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Ancestry.com Agrees To $1.6 Billion Buyout Led By European Private Equity Firm Permira, Says WSJ
Oct 22, 8:47AM
Genealogy website Ancestry.com -- which filed for an IPO back in 2009 -- has agreed to be acquired by an investor group led by European private equity firm Permira in a deal said to be worth about $1.6 billion, or $32 per share, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The paper cites "people familiar with the matter" who point to expansion in Western Europe as a goal.London VC Love-In: Index, Balderton, Eden, Passion Capital & Others Holding Joint Office Hours This Week
Oct 22, 8:30AM
A bit like waiting for a London bus, you wait forever to pitch a London VC, and then nine turn up at once. In what appears to be somewhat unprecedented, and perhaps signals a new era of co-operation, nine London VCs have joined forces to hold a shared office hours this Wednesday, offering a fantastic opportunity for local startups to (finally) get in front of and pitch to a VC. Almost the entire London VC scene will be presented, including the likes of Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, and Eden Ventures, along with newer VCs on the block, such as Passion Capital, and EC1 Capital (see full list below). What’s most noteworthy, however, aside from this unusual (and slightly nauseating!) VC love-in, is that each firm is being represented at Partner or Principal level. In other words, by the people that actually make the decisions. The office hours are being held at White Bear Yard, this Wednesday 24th of October, between 2-4pm. Slots are still available — ten minutes each — so I suggest that if you’re a local startup or can make it to London, you grab one quickly. The full list of VCs represented is as follows: Passion Capital (all 3 partners) Index Ventures (principal) Balderton (principal) PROFounders (partner) Notion Capital (partner) Eden Ventures (partner) Connect Ventures (2 partners) EC1 Capital (partner) #1Seed (partner) I’m told that the idea of a joint office hours on such a scale, came about when Index Ventures and Passion Capital began talking about doing something together and it escalated from there. Of the well-known London VCs, notably missing in action is Accel and DFJ Esprit, though I’m assured this is purely down to calendar availability and that we can expect more combined office hours in the future, with one already being planned for December 11th.Rent The Runway Turns Customers Into Models With New Search Feature
Oct 22, 4:00AM
Rent The Runway, a Netflix for designer clothes, accessories and jewelry, is debuting a new way for women to search for designs to rent on the site.Backed or Whacked: Kick the Cook
Oct 22, 3:00AM
Companies keep trying to affix touchscreens to our refrigerators and develop more infomercial-friendly variations of the blender, but the kitchen still remains a relatively low-tech sanctuary. Even as we hurtle toward a Wall-E-era existence of complete automation and leisure, the simple joys of preparing a meal in one's own kitchen can be invigorating. And while Kickstarter has begun to contribute to the endless array of convenience products aimed at simplifying our food preparation and serving experience, some haven't survived the chopping block.Getting Started With The Raspberry Pi Is Not As Easy As Pie
Oct 22, 1:47AM
The super low cost computer called the Raspberry Pi is mind-blowing and awesome. As TechCrunch recently reported, the $25 to $35 mini computer on a circuit board is designed to give kids around the globe an easy way to learn computer programming. But the Raspberry Pi is not like a computer you get from Apple or pickup at the local Best Buy. It's not as simple as plug and play. It takes a bit of extra work and time. And you need to be a hacker before you can get it working.Urwerk UR-210 Watch Hands-On: It's An Extremely Expensive Exercise Reminder
Oct 22, 1:33AM
Luxury Swiss watch maker Urwerk is among the few top watch brands that can excite both gadget lover and traditional watch enthusiast alike. Their secret is consistently pushing forward in terms of modern design as well as technical innovation. Their new UR-210 timepiece might look like a spaceship, but is really just a gadget to tell you that it is time to get off your butt and exercise. It is nevertheless beautiful, and precision-made.Kickstarter Record Breaker, USA Underwear Maker Flint And Tinder Gets $850K Seed Round From Zappos' Tony Hsieh, Lerer And David Tisch
Oct 22, 1:19AM
Hold on to your pants: the rush to fund innovative fashion companies that are building out their businesses online continues apace. Flint and Tinder, a maker of premium, made-in-the-USA men's underwear that first had its debut on Kickstarter, has now raised a seed round of $850,000 from an impressive list of investors, including Tony Hseih and Fred Mossler from Zappos; Lerer Ventures; and David Tisch, formerly of TechStars.Beyond Their 10 Blue Links, Google's And Bing's Search Strategies Diverge
Oct 21, 11:00PM
Not too long ago, Google and Bing seemed fully focused on adding as many social features to their search engines as possible. For Google, that meant adding lots of Google+ features and for Bing it meant making the best out of its exclusive relationship with Facebook. Since then, though, it seems the two search engines' strategies have changed, with Google slowly deemphasizing social search and Bing going all in by adding more social features than ever.PSA: The Dot In Your Gmail Address Doesn't Matter
