Exclusive – SeatGeek, one of the finalists of TechCrunch50 2009, has raised $1 million in Series A funding led by Founder Collective and joined by NYC Seed.
The funding brings SeatGeek’s total investment to over $1.5 million, and it intends to use the new capital to hire more engineers and business developers. → Read More
Boston-based DataXu, provider of a real-time online ad bidding and optimization system, has secured $11 million in Series B funding to add to the $7.8 million in financing it raised in an earlier round (April 2009).
The company, which was a finalist at last year’s edition of the TechCrunch50 conference and startup launchpad, raised the additional capital from Menlo Ventures and prior investors Atlas Venture and Flybridge Capital Partners. → Read More
I don’t have kids (yet), but I’d be all over this if I did … and if I were a native English speaker: TC50 finalist Story Something is cautiously opening up to the masses during the holidays – intentionally.
While the service is still ‘most definitely in beta’ according to co-founder and CEO Jim Rose, it gives you a pretty good idea of what the startup’s building. → Read More
When Cnet blows the whistle on social media, via Sean Parker of Napster fame, it’s time to break out the wallet and double down on that very same “immature” social media. We’re standing at the gaping maw of the biggest gold rush in many cycles, and the refs have just called a TV time out to allow us to regroup. Certainly we’ve seen altogether way too much social community constructs at just the moment when we can’t stomach another additional stream entering the firehose. We’re fed up with authority algorithms, freemium models, top ten lost Twitter features, and bogus realtime protocol wars. It’s fine by most of us if it turns out Dave Winer invented everything that could or will be thought of back in 2001. But calling the moment when the startup market matures is like giving your 16-year old the keys to the new car. No matter how sure we are that we’ve seen the last good idea and that’s it’s now all about sensible implementations around direct monetization, we’re absolutely sure of nothing of the kind. That’s because the very notion of maturity is a strong buy signal for the next stupid idea that’s about to spring up and conquer the world. Calling the bottom is easy; calling the top is hard. Are we at the top just because our heads are exploding at the sound of the rain of stupid startup names that crescendo at TC50 and other industry events. This TC50 was the first one where I immediately deleted the name of the company from my awareness and never looked back. The only one I still remember (other than Bing which is now Old Stupid and therefore exempt) is Threadsy, and that’s because I love the thing, even though I doubt I’ll ever use it. Now that’s an interesting data point for me, coming as it does after signing up for Twitter and Facebook at the insistence of Ross Mayfield and Gabe Rivera respectively and then promptly forgot about it for years. So I actually think the Threadsly experience will probably be highly successful precisely because I have no idea how or why I would use it. My idea of solving the Inbox crisis is to try and make the stream so informative I can skim email in seconds because I already know about everything there. Similarly, looking at the cloud surrounding a person’s identity → Read More
We’ve all been there: the classic group photo, with twelve friends side by side doing their best to look as happy as humanly possible. The first shot is easy — but wait, the guy next to you has their own camera, so it’s time for another one. And then another. Soon muscle fatigue kicks in, and those happy smiles fade into grimaces as everyone wonders why isn’t an easier way to share their photos. Cue Clixtr, a new location-based photo sharing platform that’s launching today at TechCrunch50. The app is available on the App Store now, and you can download it now for $2.99 here. → Read More
The idea of adding a social network to any site is a compelling one. Currently, most sites do this by creating their own networks using service like Facebook Groups and Ning. But those obviously aren’t actually your own site, they are other sites set up under your site’s name. Stribe’s goal is to move the network back onto your site.
The service, opening to the public today at Techcrunch50, provides a free and easy way to place a social networking layer over any site. This layer exists on your site in the form of a bar at the bottom of the page. This is not unlike the Meebo chat bar that you may have seen on this site and others recently. But Meebo was really only about chat (and sharing), Stribe wants this bar to be a full-fledged social network on your site, including members, comments, and yes, chat. → Read More
While Facebook continues to grow, and some companies are getting more comfortable with using it for things like Pages, LinkedIn still fills the gap for users who want a more professional setting for social networking. A new service launching in public beta today at TechCrunch50, Radiusly, wants to take the idea of Twitter and put it in more of a professional setting, as well.
But unlike Facebook and LinkedIn which exist as two totally separate networks, Radiusly wants to integrate its service with Twitter. Users will be able to publish an update they leave on Radiusly to Twitter (and Facebook, as well). But the key selling-point is that in the Radiusly environment you can also do much more, such as have a professional profile, resume, sample works, and photos. → Read More
A lot of people use Twitter to have conversations with others, but that’s not really what it was built for. Initially, Twitter was just supposed to be a place to update what you are doing; the @reply only came around because people started using it to direct a conversation at another user. Now conversations are one of the most interesting things about Twitter, and a new startup launching in private beta today at TechCrunch50, Lissn, wants to build a new platform from the ground up with conversations in mind.
