Hi there!
Here's the latest feed from TechCrunch.
Add feeds@feed2email.net to your contact list to make sure you receive all your emails
Make sure to visit feed2email.net to get more feeds sent to your inbox.
To find out which feeds you are subscribed to, or to get further help, just reply to this email.
By Wrapping Sensors In A Plushie, "Teddy The Guardian" Aims To Sell Medical Tech For Kids
Jul 18, 3:15AM
In only a few months, the founders of IDerma, a medical technology start-up based out of Zagreb, Croatia, have developed and launched what they’re marketing as medical sensor technology for children. But unlike the sleek Scanadu Scout, this one takes the form of a teddy bear. The product is called Teddy the Guardian, a plushie installed with sensors that measure heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and temperature, and then relay that data via Bluetooth to a parent’s phone. The sensors are scattered around the bear’s body; pressing a finger to the bear’s paw, for instance, takes heart rate and oxygen levels. The idea behind disguising medical tech as a lovable toy is to provide parents and pediatricians more accurate, consistent data points. When a child is stressed out about going to the doctor, his or her vital signs will be skewed. Taking data points when the child is in a neutral emotional state can give doctors a wealth of good information to compare against when something is wrong. Of course, the bear is just as much a tool for keeping parents attuned to their child’s general well-being as it is a medical device. IDerma co-founder Josipa Majić said that for busy parents who don’t have as much time to connect with their kids, the data can show when their child’s day has been particularly stressful or problematic. Later versions of Teddy will be equipped with sensors specific to different medical conditions, Majić said. Blood sugar level measurements for diabetic children, for instance. While the United States and Europe comprise Teddy the Guardian’s primary markets, China and India are also of interest. The increase in disposable income in rapidly developing countries has resulted in more money spent on a family’s first-born child, Majić said. “We see the mommy community in the developing world as the quite the disrupters. They spend at least some time, up to 8 hours a day, on their cell phones and smartphones. 90 and even 91% [of their time] in China. In India, they believe tech makes them a better mom.” Teddy the Guardian has already cleared its biggest hurdle: getting FDA approval on the medical technology. Although IDerma has its own sensors, Majić said they opted to outsource sensor development to another healthcare company, the name of which she declined to give. The reason is simply because going through FDA and CE approval processes areGov't Analysis Startup FiscalNote Enlists Former Cabinet Secretary Lu And Elsevier's Chi As Advisors
Jul 18, 1:59AM
FiscalNote, a startup that promises to help businesses track and predict state and local legislation, is announcing that it has brought on two prominent advisors — Chris Lu, former White House Cabinet Secretary for Barack Obama, and Youngsuk "Y.S." Chi, chairman of publishing company Elsevier. The startup was founded by Tim Hwang, former president of the 750,000-member youth lobbying group of called the National Youth Association. Hwang said that many businesses need to keep follow state and local laws and regulations that may affect them, as well as things like court cases and speeches. Most of the information is online, somewhere, but to actually track everything, "they need hire different interns hitting refresh on all 50 states to find updated legislation in their specific verticals."YC-Backed Orbs CCG Takes To Kickstarter To Reinvent Magic: The Gathering For Asynchronous Online Play
Jul 18, 1:29AM
Hey, remember Magic: The Gathering? Maybe you're like me and you played the game religiously as a teenager, only to abandon it as you got older. (For those of you don't know what I'm talking about: It's a collectible card game in a fantasy setting. Also: Stop looking at me like I'm weird.) Jeff Pickhardt, founder of Y Combinator-backed developer Jerpix, loved Magic too. He said he used to play, then after stopping for a while, he tried to pick it up again, but he found the online version "just kind of hard to use for a number of reasons." At the same time, he was playing Words With Friends, and he realized that collectible card games could be improved by cribbing from the Words With Friends playbook.Online Grocery Store Redmart Raises Series A Round To Stay Put In Singapore
Jul 18, 1:20AM
