“The difference between a ‘super angel’ and a VC is like making love with a lover versus making love with the government.”
That was angel investor Yossi Vardi describing what he sees as the difference between the so-called “super angels” and traditional venture capitalists. “The angels are much more accommodating to the founders,” is how he clarified that a bit.
This was the main topic of discussion during our “Super Angels To Super VCs” panel at TechCrunch Disrupt today — well, the main topic aside from AngelGate. → Read More
Back in 2006, we covered the launch of Windows Live Spaces, a blogging service for Windows Live users. Today the service is headed in a new direction: Microsoft has teamed with Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, to transition its users over to the popular hosted blogging platform. The news was just announced at TechCrunch Disrupt by Dharmesh Mehta, Director of Product Management for Windows Live and Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic.
Microsoft says that it decided that instead of building its own competing blogging service, it should go with WordPress’s fleshed-out feature set, which has 26 million users and powers over 8.5% of sites across the web. Users will be migrated through a process that preserves all of their content, and will automatically redirect visitors who head to their existing Microsoft Live Spaces sites. → Read More
Perhaps after Nasa well and truly runs out of money our astronauts should ring up Richard Branson? The British professional rich person says that he plans to launch commercial space travel—space tourism, in other words—within the next 18 months. What do I have to do to be on that first flight? → Read More
Ixtens, a New York-based SAAS company that powers marketplaces for online retailers and media companies, has secured a Series A financing to the tune of $4.6 million. Lead investors were Greycroft Partners and BV Capital, with participation from Marvin Traub Associates, a retail consulting firm.
Ixtens is in the unfashionable but extremely profitable multichannel ecommerce software space. So far it’s been integrated into with Amazon.com, eBay, Shop.com, Buy.com, Overstock.com and other marketplaces. → Read More
The Droid R2-D2 edition doesn’t skimp on the Star Wars branding. Nearly every aspect of the phone from the backplate, to the startup splash screen, to the ringtones reflect its pedigree. All this geeky fun comes at a price though and Uncle Owen isn’t going to like it. This Droid isn’t cheap. → Read More
Kno Inc, the company that recently received $ 46 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital to build “the most powerful tablet anyone has ever made” announces at TC Disrupt that it will also be building a single screen tablet to supplement the dual screen tablet it announced in June. → Read More
My Saturday went something like this: watched soccer and played Fallout. My Sunday went something like this: watched Formula One and played Fallout. So clearly the new TV spot for Fallout: New Vegas is important to me. → Read More
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is undoubtedly one of the Valley’s most prolific angel investors. Hoffman has made angel investments in Digg, One King’s Lane, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Six Apart and Zynga. Last November, Hoffman joined VC firm Greylock as a partner, making all his future angel and seed investments through the VC fund. Today at TechCrunch Disrupt, Greylock Partners and Hoffman have announced a $20 million fund solely for seed and angel investments.
Hoffman will be managing partner of the fund, which is called the Greylock Discovery Fund and is part of the VC firm’s 13th fund raised last fall, totaling $575 million. Hoffman and his team will make investments anywhere from $25,000 to $500,000 in startups in the technology space. Any Greylock partner can make investments out of the fund, and the investments don’t need to go through the entire partnership approval process. → Read More
This is Grig (it’s actually Greg looking like a total doofus at a wedding). He will appear hidden in posts and inside images for the next week. Your mission is to find all of the Grigs and then email us on Friday with a list of the posts in which he appeared. But what can you win? Oh, my friend, this is your lucky day. → Read More
I don’t think thickness in LCD screens is that big a problem anymore, but the thinner, the better, right? Hitachi, or to be more precise, their subsidiary Hitachi Displays, is currently working on an LCD touch screen [JP] that’s about 30% thinner than existing models. According to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, the first prototype panel is just 1.5mm thick. → Read More
Today at our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, there was probably one panel above all others that everyone was waiting for: Super Angels To Super VCs. The reason, of course, is that last week the situation known as “AngelGate” broke out. It started with Mike walking into a closed-door meeting at a bar. And it ended with heated emails being published. We said Disrupt would not be about AngelGate, but naturally, it had to come up.
