Betaworks, the company behind bit.ly, news.me, Chartbeat and a number of other successful products, has acquired the social news site Digg.com for an undisclosed amount (rumor has it that the price was just $500k). Betaworks’ founder John Borthwick will become the new CEO of Digg. The site’s current CEO Matt Williams will join Andreessen Horowitz as Entrepreneur in Residence after the Betaworks… → Read More
Last year, CollegeBudget launched with the goal of bringing a variation on the Groupon discount and group buying model to the campus. The goal being to help college students at colleges and universities across the country fight high costs by offering discounts on everything from textbooks to student loans.
Today, CollegeBudget is moving more aggressively into local offers, particularly around… → Read More
Social video network Twitvid has closed another acquisition today, following its March deal which involved bringing the team from daily deals aggregator Frugalo on board. Today, the company is announcing it has acquired Cull TV, an independent music video sharing site, which CTO John Hurliman describes as a little bit like Pandora mixed with MTV. → Read More
Utah-based genealogy site Ancestry.com just announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Silicon Valley-based startup Inflection to acquire its competitor Archives.com for $100 million is cash and assumed liabilities. Inflection’s other product, people search public records site PeopleSmart, is not part of this acquisition. A number of Archive.com’s employees, including some of… → Read More
Frugalo, a daily deals aggregation platform that emerged from AngelPad’s third group of startups last fall, is being acquired by social video site TwitVid. As you may have guessed, the move was more about bringing Frugalo’s founders on board than it was an indication that TwitVid is now interested in the daily deals market. However, some of the personalization technology in use at Frugalo will… → Read More
CafePress, the company that allows customers to design, buy and sell merchandise including t-shirts, hats, bags, mugs, stickers, and more, has entered into an agreement to acquire customized clothing seller Logo’d Softwear, Inc. The acquisition, which was noted in an amendment recently filed to CafePress, Inc.’s S-1, states that the agreement allows CafePress to purchase all the assets of Logo’d… → Read More
Clipboard, the web clipping service founded by former Overture vet Gary Flake, has just completed the acquisitions of two competitors, Amplify and Clipmarks. The startup, which is taking on the challenge of reviving social bookmarking, is backed by many top notch investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, SV Angel, Betaworks, DFJ, First Round, CrunchFund (note: TechCrunch founder… → Read More
Pollbob, a small, three-person polling startup from New Orleans’ The Idea Village accelerator has just acquired the older polling site Misterpoll. Prior to the acquisition, which closed on Friday, Pollbob had over 12,000 downloads and 7,000 active registered users. With Misterpoll’s 270K+ userbase now in tow, Pollbob is ready for rapid growth, says Pollbob Co-founder Zach Kupperman. → Read More
@WalmartLabs, the retailer’s digital technology division, has acquired Portland-based mobile agency Small Society. The company helped businesses create, develop and launch iOS applications, and has served a number of high-profile clients, including DoubleTree, Starbucks (the original app), Amazon (the Amazon Deals app), Whole Foods, the Democratic National Convention, WordPress, ZipCar and… → Read More
Today, SetJam, a company that describes itself as “building the future of TV,” has announced it has been acquired by Motorola Mobility. The company’s products currently include a customizable TV and movie widgets designed for embedding on websites, plus developer-friendly tools like a REST API and XML download of the SetJam database. → Read More
Well, it’s been an interesting last few weeks (and last few years, for that matter) for Israeli-headquartered video-conferencing specialist, RadVision. Acquisition rumors are currently swirling around the company, based on Israeli newspaper Globes’ report that the company is in ‘advanced’ talks with Avaya, a business collaboration and communications company, for a sale of approximately $200… → Read More
Blackboard, the maker of learning and education software for enterprises and schools, announced Friday that it is being acquired by a group of investors led by Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in media, entertainment, communications and information investments. Providence has also invested in several for-profit educational companies, like Education Management… → Read More
Word has been circulating for weeks now that Twitter was soon to be swooping up the popular third-party app, TweetDeck. In early May, Mike Arrington reported that the deal was as good as done, but the two companies were not yet willing to publicly release the numbers. Today, CNN and CNET broke the news that TweetDeck has been acquired by Twitter for $40 million. Twitter has yet to officially… → Read More
Toshiba — the diversified tech company best known for its consumer electronics, lighting and HVAC systems — is coming after the smart grid market in Europe and the U.S. with the acquisition of a Swiss smart grid tech firm, Landis+Gyr. Toshiba announced a commitment to acquire Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion today.
