April 11th, 2013

After 7 Years & 50K Storefronts Created, Shopify Launches Major Redesign To Simplify Online Store-Building

Shopify Ecommerce Platform

Forrester recently predicted that the online retail market will grow to $370 billion over the next four years, up from $231 billion this year — a 10 percent compound annual growth rate. In other words, the message is clear: The eCommerce juggernaut ain’t slowing down any time soon. In 2013, every business needs some kind of online presence; the problem, of course, is that many small business… → Read More

April 11th, 2013

Like A CarWoo For Used Cars, AutoRef Raises $850K Seed Round

autoref logo

Pittsburgh-based startup AutoRef.com, which is something like a CarWoo for used vehicles, has raised $850,000 in seed funding. The round was led by an interesting, strategic investor: the large European online car marketplace, AutoScout24, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom.

T-Venture, the venture arm of Deutsche Telekom, also participated in the round alongside Innovation Works, plus local… → Read More

April 3rd, 2013

Ooomf Shutters Its App Discovery Platform, Relaunches As A Freelancer Marketplace For Web & Mobile App Projects

ooomf-logo

Ooomf, a startup which raised half a million in seed funding last fall for an app discovery platform, is already closing that service down and pivoting to become a marketplace to connect developers, designers and copywriters with web and mobile projects. The new service will operate under the same name, and founder Mikael Cho tells us that during its private beta last month, ooomf has already… → Read More

March 27th, 2013

AlumniFunder Launches A Crowdfunding Platform Where Alumni Can Back Student Entrepreneurs

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AlumniFunder launched in beta this week with a simple mission: Help create a deeper relationship between current students and alumni, while supporting collegiate entrepreneurship and creativity. To do that, AlumniFunder wants to give alumni a platform by which they can invest in innovative projects created by students at their alma mater. Whether it be for a new science lab, natural language… → Read More

March 26th, 2013

Founded By Early oDesk Employees, Freelancer Marketplace Rev.com Raises $4.5 Million Series A

Rev

Rev.com, a freelancer marketplace founded by early oDesk employees, is today announcing $4.5 million in Series A funding led by Venky Ganesan of Globespan Capital Partners. Also participating in the round were Craig Sherman (former COO of Ancestry.com) and Austin Ligon (founder of CarMax). All three are now members of Rev.com’s board of directors, following the round which closed back in… → Read More

March 16th, 2013

If You Think 10% Is A Good Transaction Fee For Your Marketplace, Then It Will Struggle

marketplace

Editor’s note: Sunil Rajaraman is the co-founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to create content at scale; Scripted has a pool of 80,000 freelance writers and 1,000 customers. Follow Sunil on Twitter @subes01. Like many others, I read the news about Zaarly, reported by TechCrunch’s Rip Empson last weekend, with some degree of shock. Zaarly is a well-funded… → Read More

March 9th, 2013

Zaarly Shutters Its Reverse Craigslist Marketplace, Goes All In On Virtual Storefronts As Co-Founder Exits

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After winning LA Startup Weekend, Zaarly almost immediately raised $1 million from a long list of notable investors (even “Steve jOBS”), and then raised $14 million more before the end of the year in a round led by Kleiner, while adding Meg Whitman to its board.

Fast forward to today and you’ll no longer find Zaarly’s marketplace on the Web. And, with the next update to its mobile app… → Read More

March 6th, 2013

Now 18M Users Strong, Edmodo Makes Its First Acquisition In Root-1 To Become The App Market For Education

edmodo_logo_color

After spending years working as technicians at public schools, Jeff O’Hara and Nicolas Borg launched Edmodo in 2008 to address what they had come to see as a huge gap in the teacher-student relationship: The need for a better, safer way for teachers to connect and communicate with their students. However, with the launch of its APIs early last year to allow developers to build apps on top of its… → Read More

March 4th, 2013

Airpair Connects Startups With Expert Developers To Get Help With Code Via Online Sessions

airpair computer

Airpair, a newly launched service which connects entrepreneurs and expert developers over remote online sessions, aims to help startups build better software and speed their time to launch. The idea’s name, which brings to mind “pair programming” techniques, offers its users one-hour screensharing sessions where developers will help review your code, brainstorm architecture, assist with problems… → Read More

January 2nd, 2013

Amazon’s Record Holiday Season Boosted Its Third-Party Sellers Marketplace, Too: Sales Up 40% Year-Over-Year

