Digital advertising technology company OpenX has scored $20 million in its fourth round of financing, provided by the venture capital arms of strategic partners such as AOL and SAP, in addition to Asian investors Mitsui & Co and Presidio Ventures (Sumitomo).
Previous backers Accel Partners, DAG Ventures and Index Ventures also participated in the round, which brings OpenX’s total funding… → Read More
Lightbank-backed test prep app developer Watermelon Express is announcing a rebranding today, relaunching as BenchPrep. BenchPrep develops cross-platform apps to help students prepare for a number of standardized tests including the GRE, SAT, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT. The startup collaborates with educational publishers to integrate content into its platform, which will work across a variety of devices… → Read More
It’s been a while since the last one, but Sony announced a new PS3 package for the Japanese market over the weekend. Buyers will get a special 160GB HDD model bundled with Tales Of Xillia, an RPG made by Namco Bandai (and the newest addition to their hit “Tales Of” RPG series that kicked off in 1995). → Read More
Intel is using the yearly Computex Taipei exhibition in Taiwan as a platform to pitch a new category of laptops. Dubbed Ultrabooks, these devices are supposed to have three distinct features: they are thinner (less than 20mm/0.8 inches) and lighter than most existing laptops, and they should be priced below $1,000 in order to become mainstream. → Read More
Video: NTT Docomo’s Mobile, Simultaneous Translation System Padfone: Asus Officially Announces Its Android Tablet/Phone Combo (Videos) NVIDIA Releases $99 3D Vision Wired Glasses For Your Friend Video: Smartphone Simulates Sensation Of Buttons On A Touchscreen Tutima’s Fashionable Aviator: The Grand Classic Power Reserve Watch → Read More
Exclusive – Wooga doesn’t get even half the attention that’s been given to its closest rivals in the social games space, namely Zynga and EA. But the European games developer is taking off big time, and it’s no surprise to see venture capitalists jump on the opportunity to invest before everyone starts taking notice.
The Berlin, Germany-based startup has raised a huge Series B round of financing… → Read More
Thanks to Kickstarter, the idea of crowd-funding a creative project is nothing new. Post- Cory Doctorow, the notion that an established author might convince his fans to pay upfront for a special edition of an as-yet unpublished book is hardly earth-shattering. And, following the launch of Byliner, even the launch of a digital-only publishing house isn’t really news. And yet, by combining… → Read More
There are literally hundreds of thousands of iPhone, iPad and Android apps to choose from, and yet finding good apps is far from easy. App discovery and recommendations is a fertile niche where a few startups are fighting for mindshare. After being downloaded more than 2 million times, app discovery startup Appsfire closed a $3.6 million series A, led by French VC firm IDinvest. (Appsfire is… → Read More
This is guest post by Ian Hogarth, co-founder of Songkick, relates how 45 startups in London’s East End got tired of being over-shadowed by the financial sector in London and created their own event to lure wanna-be startupers.
Sunday 15th May was a significant event for the London start-up community. 45 start-ups from across London gathered in one room with a single purpose – preventing banks… → Read More
If you have a 3D gaming rig, the biggest problem you have is showing it off. You can either run the game wear the glasses and then say “I swear, it’s 3D!” or you give your friend the glasses and show him or her what to do and then you can’t share in the joy. This either ends in violence or sobbing. Your choice. Now, however, your friend can wear these super cheap $99… → Read More
Last week at TechCrunch Disrupt, Google VP of Location and Local Services Marissa Mayer took the stage for an interview with our own Michael Arrington, where they discussed everything from Google’s mobile growth to Mayer’s investment strategy. A few minutes after the interview, I had the chance to ask her a few more questions about Google’s approach to mobile and local. It’s only been a few weeks… → Read More
Reuters is reporting that wonder twins, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, could be out at RIM as shareholders continued to watch the company falter in the smartphone and revenue race. The expectation is that an group of activist investors could make a move to control the company and make changes at the top. On investor saw the pair as “taxed for time” and under pressure to perform even… → Read More
We’re hearing from multiple sources that Twitter is in talks to acquire Y Combinator-backed key word bidding platform AdGrok for a deal that is less than $10 million. It’s still unclear where exactly the deal is in the closing process or whether this is a tech acquisition or an acqui-hire.
AdGrok itself automates the process of bidding on contextual keywords on Google AdWords, perhaps Twitter… → Read More
A few days ago, Facebook held a tech talk at their headquarters. The topic of the talk was pushing changes — bug fixes, new features, product improvements, etc. Every day, Facebook engineers push hundreds of these; some big, some little. Most of the 600 million-plus users never notice a thing. And apparently, we’re even less likely to notice changes due to a special feature Facebook has. The… → Read More
Twitter has been completely emphatic about where developers should stake a claim, with Twitter Platform Lead Ryan Sarver warning the ecosystem to stay away from building “client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.”
