Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch.
She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was the captain of the women’s varsity tennis team. She has also contributed technology content for Oprah.com.
Disclosure: My husband, Suneel Gupta, was previously an employee of Groupon. We hold stock in Facebook. We also have investments in several mutual funds, some of which are technology-focused. And I hold a miniscule amount of shares in AOL, TechCrunch’s parent company.
My husband sits on the advisory boards of Adaptly and ToyTalk, and is a shareholder of both companies.
Wired Senior Editor Michael Copeland is joining venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. We’ve confirmed with the VC firm that Copeland will be leading Andreessen’s new ‘content strategy.’ → Read More
Pindrop Security, a startup that aims to prevent and protect against phone-based fraud, has raised $11 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Citi Ventures, Webb Investment Network, Redpoint and Felicis Ventures participating. The startup previously raised $1 million in seed funding from A16Z and others. → Read More
Design-focused commerce company Fab has raised that round of funding we scooped a few months ago. Fab is announcing today that it has raised $150 million in the first tranche of the company’s Series D round of financing. We’re told that $150 million is the first part of a larger Series D round that Fab expects to complete over the next few months. New to this round is Chinese internet giant… → Read More
It’s that time of the year again for us nerds to infiltrate Sand Hill Road, let loose, and enjoy some good food and libations. We’ve been hosting the TechCrunch summer party with VC firm August Capital since 2006. This year, as in years past, we’ll be partying on August Capital’s beautiful, sunny Sand Hill balcony on Friday, July 26. The party starts at 5:30 p.m. and goes til 9:00 p.m. → Read More
While Pinterest has become a go-to destination for crafting ideas for accessories, parties, home design and more; the pinning giant (and Pinners) doesn’t provide the instructions on how to actually make these creations. Enter DarbySmart, a do-it-yourself crafting startup that is working with top Pinterest designers of DIY accessories, fashion and home items to Kit, market and sell their projects… → Read More
Online coupon giant RetailMeNot has just filed for $230 million IPO, according to an S-1 released today. → Read More
Chicago-based Inventables, a marketplace for technology and materials for developers and designers, has raised $3 million in new funding led by Tim Draper (via Draper Associates) with Dundee Venture Capital, Richard Yoo (founder of Rackspace), Georges Harik, and True Ventures participating. This brings Inventables’ total funding to $5 million. → Read More
It’s that time of the week for a new episode of CrunchWeek, the weekly show where three of us writers plop ourselves down in the TechCrunch TV studio for some real talk about the most interesting stories from the past seven days.
Colleen Taylor, Greg Kumparak and I chatted this week about private social network Path’s rumored $1 billion valuation and the company’s growth to 12 million users… → Read More
In this week’s Ask A VC epsiode, we had Canaan Partners’ Maha Ibrahim in the studio to chat about her perspective on social gaming and more.
Ibrahim, who has worked at Canaan since 2000, invests in cloud, social gaming and digital media companies for the firm. We raised an interesting question to Ibrahim: Why aren’t there more female VCs in the industry? According to a recent report, of the 25… → Read More
We’re hearing from multiple sources that private social network Path is raising a new round of funding that could value the company as high as $1 billion. According to one source, the company is in the process of seeking between $75 million to $100 million in financing and is aiming for the aforementioned number as a valuation. → Read More
Walmart, via its Silicon Valley innovation lab @WalmartLabs, has made another acquisition today, continuing its shopping spree. The company is announcing that predictive intelligence startup Inkiru will be joining Walmart Labs to accelerate the retail giant’s analytics capabilities. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. → Read More
This week on TechCrunch TV’s Ask A VC show, we have Canaan Partners Maha Ibrahim and Lightbank partner Paul Lee in the studio. As you may remember, you can submit questions for our guests either in the comments or here and we’ll ask them during the show.
Ibrahim invests in cloud, social gaming and digital media companies for Canaan. Her past investments include PicksPal (acquired by Liberty… → Read More
Goal setting within a startup or company is essential to success. But there are a number of different approaches to attaining these goals both within teams and individually. And what better framework to follow than Google’s strategy around establishing goals.
This gem is part of the Google Ventures Startup Lab‘s body of content, explained by current Googlers, and other technology execs; aimed… → Read More
Salesforce is on a bit of an acquisition spree this week. After purchasing marketing software company ExactTarget earlier in the week for $2.5 billion, the sales SaaS giant has announced the purchase of EdgeSpring, an enterprise business intelligence and analytics startup. → Read More
In this week’s Ask A VC show, Redpoint Partner Chris Moore joined us in the studio to discuss how he sources and spots promising startups, and more.
