Yplan, the London-based startup that’s building a platform for selling last-minute event-booking on mobile, has closed a $12 million (£7.9 million) Series A, led by General Catalyst Partners. Existing investors Wellington Partners and Octopus Investments also participated in the round, plus a group of co-investors, including A-Grade, Kevin Colleran and David Morin’s Slow Ventures. → Read More
When Sunrise introduced its calendar app to iOS users, it was already a crowded space. Yet, the company just raised a $2.2 million seed round led by Resolute.vc and NextView Ventures. It fosters a different approach focused on design and the user experience and will continue to experiment in the calendar space. → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, Ashton Kutcher took the stage with Guy Oseary to talk about their A-Grade fund. Arrington started right away about a rumor that the fund is raising money at a $100 million valuation. The two partners confirm the rumors, saying that they are raising “enough money.” It means that financial institutions and companies will invest a certain amount of money in… → Read More
Floored scans office spaces, apartments and houses using 3D camera technology and proprietary software to build customizable 3D models for real estate purposes. At Disrupt NY 2013, the company launched the platform to create an immersive, interactive and user-friendly experience. Instead of static photos and floor plans, you can move around in real-time, add furniture and easily realize if the… → Read More
Chris Dixon, the entrepreneur-turned angel investor-turned general partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, today said that he believes the 3D printing movement has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and that it is an area where he would like to make multiple investments in the future. In contrast, he described startups in areas like social networking facing “general fatigue”. Earlier… → Read More
After 24 hours of hard work at the Disrupt NY Hackathon, Michael Kolodny, Jingen Lin and Ricardo Falletti demoed us HangoutLater, a nifty hack built on top of the Foursquare API. When you check in and a friend is close to you, it will ask you if you want to hang out later. Then, it will automatically find you a central location to meet. Kolodny and Lin already knew each other before the event. → Read More
iOS calendar app Sunrise received its first update a month after its release, bringing more info and flexibility to your calendar. The team has pushed the LinkedIn integration a step forward by bringing the entire profile into the app. Now you can check previous work experiences and education from Sunrise’s interface. “The feedback we got from our launch is that Sunrise really changes… → Read More
Meet Sunrise, the calendar app that will replace every calendar app that you’ve tried so far. It’s the best calendar you’ll ever use. Behind its apparent simplicity, there’s a server component (like Mailbox), making it significantly smarter with data from Google Calendar, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. The app was made by ex-Foursquare designers who believe they may have finally figured out how to… → Read More
The TechCrunch NY Meetup is tomorrow evening, so get ready for a wild night of pitch-offs, pizza and beer. → Read More
It’s been a few months since our last NYC meet-up and, in an effort to find some of the best startups in New York for Disrupt this year, we’re planning a 60-second pitch-off competition. The winner will get free tickets and a spot in Startup Alley at the event. One runner-up gets two free tickets to the event. Disrupt NY is being held on April 27 – May 1, 2013 in Manhattan. → Read More
It’s been a few months since our last NYC meet-up and, in an effort to find some of the best startups in New York for Disrupt this year, we’re planning a 60-second pitch-off competition. The winner will get free tickets and a spot in Startup Alley at the event. One runner-up gets two free tickets to the event. Disrupt NY is being held on April 27 – May 1, 2013 in Manhattan at Santos Party House. → Read More
Live concert notification and recommendation app Bandsintown just released a Spotify app to make it easier to query its concert database. Whenever you are listening to something interesting on Spotify, just drag the track on Bandsintown’s icon in order to get upcoming tour dates. → Read More
DigitalOcean is a cloud hosting solution for small developers, looking for a cheap virtual private server to experiment, host web applications with low memory needs and run some cron jobs. While Linode and Rackspace provide cheap servers starting at $20 a month, DigitalOcean has two key advantages — it starts at $5 a month for a comparable offering, and it now uses SSD. → Read More
Editor’s note: Rachel Haot is the first Chief Digital Officer for the City of New York, where she leads NYC Digital and is focused on the city’s digital media strategy.