AmazonServices_Logo

Following Amazon’s end-of-the-year announcement touting its record-breaking holiday sales, the company today released figures for its third-party sellers marketplace, which also saw record sales growth. Although Amazon declined to provide hard figures, it says that sellers’ sales were up 40 percent year-over-year from 2011, and that sellers on Amazon sold “hundreds of millions of units worth tens… → Read More

December 7th, 2012

Backed By $500,000 In Seed Funding, LiveNinja Launches Its Video Chat Marketplace

Live Ninja Logo - PNG (Stacked Black Box - Full Color) 1000x655

LiveNinja, a video chat marketplace we spotted in TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley in May, is today announcing having closed a seed round of $500,000 in funding as it goes to publicly launch its platform. The round included angels from the Miami area, where LiveNinja is based, as well as a few from New York and South America. → Read More

November 8th, 2012

Meals Marketplace Munchery Raises $4 Million For Expansion, Now Delivering High-Quality Meals To All Of Bay Area, L.A. In 2013

listing

Munchery, the Bay Area startup that lets customers order healthy, high-quality meals from professional chefs, said it raised $3.3 million of an ongoing $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by E.Ventures. Also participating were angel investors (and die-hard users), Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress; Randi Zuckerberg; and El Dorado Ventures’ Tom Peterson. To date, Munchery has raised… → Read More

October 11th, 2012

Mobile Marketplace EggDrop Shuts Down Following Craigslist C&D, But Says Slow Growth To Blame

EggDrop

EggDrop, a mobile marketplace application with over half a million downloads, is shutting down. The company will inform its current user base via email on Friday. According to CEO Dan Zheng, EggDrop was the recipient of a Cease & Desist letter from Craigslist a few months ago, but that’s not the primary factor in his decision to close up shop – instead, it was slower than expected growth… → Read More

September 27th, 2012

Mobile’s Hidden Opportunity: Marketplaces

Matt Cohler Of Benchmark Capital

Editor’s note: Matt Cohler is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital. He’s responsible for identifying investment opportunities in Internet-related companies in addition to working closely with companies across the firm’s portfolio. You can follow him on Twitter here

Building and controlling a marketplace is hard. Marketplaces consist of two sides: supply (sellers) and demand… → Read More

September 26th, 2012

If You Can Think It, You Can Buy It: Makeably Debuts A Marketplace For Custom-Made Goods

Makeably-logo

Love Etsy, but looking for something even more unique? Makeably, a new marketplace for custom-made goods, can help. The site, founded by two ex-Googlers and longtime friends, Ryan Hayward and Anastasia Leng, has just launched into beta, offering makers a new way to manage their custom work requests online – a process which, today, is largely handled via email.

On the site, buyers can search… → Read More

August 6th, 2012

99designs Makes Its First Acquisition, Scoops Up European Rival 12designer

99design

99designs, the polarizing crowdsourced design marketplace, announced its first acquisition tonight, as the Accel-backed startup scooped up its European rival, 12designer, for an undisclosed amount. In the near-term, 12designer will continue to operate as a standalone site.

Since raising $35 million from Accel, 99designs has been focused on international growth, said Patrick Llewellyn, the… → Read More

July 17th, 2012

Rakuten-Owned Buy.com CEO Neel Grover, COO Greg Giraudi Step Down [Memo]

rakuten buy.com logo

A changing of the guard at Buy.com, which was bought by Japan’s Rakuten in May 2010. Long-serving executives CEO/president Neel Grover and COO Greg Giraudi are stepping down from their roles, effective September 1. Grover had been instrumental behind the sale of the e-commerce site to the Japanese giant for $250 million.

The memo does not make clear why the pair are leaving, but it coincides… → Read More

March 20th, 2012

After Ditching Auctions, Mobile Marketplace EggDrop Hits Half A Million Downloads

EggDrop

EggDrop, essentially a mobile app alternative to Craigslist, is starting to pick up steam. The company now boasts half a million downloads of its app on iOS and Android, with $8 million in listings from across the 50 U.S. states and the U.K. (EggDrop’s top two markets).

