Big data is still hard, but it gets better
photo: Albert Chau
When it comes to using big data, there are still bottlenecks. Many of these are around the tools that people use to try to make sense of massive amounts of information. Read more »
What Nextdoor is doing right with hyperlocal and Patch is doing wrong
photo: Flickr user Jason Parks
Most of the startups and networks focused on hyperlocal or community news and information try to be as open as possible, but Nextdoor is taking the exact opposite approach and making the barrier to entry for users as high as it can. Read more »
Nextdoor raises $21.6 million led by Greylock to expand and focus on neighborhood safety
photo: Flickr/Alex E. Proimos
Nextdoor wants to pick up on the community surrounding a neighborhood and create a high-tech combo of Craigslist, police tips, local messaging, and safety information. With more than $21 million in new funding, they’re on track to keep growing. Read more »
iZettle banks $31m to become the global Square
Since coming out of beta last year, Swedish payments service iZettle has been very careful about how it has grown. The company — which, like Square, lets people take card payments through their iPhone — first launched in its home market, then the rest of the […] Read more »
LinkedIn vet turns VC to link Berlin and the Valley
Konstantin Guericke, a co-founder of LinkedIn, has become a Silicon Valley-based venture partner for the Berlin firm Earlybird, giving its investments a direct link to Californian capital and business networks. Is this a turning point for German startups? Read more »
Art discovery service Artfinder draws new funding
London-based art discovery service Artfinder is set to step up its plans for taking high culture to the web, after bringing in a second round of funding from Northzone, Greylock, and Wellington Partners. Read more »
Pure Storage brings hard disk pricing to Flash storage
Pure Storage, a startup offering enterprises a storage array comprised entirely of Flash memory, promises to change the economics around Flash memory and push hard drives out of the performance storage market. The company just announced $30 million in funding and detailed its product. Read more »
Greylock boosts big data investment with new hire
Greylock Partners, the VC firm backing companies such as Cloudera, Airbnb and ZipCar hired DJ Patil, formerly the chief product officer at Color, as a data scientist in residence. Greylock’s trying to help its companies monetize the rich vein of user data on the web. Read more »
Can the web make art better? Artfinder thinks so.
All sorts of media have been disrupted by the online world: music, video, news, books and more. But after years of digital revolution, the rarified world of visual art remains largely untouched. Enter one British startup that thinks it can change all that. Read more »
Everybody Loves Geo: Gowalla Adds $8.4M
Gowalla, maker of a 10-week-old geo-location app with some 50,000 users, said today it’s raised $8.4 million in a second round of funding. The money will be used “to strengthen growth efforts and further enhance Gowalla’s development capability,” the Austin, Texas-based startup said in a release. Read more »
