PICT, a San Francisco-based startup that has built a “shoppable photo” technology platform for brands and retailers that embeds smart watermarks into images, is emerging a bit out of stealth mode today with the beta launch of the newest version of its mobile and web app.

The company, which we first met as “Dropt” when it graduated out of the AngelPad accelerator last year, is also announcing… → Read More

Ecomom, the Las Vegas-based e-commerce site for eco-friendly kids’ products founded by the late Jody Sherman, wound down its operations due to financial insolvency soon after Sherman’s death at the age of 47 in January 2013.

But there is a silver lining of sorts: Today it was announced that Ecomom’s assets have been acquired by GreenCupboards, a Spokane, Washington-based online retailer. Also… → Read More

Crowdfunding has changed the game for many grownups who need money to achieve their dreams, whether that’s making a film, building a unique new gadget, or becoming president. But sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are for adults. When kids need to raise money for their schools or extra-curricular projects, they’re often still using decades-old methods like selling candy bars or wrapping paper. → Read More

Bitcoins may be getting a lot of buzz, but the market for products that deal with old fashioned dollars and cents is apparently still strong.

To wit: Motif Investing, the Silicon Valley startup headed up by Microsoft alum Hardeep Walia that lets people invest their money in themed groups of stocks called “motifs”, has raised $25 million in a new round of funding led by Goldman Sachs.

This… → Read More

Erply, the company that makes cloud-based and iPad-centric point of sale and inventory management software for retailers, is up against big competition: Microsoft, Oracle, and RetailPro are just some of the behemoths in the same space. But three years after its US debut, Erply tells us it is still in the game and seeing encouraging growth — and has hit some new milestones that show its… → Read More

It was just seven months ago that intelligent photo aggregator app Pixable sold to SingTel, the Singaporean telecom giant, in a $26.5 million deal. It was a very nice exit for the startup, and it would be understandable for its founders to take a well-deserved breather afterward. But it turns out, Pixable’s co-founder and CEO Iñaki Berenguer isn’t one to rest and vest.

In the time since then… → Read More

The Obvious Corporation, the startup incubator and investment vehicle headed up by Twitter co-founders Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and former Twitter exec Jason Goldman that has become an umbrella company of sorts to a number of buzzy startups including Medium, Branch, and Lift, is shifting gears, according to a blog post written today by Williams. → Read More

Facebook this morning launched “Home,” a family of apps for devices running the Android operating system, at a flashy press event at its Menlo Park, California headquarters. While sentiment about the launch is still shaking out among gadget experts and other tech industry watchers, there has been a positive response from one key demographic: Public market investors.

Facebook’s stock rose… → Read More

Yesterday we saw a lot of attempts at humor from tech companies, with varying degrees of success. To help shake off that April Fool’s Day hangover, Vooza, the satirical “startup” that has been putting out spot-on parodies of modern tech company culture since this past summer with fake (but scarily real sounding) buzzwords like “Radimparency“, is coming clean about what it’s really up to … → Read More

Fast fashion has become a huge force in retailing, as seen by the increasing ubiquity of stores such as H&M, Forever 21, Zara, TopShop, and the like. But while those companies are clearly dominating High Streets all over the world, their chief focus is in the brick-and-mortar realm, and the web has been an afterthought at best.

A Los Angeles-based startup called DailyLook is setting its… → Read More

Eventbrite, the event planning and ticketing platform, has hired Silicon Valley veteran Mark Rubash to serve as its first-ever CFO.

Rubash has served in high-profile financial roles for some 20 years. His most recent high-profile CFO role was at Shutterfly, the publicly-traded photo-sharing company where he headed up financial operations from November 2007 to February 2012. His resume also… → Read More

Thomas Goetz, the former executive editor at Wired Magazine who stepped down after more than a decade at the trailblazing tech publication late last year (weeks after the departure of longtime Wired chief editor Chris Anderson), will announce today that he has taken on two new roles — keeping one foot in journalism, and one foot out the door.

Goetz will assume an entrepreneur-in-residence… → Read More

Aaron Batalion, the co-founder and CTO of daily deals site LivingSocial, is leaving the company. He announced his departure in a post on his personal blog published Friday afternoon.

We’ve reached out to Batalion for more details on his exit and his plans for the future, and will update with anything we hear. For now, here is the full text of his blog post: → Read More

Sometimes the smallest, most mundane tasks are the things you really dread — and put off for weeks. Like booking an oil change for your car, or finding a nice play for an anniversary date and buying tickets, or finding a good dentist in a new city and scheduling an appointment. It’s stuff that any patient person with internet access and a cell phone can do, but takes up just enough time and… → Read More