If you’ve seen the video demos or had a chance to use Google Wave at all, Lissn may seem familiar — it has the same type of real-time conversation aspect. The difference, of course, is that this is the main function of Lissn, while Wave is trying to be a lot of different things wrapped into one. Lissn is all about having conversations with people, and allows others to watch, and join in as they’d like. → Read More
Email. Twitter. Instant Messaging. Facebook. Those are just four of the most popular ways to communicate online. And actually, the average 23-year-old has 6 different accounts that they check for messages each day. Maintaining and keeping up with that is either basically impossible, or flat-out impossible. That’s where Threadsy comes in.
Launching its large beta today at TechCrunch50 as a free web app, Threadsy wants to take all of your online communication and shove it into a single service. All of the messages directed at you (email and Twitter @replies, for exmaple) will be put into a single stream of message, called the “inbound” column. Meanwhile, all of the activity streams that you simply follow (Twitter, Facebook, etc), will be put into a single activity stream, the “unbound” stream. The result is one service to rule them all. → Read More
Hark, a new startup that’s launching today at TechCrunch50, is looking to help friends share media and webpages with each other with as little friction as possible. The company offers a browser plugin that makes it easy to share links with friends, as well as interact though an integrated chat room.
The company says that there are plenty of link sharing apps, but when it comes to sharing a link from a webpage, there isn’t really a good way to do it — Emailing, Twitter, and other services can be a hassle. Hark’s plugin sits at the bottom of your screen, with a handful of buttons for sharing and a chat window that slides out of the bar. When you want to flag something as interesting, you can send out a ‘flare’, which immediately sends out a small notice to the rest of your friends that have the plugin installed. → Read More
Darth Vader’s fatherly coming out. Tinanic’s King of the World moment. There Will Be Blood’s sobering lecture on milkshakes.
Whether you want to poke fun at something, embellish a love note, or just prove a point, there’s probably a movie scene out there that can help you do it. People reference scenes all the time in their daily lives, and on the web it’s not uncommon for a blogger to accentuate their post with a particularly relevant clip. But for their popularity, there still isn’t an established site that’s known as the place to find a movie clip — YouTube and Hulu are always worth a shot, but they can be very hit or miss. AnyClip, a new startup that’s launching today at TechCrunch 50, wants to be the solution, with a searchable database of movie scenes. → Read More
One of the best things about the web — its constantly evolving, easily modifiable nature — can also be one of its most frustrating faults. Because usually when a website modifies its content, any changes overwrite what came before it, sometimes without leaving a trace of the old content. Perpetually.com, a new site launching today at TechCrunch50, is looking to solve this problem by offering companies a way to easily back up their sites.
The company says that every year, 5-8% of ‘bookmarked’ content vanishes from the web as pages are modified and removed. Perpetually helps solve this problem by recording a history of every change on your site. And Perpetually doesn’t just keep a copy of this content in an ugly search engine archive — you can actually view the content in context, as it originally appeared on the site. → Read More
Twitter has established itself as the best place to find real time information, but anyone who has tried using its native search engine at search.twitter.com has probably found that it leaves a lot to be desired — aside from the day’s ‘top trends’, Twitter does very little to help surface results that are worthwhile. TC50 finalist Instattant may have the answer. The startup has built a new engine for monitoring real-time news, that can also be leveraged to track brands, ad campaigns, and basically everything else that pops up on Twitter.
The site features an analytics platform that can perform semantic analysis on Tweets as they come in — in other words, it can tell what a tweet is talking about, and if it has a positive or negative sentiment. The site can also identify links and media that are rapidly rising in popularity, and displays headlines in real-time as they come in. For Tweets with media, the site allows users to view photos and play videos inline. → Read More
TechCrunch 50 startup Sprowtt has a radical, yet potentially compelling idea launching today—the startup lets ordinary startups and small businesses conduct a “Sprowtt IPO,” which is basically similar to the traditional IPO process.
Via Sprowtt, anyone can participate in the funding of companies. Potential investors log on to the site, set up a profile with detailed financial and bank account information. Then they are given a list of companies they can invest in based on their financial capabilities. Investors can check out videos of startups, the amount of money the startup has already raised, and their products and see detailed business plans, on which investors can share their comments. Potential investors can also access the offering circulars and shareholder agreements for the startup. → Read More
The online medical records space is growing fast; with Microsoft, Google and others trying their hand at products that could eventually become the go-to platform for accessing health records online. TechCrunch50 startup Glide Health, which was spun off from Transmedia, is hoping to give these tech giants a run for their money with its web, desktop and mobile apps that provide a centralized repository for patient records. Glide Health’s web and desktop apps hold patient profiles (which can be created by the patient or doctor) that contain pertinent medical information such as insurance information, family medical history, doctors, past test results, past surgeries and procedures, x-rays and more.
