Today’s 381st FREE online 1Mby1M roundtable for entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, January 11, at 8:00 a.m. PST/11:00 a.m. EST/9:30 p.m. India IST. Click here to join. All...
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Alphabet, the umbrella corporation of Google, Inc. etc., has quietly acquired a UK-based startup called Redux, reports Bloomberg. Redux was founded in 2013 out of Cambridge, and built technology that uses vibrations to turn surfaces of phones or tablets into speakers or provide haptic feedback. The acquisition is reflected on Crunchbase, and in confirmed transfer of shares within U.K.… Read More
According to a Research and Markets report, the global Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games market was worth $26.9 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $44.6 billion by 2022 at a CAGR of...
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Recent Sphero spinoff Misty Robotics brought a decidedly non-consumer-focused device to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week. The Misty I Developer Edition is the first baby step for a startup with even grander ambitions than the one that gave birth to it. In June, the company announced a $11.5 million Series A led by Venrock and Foundry Group to aide in its plans to build a… Read More
Lisbon-headquartered Unbabel, a startup that has developed what it describes as an “AI-powered, human-refined” translation platform that makes it more cost effective to conduct business globally, has raised $23 million in Series B funding. Read More
Sodexo, a French publicly-listed food services and facilities management company, has acquired a majority stake in Paris-based online restaurant and food delivery startup FoodChéri. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, though François Paulus of Breega Capital, which backed the company’s €6 million Series A, tells me he is “happy with the return”. Read More
A glitch on Overstock’s website allowed users to send amounts of Bitcoin Cash to Overstock when the system was expecting Bitcoin, leading to drastic discounts on many items. Given that BTC is about $14,000 and Bitcoin Cash is $2,400, the mistake could have been quite costly. Originally reported by Brian Krebs, the exploit allowed you to send the required amount of BTC in Bitcoin Cash.… Read More
Optimizely helps businesses test out different ways to make their websites or apps more effective — but, as vice president of Product Management Claire Vo put it, how do you go from “five experiments per week to hundreds and thousands of experiments per week”? Read More
Sramana Mitra: Can you look at the 2017 deal flow, and talk about where are the pockets where there are good companies in Europe right now? Is it France? Is it Portugal? Is it Stockholm? Is it Spain?...
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January 10, 2018
My partners and I just announced that our long-time friend and LP â Jamey Sperans â has joined Foundry Group.
Weâve been working with Jamey since the beginning of Foundry Group in 2007 (he was one of our first LPs via Morgan Stanley AIP) and have become extremely close friends.
Jamey and his family have moved to Boulder, so in addition to working with us, heâll become a part of the extended Boulder/Denver startup community.
We are delighted to have Jamey in town and on our team. If you want the backstory, take a look at the post on the Foundry Group site titled Introducing Our New Partner â Jamey Sperans.
Also published on Medium.
Sramana Mitra: How do you charge? Prashant Srivastava: Employers invest about $50 a person a year in our technology to help get the right benefit to the right person and get value for their $10,000...
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Startup entrepreneurs interested in seeking financing should learn how seed investors decide what to invest in. Different investors look for various qualities in the entrepreneurs and startups that...
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According to The 2017 Americas Alternative Finance Industry Report, the alternative finance market across the US, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean has grown 23% to $35.2 billion in 2016. A...
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Bugsnag, the cloud service that helps developers find bugs inside their software, announced a $9 million Series B today. They also released a new version of their dashboard that features a stability score than can give customers an unbiased grade of the current stability of their software. Let’s look at the funding first. Investors included first-timer GV (formerly Google Ventures)… Read More
Some ideas you hear and they immediately make sense. Some take a minute, but the more you think about them, the better they seem. Euveka, a mannequin for clothing designers that can change shape and size in seconds, is the latter — and I think it may eventually be a standard item in any fashion studio and a fair few other industries. Read More
Lacrosse is a physically demanding sport under the best conditions, but inclement weather adds frozen hands to the mix. Samantha Wolfe had enough of it and, as a 14-year-old freshman, thought, “why not make a heated stick?” Three years later, her idea has become a reality — the FingerFire lacrosse stick — and is being tested right now by teams in colder climes. Read More
It turns out that in case of a fire in your home, a closed door is the best barrier against spreading smoke, heat and flames. But who’s going to run around the house shutting doors? LifeDoor is a simple gadget that sits on your doors’ hinges and closes them automatically (and gently) when smoke is detected. It’s kid safe and firefighter approved. Read More
Goodlord, the London ‘proptech’ startup that has built a software platform to handle transactions and the “paperwork” normally associated with renting a home, has laid off nearly 40 employees, while TechCrunch understands from sources that co-founder and CEO Richard White will soon be leaving the company. Read More
i.am+ is a strange company — of course, we’d expect no less from a startup owned by Black Eyed Pea turned tech entrepreneur, Will.i.am. Probably best known for its gaudy Buttons headphones and the largely panned Puls smartwatch/wrist-band dealie, the company has been making some strange and seemingly disparate moves of late. At Dreamforce back in November, it announced that it… Read More
January 9, 2018
Yesterday, my partners at Foundry Group announced financial support for the Timeâs Up Legal Defense Fund.
We strongly believe that sexual harassment is unacceptable in any form. While there can be a debate about whether sexual harassment is about sex, power, or something else, thereâs an additional pernicious element of it when the harasser threatens to sue the person being harassed. This extends the harassment and reinforces the issue around the power dynamic, especially when the harasser has much more financial resources than the person being harassed.
My partners and I were considering establishing a VC / Entrepreneurs Sexual Harassment Legal Defense Fund. When we saw the launch of Timeâs Up and the Timeâs Up Legal Defense Fund, we decided to financially support this activity and try to create a sub-group for the tech industry. As a starting point, Foundry Group is contributing $100,000 to the Timeâs Up Legal Defense Fund and Anchor Point Foundation is contributing $100,000.
In addition, we are reaching out to VCs and Angel Investors that we know to see if they will join in our effort. If you are a VC or Angel Investor who wants to financially support this effort, please
Finally, for some inspiration, watch Oprah Winfreyâs powerful speech at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards.
Also published on Medium.