The panel consisted of: Ron Conway (SV Angel), Chris Sacca (Lowercase Capital), Dave McClure (500 Startups) — all of whom were right in the middle of AngelGate — and Roelof Botha (Sequoia), Chris Dixon (Founder Collective), Mark Suster (GRP Partners), and Yossi Vardi. → Read More
The wait is over: TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco has just kicked off, and it’s starting with a red-hot panel called Internet Treasures that features John Doerr and Bing Gordon of KPCB, and Zynga CEO Mark Pincus.
The conversation quickly turned to Zynga — the massively popular social gaming company that Kleiner Perkins is an investor in. Doerr says that Zynga is the company that’s “most rapidly growing, most profitable, with the most happy customers that Kleiner Perkins has ever backed”.
Bing Gordon, who founded gaming giant Electronic Arts prior to joining KPCB, recalled what made him think that Zynga would be a massive success. → Read More
The Range Rover is an icon, perched above its peers as the sexiest offroad/onroad SUV on the planet. But does the performance match its looks? We were handed a 2010 Range Rover Supercharged to put to the test for an entire week. During that time we enjoyed off-road trails and river fording, rallying around old farm paths and even traversing an autocross course. We’ve already covered the gadgetry and this is what we have to say about the rest. Spoiler: It is a true sport utility vehicle. → Read More
Just before the weekend, Google dropped word to developers that paid Android apps support was on its way to more countries than the 14 currently supported. In the email, the company did not specify a timeframe other than “over the next few weeks” and stopped short of saying which markets would be gaining support for paid apps.
Now app store analytics company Distimo tells us they’ve noticed paid apps targeting previously unsupported countries have started making their way to the Android Market.
So far, the startup has identified 13 ‘new’ countries: → Read More
Motorola just announced their tiny Oasis Bluetooth headset, a wee headset that offers superior wind and noise cancellation along with a 6 hour talk time and 7 days on standby.
The device also supports two different Bluetooth devices at the same time so you can have a personal and business phone paired to the Oasis. As an infrequent driver I haven’t been able to test the noise and battery claims yet but it’s a surprisingly small and cool little headset so it might be worth a second look.
It will be available on October 3. → Read More
Standby in 3 – 2 – 1: We are now live from San Francisco with TechCrunch Disrupt. If you can’t make the conference in person, you can still watch all the great panels, fireside chats, product launches, and the Startup Battlefield, plus a few surprises on TechCrunch TV.
We’ll be webcasting the entire 3-day event and showing you all the action on the main stage. The guest list reads like a who’s who in Silicon Valley and the world of entrepreneurs. Plus, during the breaks we’ll have special backstage interviews and take you on a walking tour of Startup Alley.
TechCrunch Disrupt will not get taken over by AngelGate according to Michael Arrington. But we do have two key players lined up this morning: Ron Conway and Dave McClure. Certainly not to be missed. → Read More
‘Green Box’ Product Promo (Pizza Box) from Green Box on Vimeo. Yeah, this is a bit old in Internet time, but it’s still clever. I can see the paper plate conglomerates standing in its way, though. They’re not going to like the pizza box taking over their staple market. [GreenBoxNY via Reddit] → Read More
It seems last week’s hubbub about Apple delaying the new Apple TV was a bit premature as our tip box is full of Fedex shipping notifications. Apple still lists a shipping window of 2-3 weeks for new orders, though, making the brick and mortar Apple Stores your best bet of snagging one soon if you didn’t pre-order one. Of course you might wanna wait until some hands-on reports drop. [Thanks for the tip, Steve!] → Read More
Location-based media company Where has acquired LocalGinger, which operates a daily deal / group buying service with the same name. LocalGinger focuses on secondary markets for its social commerce activities, which it says has allowed it to build a strong following in select cities.
So why is Where buying the privately-held flash commerce startup? In a nutshell, to ramp up its advertising products. → Read More
This is the mechanical Seiko sport watch to own in 2010. Representing the purely mechanical – versus Spring Drive – movement based Ananta watches in the US, this new for 2010 Automatic Chronograph ref. SRQ009 in titanium. When I first saw this watch I was pretty sure that it was going to be a limited edition, but it isn’t. The titanium Ananta automatic will be part of the regular collection – offering a super sporty version of Seiko’s high-end world market automatic. I was able to get my hands on it and check it out, you can see an image of it here where it is looking pretty sexy. I can say that it is pretty nice – and a carbon fiber dial watch that I like! → Read More
