Seattle angel investor John Staenberg on the state of startup investing

 Q: Gil Penchina (the top-ranked angel on AngelList) said one of the things he has learned about investing is how little control he has on the outcome. Do you feel the same way? Absolutely. Most investors like to pretend they add a ton of value and expertise but they don’t. I am clear about it. The value I add is in having a good enough relationship with the founder so that when things… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Glint raises $27 million to stop solid employees from bailing

 Redwood City-based Glint has raised $27 million in a Series C round of venture funding for software that helps companies figure out how their teams are experiencing problems, or why and when solid employees may leave, undesirably. Glint replaces the traditional 360-review tools used by corporate HR teams and executives with short, anonymous surveys sent out once in a while to specific groups… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

HSN’s first pitch-off competition goes in search of the next big consumer product

 HSN is looking for the next big American consumer product. Today, 100 makers and entrepreneurs from around the U.S. will pitch their products for a chance to win airtime on HSN, a listing on HSN.com, a piece in Good Housekeeping magazine and its “Seal of Approval,” following testing. The products will come from across categories, like home, kitchen, toys, productivity, and yes,… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Qrates lets you press your hot beats onto vinyl

 Hello, fellow young people! I, like you, love vinyl. It offers richer, more realistic (pet) sounds and it is great for lugging from squat house to squat house and for sharing on a portable record player while you enjoy some fine beverages on the front stoop of your Williamsburg duplex. But how can you press your own music onto vinyl with a minimum of (hot) fuss? A Tokyo-based team has the answer. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Sunrise was the best calendar app ever and now I feel lost

 I’ve been looking for a good replacement for a few months. While there are many mobile calendar apps out there, none of them come close to Sunrise as they’re not as polished and well-designed. Let’s break down what made Sunrise great. From sunrise to sunset Today sounds like a good time for a post-mortem on Sunrise. In October 2012, shortly after Hurricane Sandy hit New York,… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Coursera expands into corporate learning and development

 Coursera, the education tech platform that offers online courses from prestigious colleges and universities, is branching into corporate learning and development  and has officially launched Coursera for Business today. Coursera CEO Rick Levin, formerly the president of Yale University, told TechCrunch that the move was a natural one for the startup. “We have 21 million registered… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Bylined crowdsources product photos for brands

 A startup from Columbus called BYLINED is aiming to make it a bit easier for brands and people to come together in a win/win situation resulting in more unique photography. Through their free app and photo ecosystem, BYLINED enables brands, agencies or publishers to issue a request for a certain type of photo—an assignment or commission so to speak—that people with smartphones… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

How the startup economy is replacing the traditional resume

 A group of five engineers and product people get together, raise some angel funding, build a startup, make little to no money and sell for $10 million. What just happened? Common narratives assert that it’s the tech bubble; it’s a naive acqui-hire; it’s collective irrationality. Maybe it’s something else altogether: a fundamental shift in how we compensate the extreme… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Online freight marketplace Freightos acquires Spain’s WebCargoNet

 Online freight marketplace Freightos has acquired Spain’s WebCargoNet to help expand its database of air, ocean, and land freight rates. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Dropbox employee’s password reuse led to theft of 60M+ user credentials

 Dropbox disclosed earlier this week that a large chunk of its users’ credentials obtained in 2012 was floating around on the dark web. But that number may have been much higher than we originally thought. Credentials for more than 60 million accounts were taken, as first reported by Motherboard and confirmed by TechCrunch sources. The revelation of a password breach at Dropbox is an… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Cozy raises $8.5M Series B to simplify life for property managers and renters

 Cozy, a platform to streamline interactions between property managers and renters, closed an $8.5 million Series B today led by American Family Ventures, with participation from Social Capital, General Catalyst and all other investors that participated in the company’s $1.5 million Series A in 2012.  Despite the fact that our homes are becoming “smarter” by the day, the… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Pusher pulls in $2.5M to push live web and app content everywhere

 London-based Pusher, the company powering The NY Times’ live election results and DraftKing’s fantasy scoring results, just raised $2.5 million to up its stakes further. The money came from SaaS Capital, which focuses on debt financing aimed at the Software as a Service (SaaS) space. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Startup accused of scamming employees scrubs its online presence

