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Task-Based Marketplace Fiverr Raises $15M From Accel And Bessemer
May 03, 1:49PM
Fiverr, a global marketplace offering tasks and services for as little as $5, has raised $15 million in funding from Accel Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. This brings the company's total funding to $20 million. Merchants, entrepreneurs, contractors and more workers in more than 200 countries use Fiverr to monetize their skills, talents and resources. They can offer "Gigs", ranging from web design, logo creation and market research, to personal greetings and video animation, in Fiverr. Customers can then access these jobs for services they need rendered. Fiverr helps service-providers collect payments, promote their services, manage orders, exchange files and communicate with buyers.Confirmed: Scalado's Camera Tech Is Inside BB10
May 03, 1:45PM
At RIM's keynote earlier this week, CEO Thorsten Heins unveiled a brand new camera app that will ship along with BlackBerry 10. It was quite impressive. It basically lets you snap a pic, select a subject's face, and sift through frames captured before the moment you pressed the shutter button to make sure everyone looks their best. Perhaps the person on the left had a huge, wonderful smile while the person on the right was blinking. With the BB10 camera app, you will be able to fix that. But the tech seemed awfully familiar. So familiar, in fact, that we had to do a little digging to satisfy our curiosity. Come to find that a company called Scalado, known for their super badass imaging tech like Remove and Rewind, actually invented this tech a while back. At the time we were unsure what the relationship between RIM and Scalado was, but RIM has since responded and clarified that this is, in fact, a licensing deal.eBay Adds Barcode Scanning, Personalization, Better Image Quality To New Version Of iPad App
May 03, 1:00PM
eBay was one of the first e-commerce giants to launch an iPad app following the device's debut in 2010. As we've heard many times, mobile commerce is a huge growth area for eBay and the company is placing some pretty big bets on the mobile shopping experience. Today, the company, which says that its mobile apps have reached 80 million downloads, is debuting version 2.0 of its flagship iPad app, Buy and Sell with eBay, which has ramped up personalization, customization, image quality and more. One of the major improvements in the app is a visual redesign of the home screen. Now you can completely customize your home screen with your most recent product searches or sales, which can be added, deleted or moved around based on user preferences. Additionally, first time users of the app will login and find their "My eBay Items" already populated to the home screen.FreeAgent Acquires Financial Software Startup 60mo; Lands Investment From Lightbank
May 03, 12:59PM
UK-based cloud accounting software company FreeAgent has acquired finance-tracking startup 60mo. The U.S. startup's team will be incorporated into FreeAgent's new American division. FreeAgent has also received an additional, undisclosed investment from Lightbank, which also was an investor in 60mo. This is Lightbank's first international investment, says the firm's partner Paul Lee. 60mo, which we've covered here, is an online service that helps businesses manage their finances by importing data from QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and a variety of financial institutions like Bank of America, Chase, and American Express. Once the data is in the system, you can use 60mo to create financial projections, manage your business's budget and share the data with your accountant or investors — it's sort of like a Mint for businesses.Better Late Than Never: Deezer Releases APIs To Court Developers In Latest Bid To Catch Up To Spotify
May 03, 12:16PM
Music streaming provider Deezer is one of the bigger (and older -- it's been around since 2006) services of its kind, with some 20 million registered users in 48 territories, and 15 million tracks in its catalog -- but it has failed to capture mindshare in quite the same way as rival Spotify; and some might argue that this will make it harder in the long run for Deezer to keep up and grow. Today sees the launch of the company's latest attempt to turn that situation around: "Open Deezer," a new set of APIs for iOS, Android and Java-based web apps, which it hopes will help it bring on a new raft of developers to create music services around its platform.Evernote Raises $70M At A $1B Valuation To Prep For An IPO, And The Next 100 Years
May 03, 12:00PM
It's official. To transition from a startup into a late-stage company that aims to be around for 100 years, Evernote today confirms it's raised a $70 million Series D round of funding at a $1 billion valuation. Meritech Capital and CBC Capital were chosen to lead the round because they're the firms that can help Evernote prepare for an eventual IPO. Evernote doesn't need the money. It still has much of the $96 million that it's raised to date in the bank plus over one million paying customers out of its 25 million+ users. But now Evernote will have the cash to isolate itself from short-term market conditions. The Series D will also fund international expansion, including a push in China, strategic acquisitions, the development of business accounts and other features, and hiring of developers, designers, Q&A, and support. But just because it's maturing, Evernote has no plans of slowing down. I interviewed CEO Phil Libin about what the future holds for Evernote. He assured me "This funding keeps is us in the sweet spot to take risks. This is the most creative stage for the company."Visage Mobile Raises $8M From Motorola Solutions, Qualcomm To Help Companies Manage Employee Wireless Devices
