Colleen Taylor is based in San Francisco where she is a reporter for TechCrunch and TechCrunch TV.
Previously she worked as a reporter for GigaOM, the Financial Times’ Mergermarket newswire, and the semiconductor industry newsletter Electronic News.
Disclosure: Colleen holds a small amount of shares in AOL, which were awarded as part of her employment contract with TechCrunch. She personally does not hold shares in any other public company. Colleen’s spouse is employed as a software engineer for Google; he holds stock in the company as part of this employment.
Erply, the startup that makes iPad-oriented and cloud-based point of sale and inventory management software for retailers, has raised $2.15 million in new funding, co-founder CEO Kristian Hiiemaa tells TechCrunch.
The round, which is Erply’s Series B, was led by Redpoint Ventures with the participation of Index Ventures and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups. This brings the total venture capital… → Read More
As great as the web is, I still haven’t been able to kick my habit for buying fashion and lifestyle magazines off the newsstand. One of the things I love the most about monthly glossies are features like Vanity Fair’s My Stuff and Us Weekly’s What’s In My Bag, in which notable people reveal the exact products that they actually buy and use (celebrity chef David Chang uses Sensodyne toothpaste and… → Read More
LoyalBlocks, a startup that makes a mobile-focused technology platform for brick-and-mortar businesses looking to encourage customer loyalty, has raised $9 million in new funding.
The round, which serves as LoyalBlocks’ Series A, was led by General Catalyst Partners with participation from Founder Collective and existing investor Gemini Israel Ventures. This brings the total investment into… → Read More
TaskRabbit, the San Francisco startup that has made a name for itself by helping people connect with odd jobs, is now a place where you can find a real job too.
Today TaskRabbit is launching a new set of tools in its three-month-old TaskRabbit for Business portal that are designed to help companies hire ongoing temporary workers for jobs that will span over multiple days, weeks, or months. → Read More
Another day, another acquisition by Yahoo.
Yahoo said this morning it’s acquired PlayerScale, a California-based startup that makes software infrastructure for cross-platform gaming. Financial details haven’t been disclosed.
PlayerScale, which was self-funded and cash-flow positive as of this past January, was founded in 2009. According to a VentureBeat article also from January, the company… → Read More
Nextdoor, the company that lets people create private social networks accessible only to their local neighbors, has launched its first native mobile app for iOS, Nextdoor for the iPhone.
The launch comes amidst an apparently strong period of growth for Nextdoor. In an interview this week, CEO Nirav Tolia said that Nextdoor now has private networks created for 12,600 neighborhoods across all 50… → Read More
The last time we met with the folks from Scanadu, we had a very limited look its much buzzed-about line of gadgets that aim to bring vital sign monitoring beyond the realm of the hospital and available to anyone with a smartphone. This week, the company’s CEO Walter De Brouwer stopped by TechCrunch TV with an update to allow us to demo an updated version of the SCOUT and show that Scanadu is… → Read More
Welcome to a brand new episode of Cribs, the TechCrunch TV series that goes straight into the heart of the action at the tech industry’s hottest companies to show what it’s really like for the people who work there.
For this edition we headed out on the road to the New York City headquarters of Fab, the super-popular e-commerce site that has quickly grown over the past couple years to be one… → Read More
The tech-dominated San Francisco Bay Area isn’t exactly known as a hub for high fashion — Facebook’s new James Perse staff hoodies are about as fancy as things get around here — and fashion shows aren’t typically in our purview here at TechCrunch TV. So when we were invited to attend the Geek 2 Chic fashion show, an event hosted by Microsoft benefiting the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship… → Read More
Mark Suster of Los Angeles’ GRP Partners is known for his unique insights on the tech and digital media worlds, having famously had success on “both sides of the table” as a repeat entrepreneur turned investor over nearly two decades in the industry. And he hit headlines several times this week, with his viewpoints on acqui-hires (he says they’re often very bad) and founders stepping down from the… → Read More
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin Harvard graduates who famously sparred with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook and are now working as tech investors through Winklevoss Capital, are part of the growing group of venture capitalists who have taken a keen interest in Bitcoins. Last month, it was revealed that they personally own roughly one percent of the currency, a stake worth the… → Read More
Peer-to-peer ride sharing is one of the hottest — and most controversial — markets in the current tech startup world. And one leading player in the space, SideCar, is looking to hit the gas pedal on its growth amidst all the hubbub.
The San Francisco-based SideCar announced today it has hired two key tech executives to join the company and focus on product development and revenue generation… → Read More
Formspring, the pioneering Q&A site that allowed people to invite other internet users to “ask me anything” anonymously, is apparently back from the brink. In a tweet and a company blog post, Formspring announced that it has been “saved” and is now “under new management.”
