult part was probably to set aside the devastation and get the businesses back on track. Those companies are fragile and can’t risk a companywide blackout for a week. → Read More
Nexage is hoping to expand the capabilities of its mobile ad exchange with the launch of a new service called Nexage Connect.
Mark Connon, the company’s executive vice president of corporate and business development, said advertisers and publishers can do a number of things (largely related to targeting) in the desktop world that they don’t have easy access to in mobile, due to restrictions on… → Read More
GetTaxi, the cab booking service that recently snagged $20 million funding, has launched new websites allowing people in the cities where it operates to book cabs without needing to have a GetTaxi account (or download its app). GetTaxi currently operates in London, Moscow and Israel — but plans to use its recent funding round to launch in New York next year. To date, it’s raised $30 million. → Read More
It’s taken more than five years to get here, but San Francisco-based mobile analytics and advertising company Flurry is hinting that an IPO might be around the corner. The company just took $25 million in funding led by Crosslink Capital, the late-stage firm that backed Pandora ahead of its offering. Crosslink’s Nick Mignano is joining the board. → Read More
Well, there goes another tech journalist with the startup bug.
Ryan Singel, editor of Wired’s security blog Threat Level, told me that today is his last day on the job, because he’s leaving to run his startup Contextly. Over the past decade, Singel has held various reporting and editing roles at Wired — apparently he helped start Threat Level back in 2006, and I got to know him few years… → Read More
Small businesses may have been even more affected than big companies by Hurricane Sandy, as they don’t have the same resources. When Squarespace sent an email on Monday morning, it looked like they had tried everything to keep the servers alive. They asked for forgiveness in advance. But the unbelievable happened: They kept the service going by bringing fuel buckets to the 17th floor in the dark… → Read More
Japan’s second largest cellular provider KDDI just announced the first U.S. deal for its Open Innovation Fund — a $5 million investment in Fuhu.
The Los Angeles-headquartered startup offers a number of products and services (when Fuhu raised its Series B from Acer, we described it as an “avatar startup”), but the one that attracted KDDI’s interest is the nabi 2, an Androidtablet built… → Read More
You may know GetJar as the largest independent, cross-platform app store, and one of the largest distributors of Android apps outside of the Android Market. With more than 2 billion downloads and some 150K+ applications, the company continues to grow. This is thanks in part to its “open” model, which allows third-party app makers to distribute apps for most of the major mobile platforms. Getting… → Read More
HyperFair, a startup with a platform for running online trade shows, says it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding.
The idea of a virtual trade show isn’t new, but the practice hasn’t exactly taken off. Perhaps that’s what you’d expect, since it’s hard to imagine an online experience taking the place of a real-world show. → Read More
If you don’t live in New York City, you may not have heard of LocalVox. But the startup, which aims to simplify local marketing for small businesses and publishers, is beginning to take off. Headquartered in the Big Apple, the startup initially focused its efforts in its own backyard, but thanks to the $7.5 million series A it closed two weeks ago, it is now setting its sights on a more national… → Read More
We’ve seen a few companies rally behind the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and today Airbnb joins the fold.
The peer-to-peer home sharing startup has decided to waive all of its fees for both hosts and guests in Sandy-affected areas. They are also encouraging hosts to lower prices and take in refugees who may be without power, water, or a home at all. → Read More
Since its launch in 2009, Inkling has been on a mission to reinvent publishing for the mobile, digital era by building engaging, interactive learning content from the ground up for the iPad. Initially focused on higher ed, this year Inkling has been expanding its scope, moving into consumer-facing titles and continuing education, along with making its content available on other platforms, like the… → Read More
Lucky Sort, the Portland-based visualization engine for making sense out of live data streams, is announcing its first partner: StockTwits, a social network for traders that lets users share stock-related information in real-time. Additionally, Howard Lindzon, StockTwits CEO and co-founder, has now also invested in Lucky Sort alongside a couple of other angels, who, combined, have added an extra… → Read More
CloudFlare, the San Francisco-based service that makes websites faster and helps to keep them secure, just announced a very interesting new partnership with trust service provider GlobalSign. While more companies than ever use SSL to keep their sites secure, there is typically a significant performance penalty involved as most of these services don’t pay as much attention to performance as they… → Read More
Uber has just sent out an update via email regarding the pricing options in New York after Hurricane Sandy. Surge Pricing is back.