Moore focuses on making investments for Redpoint in consumer internet, online marketing and SaaS companies, and has led Redpoint’s investment in Efficient Frontier (acquired by Adobe), Right Media (acquired by Yahoo), Auditude (acquired by Adobe)… → Read More
AdMob founder Omar Hamoui is joining Sequoia Capital, we’ve learned. Sequoia confirmed that Hamoui is joining the firm as an investment partner and will be starting in a few weeks.
Hamoui’s mobile ad platform AdMob was sold to Google in 2009 for $750 million, and Sequoia Capital was one of the first investors in the platform, back when AdMob was a one-man team with Hamoui. After Hamoui left… → Read More
In the consumer mobile app world, developers have a number of platforms including iOS, and Android, from which they can not only find users but also monetize and make money. Connecting with social networks like Facebook can help for distribution, and you can sell your app in Apple’s App Store and Google Play or make money via ads. But in the enterprise world, this is a challenge that any mobile or… → Read More
LA-based incubator and studio Science is in the process of raising a $30 million new investment fund, according to sources familiar with the matter. → Read More
Payments startup Stripe is making an interesting move in the world of marketplaces that should make it significantly easier for collaborative consumption startups to take and process payments. The company is debuting a technology that allows for payments to be distributed to multiple bank accounts. → Read More
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is acquiring Webgistix, a U.S.-based logistics and services company specializing in fulfillment technology for e-commerce retailers. The acquisition is Rakuten’s second logistics investment outside of Japan. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed at this time. → Read More
Porch, a soon to be launched home improvement and repair marketplace, has raised $6.25 million is funding from SV Angel, Chamath Palihapitiya, Javier Olivan, Jeff Skoll, Bill Lee, Geoff Entress, Charles Moldow, and others. → Read More
It’s no secret these days that VCs are getting into data in a meaningful way. Firms can no longer afford to wait for companies, people and trends to come to Sand Hill Road. To start competing for deals, VCs have to be prospecting people, companies and trends well before events like Y Combinator’s Demo Day. Many VCs have built their own data-parsing platforms internally, but one startup launching… → Read More
It’s no longer sufficient in venture capital for firms to wait for companies, people and trends to come to Sand Hill Road. Seeing a startup on Demo Day at Y Combinator used to be the pipeline for scouting an early deal. But these days, YC companies are raising from angels before demo days. This is a sign of the times in the venture world. To start competing for deals, VCs have to be prospecting… → Read More
In this week’s Ask A VC episode, Freestyle Capital’s Dave Samuel joined us in the studio to discuss his investment philosophies and more.
Samuel also talked about how and why his co-founder relationship with Josh Felser has been so successful. The duo co-founded Spinner (acquired by AOL for $320 million), and Grouper (acquired by Sony for $65 million). In 2011, Fesler and Samuel formally… → Read More
Andreessen Horowitz is boosting its investing team today with the addition of SuccessFactors Founder and SAP Exec Lars Dalgaard as General Partner. → Read More
On this week’s Ask a VC show, we have General Atlantic Managing Director Brett Rochkind in the studio. As you may remember, you can submit questions for our guests either in the comments or here and we’ll ask them during the show. → Read More
One of the biggest challenges many entreprenuers face is finding the right technical partner when building a company. Some startups can have a single leader, but more often than not, there is a balanced team behind every successful business.
Ooga Labs founders Stan Chudnovsky and James Currier began their partnership when Currier moved Emode, the business he started with BranchOut founder … → Read More
Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham just tweeted an interesting data point about the valuations of YC startups. As of now, Graham says that 37 Y Combinator companies, out of 511 startups, have valuations of or sold for at least $40 million. Currently the total valuation for the 511 startups is $11.5 billion, as Graham writes on Hacker News. → Read More
It’s that time of the week for CrunchWeek, the show where a few of us writers chat up the most interesting stories from the past seven days.
Ryan Lawler, Greg Kumparak, and I chatted about Yahoo’s $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr (and the reports that the company is eyeing a purchase of Hulu); Lyft’s $60 million raise from Andreessen Horowitz and the debut of Microsoft’s next generation gaming… → Read More
On this week’s Ask A VC episode, Index Ventures partner Danny Rimer joined us in the studio. Rimer has been in the venture industry for over 11 years so he had plenty to share on how VC has changed, and the differences in the venture world in Europe and the U.S.
Rimer, who has led the firm’s investments in Etsy, Nastygal and many others, also talked to us about the future of ecommerce and how… → Read More
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