BabyWatch Health Tracker Lets Expecting Mothers Share Their Babies’ Heartbeats
9:44 am PDT • September 24, 2013
As evidenced by sonogram photos posted to Facebook and the apparent popularity of “ultrasound parties,” pregnancy is a time ripe for sharing. A new startup called BabyWatch is taking those…
Media & Entertainment
FormaFina, A Fab For The New Rich Of South America, Raises $1.4M
8:39 pm PDT • September 23, 2013
For those who haven’t yet heard of FormaFina, think of it as the Fab of South America. The e-commerce startup, which sells curated, limited-run collections of decor products in Argentina…
Into the Gloss, An Editorial Beauty Site, Raises $2M To Build Its Team
3:00 pm PDT • September 22, 2013
Into The Gloss, an editorial beauty website based out of New York, has raised $2 million in venture capital funding led by Forerunner and Lerer Ventures, along with several angel…
Five Sites That Put The Human Back In Personalized Shopping
1:00 pm PDT • September 20, 2013
I visited the e-commerce recommendation site StyleSeek this morning and started scrolling through their new arrivals in women’s clothing — and grew more and more surprised at how much I…
Mullenweg Wants WordPress To Power A Majority Of All Websites
4:32 pm PDT • September 18, 2013
Just months after Tiger Global Management paid $50 million for a secondary stake in Automattic, the maker of WordPress.com, the investment management firm has done it again. We learned yesterday…
Biotech & Health
Health & Bliss Is Raising $2M To Rethink Strep Testing
5:59 am PDT • September 18, 2013
Memphis-based startup Health & Bliss is hoping to save the medical system some time and money by developing a diagnostic solution for strep throat. The company, which graduated from the med-tech…
Stitch Labs Raises $3.5 Million As It Makes Plans To Address Inventory Management For Larger Business
10:12 am PDT • September 17, 2013
Stitch Labs, the startup founded in 2011 to help small and medium-sized businesses manage their sales operations, has raised $3.5 million in Series A financing. Founder Brandon Levey said that…
Video Site Upworthy Closes $8M Round, Will Build Revenue Through Sponsored Content
4:24 am PDT • September 16, 2013
Upworthy, the website aiming to make meaningful videos go viral, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital, an early investor in Tumblr and Twitter, along…
Dubb Wants To Expand Your Address Book By Connecting You With Friends Of Friends
5:20 pm PDT • September 15, 2013
For anyone who’s had to text a friend for another friend’s phone number — so, all of us — Dubb is an app that lets users request contact information from…
Harbingers Of Apps To Come, Here Are Four Google Glass For Fashion Hacks We Saw At Disrupt
5:43 pm PDT • September 13, 2013
With an abnormally high population of Google Glass owners in one convention center and ShopStyle’s API open to participants at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, it should come as no surprise…
Health Tech Panelists Say VC Interest In The Sector Is Tentative But Growing
2:08 pm PDT • September 11, 2013
Consumers are showing an increasing interest in wearable health technology, and health tech startups offer an opportunity to cut on costs for a medical system that many would say is…
Startups
Dude-Friendly E-Commerce Site BRANDiD Rolls Out Personal Shopping For Guys At TechCrunch Disrupt
3:33 pm PDT • September 10, 2013
BRANDiD, a personal shopping site that presented today on the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield stage, is hoping to catch the eye of that particular demographic of men who would rather do…
Songza Raises $4.7 Million Funding Round To Develop Advertising You May Actually Enjoy
2:28 pm PDT • September 10, 2013
Mood-based music streaming service Songza has raised a $4.7 million funding round, their second since they closed $2 million in 2011. Songza did not name a lead for the round,…
Medtech Startup Embrace Her Health Helps Women Track Their Pregnancies
8:23 pm PDT • September 9, 2013
Among the crowd showing at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley was Embrace Her Health, a two-year-old company at work on a suite of maternity apps that aim to enable women to…
An App For Social Change, Hot Mess Anonymously Tells Your Friends That They Have Gunk In Their Teeth
4:38 pm PDT • September 8, 2013
Neil Mansilla and Rob Zazueta got a lot of laughs this afternoon for their Disrupt Hackathon submission, Hot Mess. The app aims to solve the universal nightmare of unwittingly walking…