Well if Sarver stays true to his word the Twitpics and Yfrogs of the world can just give it up now. According to multiple sources, Twitter… → Read More
This story is about as shaky as they come, but we figured we’d pass along the details for anyone out there lookin’ to get a quick fix of Memorial Day mobile news. → Read More
Pew Internet, a think tank that regularly publishes research reports about technology, has released a new study today showing the steady growth in using VoIP and phone services online. According to the organization’s report, a quarter of American adult internet users (24 percent) have placed phone calls online. That amounts to 19 percent of all American adults. On any given day 5 percent of… → Read More
It is a good time to be Tutima. The recent announcement of their new movement manufacture launched with the Hommage Minute Repeater watch signals a bright future for the German brand. A brand that already has a reputation for making quality timepieces and finely regulating the movements contained within them, Tutima watches tend to fall in three categories at this time. First are their more formal… → Read More
As Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs 8.9 and 10.1 wait to launch onto the market, Samsung mobile boss J.K. Shin is already filling us in on forthcoming tablets from the South-Korea based company. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Shin spilled that the company plans to release a 4G LTE-capable version of the Galaxy Tab later this year. In other words, you’re yet-to-be purchased Galaxy Tab 8.9 or… → Read More
It sure looks a lot like the HTC Trophy (really — pretty much identical), but given the little mention of a 12 megapixel photo option (the Trophy tops out at 5) in the picture behind the jump, this is definitely looking like something new. → Read More
Ever since my first TechCrunch meetup in Berlin in 2008 and 2009 I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on this city as I travelled around Europe covering startups and explaining the scene to anyone who would listen. But since then it’s quite clear that a couple of things have happened. The whole European scene has improved massively. There are now startup events, activity and fundraising across Europe… → Read More
Continuing our series of interviews with companies in the Silicon Roundabout area of London (we’re calling this The Roundabout Tapes), we interviewed Clearer Partners.
Clearer is a specialised tech/media consulting company but is also doing a startup. The soon to launch Frameblast is aimed at SOHO companies who want to handle video in a smarter way along the lines of Media Silo. Companies can… → Read More
This is guest post by Mohamed El Dahshan, an economist and writer who also advises governments and IGOs on entrepreneurship in developing countries, with a focus on post-conflict nations. He has been been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Al-Masry Al-Youm, the Huffington Post, Daily News Hurriyet, among others. Mohamed has maintained his blog… → Read More
According to several sources Airbnb is in the process of closing a whopper of a funding round: $100 million or more at a $1 billion-plus valuation. The round is being lead by Andreessen Horowitz, and includes participation from DST, say our sources.
That’s a big increase from the company’s last funding round of $7.2 million, which included Sequoia Capital, Greylock, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher and… → Read More
If you’re in the United States, you’re probably tired of hearing about Spotify, the on-demand music service that lets you to listen to any of 13 million tracks as often as you’d like on both your PC and mobile phone. The service still hasn’t managed to close deals with the major music labels over here, but it has developed quite a following in Europe, with over 10 million users and 1 million paid… → Read More
Sigh. Today is Memorial Day in the US and along with marking the start of summer here, it’s a national holiday in which citizens are supposed to remember U.S. Serviceman who died while serving our country. Often those celebrations involve picnics, family time, and, here in the great state of Michigan, “going up north.” While I’ll argue all day that those events are the… → Read More
Ashton Kutcher started dabbling in tech startups a few years ago, but he is no longer a dabbler, as his his Disrupt interview with Charlie Rose last week made clear. Kutcher is an investor in a dozen tech companies, including Skype, Foursquare, Path, and Kevin Rose’s Milk. In this backstage interview with Sarah Lacy, he reveals that he is also an investor in Airbnb (whose CEO Brian Chesky was … → Read More
IAC-owned Match.com has set its sights on Europe’s largest dating site, Meetic.com. Match Match.com has put in a public tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Meetic for €15.00 per outstanding share in cash (that’s $21.42 in U.S. dollars). That’s a 11.6 percent increase in value from the closing price of Meetic shares on May 27, 2011 (€13.44) and values the company at nearly… → Read More
Seems like it’s Sub-Saharan Month around here: first Sarah Lacy went to Nigeria, and now here I am in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and Africa’s fourth-largest city. It feels like a boomtown. There are cranes and construction sites everywhere, throwing up gleaming new glass-and-steel buildings full of shops selling computers and mobile phones. The major thoroughfares throng with people making… → Read More
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