May 03, 12:00PM
Visage Mobile, an enterprise mobility management company, has raised $8 million Series C funding led by Motorola Solutions with Worldview Technology Partners and Qualcomm Ventures participating in the round. The startup has raised a total of $16.1 million to date. Visage Mobile's SaaS application, MobilityCentral, basically lets businesses have control and visibility over all of the wireless devices and spend within their companies. The service will organize how many wireless devices are being used in your company, which employee is using a device, your company's monthly wireless spend and how your wireless spending breaks down. Additionally, Visage Mobile helps businesses set policies to govern employee usage of smartphone and mobile broadband.Khosla Leads $25M Round In Enterprise Cloud Storage Company Nirvanix
May 03, 11:59AM
Enterprise cloud storage provider Nirvanix has raised $25 million in Series C funding round led by Khosla Ventures with previous investors Valhalla Partners, Intel Capital, Mission Ventures and Windward Ventures participating in the round. The new investment brings Nirvanix's total capital raised to $70M. Nirvanix is a fully-managed, enterprise cloud storage service capable of storing, delivering and processing storage requests. It's an alternative to Amazon Web Services, or Box.net. The company specializes in storing amounts of large unstructured content files, and offers usage-based pricing across public, hybrid and private cloud storage deployments.Rdio Does A Super Weird Stealth Launch In The UK And France
May 03, 10:23AM
Rdio has launched in the UK and France with a 7-day free trial of unlimited listening. Rdio hasn't officially announced this, but it's working. You can sign up for a free trial and stream. The cost is £4.99 a month in the UK for web-only streaming, and £9.99 a month for unlimited streaming and mobile access. This is comparable with Spotify's pricing.New Finds At TNW Shows Europe Is Nailing It
May 03, 10:20AM
European startup conference The Next Web (and now competing blog, hello guys), which took place in Amsterdam last week, was covered in full by seven TNW bloggers who wrote over 30 posts about all major announcements, speeches and competitions. More posts are coming according to its European editor and ex-TechCruncher Robin Wauters, but in the meantime here is our TechCrunchy take on the conference. I will start off by naming a few startups I thought had interesting concepts or products, even though they did not quite make it to the list of the winners, or did not participate at the competition altogether. So that's an issue for the organisers to address next year. I will then follow up with a list of the hottest companies in tech according to Robert Scoble, and inevitably list the winners of the TNW Startup Rally.AdInsight Raises $2.6M From Eden Ventures For AdTech That Bridges Online And Offline Analytics
May 03, 10:00AM
A lot of adtech startups have focused their attention on ways to improve the process of measuring, buying and delivering online ads, but here's an example of a company getting some traction for a solution to gain a better sense of how a company's online activities relate to what customers do to interact with the company offline: the UK-based AdInsight, which connects a user's browsing history with how he then interacts with the company on a phone, has picked up £1.6 million ($2.6 million) in a Series A round from Eden Ventures. The investment is the first round of funding for AdInsight, which has been around since 2008 and counts TUI Travel, Thomas Cook, RAC and British Gas among its customers.One Year On, Passion Capital Proves Its Mettle As A Go-To Seed VC In Europe
May 03, 9:01AM
Although it's a year this week since Passion Capital appeared on the tech scene in London, it feels like they have been around a lot longer. It was in July 2009 I sat on the sun-kissed roof of what became known as their White Bear Yard base in London's Clerkenwell, having had a tour of a vast empty warehouse space which three noted tech angels planned to fill with their invested startups. Unlike one or two other tech angels I knew, these guys were something of a breed apart. A laid-back German ex-DJ who had killed it in ecommerce, a cool-calm-collected Brit veteran of the Internet and a former Valley maven who had seen the early days of Skype. We expected interesting things from these three musketeers and we got it. Many of their early investments are now seen as Passion Capital portfolio companies, but in truth, whatever the brand they work under, the special sauce that Eileen, Robert and Stefan brings to the party is the essential ingredient.Android Is Either "Winning" Because Apple Is Letting It, Or Losing
May 03, 6:41AM
