Deals
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Fine menswear etailer Combat Gent raises $1.84M and adds former Gucci board member as Chairman
One month ago, the founders of online haberdashery Combat Gent uprooted their young Los Angeles-based startup and and moved to Las Vegas. Today, the reasoning behind that move became more clear and our previous hunches were confirmed, as the company announced $1.84 million in Seed funding led by VegasTechFund*, with participation from MHS Capital, Greycroft Partners, Naxuri Capital,... -
Pindrop Security raises $11M from A16Z and others to help prevent phone fraud
When it comes to online security, often times the greatest vulnerabilities aren’t technical, but human. Unfortunately, social engineering can be the hardest type of attack to prevent. It was the method behind the catastrophic hacking of Wired reporter Mat Honan, the exploits of the Syrian Electronic Army, and the cyber-espionage by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Three year... -
Virtual gaming headset Oculus Rift raises $16 million from Spark Capital, Matrix Partners
Fresh off the heels of a buzzy turn at gaming conference E3, Oculus Rift has raised its first round of funding, according to several people familiar with the situation. The Southern California company, which makes virtual reality headsets for gaming, raised $16 million in its first round of outside capital co-led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners co-led the deal. The... -
Fullscreen raises a big Series A to prove that YouTube’s a viable platform
People can’t seem to make up their minds about the health of the YouTube ecosystem. Earlier this month, Jason Calacanis said very publicly and decisively what I’ve heard countless others say privately over the last year, questioning the sustainability of the current model for content creators and networks in his blog post, “I ain’t gonna work on YouTube’s... -
Sequoia bets $12.5 million that Thumbtack will finally solve discovery for local services
Discovery of local service providers is a problem that startups and publishers have been relentless in their attempts to solve. From Yelp to Angie’s List, the trend has been toward providing a listing marketplace complete with vendor profiles and user reviews. But the problem with this model is that it puts a lot of the onus on the consumer to... -
Sources: DirecTV will acquire Hulu by month’s end, and why the deal makes sense
Several sources with knowledge of the ongoing Hulu acquisition talks tell PandoDaily that a deal is imminent and that DirecTV is the likely victor. The acquisition price will be written with a “B,” according to our sources, but just barely. It’s no secret that Hulu’s owners are seeking an acquirer for the premium streaming video on demand (SVOD) platform. Over... -
Why SAP selected this LA company for its exclusive Startup Focus program
Retention Science is every bit one of the startup building real technology in Los Angeles. The two year company uses big data to automate customer retention for ecommerce businesses. Recently it was recognized for its technical prowess, being selected to participate in the SAP Startup Focus program, an exclusive honor for the best of the best in the... -
“Life on Bitcoin”: These newlyweds plan to live for 90 days entirely on bitcoin, and film the whole thing
Bitcoin has received heaps of attention recently from tech early adopters and the mainstream media alike. It’s been a wild last six months which has seen the value of the virtual currency grow more than tenfold and then fall half as much, as well as the government intervene in a series of suspected fraud and money-laundering cases. The cryptocurrency has... -
For MeUndies, advertising alongside porn is just smart business
There are some rules that seem to be etched in stone. For example, porn sites are off limits for VCs and brand advertisers – or so the prevailing wisdom goes. Despite the potential for substantial return on investment, few have been willing to cross that ethical and moral line. Recently, however, one startup chose to break this unwritten rule in... -
Forget quantified self wristbands. OMsignal raises $1M to make bio-sensing smart apparel
With the wearable computing and quantified self movements more popular than ever, it’s looking more and more likely that we are approaching the day where we will constantly be collecting data about our every action and the environment around us. Wristbands, headbands, belt clips, and eyewear have been the initial form factors for the sensors that collect this data, but... -
Need a quiet place to work? Breather raises $1.5M to offer on-demand spaces, initially in NYC
The sharing economy has transformed our relationship to ownership and accessibility in a variety of categories. In terms of transportation, car- and ride-sharing services like FlightCar and RelayRides and on-demand taxi and livery services like Lift, SideCar, and Uber mean many will no longer need to own their own car. In the real estate industry co-working spaces and short-term... -
Domains are big business. TLDH grabs $10M to swing big at top level domain auctions
Unbenownst to many Internet users, there is a dramatic shift approaching in the way that website addresses are named. No more will sites be restricted to the .com, .org, .net, .edu, and region specific domain suffixes, as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will soon issue new top level domains (TLDs) such as those corresponding to brands,... -
Weotta can deliver your ultimate local recommendations, if you’ll let it
It can be creepy to realize how well machines can know us and predicts our wants and needs. But at the same time, it’s part of the magical future that we were all promised. As we share more and more data about ourselves and machine learning and predictive analytics continue to improve this omnipotent guardian angel effect will only increase.... -
Scopely snags Zynga GM Reed Shaffner as its new VP Product, rounding out an already stacked team
Scopely, considered by many to be one of the more promising up-and-coming companies in the LA startup ecosystem, is adding to its already impressive senior team. Already this year, the company has added former Zynga and Disney GM Andy Kleinman as its Chief Business Officer and former Viddy co-founder and head of business development Chris Ovitz as its VP... -
Gumroad launches a drop dead simple and cheap video streaming solution, partners with Maria Menounos’ Serial Buddies film
Gumroad has built a reputation among content owners as an ecommerce platform for everything digital. While not a marketplace like iTunes and Amazon, the platform allows its merchants to sell content in the publishing, music, video, and software categories, among others (in that order of popularity). Previously, all content was available for download only, but today the company changed... -
John Doerr: “Venture capital has changed and I need to adapt”
Regular readers know I am a total geek when it comes to the ins and outs of the venture capital business. So while we spent the bulk of our time with John Doerr talking about iconic founders he’s worked with, I wanted to make sure we spent at least a little time talking about his industry. After all, the...
