For the first time, not one but two Kickstarter projects eclipsed the $1 million pledge mark, within hours of each other yesterday. The milestones highlight the bigger momentum behind Kickstarter, which is rounding into form as a major funding tool. Read More »
Tech
In the past couple of months, New York has attracted former San Francisco startup Qwiki, PlaceIQ from Colorado and recent 500 Startups graduate Snapette of Boston, which spent the past half of a year in Silicon Valley. New York is becoming a destination for startups. Read More »
At just 2.5 years old, Andreessen Horowitz, the VC firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has become a tech industry institution with holdings in Facebook, Twitter, and more. GigaOM talked with Andreessen to get his thoughts on Silicon Valley and the larger tech landscape. Read More »
Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC has closed investment on its third fund at $55 million, making Fund III its biggest fund yet. Clavier talked to GigaOM about why SoftTech decided to go so big, how the new cash will be invested, and the larger tech industry landscape. Read More »
Codecademy, which teaches users how to program for free with an interactive and social web application, has garnered more than 1 million users in less than five months. We talked to co-founder and CEO Zach Sims about how Codecademy started and where it’s going. Read More »
Charlie O’Donnell, a principal at First Round Capital in New York, thinks Brooklyn is increasingly where the action is, and he’s launching the first Brooklyn-based venture capital fund to help kick-start companies on the other side of the East River. Read More »
Fewer venture firms raised more money during 2011. A smaller industry with more money, plus an active angel community that can put money in early stage deals, means entrepreneurs are likely to face the biggest fundraising challenge at the Series B round. Read More »
A recent post by Andrew Clay Shafer raised doubts about the abilities of growing number of incubators that are imitating the likes of 500 Startups. The key qualities of these incubators are no different than incubators from 1999, as an old Forbes.com piece of mine shows.… Read More »
2011 has been all about personalized mobile apps, and Evernote has benefited handsomely: In the past 12 months, the personal note-taking software company grew its user base from 6 million to 20 million. GigaOM talked to CEO Phil Libin about the growth and Evernote’s 2012 outlook. Read More »
Every day, it seems like there’s another bland press release about startup seed funding. So when Buffer closed on $400,000, it wanted to announce it differently — by explaining exactly how the process happened. It’s a fun read, and a good lesson for other startup founders. Read More »