Online learning site eduFire announced today that it has raised $1.3 million in Series A funding from Battery Ventures, Western Technology Investments and investor Gokul Rajaram (who helped build Google AdSense). eduFire is an educational marketplace where students can take classes via live web video. The […] Read more »
You may have heard of Spotify, the European music streaming app whose mystique has only deepened due to its unavailability in the U.S. The Stockholm-based peer-to-peer song streaming service offers ad-supported and paid versions, with a large library of licensed tracks. Well, it seems Stockholm also […] Read more »
It would be appropriate to quote a song like Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” or even “Memory” from Cats given Pixorial‘s target market. The video sharing startup launches to the public today and is hoping to be a place where boomers, families and anyone with […] Read more »
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As more and more households have multiple PCs, the idea of a “family pack” (i.e., a piece of software with multiple licenses for use) makes a lot of sense. Since Apple and Microsoft are set to release new versions of their respective operating systems this fall […] Read more »
Joost, a much-vaunted online video startup, has announced that it will offer a white-label video hosting platform, thus entering a crowded market littered with the carcasses of other failed video hosts. As someone who has followed Joost from its very inception, I’m amazed at how badly it’s stumbled. It shouldn’t have. Read more »
Electric car startup Tesla Motors saw 2,500 of its shares trade yesterday for $10 apiece, valuing the company at $1 billion. No, Tesla has not gone public. Rather, it’s the first private company to have its stock sold in a new — and at this point […] Read more »
Evolution Solar Shopping for Startups: Evolution Solar has announced that it is searching for a suitable acquisition of an existing solar company, preferably one that’s involved in sales and distribution, but which lacks an expansion plan. — PV Tech AEP Signs Up for Solar: Ohio utility […] Read more »
London Mayor Boris Johnson wants his city to take the lead in making the UK the electric vehicle capital of the EU. Like the leaders from San Francisco, Calif. and Portland, Ore., he threw down the gauntlet earlier this year. But in the midst of a […] Read more »
Despite an incremental speed increase, the biggest update to the MacBook Air at WWDC was the price. The low-end model is now $1,499, down $300, while the high-end model with a solid-state drive now sells for $1,799, a jaw-dropping $700 price drop. Available in two models, […] Read more »
In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart, who was having difficulty explaining what exactly he meant by “hard-core” pornography, famously said, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced…but I know it when I see it.” When entrepreneurs ask […] Read more »
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The Indianapolis 500 was streamed for free domestically for the first time this year. But it didn’t see quite the demand that other major sporting events have received for their free online offerings, in part because of efforts not to undermine broadcast TV rights agreements. Indy […] Read more »
Digital Lumens Lands $6.3M: Digital Lumens, Inc., a quiet startup based in Salem, Mass. that’s working on high-efficiency, low-cost LED lighting, has raised $6.3 million in venture funding. — Mass High Tech Is Waxman-Markey Enough? Will the compromises that allowed the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill […] Read more »
For the solar industry, these are not the sunniest of times. And startups in general are vulnerable to the ongoing financial storms that have tied up credit and made venture capitalists wary of long-term, high-risk investments like solar farms. But two young solar ventures — one […] Read more »
Microsoft said Friday that more than 12,000 startups have joined its BizSpark initiative, a six-month-old effort aimed at fostering new software companies by providing applications and support. The disclosure comes on the heels of a speech earlier this week from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at Stanford […] Read more »
[qi:112] Qualcomm Ventures, the strategic capital arm of the wireless chip powerhouse, has unveiled its QPrize competition, which will award up to $550,000 to four startups from around the world. The competition is open to startups with business plans related to wireless technology in areas that […] Read more »
Ford’s $550M Electric Focus Factory: Ford plans to invest $550 million retooling a truck and SUV plant in Wayne, Mich. to build subcompact cars, including an electric version of the Ford Focus developed in partnership with Magna International. — Detroit Free Press Carbon Cap/Tax Throwdown:Is all […] Read more »
An issue near and dear to Silicon Valley — financing for high-risk clean energy projects in the midst of a recession — took center stage on Capitol Hill this morning, as the Senate Committee on Natural Resources delved into the nitty gritty of proposed changes to […] Read more »
Bureaucracy’s a pain. But Energy Secretary Steven Chu seems to have found a way around it, launching a high-risk, $415 million clean energy research program just over a month after his task force told him it would take a year to get the program up and […] Read more »
Whether you help run a web-based startup, are a member of an online production team, or earn your living in part by understanding how things get done on the web, it’s important to get a sense of how the most innovative Internet companies create their products and build their businesses today.
