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David Lee and Ron Conway Bust Entrepreneur Myths on Stage at Disrupt
May 23, 3:28PM
Entrepreneurs are inherently individuals, so rolling their experiences up into trends isn't easy. That's made worse because 95% of the returns come from 5% of the companies. So what everyone does, doesn't really matter. It's what that 5% does that really matters. David Lee and Ron Conway of SV Angel has done a deep dive into the top of the top of their portfolio and confirmed some basic wisdom and busts some of the bigger myths. The biggest thing we all knew was that cofounders tend to do better than single founders; more controversial will be the finding that younger founders do better. That's a hotly debated idea at TechCrunch, and the key is looking at companies that either have had or are expected to have outsized results. When it comes to the macro-startup economy, that's what keeps all of us in business. Although there was some debate over whether 25 is really the optimum age, as some Valley investors have said in the past. After all Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams were older than that, as was Groupon's Andrew Mason. The slides don't always provide easy answers. For instance: Repeat entrepreneurs do disproportionately better according to the data; but so do young entrepreneurs. When do they have time to get all those previous ventures under their belts? Do paper routes and lemonade stands count? The most shocking slides are embedded below.
Ron Conway and David Lee Hint at New Fund. By "Hint" I Mean Mike Breaks Their News For Them
May 23, 3:20PM
Here's the awful thing about having Mike Arrington as an investor in your fund. You don't get to control over when you announce it. Arrington is on stage with Ron Conway and David Lee of SV Angels right now, and he's being a bullldog in the best sense of the world. He asked about the firm's new fund and Lee said "We aren't supposed to comment on it, so no comment." To which, Arrington said, "Well I'm an investor in the fund." Guess it exists. The new fund will co-invest with Yuri Milner in backing every single Y Combinator company that will take their money. In the last class 43 of 44 took the deal. The one who didn't was Likealittle, which had already raised money from several VCs including SV Angels. Thirteen of those have raised additional rounds.
Revealed: The Huffington Post Wanted To Buy TechCrunch Back In The Day
May 23, 2:56PM
My boss, Michael Arrington, sat down with his boss (and my boss as well), Arianna Huffington for a brief chat at TechCrunch Disrupt, where Huffington revealed that she tried to 'merge' the Huffington Post with TechCrunch before AOL bought us last September. Of course, now we are all one big happy family now that AOL also scooped up The Huffington Post for $315 million, and we are both now part of the Huffington Post Media Group, too. 
Textingly Adds Live Chat And Twilio Hosting To Beef Up Realtime Customer Interaction
May 23, 2:55PM
There are a lot of startups out there trying to make SMS messaging more affordable. I won't even name them all here. But, I'd argue there isn't a clear market leader as of yet, so with the right team, the right product, and a full suite of services, there still seems to be plenty of room in this space to be successful. Since Textingly launched at the first TechCrunch Disrupt last May, the startup has raised $650K, partnered with the New Jersey Nets, and expanded its team. It also officially left beta last month, announcing that it had attracted 6K small business customers to its SMS messaging platform. As you may have guessed, Textingly is a text message management tool for businesses that aims businesses to manage all of their SMS interactions with customers. The Textingly platform handles message delivery on both outbound and inbound text messages, contact list management, and reporting. It is all opt-in and consumers scan start, pause, or stop the messages at any time.
Dennis Crowley's Mom Actually Bought Him That Gap Ad Outfit
May 23, 2:45PM
Local darling and Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk to Mike Arrington about anything but acquisitions, partnerships, valuations or the rumors of a possible Groupon partnership or anything that's you know, breaking news. But what Dennis did talk about? "You're a bit of a rockstar here," said Mike Arrington. "I don't really see it that way," responded Crowley. In rejoinder Arrington brought up Crowley's Gap ad from last winter. "Is modeling taking up a lot of your time? How much makeup do you have on in that picture?" Arrington bombarded him with the hard hitting questions. 
Kleiner Perkins Invests $15M in Rent the Runway
May 23, 2:44PM
Rent the Runway's slogan might as well be: Friends don't let friends wear H&M to the most important events in their lives. The company solves the perennial "closet full of clothes and yet nothing to wear" problem that most women face, by allowing them to rent designer clothes for a big event for about 10% of the price. It's clearly a problem women have. The question-- like most rental businesses like Zipcar-- is how many women want to rent clothes as the solution. So far, there's at least one million active users, spanning a wide demographic of women, from 15 years old to 45, says Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway CEO and cofounder. "That was a surprise," she says. "Initially we thought it would be only young women in their 20s." 