 A little-known startup is in meltdown mode after a former employee took to Medium to accuse the company of scamming her out of her wages and firing her in retaliation after she filed a wage claim to recoup the unpaid cash. The Medium post was widely shared online; in response, the company shuttered its website and threatened legal action against the writer, calling her “a disgruntled… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Nine-year-old boy prints a mechanical hand for his teacher

 Calramon Mabalot is a pretty wild kid. He likes 3D printing and, along with his brother, he builds lots of cool projects – including a mechanical hand for a local teacher he met while building 3D projects. In an interview with 3DPrintingIndustry, Mabalot described how he designed and built a prosthetic hand complete with full articulated fingers. Why did he want to build a 3D-printed arm? Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Somebody at Apple thought the reality show ‘Planet of the Apps’ really needed Jessica Alba

 Apple’s reality TV show ‘Planet of the Apps’ keeps getting weirder. Every time Apple and Propagate release new information about the show, it gets harder to understand what they’re actually trying to build. This time, Variety got a statement saying that Jessica Alba is joining the cast of the show as a mentor and adviser. In case you missed the previous episodes, Planet… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Wayfair snatches up Boston startup Trumpit to bring photo & video messaging to its mobile app

 Online furniture shop Wayfair has acquired a Boston-based mobile messaging application called Trumpit, with the aim of utilizing its technology in order to expand its customer service offerings. So yes, that means messaging will be a part of the mobile Wayfair application in the future. Today, the app only offers users the ability to email or call the company when they click into the… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Hello will begin selling its Sense sleep tracker at Best Buy and Target

 While Kickstarter is a great place to start selling products online, and Amazon is a good next step, you’ll often see hardware companies begin shipping their products to local retailers like Best Buy. There’s a good reason for that — online commerce may be increasingly eating away at shopping offline, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t spending a ton of money at… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Washio on-demand laundry service shuts down operations

 Washio, the on-demand laundry startup that launched in 2013, has today announced that it will shutter its service. In a letter posted to the website, Washio founders announced that the company will shut down operations, effective immediately. No new orders will go through the service, and outstanding orders will be returned to customers promptly. You can read the full shut-down letter… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and Josh Elman will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt SF

 LinkedIn’s story has come to a close — being acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion — and its rise and finale is thanks to a laundry list of people. Two of those who were instrumental to its growth are now investors at Greylock Partners: Josh Elman and Reid Hoffman. We’re really excited to announce that the two of them will be joining us on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Hardware Battlefield Alum Health2Sync raises $3 million Series A round

 When it comes to keeping track of diabetes, the manual process can be a bit of a pain. Healthtech startup Health2Sync, which launched at the Hardware Battlefield at CES 2014, wants to change all that with a cheap accessory that connects to most standard glucose meters and syncs your blood glucose levels straight to your phone. The company announced today it has secured a $3 million Series A… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Kwikset launches second-gen Kevo smart lock for $229

 Kwikset, makers of the Kevo smart lock, have just unveiled the second-generation of the device with a fresh design and added security features. The second-gen Kevo still comes with the same touch-to-unlock feature that made it popular back in 2013, letting users simply touch the lock to gain entry to their home. Users of the second-gen smart lock can also remotely manage access to their home… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Sweden’s Greta wants to disrupt the multi-billion dollar CDN market

 Swedish startup Greta is on a somewhat quiet mission to disrupt the multi-billion dollar Content Delivery Network (CDN) market. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Moo.do turns Gmail into a task management system

 If starring your important emails is your way of creating a to-do list in your inbox, but you long for something more robust, a new product from Moo.do aims to help. With Moo.do for Gmail, the idea is to combine an email client with a task manager you can use to organize your to dos, documents, projects, calendar, contacts, and more. The product has been in beta testing, but is now available… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

You earn a million dollars a year and can’t get funded?

 The funding environment is so overheated that it often seems like no idea is too silly to attract investment. You might be surprised by how many companies struggle to raise money — even those that manage to bootstrap their way to a million dollars (or more) in revenue. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Alphabet’s David Drummond leaves Uber’s board amid mounting competition

 David Drummond, who joined Uber’s board of directors in August 2013, stepped down several weeks ago, according to The Wall Street Journal. At first blush: no surprise whatsoever. Earlier this month, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said the company’s first fleet of self-driving cars would begin running in Pittsburgh soon (as soon as this month, even!). The fleet consists of about a… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com