Even though the current economic climate is not so hot, amazing advances in the open source software movement, coupled with vastly reduced costs for such things as infrastructure, bandwidth and software services are allowing web-based companies to develop online products and services faster than ever before. And Internet companies themselves are developing non-traditional strategies that best meet the needs of the hyper-paced modern web marketplace. Read more »
President Obama last week visited an electric vehicle R&D lab in California where he called on battery developers to step up and innovate. Today, back at the White House, the President once again reached out to cleantech entrepreneurs, this time at an event dubbed “Investing In […] Read more »
What U.S. lawmakers are hoping to do with part of the $787 billion stimulus package, organizers of this year’s Clean Tech Open want to do with a million bucks: create green jobs. Adapting their annual competition to the current economy, organizers this year are calling on […] Read more »
A session called Bootstrap Your Startup at South by Southwest 2009 provided valuable insight for the many web workers who are either embarking on their own online business venture or considering doing so. Led by Bijoy Goswami, CEO of Aviri, and Marcy Hoen, founder of Austin […] Read more »
Going Gets Tougher for Newbies: Despite the long-term promise of clean energy, a new report from Clean Edge forecasts revenues will “remain level or decrease slightly” until global credit markets are restored and investor confidence returns, with the hardest hits being dealt to new technologies and […] Read more »
Venture capital firms based in Israel have another dry year ahead of them. While deals between Israel’s VCs and cleantech startups picked up momentum in recent years, especially in the solar power and water-tech sectors, they’re in for a slowdown: Israeli venture capital funds are expected […] Read more »
The way Bright Automotive CEO John Waters tells it, General Motors forgot any lessons learned from its first foray into electric vehicles. Waters, who headed up design for GM’s initial EV-1 project, is skeptical that a hulking steel platform like GM’s Chevy Volt can be economical. […] Read more »
Some six months ago, the venture capital community saw 2009′s cleantech investments as having about as many storm clouds as Sand Hill Road in July — which is to say, very few. With the economic downturn, though, the outlook has changed, as a growing portion of […] Read more »
Cleantech Deep Dive: The first report in a thorough three-part series on how companies are navigating this make-or-break period for cleantech looks at why startups that look a little like Google may be the big winners. — CNET’s Green Tech Green Dreams Dashed: The 2007 climate […] Read more »
[qi:011] The crisis in the financial market is coming home to roost for startups of all kinds. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article detailing the death or firesale of several startups in the last few weeks. It’s grim, but this is only the beginning for […] Read more »
The new year doesn’t promise to bring much in the way of good tidings for most startups, much less those with the shaky business models found in digital media. But, at the same time, online video consumption is a strengthening reality that won’t be suppressed by […] Read more »
By now, most agree that this recession is likely be longer, deeper and fiercer than those in the past, rendering smaller, newer companies especially vulnerable. Such vulnerability is already playing out in the public markets: Over the past three months, the Russell 2000 has fallen much […] Read more »
2008 was the year of the netbook: My local electronics store went from having none in stock to a display offering some 20 types. Thanks to Intel’s Atom processors, and Asus and the amazing Eee PC, we’ve got a whole new class of low-powered, highly portable, […] Read more »
Cleantech startups were a bright spot in terms of overall venture funding in 2008. But while the sector pulled in record investment from VCs, as BusinessWeek noted recently, shares of cleantech companies fell harder than the rest of the stock market. According to the Wall Street […] Read more »
Solar Cell Repower, a Norwegian startup working on technology to upgrade off-spec solar panels, has closed a Series A round of financing for $1.48 million from NorthZone Ventures. The company, which plans to partner with module manufacturers and begin production next summer, also announced $1.8 million […] Read more »
Big players in the lighting market have snapped up startups in recent years at a breakneck pace. Cree acquired LED Lighting Fixtures in March. Lighting Science Group bought Lamina Lighting’s assets in July. Philips spent $5.4 billion on startups between 2005 and 2007 and acquired four […] Read more »
Solar startup Lightwave Power said today it has closed a Series A round of just over $13 million, with Quercus Trust leading the investment and 21 Ventures co-investing. Lightwave co-founder Lawrence Kaufman told us the funding began in June, just six months after the company launched […] Read more »
Hulu. Fancast. Sling.com. Joost. Veoh. These are all video portals trying to be the one-stop online shop for you to enjoy every bit of TV network content. Despite this crowded field of heavy hitters, First on Mars is throwing its hat into the premium content ring […] Read more »
We’ve read a few articles lately claiming that survival is not a strategy. The arguments in Anand Rajaraman’s article on GigaOM last month are sound, and if we understand them correctly include not prolonging a business that will never likely “win” or be healthy or have […] Read more »
Clear Standards, a developer of enterprise software for tracking greenhouse-gas emissions, water and energy use, and energy efficiency, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from the venture capital firms Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Kinetic Ventures. Novak Biddle also provided seed funding for the […] Read more »
In these perilous economic times, the layoff memos often follow a familiar refrain: “We have cut costs by 20 percent. That gives us an additional year’s runway. Or two.” But while yes, companies can cut costs and prolong their survival, when it comes to startups, just because they can doesn’t mean they should. Read more »
With a hole left for TV clipping services by the networks suing RedLasso, 1Cast is stepping in with a new way for bloggers and other users to get news video. Read more »
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