Oct 21, 10:00PM
Somewhere out there, a woman named Sarah Perez is probably very frustrated by technology. No, not me, a different Sarah Perez. She signs up at websites to receive information, and it never comes. Friends invite her to gatherings, and she never hears about it. She tries to reset her password, but the password reset never arrives. You see, Sarah's problem is that, since around 2008, I've been getting her email.Defining A Growth Hacker: Building Growth Into Your Team
Oct 21, 9:00PM
In this series titled "Defining a growth hacker," I will be exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the fourth post of the series. The previous posts are as follows: common characteristics here, growth hacking's impact on marketing here, and impact on product here. Paul Graham reminded the startup community that it is in the business of growth. "A startup is a company designed to grow fast," Graham writes. Though growing a business is a universal desire, implementing growth is unique to the product, the market, and the company. Nabeel Hyatt, venture partner at Spark Capital, said that there is no single way to grow a company. Execution is a startup's fingerprint: distinctive and hard to replicate. A growth hacker's role is not static but constantly adapting to the organization's needs. Building growth into a team starts with adopting a culture of growth, recruiting the right team, and implementing with the right corporate mindset. Adopting a culture of growth Valuing "growth" is more than just filling a position. It operates like a fundamental value or a "creed" that the rest of the organization uses to prioritize decisions. "Growth is not just the concept of 'how do I market this?'. Rather, it is a company belief and value," said Hiten Shah, co-founder of KISSmetrics. From day one, company culture is being fastened and formed. Inserting growth creed at a later point in time requires more energy and time to implement, which slows down learning. "At the founder level, a growth hacker designs product around inherent distribution and sets a data-driven culture," said Matt Humphrey, co-founder of Homerun. "This is probably the most important phase of a company." Adopting a growth creed at any point in time requires trust in the process and continuous internal advocacy. When it comes to growth, results require patience. The founder is the best person to integrate the creed into the organization, allocate resources and establish the organization's vision on growth. "Growth has to be part of the culture from day one," said Jim Young, co-founder of HotorNot and Perceptual Networks. "It is much harder to staple on a growth team when there is an entrenched development process that is not as metrics oriented or fast-paced. A growth hacker works best as a founder, since they will be able to establish the culture forVCs Don't Like Content: Here Are Three Reasons Why
Oct 21, 8:00PM
In Silicon Valley, there's a widespread belief that VCs don't invest in content businesses. Here are 3 reasons - based on my experience with Hyperink - why investors hesitate to invest in content-heavy startups.Post-Facebook IPO: What VCs Are Looking For In The Next Great Social Network
Oct 21, 7:00PM
Editor's note: Joe Medved, a partner at SoftBank Capital, focuses on early-stage consumer and enterprise mobile, social marketing, gaming, and commerce investments. He serves on the boards of BestVendor, CrowdTwist, Jump Ramp Games and Thumb. SoftBank Capital's other investments include BuzzFeed, Buddy Media, The Huffington Post and Omgpop. You can follow Joe on Twitter @joevc or read his blog at www.joemedved.com. As recent doubts have been cast upon Facebook in response to its stock market dip, it's interesting to take a step back and look at the company from a different perspective. Despite the precipitous fall of Facebook's stock price post-IPO, the company continues to grow at a rapid pace globally and sees high retention of new users, with over half of monthly active users coming back daily. In October 2012, Facebook announced hitting 1 billion monthly active users (MAUs), meaning 1 in every 7 people on the planet log into Facebook monthly. The company's leadership in engagement is also undeniable; the average user is spending over six hours on the site each month. However, as the world shifts from Web to mobile, there has been a lot of scrutiny as to how Facebook will monetize mobile users. Investors are now looking out for social companies that can build upon Facebook's success in engagement and growth, and learn from the company's weakness by driving monetizable behaviors on mobile devices. Data from AppData To maintain its dominance as the world embraces a mobile focus, Facebook spent a hefty price on adding Instagram to its wheelhouse. Since being acquired, Instagram has grown dramatically, shooting from 35 million registered users to over 100 million registered users in just 6 months. Instagram continues to show strong user numbers and mobile engagement, with 7.3 million daily actives and 257 minutes spent on the mobile app each month as of August 2012. Given the current social media landscape, investors have seen a number of social services with similar potential appear over the past several quarters. Many have demonstrated rapid growth but have lacked scalable long-term value, such as social video apps like Viddy, Socialcam and Cinemagram to name a few. As recently debated by Paul Graham, Fred Wilson, and Mark Suster, growth is tricky. Graham warns against running out of possible users so fast that the great growth suddenly stops, or falsifying growth by counting inactive users, "bleeding out invites at a regularly increasing rate." SusterIterations: The Harsh Realities Of iOS App Distribution