Kobo Introduces New Touchscreen E-Reader, Drops Original Model To $99
May 23, 2:35PM
Kobo launched as a Borders-based alternative to the Kindle hegemony, and while their e-reader was perfectly decent, I wouldn't say it was feature-competitive with Amazon's latest. They've announced today a new device that may not match the Kindle (or its rumored tablet successor) on all fronts, but it's at least distinct and definitely worth looking at. Yes, a touchscreen e-reader for a reasonable price is finally available. One of the fundamental issues with nearly all e-readers is having to navigate by d-pad or keyboard while the slow e-ink screen refreshes. The new Pearl displays have mitigated that inconvenience, but it's still unintuitive and sluggish. The Plastic Logic touch e-reader we got all excited about a couple years back proved to be too rich for its own blood, and while Sony has been touting its touchable e-readers for years now, they've been expensive, stylus-based, or both. This Kobo eReader Touch is $129, which I think is more than competitive.
Always Optimistic HP Says "Touchpad will be better than number one"
May 23, 2:29PM
HP's upcoming tablet, the Touchpad and not the PalmPad in case you missed the memo, will be better than number one. You could call it number one plus. That's exactly what HP's European head recently stated at a conference in Cannes and this silly quote is now spreading around the gadget blogosphere. The Touchpad will likely be a great; HP doesn't make bad hardware. It will likely be solid, reliable and well built. That's not good enough, though. Look at Honeycomb tablets right now. Most of those, especially the Xoom, fits that description yet it can't find a footing in the still-niche market. It's all about the ecosystem and I'm very curious how HP thinks the Touchpad will overtake the iPad and the App Store.
Foursquare To Power INQ Mobile's Location Based Services
May 23, 1:55PM
INQ, one of the first partners to add the Facebook layer to its Cloud Touch phone has announced today that it will be using the Foursquare location layer to visualize location content for its users. The Foursquare INQ phone will have all of the requisite Foursquare features, including checkins, places nearby, tips, to do, all powered by the FourSquare API. "Playing with this phone," said Foursquare "It feels pretty amazing to see what INQ has done with its API. Because it's built directly into the Android system, you can check in and explore without even firing up the application.
Fred Wilson: Be Your Own Bitch
May 23, 1:43PM
At TechCrunch Disrupt, Erick Schonfeld interviewed prolific investor Fred Wilson, an early investor in Twitter, Foursquare, and Zynga. When Schonfeld asked him about the Twitter ecosystem, and the company's recent moves to discourage app developers from building Twitter clients, he replied with this one liner, "Don't be a Google Bitch, don't be a Facebook Bitch, and Don't be a Twitter Bitch. Be your own Bitch." Wilson and Schonfeld directly discussed the advertising ecosystem, and Wilson commented that with Twitter's advertising plans, the company is heading towards a possible collision with advertising startups who have developed revenue models around ads on twitter (i.e. Ad.ly, 140 Proof). 
Fred Wilson More Or Less Confirms Twitter Stock Sale, Says Secondary Sales Often "Prudent"
May 23, 1:33PM
To kick off TechCrunch Disrupt today in New York, Erick Schonfeld took the stage to interview investor Fred Wilson, of Union Square Ventures. For background, Wilson was early investor in Twitter, Zynga, Foursquare, Tumblr, and Etsy and is also a prolific blogger. Wilson sort of revealed that Union Square Ventures has sold some of its stock in Twitter. When Schonfeld asked if he sold stock in Twitter, he said he didn't really want to comment on that but he then he added that generally speaking he wouldn't argue with news reports out there that he has sold Twitter stock. 
Video Ad Network Tremor Media Launches Analytics Platform For Marketers
May 23, 1:30PM
Tremor Media, one of the largest video ad networks on the web, is launching a new product today to give marketers more insight into how video ad campaigns are performing. The Tremor Video Hub is an advertising console that helps marketers measure, track, and report what's driving performance of their video campaigns. Video Hub not only lets marketers see where their videos are running, but, through the use of Tremor Media's SE2 technology, gives them insight into which campaigns and destinations enhance a brand, what sparks viewer engagement, and why a campaign is working. The Video Hub automatically analyzes the content, environment, demographic characteristics and delivery metrics to help pinpoint the right time to deliver and advertisement to a specific type of viewer. 
