Every VC firm has its own way of evaluating potential investments. Remmy Oxley, an anonymous VC, says that Moneyball-style methods are the next step, and reveals his firm’s algorithm for screening candidates. Read more »
SecondMarket, the New York-based online platform for trading shares in privately-held companies, on Wednesday announced that it is partnering with AngelList to enable qualified investors on its site to invest amounts starting at $5,000 or less in early stage tech startups. Read more »
With investment souring on consumer-focused companies, 2013 will be more about the social enterprise, with a different set of companies driving innovation and perhaps a little disruption. Look for the likes of Salesforce.com, Jive Software, and other enterprise players to make headlines in the new year. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Documents filed with the SEC on Friday indicate that Sequoia Capital has raised $700 million for its global growth fund, an existing but not yet reported fund for international investments. The firm has been expanding internationally recently as the trend among VCs is to look overseas. Read more »
University Ventures, a $100 million education technology fund, on Monday announced the launch of UV Labs, a company that will partner with schools to build new online learning products. Read more »
Startups have been insulated from the wider economic climate for years — but now they’re feeling the chill, and the focus is switching to revenue generating ideas rather than get-big-quick consumer services. That’s a good thing, says one serial entrepreneur. Read more »
SecondMarket, the online platform for trading shares in privately-held companies, is partnering with Startup Health to educate investors about digital health and allow them to invest in health tech companies and funds. Read more »
Y Combinator-backed Leaky on Wednesday said it had raised $670,000 in seed funding and opened its site to users across the country. The company initially launched in 2011 but had to rethink its approach after cease-and-desist letters from insurance companies caused it to shut down. Read more »
Financial details remain under wraps, but in-app push messaging specialist Urban Airship will gain Tello’s PassTools, which can automatically generate and manage passes, coupons and loyalty cards for Apple’s Passbook. For Airship it’s a means of moving beyond messaging and beyond the smartphone app. Read more »
Backed by the New York Economic Development Corporation, the Bio & Health Tech Entrepreneurship Lab will next month announce its first class of startups. Although it doesn’t provide funding or space, it is the latest program to provide health tech funders with mentorship and coaching. Read more »
For all its cheerleaders, the crowdfunding industry inspires plenty of doubters too, who say the filed has too many pitfalls. Ryan Caldbeck, of CircleUp, doesn’t completely disagree, but says most of them can be overcome. Read more »
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 »
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 »
Ruckus Wireless cleared $126 million in an IPO that valued the company at $1.2 billion, though the stock tanked when it began publicly trading Friday morning. The company, however, is now well positioned to make a big mark in the carrier Wi-Fi market. Read more »
Here are 6 things for would-be entrepreneurs to keep in mind before they take their first meeting with prospective investors. Some are obvious, some surprising, but all of them are worth keeping in mind. Read more »
Joshua Kushner, the well known founder of New York-based Thrive Capital, an investor in hot startups such as Instagram, Fab, CodeAcademy and Warby Parker is working on his second startup, that is said to be focused on the healthcare industry. It is all very hush-hush. 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 »
Google has expanded the size of Google Ventures’s annual fund from $200 million to $300 million annually, which will allow the firm to expand the scope of its deals and increase its presence as a major venture capital firm since its founding in 2009. Read more »
Mobile-application development specialist Appcelerator bought big data startup Nodeable on Wednesday, although the deal wasn’t exactly what Nodeable was planning for when it launched in 2011. Founder and CEO Dave Rosenberg shares some of the lessons he learned trying to break into the big data space. 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 »
A new study shows how universities stack up in VC funding. Though Silicon Valley clearly helps schools in the Bay area, East Coast schools are gaining funding fast. Read more »
VCs would love to invest in your game, as long as you know how to answer their questions correctly. This excerpt is from Wagner James Au’s “Game Design Secrets” (Wiley) now available in paperback and ebook. 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 »
What happens when infrastructure startups disappear? Innovation doesn’t stop, but the industry definitely loses a critical font of ideas that challenge the big vendor mentality and established standards. Services innovation is already outpacing network innovation — the problem is only going to get worse. Read more »
Clever, a Y Combinator-backed education data startup, is announcing Monday that it has raised $3 million in seed funding from a big group of investors, including top Silicon Valley venture capitalists and education technology leaders. Read more »
This week, online education startup Coursera said that it would no longer be able to offer courses to residents of Minnesota because of a decades-old policy. Now, it’s raising questions among the states’s local tech community. Read more »
A new report from health startup accelerator Rock Health shows that funders have invested $1.08 billion in digital health startups this year, which already eclipses the $956 million they spent in all of last year. Read more »
Rap Genius, a site that lets people crowdsource explanations to song lyrics and other kinds of text, has received $15 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz. Read more »
Duck Duck Moose, a San Mateo, Calif.-based company that makes educational smartphone apps for kids, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Stanford University. Read more »
At the Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator Demo Day in New York, 10 startups debuted, pitching services ranging from marketplaces for custom goods, catering and yoga gear to companies looking to optimize online video. Here are a few that stood out. Read more »
Corporate venture capital participated in $2.1 billion in financing in Q2, with one of the best quarters in the past five and an uptick in early-stage and standalone investments. Read more »
Wealthfront, a San Francisco startup that is an SEC-registered online financial advisor, has launched an interactive tool for the tech community that lets people research cash compensation and equity packages across a range of jobs. Read more »
With nearly 10 million members, Edmodo is on Wednesday rolling out an updated version, with an improved user interface and richer functionality. The changes reflect feedback from teachers, which is critical for the site given educators’ role in driving adoption — and, ultimately, revenue. Read more »
After more than a decade of going it alone, Canadian online learning company Desire2Learn is accepting its first round of venture funding – $80 million from New Enterprise Associates and the venture arm of OMERS, one of Canada’s biggest pension funds. Read more »
Mellanox, a maker of Infiniband interconnects and switches, has doubled its sales in the last two quarters. What is behind its recent success and what does that say about Mellanox, Infiniband and the current state of scale out data center networking? Read more »
MightyText won Qualcomm’s QPrize event yesterday, but the IP texting app and the nine other finalists are also a microcosm of Qualcomm’s views about what mobility can bring to computing and how to design for mobiles. Read more »
Chicago’s Excelerate Labs may not have quite the outsized demo day as Y Combinator, but the 10 companies that just graduated from is accelerator program were still impressive. Here are the five startups that made the biggest impression on us: Orbeus, Lasso, Cureeo, Pictarine and Whimseybox. Read more »
Meet America’s young entrepreneurs: not through The Social Network or an overly dramatic reality TV series, but in a new documentary following the next class of Thiel Fellows, individuals emboldened (and compensated) to drop out of school in pursuit of their science and tech dreams. Read more »
Data Collective is a new venture capital firm focusing on seed-round investments in big data startups, from the infraastructure level up to analytics and applications. Among its collection of portfolio companies are Kaggle, MemSQL, Continuuity, Parse, Keen.io, Meteor, MongoHQ, Citus Data and Piston Cloud. Read more »
