The Latest from Rip Empson
IAC-Backed Skyllzone Launches A New Fantasy Sports App That Lets You Play “The Machine” In Quick, Byte-Sized Contests
Spurred on by its entry into the digital and mobile age, the fantasy sports world is booming. From the fact that a hilarious and increasingly popular show based on fantasy sports is about to enter its
One Week With Whistle’s New Activity Tracker For Dogs
Considering we humans now have a slew of gadgets, apps and products at our disposal that allow us to track and monitor our health and daily activity, it was only a matter of time before our best frien
Smarterer Lands $1.6M To Bring Its Skill Testing And Assessment Technology To The Enterprise
In an effort to usher in the post-resume era and make the job application process less of a headache, Smarterer developed a platform that provides job searchers with an easy way to show off their skil
Meet Oppia, Google’s New Open Source Project That Allows Anyone To Create An Interactive Learning Experience
Google has become an increasingly active participant in the world of education, particularly when it comes to exploring the role technology can play in re-imagining the way we learn. With Google Play
With Box, Yelp And Palantir On Board, Piazza Lands $8M From Khosla To Bring Recruiting To Its Social Q&A Platform For Students
As free online social tools now play a central role in how we communicate, interact and manage our interpersonal relationships, and as consumerization sweeps through IT and learning, the traditional b
Fast-Growing 2U Files For $100M IPO, But Is It Poised To Be The Next Big Education Company?
When 2U emerged in 2008, online education was still struggling to be taken seriously. Despite steadily increasing online enrollment, many remained skeptical. Both fairly and unfairly, online education
Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups, But Don’t Expect Him To Launch His Own
After a long tenure at the helm of Y Combinator — during which a summer “bootcamp” for undergrads turned into a Silicon Valley institution, pioneering the “seed acceleratorR
Service That Lets You Order Food Naked, GrubLess SeamHub, Quietly Files For IPO
In May of last year, we broke the news that Seamless and GrubHub -- two of the largest players in the online and mobile food delivery space and "arch rivals" -- were coming together as part of a block
An AT&T For Dentistry? Y Combinator-Backed Weave Launches To Bring Modern Telecom To SMBs
Small businesses, by definition, are lean. With a price tag that includes license renewals, maintenance and upgrades to servers and IT support, the costs of adopting enterprise-grade software and serv
AWS For Life Science? With $4.1M In The Bank, Transcriptic Wants To Reinvent Scientific Research And Bring Labs Into The Cloud
As a biomedical engineering student at Duke, Max Hodak became intimately familiar with the sterile tedium of life in a research lab. Like many others who’ve spent wasted hours of their lives in
With $225M Raised Across 400K+ Campaigns, DonorsChoose Is Using Data To Illuminate Educational Inequity In The U.S.
There’s a lot of debate swirling these days over the best and most effective ways to fix the U.S. education system. With high costs, disappointing outcomes and high drop out rates now rampant ac
Despite High IPO And Solid First Quarter, Chegg Plummets As Investors Worry Over Long-Term Prospects
In November, eight-year-old education company Chegg debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CHGG.” In the days prior, Chegg had priced its initial public offering a
TrueVault Launches To Bring Easy HIPAA Compliance To Startups And Health Apps
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: In an effort to jumpstart the U.S. economy amidst the runaway blight of the “Great Recession” and financial crisis beginning in 2008, C
5K Videos And Counting, Curious Lands $15M From GSV To Help Teachers Monetize Bite-Sized Lessons
Thanks to the proliferation of smart devices, cloud-based services and more fluid content creation and distribution systems, technology is fundamentally changing the way we learn. Not only is it easie
MyHealthTeams Lands $3.3M To Bring Mobile-Friendly Social Networks To Those Living With Chronic Health Conditions
Today, the CDC estimates that there are more than 130 million Americans currently living with a “chronic disease” — in other words, the many types of long-lasting conditions that 
With $20M Raised Among Grads, Israeli-American Accelerator UpWest Unveils Its Latest Cohorts Of Top-Notch Transplants
Depending on whom you ask, Silicon Valley and Israel have either had a long and prodigious symbiotic relationship when it comes to technology and technology companies, or Silicon Valley wouldn’t
Fast-Growing Duolingo Caps Off A Big Year With The Crunchie For “Best Education Startup”
Language learning software has never been particularly “sexy,” nor have its makers managed to produce a bounty of memorable user experiences, for that matter. While it might not be quite r
IBM’s Watson Group Makes First Startup Investment In “Social Health Management” Pioneer, Welltok
Remember Watson? Yes, the artificially intelligent, question-answering computer system developed by IBM that trounced two former champions on Jeopardy like they were a couple of kindergartners. That W
McGraw-Hill Buys Engrade For ~$50M As It Moves Away From Textbooks, Towards A Future Of SaaS
This week, Engrade put the finishing touches on an emblematic story in the world of education startups. In 2003, high school student Bri Holt decided he’d heard enough griping from classmates (a
LinkedIn Snatches Up Data Savvy Job Search Startup Bright.com For $120M, In Its Largest Acquisition To Date
Today, alongside a fourth quarter earnings report in which it beat Wall Street estimates yet again, LinkedIn announced its intentions to acquire data-savvy job search startup, Bright.com, for $120 mil