Lerer Ventures Raises Second $25M Seed Fund for NYC Startups
May 23, 1:20PM
As we kickoff of our second annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference, we're clearly not the only ones who think there's a substantive ecosystem brewing here beneath all the hype and the froth; Lerer Ventures is announcing the closing of its second seed-stage venture fund today. The total is $25 million, mostly from friends, families and small family investment groups.The fund comes 18 months after Ken Lerer, Huffington Post co-founder, and his son Ben Lerer, Thrillist co-founder, decided to organize all the one-off angel investing they'd been doing around the New York scene into their first formal fund. They raised $8.5 million back then on the hunch that New York needed its own uber-tapped in "Ron Conway of the East." Nearly two years later with a portfolio that includes GroupMe, Greplin, Hyperpublic, and last year's Disrupt winner Qwiki, they think they've proven it.
There's another big announcement with the new fund: Eric Hippeau, formerly the CEO of the Huffington Post, is joining the firm full time to run it.
Eightfold Logic Launches InboundWriter, A Social Writing App, And Raises $2 Million
May 23, 1:00PM
Lazy bloggers and other online content creators from around the world, rejoice, for Eightfold Logic (formerly Enquisite) is today debuting a cloud-based social writing tool dubbed InboundWriter that should make it easier for you to create relevant and shareable online content. The company has also announced that it has raised $2 million in Series C funding from existing investors, including Rho Canada Ventures, Castile Ventures, Formative Ventures, and The Entrepreneurs' Fund III. The new financing brings the total capital raised by Eightfold Logic to nearly $20 million.
TechCrunch Disrupt: Watch It Live!
May 23, 12:43PM
While there's no replacement for actually being at TechCrunch Disrupt, we realize that not everyone can make it for one reason or another (like me, for example, due to massive volcanic activity). As such, we're happy to offer the next best thing: a full live stream of the event. We've embedded the stream above, be sure to tune in at 9 AM ET. Additionally, you can also watch the videos we shoot for TechCrunchTV and ones tagged with the #tcdisrupt hashtag. We'll be doing video interviews backstage with guests throughout the event so be sure to check back often.
GTT Acquires PacketExchange For $20 Million In Cash, Debt
May 23, 12:08PM
Global Telecom & Technology (GTT), a global carrier and network integrator, has acquired privately-held UK company PacketExchange in an effort to scale its business internationally. GTT will pay up to $20 million in cash and assumed debt to buy PacketExchange, which serves approximately 500 customers (carriers, ISPs, etc.). PacketExchange is said to generate over $20 million in annualized revenue post-acquisition.
The TechCrunch Disrupt NY Drinking Game: Day One
May 23, 12:04PM
It's that time of the half-year again! Time for TechCrunch Disrupt - or as it's officially titled this year: AOL-HuffingtonPost-TechCrunch Disrupt, Part III: Back In Training. For me, the highlight of the event is when Heather and Mike take to the stage and announce that they're selling the company to someone ridiculous (this year my money's on 4Chan!). For the rest of you, though, I know the real reason you sit glued to the live stream all day is to play The TechCrunch Disrupt Drinking Game. You should know the rules by now: round up some friends, grab a bottle and follow the simple instructions below. Or as the Bard would have it said: Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with vomit down our shirt! 
The List Of Startups Launching At TechCrunch Disrupt New York
May 23, 11:50AM
We are only a few hours away from kicking off the third TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York and we are thrilled to announce the 29 startups that were chosen out of nearly 1,000 applicants to pitch ideas and applications over the next few days. We will also hear pitches from the two StartupAlley companies that receive the most votes over the next two days. You can watch the livestream here. These startups will battle it out over three intense days, with one of these companies eventually taking home $50,000 and the official Disrupt trophy.
