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Fashion Retail And Styling Platform JustFab Seeing Over $100M In Revenue And Expanding Internationally
Apr 26, 1:30PM
JustFab, a fashion retail and styling platform, is announcing a number of new metrics today, including over $100 million in yearly revenue as well as international expansion. JustFab was incubated by Intelligent Beauty in March 2010 and has since grown to over 2.5 million members. Similar to sites like ShoeDazzle and BeachMint, JustFab operates a monthly distribution model.AHAlife Raises $10.1M To Curate And Sell Hard-To-Find, Luxury Products From Around The World
Apr 26, 1:10PM
AHAlife, an e-commerce site for hard-to-find and exclusive luxury lifestyle products, has raised $10.1 million in Series B funding, led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, with DCM and FirstMark Capital also participating in the round. This brings the company's total funding to $19.1 million. As we wrote in our review of the site, AHAlife introduces one new product a day in editorial format through its email list, tells the story about how the product was made, who made it, and where it came from while allowing you to also purchase the product. Products span fashion, food, beauty, travel, accessories, home décor, tech, and travel experiences.Another Crowdfunding Player Enters The Fray: Apps Genius Launches GetFunded.com
Apr 26, 12:59PM
This may not have been the U.S. government's exact intention when when it passed the crowdfunding-friendly JOBS Act, but you have to wonder if it has also jumpstarted the number of crowdfunding sites out there competing for entrepreneurs' and consumers' attention. The latest comes from the social and mobile games developer Apps Genius -- (in)famous for its scatalogical riff on Angry Birds, "Angry Turds" -- which today announced that it is launching a new crowd-sourced funding site, GetFunded. Like Kickstarter and many others, GetFunded will be a "crowdfunding platform for entrepreneurs who are seeking new investments in their businesses and ideas," according to a statement from App Genius. Adam Kotkin, the CEO of Apps Genius, clarifies that just because his company is focused on games, this doesn't mean that GetFunded will be, too: it's aiming for everyone and everything. He tells me the site will be launched in the coming weeks.Ikea Reveals A Cute Cardboard Digital Rangefinder Camera
Apr 26, 12:35PM
Ikea is seemingly getting serious about consumer electronics. First there was the new home theater line and now a digital camera. But the two are slightly different. The disruptive HDTV system, UPPLEVA, is a serious entry into a stale market. The digital camera is, well, cardboard. And cheap. But still awesome.Shape Security: Kleiner Perkins & Eric Schmidt Lead $6M Round In Stealth Security Startup
Apr 26, 11:29AM
Big corporations have been riddled by security attacks over the past year, and hackers seem to be growing even bolder and more resolute. As a result, market research firm The Radicati Group said that it expects the corporate web security market to grow to $2.5 billion over the next four years. It's in this climate that a young, stealth startup is trying to put companies back on the offensive, and some notable Silicon Valley investors are buying in. Mountain View-based Shape Security is announcing this morning that it has raised $6 million in series A financing, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's TomorrowVentures. Accel Partner Peter Wagner, Sequoia Limited Partner Guarav Garg, Baseline Ventures, and unnamed executives at LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook also participated in the round.Yandex Q1 Earnings: Revenues Up 51% To $200.3M, Net Income Up 53% To $43M
Apr 26, 11:10AM
Yandex, Russia's biggest search company, has posted Q1 earnings, with revenues up 51% to $200.3 million, and net income up 53% to $43 million. The results beat analyst expectations: on average analysts expected revenues of $194.64 million, with earnings per share of $0.15 (low $0.13; high $0.16), but other numbers may still give investors pause: Yandex's share of the search market in Russia, its largest market by far, is now at 59 percent against competition from Google and others: last year it was closer to 65 percent.ZestCash Debuts New Big Data Underwriting Models To Determine Consumer Credit Risk
Apr 26, 11:00AM
ZestCash, a company founded by former Google CIO and VP of engineering Douglas Merrill to legitimize the payday loan industry, is announcing a new patent pending credit decisioning model to better analyze credit risk. ZestCash also introduced Hollerith, a new set of underwriting models that allow the company to extend credit to 25 percent more Americans and increase repayment from customers by 20 percent. ZestCash takes an entirely different approach to underwriting by combining Google-style machine learning techniques and data analysis, combined with traditional credit scoring. As a result, the company can offer credit to many people who historically would have been turned away. The company allows users to borrow between $300 and $800 in what are called 'payday loans' and is currently available in five states— Wisconsin, Utah, Idaho, Missouri and South Dakota.Comparing Pre-IPO Facebook To Pre-IPO Google: Fair, Or A Case Of Apples And Oranges?
