New York-based data analytics startup SumAll announced that it has raised $6 million in a Series A round led by Battery Ventures and including Wellington Partners. Launched last year, SumAll helps smaller businesses analyze and visualize a comprehensive set of their data. Read more »
According to a new report from Startup Genome, a company that provides benchmarking tools to startups and investors, New York ranked fifth on a list of the world’s top startup ecosystems. Silicon Valley led the pack, followed by Tel Aviv, Los Angeles and Seattle. Read more »
Prague-based social media analytics startup Socialbakers on Monday announced that it had raised $6 million in funding from Index Ventures and Earlybird Venture Capital. The startup says that more than a fifth of all Fortune 500 companies are its clients. Read more »
The U.S. Department of Education has announced that it will partner with online learning startup Knewton and publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for a program aimed at helping millions of at-risk youth transition to traditional schools and prepare for the workforce. Read more »
As the CEO and co-founder of Codecademy, 22-year-old Zach Sims has been enormously successful in raising the profile of the code literacy cause. But, as competition mounts, he needs to show that he can build a business on top of the emerging learn-to-code trend. Read more »
As online learning platforms like Coursera, Udacity and edX raise the stakes for students with increased partnerships with traditional universities and credit-bearing classes, here are five technologies that can help them thwart cheating. Read more »
42Floors, a Y Combinator-backed startup, on Friday announced an expansion to New York and a $5 million Series A round of funding. The company, which launched in San Francisco in May, provides businesses with a search engine for finding office space to lease and sublease. Read more »
By accessing and combining publicly-available datasets, health innovators are letting patients and others view connections between physicians. The so-called “DocGraph,” as one hacktivist calls it, could give patients a valuable window into who their doctors trust. Read more »
2U (formerly 2tor) is partnering with 10 top U.S. universities for a new online learning program for undergraduates that aims to create the online equivalent of quality offline education, with small classes, live instruction and teacher-student interaction. Read more »
New York-based discovery commerce startup Birchbox on Thursday launched a special edition home-themed box, featuring home accessories, gourmet foods and other lifestyle and entertainment products. Last year around the holidays, it similarly launched a one-time box targeting men and later made it a monthly product. Read more »
According to a new report from eMarketer, real-time bidding could account for a quarter of all digital ad spending by 2015. Among other factors, Facebook’s new ad exchange, FBX, is expected to drive much of that growth. Read more »
Walmart Labs, the retail giant’s innovation arm, on Wednesday launched a subscription food service called Goodies. Similar to beauty startup Birchbox, the service charges subscribers a monthly fee to receive a curated box of sample-sized items, which they can then purchase in greater amounts online. Read more »
Retrofit, a Chicago-based company offering a data-driven, expert-led weight loss system, on Tuesday announced that it had raised $8 million in Series A funding, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and including Correlation Ventures and Hyde Park Angels. Read more »
Duolingo, the language learning and crowdsourced translation platform from Recaptcha founder Luis von Ahn, launched its mobile app for the iPhone on Tuesday. The startup, which has raised more than $18 million, said it currently has about 300,000 active users on its website. Read more »
Online learning startup Coursera is working with the American Council on Education to evaluate course equivalency for its courses. The company said the process will start in early 2013 and hopes it encourages more students to ultimately pursue a college degree. Read more »
A survey conducted by venture capital firm Interwest Partners found that 100 digital health entrepreneurs think Practice Fusion, Castlight or ZocDoc could be the next health tech IPO. The entrepreneurs also shared their biggest challenges and the companies they wished they had founded. Read more »
USEED is like a Kickstarter for education that helps students raise money for research and philanthropic programs, but also provides guidane and encouragement for skills like idea pitching and social media marketing. Read more »
As companies eye longer paths to the public markets, SecondMarket said more startups are incentivizing employees through liquidity programs that let them cash out pre-IPO. In a quarterly report released Friday, it also listed some of the startups attracting the most attention on its platform. Read more »
In a study released Thursday, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that more than half of smartphone owners consult their devices for medical information and one-fifth of them say they have downloaded a health app. Read more »
New York-based Qloo is launching Thursday with $1.4 million to provide a one-stop shop for cultural discovery. The startup is backed by Kindler Capital, as well as entrepreneur and angel investor Jason Calacanis and actors Danny Masterson and Cedric the Entertainer. Read more »