From hackathons to social media, open government is transforming the way that Mayor Bloomberg’s administration and New York City government serve the public. And there has been no greater testament to open government’s… → Read More
Adobe announced yesterday that it had acquired New York-based company Behance. With 1 million members, the startup developed a LinkedIn for artists, allowing users to showcase their visual work. We just learned the financial terms from multiple sources. GigaOM first reported that it was north of $100 million. According to our sources, Adobe paid slightly more than $150 million in cash and stock… → Read More
Clothing startup Everlane has opened a pop-up store in New York for the holidays. We jumped on the opportunity to talk with founder and CEO Michael Preysman right in the middle of Everlane’s clothes. With 400,000 active members, the company is certainly catching the attention of many fashion aficionados. Everlane isn’t simply an online clothing shop selling the clothes you already… → Read More
Turntable today introduced Piki, a Pandora-like, human-powered radio app combined with powerful Twitter-inspired social features. With Piki, the most impressive part is that Turntable is one of the first music startups to get social right. The company has been working on the brand-new service for a year. → Read More
Today at Business Insider’s Ignition conference in New York, David Lee, founder and managing partner at SV Angel commented on Foursquare. As SV Angel is an investor, he had good things to say. “Foursquare is one of the most misunderstood companies,” he said. At 43, Lee isn’t using Foursquare to check in. He uses it in a passive way to find new restaurants, and finds the app very powerful. It goes… → Read More
Two of the team of eight designers at Foursquare have recently left to focus on Sunrise, a calendar product to do more with your calendar, with data from Google Calendar, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. They currently offer a daily email and are actively working on the next version. According to them, the calendar can be a very powerful tool and nobody has figured it out yet. → Read More
It’s that time of the year again. Lucky applicants who got selected for an interview with three Y Combinator partners will pitch their startup starting tomorrow. Founders will have exactly 10 minutes, so they shouldn’t waste time with small talk. It might be a good idea to learn everything about the partners beforehand, and especially what they look like. A page made by designers Jeremy Le Van and… → Read More
Today was the official grand opening of the MakerBot Store in New York. Head over to 298 Mulberry Street and you can buy MakerBot printers, filament, and pre-made items, such as bracelets, watches and toys. And that’s not all.
MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis unveiled a new 3D photo booth powered by ShapeShot. The photo takes a couple of minutes and costs $5 for three reusable shots. Then you can order… → Read More
Tonight at the New York Tech Meetup, SpaceSplitter presented the latest feature of its web application which makes it easier to get money out of your roommates for their share of the household items.
OurList lets roommates set up subscriptions for household goods and split the cost easily. Users select the frequency and the share that each roommate should pay, and the service handles payments. → Read More
Recovering from Hurricane Sandy is no small feat as most of Lower Manhattan is still in the dark without power. I talked with a couple of people working in startups who had to find a place to get back work. But the most difficult part was probably to set aside the devastation and get the businesses back on track. Those companies are fragile and can’t risk a companywide blackout for a week. → Read More
Small businesses may have been even more affected than big companies by Hurricane Sandy, as they don’t have the same resources. When Squarespace sent an email on Monday morning, it looked like they had tried everything to keep the servers alive. They asked for forgiveness in advance. But the unbelievable happened: They kept the service going by bringing fuel buckets to the 17th floor in the dark… → Read More
Driving through Times Square is a tricky proposition even on normal nights, but for a few moments tonight it was basically impossible to cruise down 7th Avenue. That’s because Microsoft officially kicked off sales for its new Windows RT-powered Surface tablet, and briefly closed the street to ensure none of the curious onlookers were hit by errant cabs. → Read More
New York-based startup Timehop is still digging through your old tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram photos to make you remember your past self. Originally, Timehop aggregated all this data and sent you a daily email. It is now going a step further by encapsulating this in an attractive iPhone app and bringing a couple of new features along the way. Nostalgia still kicks in every day. → Read More
The city of New York has just launched the ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge to help small NY-based companies get a free high speed fiber build-out in their offices. In order to win the prize, you have to submit an application to justify that you need very high speed connectivity — tech startups seem to have an edge in the challenge. In all, 240 companies will each receive a chunk of the $12 million… → Read More
Accelerators and incubators have been popping up left and right over the last few years, becoming, as Peter Relan recently put it, “an industry segment in their own right.” And while that industry segment has become more and more crowded, the family of accelerators focused exclusively on healthtech and digital health has remained small — in spite of huge opportunity.
But for early-stage… → Read More
Huzzah! Fine denizens of New York and the City Of Saint Francis, Microsoft beseeches you to untether your computing devices and connect to their ethereal Internet for the lofty sum of zero! Beginning today, the so called “Wi-Fidelity” service will be available in various “hot-spots” around both cities including the Wharf of the Fisherman and “Union” Squares of both cities, provided the Coppers can… → Read More
New York is an interesting place for startups. Not because they’re technologically driven or that they’re chasing after the Valley but because New York has something to offer everyone. It’s a town filled with over eight million people across every industry known to man. And it’s in that spirit that General Assembly has grown over the last year and morphed into what it is today, an education… → Read More
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