Oct 21, 5:00PM
In this post, I'm going to try illuminate a tactical problem many application developers face, but unfortunately, I must claim upfront that I don't know if any solution exists without a fundamental change occuring. The topic for this week's column is to peel back the layers on mobile app distribution in Apple's iOS, and in doing so, hopefully illuminate areas developers can exploit given the treacherous conditions that currently exist. As is the case with many of these kinds of posts, I'll get a few disclaimers out of the way. First, I'm focusing on the iOS app ecosystem because that's what I've been mainly exposed to. Yes, I have tried Android products in the past and I do recognize its open system allows developers to build things faster and with less restrictions than would be the case within Apple's universe. Second, I'm going to ask readers to, for this post, to put aside iOS apps that are games, communication utilities, extensions of large brands (I'm sure Target has a large install-base), native Apple apps (like iMovie), especially those that come preloaded, and basic utility apps like Fandango (for movie tickets) and so on -- the apps that have the most downloads and the most competition. It goes without saying that these types of apps are downloaded most often, so with these cast aside for a moment, how do the rest of us who aren't Instagram get real iOS distribution?Happy 2nd Birthday Windows Phone 7: This Is Your Life
Oct 21, 4:59PM
Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's big return to the smartphone stage after Windows Mobile's gradual decline and demise, turns two today, according to a tweet by Joel Belfiore, Microsoft's head of Windows Phone product definition and design. So I thought it would be fitting to take a look back at Windows Phone 7's life up until now, and what the mobile OS has or hasn't done for Microsoft so far.Where My Rights End And Yours Begin
Oct 21, 4:00PM
The boundaries of our personal rights have been summed up concisely in the observation that they end where those of others begin. And this is a perfectly good lamp by which to guide our actions in many cases. But the Internet has led to the destruction of location and identity as necessary considerations when calculating our rights and privileges. This week furnishes some examples - and warnings.Google Reportedly Revealing 10-inch Nexus And 3G-Capable Nexus 7 Tablets At Upcoming Event
Oct 21, 3:21PM
According to a new report from The Next Web today, Google is readying a number of new devices for announcement at the event it recently announced for October 29, including new Nexus tablet hardware and Android 4.2 features. Some notables from the list of upcoming reveals include improved Nexus 7 tablets (one boasting 3G connectivity), a 10-inch Nexus tablet and a new Nexus reference phone.Why VCs Will Continue To Invest In Big Data Startups For Many Years To Come
Oct 21, 3:00PM
This week, Splice Machine raised $4 million to develop its SQL Engine for big data apps. MongoHQ raised $6 million for its database as a service. A third startup, Bloomreach, announced $25 million in funding for its big data applications.Pre-Orders For AT&T Windows Phone 8 HTC And Nokia Handsets Begin At Best Buy
Oct 21, 2:45PM
Best Buy started accepting pre-orders today for the AT&T Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X Windows Phone devices. Pricing details are also now available, with the Lunia 920 available for $149.99 on a new 2-year contract, and $599.99 without commitment. The 8X is $99.99 on contract, and $599.99 without, meaning those interested can get on board with Windows Phone 8 for $50 less with HTC.Verizon HTC DLX, HTC's First North American Phone With 1080p 5-Inch Display, Reportedly Caught On Camera
Oct 21, 2:20PM
Last week, we got a peek at HTC's J Butterfly Japan-only Android phone, with a huge 1080p 5-inch display that manages a crazy 440ppi pixel density, and today, Android Central is claiming a new North American HTC flagship phone coming to Verizon will offer the same screen on our shores. The HTC DLX, as the report claims it's called, appears to share both design and spec cues with the J Butterfly.Analyst Puts iPad Mini Build Cost At $195, Pricing Said To Start At $329 For 40% Gross Margin
Oct 21, 1:44PM
a couple of new reports that surfaced this weekend shed a little more light on what we might expect with iPad mini pricing. KGI Securities analysts Ming-Chi Kuo has an early look at the likely bill-of-materials (BOM) for the iPad mini, and 9t05Mac reports on U.S. retail pricing, providing a look at how the iPad mini figures into Apple's existing lineup when it comes to comparing gross margins.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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