With $1 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures, Palo Alto-based LearnStreet is launching in public beta Wednesday to help beginners learn to code online. Inspired by the Maker Movement, LearnStreet describes coding as a vehicle for self-expression, not just a skill for professional advancement. Read more »
At GigaOM’s Roadmap conference Monday, Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp and Warby Parker co-founder Dave Gilboa each talked about why their companies hadn’t yet released mobile apps and what they have in store. Read more »
As the availability and awareness of open educational resources grows, educators and open-content publishers are experimenting with hackathon-style content collaborations among subject-matter experts to create high school and college textbooks over the course of a few weekends. Read more »
Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter and, more recently, The Obvious Corporation, said that since launching Blogger a dozen years ago, he and his cofounder Biz Stone have wanted to democratize the distribution of content. But now, he said, they’re focused on quality. Read more »
San Francisco startup Degreed is challenging the traditional college diploma with an online service that tracks and scores educational achievements from established institutions as well as new online learning platforms. Ahead of a public launch in 2013, Degreed this week began a crowd funding campaign. Read more »
With a new integration that enables Simplee to support millions of Medicare beneficiaries, as well as other recent partnerships with healthcare companies, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based health tech startup is moving closer to its goal of being a comprehensive PayPal-like portal for out-of-pocket healthcare spending. Read more »
Hoping to bring more transparency to the quality of care doctors provide, Palo Alto, Calif.-based HealthTap is announcing a ongoing competition on its site that lets patients and doctors vote for top physicians in each field. Read more »
Consumer tech startups may live by the “lean startup” mantra but serial education entrepreneur John Katzman said education startups might want to consider a slightly bulkier model that includes a team with deeper backgrounds in business and education. Read more »
Glassdoor, a Sausalito, Calif.-based job and career community, has raised $20 million in new financing. The new round, which was led by DAG Ventures, and included Benchmark Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures and Battery Ventures, brings the company’s total amount raised to $42.2 million. Read more »
Health tracking doesn’t need to involve high-tech apps and devices. According to early results from a Pew Internet & American Life Project study, 7 in 10 Americans could be considered self-trackers, if you consider those who monitor health with notebooks, journals and mental notes. Read more »
QuantiaMD, a Waltham, Mass.-based company that provides an online collaboration and communication platform for doctors, has raised $12 million from existing funder Fuse Capital. Launched in 2008, the company said it has more than 160,000 physicians on its network. Read more »
Pickie, a recent graduate of TechStars New York, announced Monday that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from a range of investors, including DFJ Gotham, Betaworks and Liberty City Ventures. The startup uses social data regarding products to generate personalized iPad-based magazines for shopping. Read more »
Timed to Halloween and the presidential election, New York-based social loyalty startup CrowdTwist analyzed user data related to brand preferences for chocolate and political affiliation. Its data suggest that Democrats tend to prefer non-premium chocolate, while Republicans opt for more up-market sweets. Read more »
Tictrac, a U.K.-based startup, integrates with data from a range of third-party apps and tools — from those that monitor health and activity to those that track social activity and fundraising — to help users make the most of their personal data. Read more »
Rock Health, a San Francisco-based accelerator for health tech startups, Thursday announced its fourth class of companies. In addition to introducing the class, the accelerator announced that Kaiser Permanente is joining its roster of partners. Read more »
Online learning platform Udacity, which was founded by former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun in January, has raised another $15 million. The Series B round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included Charles River Ventures and Steve Blank. Read more »
LearnVest, a New York-based startup offering an online financial planning platform, as well as services with Certified Financial Planners, has launched a new mobile app for the iPhone. From the app, users can track spending and view their overall financial position. Read more »
As part of an open online course on entrepreneurship in education, Union Square Ventures managing partner Fred Wilson talks about the role of venture capital, potential business models in ed tech and a few areas that are most ripe for innovation. Read more »
Leading entrepreneurs and thought leaders provide a look at the future of education in a short documentary from Ericsson. It discusses how technology is changing the way students learn as well as what it means to learn and teach in a connected era. Read more »
Etsy, the marketplace for handmade goods, is rolling out a new mobile app in time for the holiday season. One in four visits to the site comes from a mobile app and mobile visits are twice as likely to convert to purchases, Etsy said. Read more »