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Vine teases new features
Vine cofounder Dom Hoffman is teasing some new features on the eve of Instagram’s purported video launch. Details are slim, but it looks like the new Vine will have video effects like fish-eye lens and possibly text on screen and even messaging, not unlike Snapchat. [Source: AllThingsD]
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Memo to non-Valley, non-NYC ecosystems: No one you want cares about the cost of living
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FWD.us has a new ad
It’s called “Emma” and it’s based on the Emma Lazarus poem, “The New Colossus,” (“Give me your tired, your poor…”) [Source: FWDus via Ad Age]
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Kickstarter won't remove abhorrent dating book
An unsettling, misogynistic dating book written by a popular Redditor (which among other things encourages lonely men to “grab her hand and put it right on your dick”) has raised over $16,000 on Kickstarter. But while Kickstarter calls the book “abhorrent” it’s refused to remove it from its site. [Source: Betabeat]
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Plug 'em in: Let's make electrical outlets smarter
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"Journalism's eyesight is based on movement"
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Kabam raising $50 million for employee liquidity amid IPO drought for game companies
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Megaupload servers reportedly wiped in “data massacre”
Data stored on Leaseweb’s servers, which housed “petabytes” of photos, music, files, and other documents for Megaupload, has been deleted in a “data massacre,” according to Kim Dotcom. Dotcom’s lawyers are said to have asked Leaseweb not to delete any Megaupload data while the company faced legal action in the US.
[Source: RT]
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News Flash: Rich people continue to like buying things
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Stratasys acquires MakerBot with $403M in stock
Stratasys, a 3-D-printing company, has acquired MakerBot, another 3-D-printing company, for $403 million in stock and $201 million in performance-based earn-outs, AllThingsD reports. The news comes after the unveiling of MakerBot’s new factory in Brooklyn.
[Source: AllThingsD]
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HDmessaging's search for the perfect mobile ad
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Aviary for Android releases 3.0
Photo editor on Android, Aviary, has released the latest version of its app. New features include a better “enhance” tool as well as added filters. [Source: CNET]
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Wired’s Michael Copeland joins Andreessen Horowitz
TechCrunch is reporting that Wired editor Michael Copeland will be leading Andreessen Horowitz’s ‘content strategy.’ Copeland has covered the VC world for a variety of outlets, including Wired, Fortune, and Business 2.0. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Analyst: iPad mini won’t have retina display
Despite reports claiming Apple’s upcoming iPad mini 2 housing a retina display, one analyst believes they won’t be ready for the upcoming shipment. According to an analyst from NPD DisplaySearch, the retina displays will ship sometime in 2014, whereas the latest upcoming batch will contain the iPad’s current display. [Source: BGR]
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Why you’re on a startup roller-coaster
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Facebook now has photo comments
Today Facebook unrolled a new feature for its commenting system. Now users are able to comment with more than just words, being able to attach photos as comments. [Source: CNET]
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Gnip announces new CEO
Gnip, a startup that resells social data from the likes of Twitter and other social giants, has announced a shuffling of the executive ranks. Now, it’s former COO and president will be CEO. [Source: AllThingsD]
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Facebook updates Page Insights
Facebook has redesigned its Page Insights, the tool that lets Pages user monitor their performance. This is the its first update to since October 2011. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Adobe says “Creative Cloud” is working
Despite some controversy with its transition to the Cloud, Adobe’s CEO says its Creative Cloud Suite is actually doing quite well. According to the company, it has 700,000 subscribers, up from 479,000 in the first quarter of 2013, which exceeded the company’s original expectations. [Source: GeekWire]
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Tech’s second boom: What’s different this time?
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Viacom latest media company to join Twitter Amplify
Viacom has joined Twitter’s Amplify program, a partnership for media companies to better implement second screen experiences. The first Viacom-Amplify will be the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards on August 25. [Source: VentureBeat]
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Dan Bricklin hired as Alpha Software’s CTO
Dan Bricklin, the co-creator of VisiCalc and “father of the electronic spreadsheet,” has been hired as the CTO for Alpha Software. In addition, the company announced the launch of Alpha Anywhere. [Source: AllThingsD]
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Videopixie launches connecting footage to editors
Videopixie launched today, providing a marketplace for people who have rough video footage and editors. The service works by users uploading their raw footage, and then vie bid for the job by making a quick teaser trailer with the footage. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Google introduces a new scorecard in AdSense
Google today launched a new AdSense scorecard aimed at telling site owners their performance. The scorecard is divided into three categories: revenue optimization, site health and Google+. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Grammy Award-winner's law of attraction in Tech