Yesterday, the company implemented Surge Pricing — a higher rate during times of high demand — and then abruptly turned it off after a poor reaction by the internet. Instead, the company charged regular pricing, yet paid the drivers at Surge Price rates… → Read More
eeGeo the startup behind Recce — a rich, interactive searchable 3D mapping platform which aggregates data feeds from other services to create an animated bird’s eye view of a city and what is going on in it — has launched its first game using the same technology: a GPS-based iOS app called Go Deliver – London, in partnership with games studio Midoki. → Read More
In a move that coincidentally sees two App Store rebels join forces, music streaming service, Grooveshark, has added support for Flattr, the social micro-payments offering. The new integration means that users of both Grooveshark and Flattr (which we’ve previously likened to a ‘Like button but with cash‘) can easily reward their favourite artists, tip jar-style, providing another way for those… → Read More
Dollar Shave Club, the startup offering a subscription razor service that costs as little as $1 per month (plus shipping), has raised $9.8 million in Series A funding.
Co-founder and CEO Michael Dubin said the new round, which was led by Venrock, will allow the company to develop “the next iteration of Dollar Shave Club” and “to really grow into the lifestyle service” that he wants it to be. He… → Read More
Freshplum, an analytics startup for online retailers that was founded by a former Facebook product manager, is going after small to medium businesses with an easy way for anyone to add a shopping cart to their site. Helium is based off a product that another company in the Y Combinator network, payments startup Stripe, launched a few weeks ago. Stripe recently launched a product called Connect… → Read More
Move over, software: the London and Cambridge, U.K.-based accelerator, Springboard, is launching a dedicated program for hardware startups, focusing on the Internet of Things. The new three-month accelerator bootcamp — called Springboard Internet of Things — is backed by program partners ARM, Unilever, Neul and Raspberry Pi. → Read More
Instructure launched Canvas in 2011 to give educational institutions an alternative to the ubiquitous (but much criticized) software of educational giants like Blackboard. Today, the company is adding another piece to its learning management system with the launch of its own MOOC hybrid, which allows schools to define the structure of their online courses and customize the learning experience. → Read More
ADstruc has been working to modernize the buying of outdoor advertising for the past couple of years. Now it’s taking two big steps in that process with last week’s launch of the new ADstruc platform, and today’s announcement that it’s partnering with ad software maker Telmar.
CEO John Laramie told me that the new platform builds on the services that ADstruc already offers, but the company… → Read More
Following Monday’s reveal of Windows Phone 8, the most recent update to Microsoft’s mobile phone operating system, backend service provider Urban Airship is announcing that it has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to be the preferred provider for push messaging services on the new platform. → Read More
isocket, a direct sales platform for premium online advertising, announced this morning that it has closed an $8 million Series A financing round, led by Foundry Group. New investor (and newly-launched firm) Costanoa joined existing investors Joel Yarmon of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, Accelerator Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, Blumberg Capital and a number of angel… → Read More
It seems like there are an infinite number of marketing tools competing for local businesses’ attention nowadays. An AngelPad-incubated startup called LocBox helps those businesses manage their efforts in a way that’s focused on acquiring customers and driving revenue — and it just raised $5.1 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by InterWest Partners, with participation from Google… → Read More
Any.DO, the mobile to do list app backed by $1 million in funding from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Blumberg Capital, Genesis Partners and others, is today making good on its promise that it will become something more than your average task list. With the new Gmail integration feature debuting today, you can now turn email threads into actionable items which are automatically synced to… → Read More
Zapier, the Y Combinator-backed IFTTT for business users, just announced that it has raised a $1.2 million seed round from Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Wufoo co-founder Kevin Hale and a number of other angel investors. The company plans to use this additional investment to continue the development of its core platform and to expand its developer platform. In addition… → Read More
Cyril Ebersweiler has launched one of the coolest incubators I’ve seen in a while. Based in Dalian, China, the incubator has already run one group through the ringer, and now they’re looking for hardware hackers to join them in their second round. This time, however, they’re doing it up nice. → Read More
Thomas Kjeldgaard, better known as the co-founder of Facebook Page builder Pagemodo (acquired by Webs.com in 2011), is today launching another startup aimed at helping Facebook Page owners. The new company is called SplashPost, and it’s a software-as-a-service offering that allows Page owners to create multimedia Facebook Timeline posts in order to sell to fans, collect email addresses… → Read More
You never know when you might have the next Uber, Fab or Airbnb on your hands. Even though those three startups grew up relying on Braintree to power their payments, the Accel-backed company wants make sure it has the next generation of breakout e-commerce companies on its hands. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
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