It was just two months ago that Formsping announced plans to shut down, with founder and CEO Ade Olonoh writing in a… → Read More
Larry Yu, the public relations executive who has headed up Facebook’s corporate communications operation for five years and helped steer the company through the publicity blitz surrounding its IPO, is leaving the social networking company. He announced his departure this morning in a post on Facebook, writing:
“Nearly five years ago, I joined some friends at a privately-held company called… → Read More
After a one-week hiatus due to Disrupt (did you miss us?) we’re back in the trusty TechCrunch TV studio with a brand new episode of CrunchWeek, the show where a few of us writers chat up the most interesting stories from the past seven days. → Read More
For the past several years, my New Year’s resolution has been some version of “cook more often” or “try a new recipe every week.” But it never really lasts. As much as I love the act of actually cooking, so much about it is a huge hassle — choosing a recipe, shopping for all the ingredients (and paying for a whole bottle of a spice I only need a tablespoon of), ending up with a bunch of… → Read More
We all know by now that the right mentor can be a huge boon to your career. But actually finding the right Larry Summers to your Sheryl Sandberg can be awkward at best, and impossible at worst.
A new startup launching today called Everwise is looking to help. The San Francisco and New York-based startup, which was co-founded by tech industry veteran and current Yahoo board chairman Maynard… → Read More
Path hasn’t had a particularly smooth road in terms of PR lately, but today brings some good news from the social networking app.
Path will announce today that its app will be built in for one-touch downloading as a featured app on several new Sprint devices: The Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Torque. The app will be featured along with a handful of others that have been selected for Sprint’s… → Read More
Movable Ink, a New York City-based company whose technology lets clients create more relevant email marketing campaigns, has taken on $11 million in a fresh round of funding.
The funding, which serves as Movable Ink’s Series B, was led by Intel Capital with the participation of previous investors Contour Venture Partners, Metamorphic Ventures, ff Venture Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, and Wilson… → Read More
It’s been a while since the TechCrunch TV team has taken a tropical vacation, but we were able to take a walk on the wild side (no passports required) while shooting this latest episode of Cribs at open platform-as-a-service startup DotCloud.
DotCloud’s office is smack in the middle of the financial district of San Francisco, but when you step inside it feels like you’re in the middle of a… → Read More
Mondays aren’t always smile-inducing, but today two news stories cropped up that were pretty fun — and showed the increasing crossover between the worlds of technology and hip-hop.
First, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg signed up for a verified profile on Andreessen Horowitz-backed “hip-hop Wikipedia” RapGenius to help decode the preamble to her best-selling business book Lean In. → Read More
When it comes to quickly growing markets, it’s hard to beat Brazil, where an emerging middle class is driving strong demand for all kinds of products — particularly in the e-commerce sector.
The latest startup primed to take advantage of this boom is Basico, which just raised $500,000 in seed funding led by Initial Capital, the Israeli/Brazilian VC fund headed up by investor (and frequent… → Read More
Everlane has built a really unique business that straddles the tech and consumer spaces, by using technology to provide luxury quality apparel at much lower prices than traditional high-end designers. But with that success has also come copycats — particularly abroad, where Everlane has not yet expanded its business (at the moment the company is operating only in the United States and Canada.) → Read More
Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon has been a big part of the New York City scene for years — and finance has long been a dominant industry in the city. So when talking about the ascent of Bitcoin onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Dixon directly addressed corruption in Wall Street, we thought it’d be interesting to follow up and hear more. → Read More
A funny thing has happened in tech in recent years. It used to be that you could expect a venture-backed company to file for an IPO soon after a few rounds of funding — after, say, its Series C or Series D raise. But now we’re seeing companies’ venture capital investment go well into the hundreds of millions, and valuations cross over into the 10-figure range, with no S-1 filing in sight. Sequoia… → Read More
Lightbank, the venerated Chicago-based venture capital firm, made a very good decision this morning: It’s removing these large-scale photos of people falling from buildings that have been hanging in its lobby for the past couple days.
Of course, the question is why anyone thought this kind of decoration would be a good idea in the first place (not surprisingly, the negative outcry was swift and… → Read More
Ron Conway, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny meet new startup founders practically every day as investors at renowned angel funding firm SV Angel. So when they came backstage at this week’s Disrupt NYC event after their on-stage talk with Michael Arrington, I asked them to talk about the most inspiring up-and-coming founders they’ve met with lately — people who may be flying a little more under the… → Read More
Yesterday, Viddy filed a regulatory document with the US Securities and Exchange Comission that seemed to indicate that the Los Angeles-based video sharing startup had raised $2.85 million in new funds.
While cash infusions are always good things, that particular amount would be a big step down for Viddy in comparison to its frothy past — just a year ago, the company closed on a $30 million… → Read More
For some of us, hanging out with our parents is something best relegated to off-work hours and holidays. But Kenneth Lerer and Ben Lerer have had some big successes working together at Lerer Ventures, the New York City venture capital firm whose portfolio includes BuzzFeed, Warby Parker, Everlane, FancyHands, and many others. → Read More
Kevin Ryan has had a lot of variety in his career so far, with a front-row seat building companies including DoubleClick, Gilt Groupe, 10gen, and Business Insider. And recently it’s been reported that he could add another very interesting facet to his resume by running for mayor of New York City.
So when we had the opportunity to talk with Ryan backstage at the Disrupt NYC 2013 show, we asked… → Read More
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