Kovert Is A GPS That Lets You Keep Your Phone In Your Pocket To Foil Would-Be Muggers
2:13 pm PDT • September 8, 2013
When walking through a sketchy neighborhood that you don’t know well, it doesn’t always feel like a good idea to have your phone out. Disrupt Hackathon entrant Kovert is an…
Keaton Row, An E-Commerce Site That Pairs Busy Ladies With Personal Shoppers, Raises $1.6 Million In Seed Funding
1:56 pm PDT • September 6, 2013
The personal shopping site Keaton Row has raised $1.6 million in a second round of seed funding led by Menlo Ventures, an early investor in Fab and Warby Parker, with…
Energy Excelerator, The Accelerator For Clean Energy Startups, Receives $30M From The Navy
11:01 am PDT • September 6, 2013
Energy Excelerator, a Hawaii-based accelerator program for cleantech start-ups, has received an investment of $30 million from the Navy’s Office of Naval Research under the Asia Pacific Technology Education Program.…
How To Get In On The New York Fashion Week Action, Techie Style
5:53 pm PDT • September 5, 2013
It’s baaaack. New York Fashion Week, that is. And if you’re a user of the Internet, it’s pretty hard to miss this season. As Women’s Wear Daily put it, ramped-up…
Keepy Is An App That Wants To Be The Refrigerator Door To Your Kid’s Macaroni Art
11:02 am PDT • September 4, 2013
Nobody wants to throw away their child’s artwork, but when crayon drawings accumulate, finding a way to store the piles of 8.5″ x 11″s can be difficult. After dealing with…
If You’re Buying Textbooks This Week, Get Educated, Not Schooled
2:00 pm PDT • September 2, 2013
When a semester’s worth of textbooks can add up to a couple (or three or four) hundred dollars, hitting the checkout line at the campus bookstore is a distressing experience…
Verizon, Vodafone Reach Agreement In $130 Billion Verizon Wireless Deal
11:19 am PDT • September 1, 2013
Verizon and Vodafone have reached an agreement on a $130 billion deal that gives Verizon total control of Verizon Wireless, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. Verizon has taken Vodafone’s…
Because Walking Saves Lives, Mobilizer Inc. Is A Startup That’s Aiming To Get Hospital Patients Moving
6:08 pm PDT • August 31, 2013
For sedentary medical patients, one of the easiest ways to reduce the time of hospital stays and decrease the risk of complications like blood clots and pressure ulcers is simply…
From The Experts To You, Six Fantasy Football Tools For Total Domination
5:09 pm PDT • August 29, 2013
Yes. Fantasy football season is upon us. Amid a sea of apps and sites promising to get you a little closer to perfection, I turned to some of 2012’s most…
For The Conscious Consumer, An Online Retailer Called Zady
3:44 pm PDT • August 27, 2013
A new ecommerce site called Zady is bringing the conscious consumerism movement to the online retail space by showing shoppers exactly where the goods the carry come from. To that…
Gilt Launches Personalized Sales, Because Personalization Is Where It’s At
9:33 am PDT • August 26, 2013
Personalization seems to be the name of the game in e-commerce right now, and to that end, the luxury flash sales site Gilt has just added a user-specific sales page…
When Apple Did Color Because It Was Delicious, Exciting, And Human
8:23 pm PDT • August 25, 2013
You know what they say about trends: wait five years and they’ll swing back around again. With confirmation that a a gold iPhone 5s will indeed break onto the scene…
Hollaback! Is One In A Global Community Of Crowdsourced Apps And Blogs Fighting Back Against Street Harassment
10:46 am PDT • August 23, 2013
On Monday, an app called Hollaback! relaunched in New York City with an unveiling in Brooklyn by Council Speaker and mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn. Since its release in 2011, Hollaback!…
PicCollage, The Sticker-Happy Collaging App, Raises $2.3M In Seed Funding And Aims To Build Out Its Social Platform
7:06 am PDT • August 21, 2013
The photo collaging app PicCollage has secured $2.3 million in seed round funding from 500 Startups, Floodgate Fund, Freestyle Capital, Quest Venture Partners, Sand Hill Angels, XG Ventures. PicCollage, which…
PriceGrabber Boosts Local And Mobile Presence By Acquiring Fashion App Snapette
5:09 am PDT • August 20, 2013
Snapette, a fashion app for local designer shopping, has been acquired by the comparison shopping and daily deals website PriceGrabber for an undisclosed sum. This is PriceGrabber’s first acquisition since…