The company makes power distribution, metering and smart home software and systems… → Read More
Consumer and business uptake of cloud computing, mobile internet voice, video and real-time data are increasing energy demand dramatically among data centers, telecom and IT service providers. Anticipating the trend will continue for quite some time, General Electric (GE) today announced its plan to acquire Lineage Power Holdings from Los Angeles private equity firm, Gores Group, for $520… → Read More
Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. (SEV) and the Tanfield Group announced today that the American maker of all-electric trucks will purchase its United Kingdom-based parent company, Smith Electric Vehicles U.K. for $15 million in January.
The company began its U.S. operations in Kansas City, Mo. in 2009. Led by chief executive Bryan Hansel, SEV is buying all of the assets and operating business of… → Read More
General Electric (GE) — one of the world’s largest, corporate cleantech investors and acquirers of cleantech companies — today announced its acquisition of Opal Software, which designs software and provides engineering services that help electricity, gas and water utilities run their operations and networks faster, and more productively.
Opal’s specialty is in data migration and SCADA… → Read More
Panasonic announced today that it will buy out two of its subsidiaries, Sanyo and Panasonic Electric Works, for $9.4 billion.
Sanyo is the largest lithium-ion rechargeable battery producer and 11th-largest solar cell producer in the world with a quickly-growing solar panel manufacturing arm according to company statements. → Read More
German travel search engine Swoodoo has been acquired by the leading U.S. flight search engine Kayak.
Although Kayak has lots of cash in the bank and is a major player in the US, it is still not well known in Europe, hence its need to make an incursion here. Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed but we hear on the grapevine that T-Venture and Deutsche Telekom were “very happy… → Read More
Italian internet giant Dada.net has acquired 51% of the assets of online gaming startup Fueps in a deal worth €1.36 Millions. Fueps launched in 2008 and grossed over €600k while total ebitda was €750,000 in the red. Seems more of a rescue than an acquisition to me. Dada decided to take over the 51% stake of the company that belonged to RCS Digital. The other 49% is owned by Digital Bros… → Read More
There is one glaring detail that everyone who reported on the Microsoft-Powerset acquisition has failed to mention: Powerset is a Unix based company. All of its core components – its applications, its packaging system, and its continuous integration system – were designed and written to run on a Unix platform. As a large software company, Microsoft is a big supporter of its own… → Read More
Following up on reports that it was angling for an acquisition of Sprint Nextel, South Korean carrier SK Telecom reportedly said in a regulatory filing that, while its looking into business opportunities in the U.S. (including its recently announced deal with Helio) it really isn’t after a controlling stake in a U.S. carrier. Earlier this week, rumors were circulating that SK Telecom was in… → Read More
Oh, how I shall miss Helio. In light of this morning’s long expected announcement that Virgin Mobile had purchased Helio, a Q&A has gone up to answer some of the more pressing questions. It’s all pretty straightforward: there will be no service interruption, new members are welcome, contracts are still valid, and they expect the Helio brand will eventually be dissolved. → Read More
…are what two newspapers are currently speculating. No official deal of any kind has been made yet but apparently Microsoft has started talking with Yahoo! about a possible acquisition. Wall Street seems to be pretty happy about the news, as Yahoo! shares jumped 14.6-percent and analysts say the move is crucial to beating Google. However, there’s a problem with the reporting here. → Read More
Breaking news, folks. Sun Microsystems, creators of hit products like Java and the Java Runtime Engine and Java 2, have acquired all the assets and intellectual property of SavaJe, which is some startup that made a Java-based OS for cellphones. The company is now out of business, hence why Sun was actually able to afford a purchase since, last I checked, Sun isn’t exactly rolling in cash. No… → Read More
, and a couple of private equity firms have entered the fray, and the rumors are that things will finish up this week. Nokia wants the Treo name recognition, and Motorola wants a decent foothold in the smartphone market (the Q is not that). Sadly, if one of these companies gets Palm, we see them absorbing our favorite smartphone maker instead of propping it up. That’s why we, like Palm… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
