As video becomes increasingly important to the media business (to the point where it’s become a cliché), a startup called Vidrovr aims to help publishers find the most relevant videos to go along with their content. So if I’m writing an article about, say, controversial comments from a tech CEO, I could use Vidrovr to search for footage of other times that the CEO discussed the… Read More
MyMusicTaste, a Seoul-headquartered service that lets fans campaign to bring their favorite artists to their city, plans to double the concerts it organizes next year after raising an $11 million Series C. Read More
Sramana Mitra: Trace the process of building Quantic Mind till this point. Take us to the very beginning of what was going on in the industry. What signals were you picking up from the market that...
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Entrepreneurs are invited to the 375th FREE online 1Mby1M mentoring roundtable on Thursday, November 9, 2017, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/9:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur,...
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When a company is looking for a candidate for an open role, the hiring manager is probably going to rattle off a bunch of qualifications that they’re looking for to a recruiter — and Kanjun Qiu says recruiters will probably just run with that when the manager’s requirements might not actually be so rigid. It’s that intent from the manager — the idea that the… Read More
Airbnb continues to be an ecosystem in its own right, with a number of startups building a business by making the lives of hosts easier and potentially more lucrative. One such company is London-based Hostmaker, an upmarket Airbnb management service, which today is announcing $15 million in Series B funding. Read More
According to Gartner, the global spending on information security products and services will grow 7% this year to $86.4 billion and to $93 billion by 2018. FireEye’s Financials Sun Microsystems’s...
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Sramana Mitra: Fantastic. That’s your big hit from the product company. You’ve built about $18 million worth of revenue across these three businesses. I believe you have raised some financing. Can...
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Mojiworks, the U.K. startup building games for messaging apps, has raised £2.1 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Balderton Capital, with participation from previous backers Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone Capital, and will be used by the company to increase headcount as it double-downs on developing multiple titles for Facebook Messenger. Read More
What do you get if you combine the Internet of Things with the business of home insurance? U.K. startup Neos is hoping the answer is damage and/or theft prevention rather than just after-the-unfortunate-fact payouts. Read More
Monzo, one of a number of “challenger” banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, continues to be on a roll, both in terms of user numbers and now a significant new funding round. Read More
Swag, especially good swag, can be important. That’s where Swag.com comes in. The company aims to be a way for companies to get quality swag to help people rep their brands. “People think of swag as junk, but it shouldn’t be,” Swag co-founder Jeremy Parker told TechCrunch. “It could be an amazing marketing tool if it’s built right.” Read More
Boxed offers the online equivalent of the bulk shopping offered at stores like Costco. But big discounts aren’t the only thing the company’s focused on. Boxed introduced automation to its Union, New Jersey fulfillment center earlier this year, installing a system where the items for shipping are transported to the people doing the packing — without eliminating a single job. Read More
The used-car market seems ripe for disruption, not least in terms of customer service and creating a better experience online. However, if recent events are anything to go by, it is a hard nut to crack. Following Carspring going quiet, another U.K. car-buying startup looks to be shutting. According to sources, London-based Hellocar has ceased trading. Read More
We’re doing a deep dive into the current seed investment eco-system and talking to our investor friends about what they’re looking for. The Seed eco-system is now a 5-stage process, spanning...
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A new iOS app, Album+, is taking advantage of the increased AI capabilities and GPUs in modern iPhones to help people better manage their photos. It can de-duplicate photos, for example, as well as categorize the people, places and objects it finds in your images. Album+ organizes and ranks photos using on-device, offline machine learning — there’s no need to connect with the cloud. Read More
Chaitanya and his co-founders bootstrapped an MVP and then went on to raise $35 million in several rounds of funding. The company is now over $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue. Sramana Mitra:...
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Music artist Kehlani is getting into the tech business and she’s tapped Arlan Hamilton’s Backstage Capital for funding. Backstage Capital, the venture capital firm focused on funding people of color, has invested $50,000 in Kehlani’s stealth startup, Flora. The idea with Flora is to focus on health and wellness for the artist’s target audience of people between the ages… Read More
For entrepreneurs interested to meet and chat with Sramana Mitra in person, please join us for our informal group meetup this month. If you are living in the San Francisco Bay Area or are just in...
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Ink, a Nebraska-based startup focused on revamping on-campus printing, has raised $7 million from VTF Capital, SQN Venture Partners, Invest Nebraska and NE Angeles. This brings total funding to $15 million, with previous participation from advisors Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Greg Silverman of Warner Brothers. Read More