Singaporean online grocery store, Redmart, just raised an undisclosed Series A round that is “in the millions”, according to co-founder and CEO Roger Egan. Together with this funding amount, its previous three seed rounds add up to $4.6 million. Redmart will also raise its next round before the year is up, said Egan. When asked why it plans to do so so soon, rather than wait to close a bigger round this time, he said: “We believe we can increase our valuation a lot in the next six months, so we didn’t want to raise too much right now.” He said Redmart’s tech team just updated its e-commerce platform and warehouse management system, and has rolled out an iPhone app. “We believe these improvements will have a significant impact on our valuation in a bigger round,” he said. Its Series A is likely to be about $3 million, going by reports which have estimated previous funding at $1.29 million. This round was led by Singapore-based gaming firm, Garena. Skype co-founder Toivo Annus participated in two of the seed rounds, and in the Series A said Egan. Previous rounds also included Golden Gate Ventures and East Ventures. Unlike many startups coming out of the island nation, this Series A won’t go towards expanding out of the country to neighbors in Southeast Asia. “I know Singapore is a small market, so most startups want to expand out, first thing. But for fast-moving goods, it’s a $5.2 billion market in Singapore alone,” said Egan. By fast-moving goods, he means groceries and sundries. The two-year-old company just did $5 million in annual sales, and customer retention rates are “high”, with users returning 1.5 times a month on average to make purchases, he said. Redmart stocks about 8,000 products on its site. Users who spend more than $59 (S$75) per basket get shipping free, so it’s likely that each order exceeds that amount. He wouldn’t state how many active users Redmart has, but said it has about 10,000 registered users in its database. Redmart carries commonly-found brands like Nestle and Kellogg’s in its grocery section, as well as Dettol and Fab in household cleaning sundries. Egan said its first big agreement was with Unilever, which owns brands like Dove, Lipton and Ben & Jerry’s. “After Unilever signed up, it was easy to get other brands on board,” he said. Egan plans to use the company’s newGoInstant's Next Chapter Is A Developer Platform For The "Multiplayer Web"
Jul 18, 1:04AM
GoInstant, the startup that Salesforce.com bought for $70 million, has launched a new developer platform for what it calls the "multiplayer web." The company, which operates as a separate entity within Salesforce, uses the term to describe the new brand of the web that is more about shared experience. These are apps, such as Twitter and Facebook, that provide endless rivers of news and the ability to comment on a photo and see other comments as they appear. And Google Docs is an example of a service that has a focus on presence with its co-editing capability.Startups, I Give Up On You For Today
Jul 18, 12:13AM
Startups, I just give up on you for today. Because after whatever happened in this fustercluck of a story, the office arrival of these creepy dolls that some company made of co-editor Eric Eldon, Susan Hobbs and me (mine is wearing a Hillary Clinton-esque pantsuit) and this pitch I just received calling me old, I think we should all just take a break for a second here and rethink our core purpose and meaning in life.Young Mad Scientist Super Awesome Sylvia Is Kickstarting A Robotic Watercolor Set
Jul 17, 10:58PM
A 12-year-old maker named Super Awesome Sylvia (she is quite super awesome) is looking for $50,000 to build a robotic watercolor set, the WaterColorBot, that can draw nearly anything you design in a computer paint program. Asking why you don't just take brush to paint pot with your hand is irrelevant - this, friends, is a robotic watercolor plotter. 'Nuff said.Reddit Insight Is An Awesome Hack That Reveals How The Internet's 'Front Page' Really Works
Jul 17, 10:30PM
Anyone who has had their website get some traction on Reddit knows that it truly lives up to its "front page of the Internet" label -- the kind of traffic the site drives can be remarkable. But the process by which a link takes off on the site is still pretty mysterious. For the most part, you submit something to Reddit, and cross your fingers and hope that it gets some attention. Well, a cool new hack called Reddit Insight finally sheds some light on the methods behind Reddit's madness.Casual Game Developer Arkadium Gets On The HTML5 Train
Jul 17, 9:34PM