Apr 26, 10:38AM
Facebook, in its updated S-1 released on April 23, dazzled us with more milestone user numbers: 901 million monthly active users, and 500 million on mobile. But it also reported a decline in revenues $1.058 billion compared to $1.131 billion in the quarter before -- due to seasonality, Facebook explains. And perhaps more importantly, annual revenue growth is slowing, and in Q1 2011-Q1 2012 was 44.7 percent, nearly half of the 88 percent the year before. Some new data from Privco teases out those revenue growth numbers even further by comparing Facebook's financials to those of pre-IPO Google, in an attempt to show that it is not seasonality but a more particular issue with Facebook. The picture is not pretty.Opera 12 Beta Launches, Loses Voice, Unite and Widgets
Apr 26, 6:00AM
Opera is launching the first official beta of the next version of its desktop browser today. As usual, the Opera 12 beta includes a number of new features and enhancements, but also marks the end of some of the company's more ambitious projects. With Opera 12, the company is ending support for Unite, the browser's built-in personal cloud/streaming media platform that made its debut in 2009, and Opera Widgets. With this version, Opera is also phasing out support for its speech recognition, text-to-speech and VoiceXML technologies.Confirmed: Galaxy S III To Pack Samsung's New 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad Processor
Apr 26, 4:54AM
Samsung has been doing their damnedest to keep their next Galaxy phone under wraps, but there's one thing they just couldn't keep quiet about -- the processor. The Korean electronics giant announced not long ago that their new 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 Quad chipset would be the one to power their next big smartphone, which is expected to be unveiled in London on May 3.Finally, Professional Social Network LinkedIn Gives Users An iPad App
Apr 26, 4:00AM
Although the iPad has been available for more than two years, LinkedIn has yet to offer its users a native app despite the fact that mobile engagement has been growing at a fast pace for the network. But last August, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said that the company is doubling down on its mobile strategy. And the network then debuted new versions of its iPhone and Android apps as well as an HTML5 mobile site. In fact, LinkedIn now says 22 percent of its active members have been visiting on mobile devices. And today, LinkedIn is finally launching its native iPad app to the public. As LinkedIn's head of mobile products Joff Redfern explains, the app was built with the user and tablet interface in mind. Since the iPad has become a leanback experience, LinkedIn wanted to make sure that the app satisfied iPad users' needs. Via the web, LinkedIn noticed that iPad users were visiting the site mostly in early in the morning, which they call a "coffee session," and in the evening, between 7 pm and 11 pm. With this data, the company wanted to build an application that allowed professionals to start the day and end the day with LinkedIn.Hasbro Goes After Blogger In IP Theft Case
Apr 26, 3:30AM
You'd never think that the world of Nerf guns and dart shooters was so intense, but Hasbro apparently sued a blogger for leaking information about unreleased Nerf products he found on Chinese marketplace Taobao using the sweetest bait imaginable: free Nerf guns. Urban Taggers is a blog about "assault blasters" for "kidults." Essentially they cover Nerf guns and the like and are fairly popular in the space. The lead blogger, Pocket, ran a review of an unreleased gun. A few days later, he received a note from Hasbro offering some guns to giveaway to his readers. Eager to share the blaster love, he agreed and sent his address. That's when his troubles began.Amazon May Finally Be Ready To Battle Apple In China With Kindle Debut
Apr 26, 2:41AM
Are Amazon's Kindle tablets and e-readers ready to break into the world's biggest market? We've spotted some Chinese Help documentation for Amazon Kindle devices on the company's China-facing site in a sign that they may be coming for real this time. Even though the online documentation vanished, we have a screenshot of Google's cached version of the site (see below). Amazon's China office declined to comment.Apple's Mothra Quarter Was Actually More Impressive Than Their Godzilla Quarter
Apr 26, 2:38AM
Two quarters ago, Apple unleashed Godzilla. It was a quarter so spectacular that the only appropriate way to describe it was in pure expletive form. $46 billion in revenue. $13 billion in profit. 37 million iPhones sold. 15 million iPads sold. A gross margin of 44 percent. These weren't just good numbers, they were obscene. That's what made yesterday's earnings release insane: Apple almost managed to match those numbers last quarter. While pound-for-pound, Apple's Q1 is the clear winner, I actually think Apple's Q2 was more impressive. It was Apple's Mothra.ShopLocket Promises Customers They Can Sell Anything, Anywhere