In September 2010, I wrote a post that ignited an absolute shitstorm around these parts. "Shitstorm" in this case meaning a post with a thousand comments, the majority of which were spewed up by rabid Android fanatics. The title of that post: Is Android Surging Only Because Apple Is Letting It? At the time, we were in the midst of a massive Android surge to the top of the smartphone ecosystem food chain. This was happening all around the world, but the focus of this particular post was the U.S. market. Based on some comments made by developer David Beach at the time, I wondered if, as the title suggested, Android was only doing so well in the U.S. because the iPhone was still only available on one carrier, AT&T? It's time to revisit that thought because there's now absolutely no question that this was the case. There's now data to back it up. What's more, despite what some surveys suggest, this trend may have fully reversed itself.7 Startups Launch Out Of NewMe Accelerator's Spring 2012 Demo Day [TCTV]
May 03, 4:59AM
The NewMe Accelerator, a startup incubation program founded last year aimed at under-represented minorities in the tech world (namely African Americans, Latinos, and women), held its second-ever Demo Day today for its latest class of entrepreneurs.I Can Haz Self-Expression? Turn Drawings, GIFs, Songs, Anything Into Websites With The New Hive
May 03, 3:08AM
You don't have to be an artist to make art, or a comedian to make lulz...at least not on The New Hive, where you can create one-off websites by drag-and-dropping any type of content. Upload some pics of friends, draw mustaches on them, and embed a ridiculous soundtrack from SoundCloud. Lay your latest YouTube creation on a bed of animated kittens. Or get serious and publish your photography portfolio with contact info and links to your other sites. We're all creative, The New Hive's page editor just makes expressing it easier. Be one of first people in its private beta. Sign up code below.Where Klout Meets Kickstarter: Wahooly Lands Angel Round
May 03, 2:16AM
Now that everyone and their mother can invest in startups, hundreds of crowdfunding portals are starting their engines. Wahooly happened to jump on the trend early, soft-launching back in September, before the buzz. Well, when we say "early," Wahooly is by no means a prime mover compared to the likes of Kickstarter, but it still has the advantage of a headstart -- if it can capitalize. Today, as part of that move to capitalize (literally and figuratively), Wahooly is announcing that it has raised some funding of its own, in the shape of $750K in seed funding. The investment comes from a host of angel investors, including serial entrepreneur and Kalfa Equity Group Founder Joe Kalfa, Middleman Founder Jamie Dewar, and Shawn Bruins, among others -- all of whom are eager to give Wahooly the fuel it needs to test its crowdfunding experiment.Community Hospital Joins Wave Of New Strategic Venture Funds To Drive Disruptive Innovation
May 03, 2:00AM
This first part of a two-part series on strategic investors in healthcare focuses on the expansion of the venture business beyond traditional venture and large strategic investors. In the second part, I will outline the backdrop for the investment thesis that strategic healthcare investors are using to guide their capital allocation. Healthcare providers are finding their "play it safe" culture isn't conducive to breakthrough innovation at a time when it is critically needed. Having spoken with several innovation groups in health systems, most examples of "innovation" are decidedly uninspiring. Primarily, it is due to the fact that virtually all of their decisions have to go through the prism of how new ideas will fit with current businesses -- pretty much a guarantee that will doom so-called innovation to be little more than incremental improvements. Consequently, increasing numbers of hospitals and health systems are smartly allocating money to venture funds that have free reign to find truly disruptive new businesses.Who's The Best Job Candidate? Recmnd.Me Ranks Them For You
May 03, 2:00AM
Why is everyone trying so hard to reinvent the hiring process? Maybe because referrals and recommendations (still the main way people get jobs) remain incredibly old-school. Sure, there are LinkedIn recommendations, but does anyone trust those? (God, I hope not, since I have zero.) It's really all about phone calls and emails. Now a startup called Recmnd.Me is unveiling a new recommendation and ranking system that might actually help companies find the best candidate for the job.Bullseye: Googler Chris Cheng Wins 'Top Shot' Reality Show Competition
May 03, 1:45AM
Sometimes it seems like techies are just taking over the world, doesn't it? The latest cool example of this: Chris Cheng, the Google project manager who also happens to be an expert-level marksman, just took the grand prize on the History Channel's popular reality TV sharpshooting competition show Top Shot. TechCrunch TV talked to Cheng last month when there were still four episodes left until the winner was announced,Blurb, The Custom Book Printing Startup, Is Tossing Its Hat Into The E-Book Ring
May 02, 11:53PM
Blurb has had a good amount of success as a disruptive player in the "traditional" publishing space. The San Francisco-based company, which lets anyone write and publish a physical book at relatively affordable prices, has built a profitable business with more than 100 staff and more than a million paying customers since it launched to the public six years ago. But according to founder and CEO Eileen Gittins, Blurb wants more. Blurb is expanding into the e-book space this summer, gradually rolling out a software platform that will allow people to create and distribute multimedia-enabled digital books. So why is Blurb going into an industry in which even huge, established publishing players have notoriously had serious difficulties making money?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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