Sprightly, a newly launching startup whose founding team has an extensive history working in female-focused businesses, including Refinery29, Etsy, Chloe+Isabel, and others, is debuting its content aggregation platform on Monday, with a focus on verticals like fashion, beauty, design, decor, and more. TechCrunch has early invites (see below). → Read More
Editor’s note: Michal Tsur is a serial tech entrepreneur, having co-founded online security firm Cyota and open-source video platform Kaltura, where she is currently president. Leah Belsky is a fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, where she contributes on online collaboration and technology policy, and is currently SVP of Kaltura.
The blossoming tech startup… → Read More
Pranav Dharma, a former IBM engineer, self-described “fashionable” geek, and founder of new women’s apparel startup Modington, thinks that today’s online e-commerce sites don’t reflect how women really shop for clothes and accessories. So he decided to create one. Enter, Modington.
“I was inspired by observing how my wife shops,” says Dharma, “she would get a dress, then started hunting for… → Read More
In the business world, where male CEOs outrank females in both numbers and pay, the occurrence of a pregnant Fortune 500 CEO isn’t just a novelty, it’s a first. Unfortunately, the announcement of Mayer’s personal decision on her maternity leave (she’s taking just “a few weeks”) has also ended up becoming an inadvertent and sad statement about what it means to be female, successful and… → Read More
NYC-based Adore Me, yet another player in the subscription-based e-commerce business, has raised a second round of funding totaling $2.5 million. Investors in the new round included Redhills Ventures, U.S. angels, plus Jaina Capital and Ventech Capital, two funds that specialize in Internet, information technology, communications technology, and green startups.
Since its start in November… → Read More
The women’s liberation movement once taught ladies to cast off their bras in solidarity and empowerment; now a new startup, founded by two women, is inverting that formula to make sure that when you put it back on, that bra fits like a glove.
True&Co is launching an online bra fitting service and shop that takes a very traditional (and tedious) process — finding bras you like that actually… → Read More
It has been a week since the Facebook IPO, with a whole lot of drama in the aftermath about the glitch with Nasdaq (and the legal implications), and questions about how much traders have lost as a result, while the share price has fallen: from a start of $38 it is now $32.79 in pre-market trading. But in a speech earlier this week to the 2012 graduating class of Harvard Business School… → Read More
When it comes to fashion, women have embraced products that were originally designed for men. Flip through any J.Crew catalog and you’ll encounter the Boyfriend Jean, Boyfriend Blazer, unisex ankle boots, and of course the classic men’s shirt paired with skinny jeans.
When it comes to tech? Not so much. In the predominantly male tech world, products are usually, by default, designed by men… → Read More
Women Innovate Mobile (WIM), the new accelerator aimed to help promote companies started by female entrepreneurs, is ready to debut its first class. Like other incubators, WIM provides mentoring, support, free office space, and seed funding. Participants in the program receive $18,000 to help get their companies get off the ground.
Except unlike the majority of other programs, WIM requires not… → Read More
Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Dave Chase, the CEO of Avado.com, a patient portal & relationship management company that was a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist. Previously he was a management consultant for Accenture’s healthcare practice and founder of Microsoft’s Health business. You can follow him on Twitter@chasedave.
I can’t think of a product or service that both… → Read More
Today, a new startup accelerator for women, the Women Innovate Mobile (WIM) Accelerator, is opening its doors for applications. The program will start off small, offering two to five companies seed funding of $18,000, plus mentoring, support, and free office space in New York during the course of its three-month program. → Read More
Editor’s note: Guest author Bindu Reddy is the CEO of MyLikes, a word-of-mouth ad network funded by former Googlers.
When we were raising our angel round, I had a phone conversation with a prominent Silicon Valley investor who did not have time to meet me face-to-face but was interested in investing in MyLikes because I was a female entrepreneur—aka the “diversity candidate.”
While… → Read More
Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Aileen Lee, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Aileen focuses on investing in early stage consumer internet ventures and previously worked at Gap, Odwalla, The Northface and Morgan Stanley. She was also founding CEO of KP-backed RMG Networks. Full disclosure: some of the companies mentioned below are KP-backed companies. You… → Read More
In any debate, it is easy to revert to anecdote and highlight examples that exemplify one point of view. Recent TechCrunch posts about women in tech have done just that. The latest of these claimed that women don’t want to run startups, because they’d rather have children. I can understand why: TechCrunch and its editors focus on the Silicon Valley/Web 2.0 world. In this world, most… → Read More
My company, Brazen Careerist, is moving from Madison, WI, to Washington, DC, where our new CEO lives.