Crunching Some Data After 3.5 Years Of Seedcamp
May 23, 11:45AM
It's been over 3.5 years since Seedcamp was launched to help establish Europe as a great place for startups, and how things have changed since then. >From where I'm standing, the European startup scene appears to be alive and kicking, and although we're still very, very far from Europe being a perfect place to launch a business in many regards, I remain hopeful about the chances of major technology companies booting up around here in the next decade and beyond. Anyway, Seedcamp is one of the 'local' projects I most admire, and today they're sharing some numbers and facts - long overdue if you ask me - that underline just how important a role they play in the European startup ecosystem.
Lightbank-Backed Gtrot Wants To Socialize Travel Planning On Facebook
May 23, 11:40AM
Gtrot, a service that leverages Facebook to help people make traveling decisions, is announcing a new round of funding from Lightbank. The company is declining to reveal the exact size of the round but says it is under $1 million. Founded by Brittany Laughlin and Zachary Smith, Gtrot helps users source travel plans, deals, tips, and recommendations from other friends via their social graph. For example, if you are visiting Paris and need travel advice, you can use Gtrot's Facebook app or site to see which of your friends have been or live there, so you can reach out to them to get personalized advice and recommendations.
Disco, Google's Secret Group Messaging App, Gets Pushy With Version 2.0
May 23, 11:03AM
Google seems to be going out of their way not to promote Disco, the group messaging app built by Google's Slide team. When we first revealed the existence of the iPhone app and website (at disco.com) in March, Google wouldn't comment on it. A few weeks ago, they released an Android version of the app as well. Was it touted on a Google blog anywhere? Nope. And yesterday brought version 2.0 of the app. Again, nada. So we'll do Google's job for them and tell you that version 2.0 of Disco is a nice upgrade. When we did a first look at the app, we noted that while it looked nice, it was fairly limited because it relied solely on SMS. Version 2.0 adds the ability to move away from SMS as use Push notifications to receive messages.
Bleacher Report Hires New Head of Revenue; Traffic Continues to Surge in May
May 23, 10:59AM
Bleacher Report-- one of the few new entrants in the sports content category to get significant traction against the portal giants-- is continuing to build out its management team, announcing an important new hire today. Rich Calacci joins the company as chief revenue officer. Calacci was most recently senior vice president at CBS Interactive in charge of the sports vertical-- one of the big incumbents Bleacher Report passed in traffic last year. A sharp-talking, uber-connected, always-be-closing sales guru is exactly what Bleacher Report needs at this point. It has done the brutal work of building a content site to critical mass-- publishing some 600 pieces of content a day, sending newsletters to more than one million daily subscribers and boasting monthly uniques just shy of 20 million. By mid-May the site was showing its longest ever time-on-site and its lowest ever bounce rate. Quantcast has called it one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet, and it has nearly doubled its audience year-over-year, says CEO Brian Grey.
TechCrunch Disrupt, Indeed
May 23, 9:59AM
TechCrunch Disrupt kicks off in New York City in about 3 hours. So naturally I'm sitting in a bar in Iceland. Why? Well, the entire story is kind of long and many parts are probably more appropriate for a Paul Carr book than this post. But the keyword is "Grimsvotn". Yes, it just so happens that a giant volcano under Vatnajokull (Iceland's largest glacier) decided to give us the biggest eruption in over a century on Saturday. Obviously, this um, disrupted, my Sunday flight to New York City. So here I am.
Former Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy Joins Eventbrite's Board Of Directors
May 23, 9:37AM
On the heels of raising a whopping $50 million in venture capital, Eventbrite will announce today that former Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy has joined the company's board of directors. McCarthy was Netflix's chief financial officer for nearly 12 years, from before the DVD rental company went public and during its transition to a hugely popular Internet video streaming service provider. Netflix recently reported $719 million in revenues for the first quarter of 2011. Barry McCarthy stepped down last December, following "a desire to pursue broader executive opportunities outside the company".
Tesco's Dunnhumby Buys BzzAgent For $60 million
May 23, 9:00AM
Tesco's wholly owned subsidiary Dunnhumby has acquired Boston based BzzAgent for around $60 million, we've confirmed. The companies will announce the acquisition today but is not disclosing the terms of the deal. And no, I didn't make up any of the words in that first sentence. This is just how companies name themselves today. BzzAgent was originally founded way back in 2001, and bootstrapped itself until 2004 when it raised a $750,000 angel round. In 2006 they added another $13.8 million in funding from General Catalyst and Flybridge. They have 64 full time employees, and another 200 contractors managing the BzzAgents.
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