This browser app is based on the same synchronization engine that powers Glide’s previously launched collaboration OS software; however, this product has been specifically designed for the healthcare space. Today, Glide Health is launching an application for patients, doctors and healthcare professionals to access and manage healthcare from their desktops or mobile phones. All the data syncs no matter where it is updated across legacy patient management systems and databases. → Read More
Mental illness is a more common affliction in society than most people think. But, many people are embarrassed to admit and confront their mental illness. According to TechCrunch50 startup BreakThrough, one in four American adults have a mental illness but two-thirds of Americans don’t get proper treatment. BreakThrough hopes to provide an easy and private way to connect mental health providers with clients for therapy via video, phone or the web through their newly launched platform.
On BreakThrough’s site, clients can search for providers (including psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses) on a variety of criteria, including price, speciality (i.e. depression, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder), and gender. On a provider’s page you can see his or her education, experience, pricing for services, the insurance the professional accepts, and even a video introduction of the provider explaining his or her specialities. BreakThrough certifies all providers are credentialed professionals. → Read More
Now more than ever, personal finance education and help is crucial to anyone’s financial health. Mint.com, a former TechCrunch 40 company who won the top prize at the conference, has grown incredibly since its launch and was recently acquired by Intuit for $170 million. TechCrunch50 startup LearnVest is serving a different purpose when it comes to online finances; the startup focuses on helping users, particularly women, organize their finances and learn how to become financially savvy. It’s kind of like the online version of financial planner Suze Orman.
When you first log in to LearnVest, the site will ask you a series of questions about your financial health (i.e. how much credit card debt do you have), you life stages (i.e. do you rent, are you planning a family soon, do you own a house) and your financial education level (i.e. have you checked your credit score lately). LearnVest will use all this information to diagnose your financial health and education level and will then give you a snapshot of what you need to learn and improve. → Read More
Online event planning and invitation platform Evite was on the forefront of innovation—ten years ago. TechCrunch50 startup Cocodot is hoping to be the Evite of this generation of web technology, serving a style-conscious, eco-friendly event platform that people and brands can use to create an online presence for celebrations.
Cocodot’s platform, which is targeted towards women, is a one-stop-shop for event planning and invitations. You can create a high resolution, chic, stylish invitation (that can be printed as well), a vertical event pages, guest management tools, seating charts, and a directory for event planning vendors. When you create event, you can build an event homepage that aims to be a social conversation hub. Once you create an invitation, you can import your contact lists from Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and other contact managers and email services. Cocodot also lets you send links to the event homepage and invitation to Facebook, directly from the platform. → Read More
For any business, from a startup to a large company, mundane, yet time-intensive tasks like transcribing video or removing spam comments from blogs, can be a waste of employee time. TechCrunch50 startup CrowdFlower CrowdFlower provides Labor as a Service (LaaS) by letting clients access an always-on, scalable workforce.
Unlike traditional methods of outsourcing and hiring, CrowdFlower’s web offering lets businesses instantly access thousands of workers without picking up the phone. Here’s how it works. If a company has a transcribing task, the administrator can fill out a task form on CrowdFlower. Once all the fields are filled out, CrowdFlowers will price the task based on the amount of time it takes to perform the assignment per unit. The startup will break the task into units that can be performed by a single person and price the task accordingly. → Read More
Coding is a highly competitive industry where programmers are often pitted against each other based on level of skill and ability. TechCrunch50 startup Trollim has created a competition platform and social network for programmers that assesses their coding skills through coding battles.
Users are identified as “trolls” on the platform and once a user signs up, he or she fills out a profile that includes their age, location and coding language skills (C++, Ruby, PHP etc.). Trollim then gives the user 3 to 6 pieces of code, or a “test,” to fix to asses their baseline level of skill and based on the results of this test, the user is given a skill level of 1 though 5. Once a user has been assigned a skill level, he can then start challenging other programmers on the site to one on one battles, where trolls have to fix different pieces of code, or “rumbles,” where multiple programmers participate in a battle. As you win battles, Trollim’s proprietary algorithms will evaluate your skills and increase your coding skill level. Trollim says that you can search for users by country, skill level or age, letting users battle a variety of other programmers. Users can also see statistics and metrics on their skill level and improvement. You can also publish your ratings as a widget to a blog or web site. → Read More