Running the company has been absolute hell. Not that I didn’t know it would be hell. It’s my third startup. Each has had its own hell before we were solidly funded, but this one was so bad that my electricity was turned off, and I really thought I was going to die from stress.
So while my… → Read More
It’s not the first “women-only” camcorder out there, but JVC’s Everio GZ-HM350 (announced [JP] today) has surely the best specs. It’s not based on an existing model but rather one of three new full HD camcorders JVC announced today (the black and silver models have the same specs as this special version). → Read More
Panasonic yesterday announced [JP] what it says is the world’s lightest full HD camcorder, the HDC-TM35. Sized at 51.5×107.5×57.5mm and weighing just 185g, the device is mainly targeted at women and will be available in white, purple, grey, and “gold”. → Read More
I am quite used to controversy—unsurprisingly, given the topics that I have been exploring with my academic research. But what has really been a surprise is the hornet’s nest that I seem to have stirred up with my two TechCrunch posts and BusinessWeek column on the dearth of women entrepreneurs. At every event I’ve been to recently, women have come up to me to say thanks for raising… → Read More
Sony Japan today announced [JP] a new digital camera that’s specifically geared towards women. Technically speaking, the DSC-W530D isn’t really a new device (it was unveiled earlier this year in Japan and is available for $200 in the US, too). But Sony changed the design to (possibly) make the Cyber-shot more appealing to female customers. → Read More
Are you a woman? Are you sick of seeing all those manly USB sticks around you every day? Then these four new models announced [JP] by Buffalo in Japan today might be right for you. → Read More
Women, Hispanics and blacks have always been underrepresented in the ranks of the Valley’s tech companies. A new analysis by the Mercury News shows that from 2000 to 2008, the proportion of women tech workers in Silicon Valley dropped from 25.3% to 23.8%, and that the national numbers dropped from 30% to 27.4%. In 2008, blacks and Hispanics constituted only 1.5% and 4.7% respectively of the… → Read More
So I was browsing Pravda, as I do from time to time, when I stumbled upon this fascinating story. It seems that women are far more likely to read a gadget’s instruction manual than men. It’s the old, “men never ask for directions” bit, yes. → Read More
Leave it to the Daily Mail to bring this controversy to light. What is it all about, you ask? A Brazilian designer has created lingerie that has built-in GPS. This has caused women’s rights groups to freak out, alleging that that the designer has created nothing more than a modern day chastity belt. Since it has built-in GPS, men—husbands and boyfriends—theoretically will know… → Read More
First Sega Toys girls-only portable audio player, now this: The PowerShot E1, a new digital camera from Canon [JP], specifically made for women. The company has presented a few new cameras in the last days but this model is unique in its own way: Canon says it used relaxation, positive feelings and friendliness as the main guidelines for the design of the camera. The PowerShot E1 comes in three… → Read More
Someone took the time to throw together a render of a portable hard drive for girls, the Costume. Overtly targeting girls with technology can be dangerous proposition; dipping a phone in pink and calling it “for girls, now!” usually has less than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere, but Costume seems to have been designed with care. It’s supposed to match all the… → Read More
A recent survey by Swedish computer magazine PC för Alla, (PC for Everyone) reportedly found that women get more frustrated than men over just about every aspect of computers and using the Web. While many women could say they find men more frustrating than computers, since we don’t speak Swedish its unclear whether the magazine included that question. Here’s Pingdom’s breakdown of the… → Read More
A new study has found links between cellphone use during pregnancy and behavioral problems in children later in life. Just the type of news the cellphone industry wants to hear, I’m sure. The study, conducted by UCLA and a Danish university, sampled some 13,000 kids. It found that children whose mothers had used a cellphone “two or three” times a day had increased likelihoods of… → Read More
Doug Aamoth and Peter Ha here in Hugh Hefner’s private loft on the 34th floor of the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. Nine girls will be competing for the title of “Miss Mobile Playboy” as a kickoff to Playboy’s second generation of mobile content. → Read More
Great post by JAS on women in gaming. As in any industry, when it get’s big it only wants to get bigger. How do you do this? Easy. Find what demographics are not the biggest fans and make something to convert them into fans. The question is, when your weakest demographic becomes the majority target will the majority suffer? Women. Women have consistently been targeted as the weakest demographic… → Read More
Belkin announced today the launch of two products benefiting the fight against breast cancer. It has pledged 10 percent of the proceeds from a new pink iPod nano Sport Armband and the “Hope” Remix Metal Nano case. Belkin will give a minimum of $100,000 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The items will be available on May 6 for $30 each. Here is your opportunity to wear pink and not feel… → Read More
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