The app originally launched last June, backed by $1 million in funding in a round led by BlueRun Ventures and SV Angel. But… → Read More

March 16th, 2012

Bored This Weekend? LifeCrowd Launches A Marketplace For Social Activities

lifecrowd-logo

LifeCrowd, the first startup to emerge from the newly-formed TechStars Network member MuckerLab based in L.A., is today launching its marketplace for social activities into public beta. The company, which aims to provide a curated selection of quality events, happenings, classes and outings, is available now for users in San Francisco, San Diego, and all of Orange County, Calif., as well as in its… → Read More

February 17th, 2012

“Etsy For Eco” Ethical Community Raises $300,000+ In Seed Funding

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Ethical Community, an online, eco-friendly marketplace (which has plans for a snazzier name in the works!), has secured a £200,000 ($316,640 USD) round of seed funding from a syndicate of angel investors, the company is announcing today. Founded in 2009, the marketplace has signed up over 850 sellers from around the world, who have now listed over 7,000 eco-friendly, organic and natural products… → Read More

January 5th, 2012

Apptopia’s New Marketplace Will Help Broker Sales Of Mobile Apps

Apptopia Logo

Remember the news from earlier this week about a mobile app developer who turned to eBay to unload his underperforming iOS app? (Update: the app is now up to $15,100+!) Well, there will soon be an alternative to eBay auctions for other developers looking to do the same.  A new marketplace called Apptopia will launch in February, allowing developers to sell their mobile apps, source code and… → Read More

June 2nd, 2011

Mashape, The Etsy Of Cloud Services, Goes Beta; Lets You Monetize Your APIs In A Click

Mashape has a somewhat unusual backstory: The Italian startup spent two years looking for funding in its home country, only to be rebuffed at every turn. So, in 2009, it moved operations to Silicon Valley. The team found funding in less than three weeks. Granted, it was $100K, but it was enough to begin building a real service. Persistence, it seems, is key. (It also helps to have a great idea and… → Read More

November 30th, 2010

Microsoft not paying WP7 developers before Feb 2011

Oh no, Microsoft! This is not a good move. It appears that developers selling apps in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace won’t get paid for peddling their wares until February 2011. Now, given that the smartphone wars are largely decided by the available apps on any one platform, it isn’t a great move to defer payments to those developers that will define your platform — especially… → Read More

September 3rd, 2009

Google provides peek at Android marketplace, doesn't spill release date

Google trickled out some screenshots from the upcoming refresh to the Android marketplace today. They are responding to complaints that the experience is unwieldy to users, and adding subcategories and regional options. While we know that this will be version 1.6 of the marketplace, there’s no word on exactly when it’s going to be released. See the video after the jump. → Read More

July 13th, 2009

Zune marketplace image appears, probably genuine

Microsoft still has plans for the Zune brand and the marketplace is probably a big part of it. Details are still light but at least we now have what is suppose to be a screenshot of the service. Who knows if it’s legit, but it at least seems to have all the same visual aspects of the Zune. It wouldn’t be surprising if it is the real thing. Now, our main question is will Microsoft… → Read More

May 18th, 2009

Share your WinMo 6.5 apps with four friends, family members

Computerworld calls this market changing but I’m not so sure. Here’s the skinny: when you buy an app from the Windows Marketplace for WinMo you can share that app with four people you know. You can also get a full refund within 24 hours of purchase. You can also run the apps on up to five of your own devices if you don’t want to share. → Read More

February 26th, 2009

New Adobe AIR Marketplace

From blogs.adobe.com
Adobe AIR Marketplace is a central resource that allows developers to make their applications available to millions of potential users and makes it easy for consumers to find them. → Read More

February 16th, 2009

Windows Mobile 6.5 announced, Marketplace included

Microsoft just took the wraps off of the latest WinMo release. Just like the dozens of leaked screenshots indicated, the OS has a totally revamped feel with a Zune-inspired user interface. The Marketplace and MyPhone are included too although details are a bit light at the moment. There isn’t any word about about paid apps or who will host the contents, although we expect those details shortly. → Read More

February 16th, 2009

Windows Mobile 6.5 announced, Marketplace included

Microsoft just took the wraps off of the latest WinMo release. Just like the dozens of leaked screenshots indicated, the OS has a totally revamped feel with a Zune-inspired user interface. The Marketplace and MyPhone are included too although details are a bit light at the moment. There isn’t any word about about paid apps or who will host the contents, although we expect those details shortly. → Read More

May 6th, 2008

Zune Marketplace adds NBC content (for the same price as iTunes)

Devin already gave us most of the details of Microsoft’s new Zune Marketplace yesterday, but with today’s official announcement comes additional information. First, lots of folks, including the AP, are making a big deal about the presence of NBC content on the new Marketplace. You may remember that NBC and Apple went their separate ways last year when Apple refused to cede to… → Read More