Apr 26, 1:38AM
A new startup called ShopLocket says it's ready to serve people who want to sell things online, but don't need to create a full-blown storefront. Supposedly, co-founder and CEO Katherine Hague was part of that group herself. She wanted to sell some T-shirts on her blog and website, but she didn't need to create a full-blown Shopify store, nor did it make sense to pay the $29 monthly fee. With ShopLocket, she wanted to create something that was simpler and more affordable, while still looking professional.EdgeRank Checker Hustles, Builds Tool Just Five Days After Facebook Real-Time Insights API Goes Live
Apr 26, 12:45AM
Facebook quietly released an API for its new real-time Insights last week that lets developers build tools that allow companies to track news feed post performance, virality, and negative feedback. Just five days later, EdgeRank Checker has just released a dashboard for monitoring this data so clients can publish the best possible content on their Facebook Page, and earn the biggest return on their social media investment. Before Facebook even announced the real-time Insights API, my scoop on its coming launch kicked EdgeRank Checker into high-gear. Founder Chad Wittman tells me "when you broke the news about real-time coming, I had a million great ideas. Now is the time to implement as many as possible." We hustle all day on the news here at TechCrunch, so we like to see when developers put the same passion into their code.Socialcam Just Added Millions Of New Users, So It Tweaked Its App To Make Them Stick Around
Apr 26, 12:10AM
Socialcam, the "Instagram for video" iPhone app that spun out of user generated video sharing pioneer Justin.tv last year, has had a pretty crazy past week. A Hacker News post aimed at recruiting engineers for the company said that the app added four million new users over the past weekend alone -- I'm hearing word that Socialcam's total user count has pushed past 10 million -- and the company is part of the most hotly pursued YC classes from an investor standpoint. You'd think that Socialcam's three-person team would be totally overwhelmed. Well, they probably are -- but they're still apparently shipping lots of app updates.18+ Million Users And 17+ Million Tracks Later, Leaked Spotify Recruitment Deck Offers Peek At First Sketch Of UI
Apr 25, 11:54PM
Spotify has been busy as of late, launching brand apps, adding more social functionality through a partnership with Turntable.fm competitor Soundrop, overhauling its Android app, adding a Play button, and more. And it seems that the company has hit a few more scaling milestones recently: According to AppData, there are more than 18 million monthly active users now on the Spotify platform. While Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wouldn't confirm the AppData number, he did say that the company was at 17 million tracks and 700 million playlists across the platform.MarkaVIP Secures $10 Million As The Middle East Takes Off
Apr 25, 11:04PM
Online private sales burst onto the scene a few years ago in the shape of Vente Privee in Europe and, later, Gilt in the US. It's a model we all know and love - and it's rapidly proving a model with which emerging economies are, well, rather obsessed. I was just recently in Istanbul where you can almost throw a stone and be sure of hiting a private sales startup entrepreneur. And from there, and across the Middle East and North Africa (known as MENA), online businesses are growing like weeds. And some investors know it. Thus today MarkaVIP, a runaway private sales success story in the Middle East has completed a $10 million Series B funding led by European venture firm Prime Ventures. It's joined by participation from New York City-based Invus Financial Advisors (IFA), Antwerp-based Hummingbird Ventures, and San Francisco-based Lumia Capital.Never, Ever Promote From Within
Apr 25, 9:30PM
My father, Alfred "Bud" Weiss, owned a car dealership — "Bud's Cadillacs" of Miami, Florida. When I'd drop by the office, he would usually pepper me with bits of business wisdom, but as a kid, I wasn't very receptive. My head was usually buried in a comic book, only half listening. However, there was one story that stuck with me and I have struggled to make sense out of it throughout my business career: "Son, you never, ever promote your best salesperson to be the sales manager. This is a classic mistake that other car dealers make. A bunch of my top producers came from their failed attempts as sales managers at other places. You commit two wrongs with these promotions: First, you take your top producer — someone raking in two to five times the average salesperson — off the sales floor. Second, you put them in a new job that they are totally unqualified to do successfully. This usually ends in disaster for everyone involved."If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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