Casual games company Arkadium is announcing today that it's supporting HTML5 games in its Arena Network. In other words, the company is finally acknowledging the need to move on from Flash. The news seems inevitable — and, if anything, a bit late. Back in 2011, Adobe, the company behind Flash, seemed to accept the fact that the technology wasn't going to make the transition to smartphones and tablets, and it killed Flash for mobile.Venturocket Grabs $700K To Kill Resume Spam, Build A Better "Pay-Per-Connection" Jobs Marketplace
Jul 17, 9:17PM
With the war for talent alive and well and jobs sites continuing to leave more than a little to be desired, San Francisco-based Venturocket is announcing today that it has raised $700K in Series A financing for its unique spin on matching job seekers with the most relevant opportunities. The round was led by Runa Capital, with contributions from Talent Equity Ventures, an affiliate of Ward Howell, and AnchorFree co-founder and CEO, David Gorodyansky. In turn, the startup also said that it will be adding former BranchOut executive Michael DeVerna to its advisory board.Stayful Brings The Priceline Model To Boutique Hotels, Letting You Bid On Places To Stay In Realtime
Jul 17, 9:00PM
There's a new travel site launching that's focused on bringing real-time bidding to the boutique hotel market. The site, called Stayful, was founded by travel industry veterans from Expedia and Hotels.com and has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to attack the market.Driven By Marketplace And PayPal Growth, eBay's Q2 Revenue Up 14 Percent To $3.9B
Jul 17, 8:20PM
As expected, eBay reported decent financial results in Q2 2013 today. Revenue was up 14% to $3.9 billion, compared to the same period of 2012. The company reported second quarter net income on a GAAP basis of $640 million, or $0.49 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income of $822 million, or $0.63 per diluted share. GAAP Net Income was actually down 6 percent in the quarter. The marketplace and e-commerce company was expected to post earnings at $0.63 per share, on revenue of $3.9 billion, so expectations were in-line with what was reported.Intel Misses In Q2 2013, Reports EPS Of $0.39 And Revenue Of $12.8 Billion
Jul 17, 8:05PM
Intel reported its fiscal Q2 2013 earnings a few moments ago, and they just fell short of analyst predictions. The legendary chipmaker reported earnings of $0.39 per share and $12.8 billion in revenue (down 5 percent from the year-ago quarter) this time around. According to the consensus provided by Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance, analysts expected the company to report earnings of $0.40 per share on $12.9 billion in revenue.Audiodraft, The Crowdsourcing Platform For Sound And Music, Raises $400K From 500 Startups, Promus
Jul 17, 8:01PM
Audiodraft, a platform where brands or anybody else can commissions custom music or sounds, just closed $400,000 in a funding round led by 500 Startups and Promus Ventures. The best analogy for what the startup does is 99Designs for sound. Founded three years ago, the company has grown a community of about 20,000 sound designers and music composers who are available to create music or sounds for different advertising agencies and clients on commission. There’s also a library on-hand tracks so that customers can drop by and buy licenses for music for anywhere from $400 to $2,000. Then there’s also a way to host contests. (Here’s an example one from “Four Hour Work Week” author Tim Ferriss, who was looking for music to pair with a teaser video for the “Four Hour Chef.”) Audiodraft charges 10 percent of the prize money and a $99 listing fee. With the round, the company is also bringing on a few advisors including Trulia co-founder Sami Inkinen and TaskRabbit vice president of engineering Yee Lee. They’ll use the funding to make a few additional hires in San Francisco and Helsinki and build out a new Agency Studios service. That product is really built for brand and advertising agencies globally that want to have more control over managing current productions and who they work with on the platform. That product will eventually cost $99 per month. The company has grown to about 1,000 registered customers and the average amount they end up charging clientele is about $1,200 with $1,000 going toward the sound designer and the rest going to Audiodraft. CEO Teemu Yli-Hollo, who is also a Finnish rapper, says that there are artists on the platform who are making enough money to pay for their living costs. The company’s now looking for a product manager, business manager and community manager in San Francisco and a product engineer in Helsinki.ElationEMR's Kyna Fong On Taking The Family Business To A New Level
Jul 17, 8:00PM
Small startups are like families, especially when you found said company with your sibling. For this week's Founder Stories, I met with Kyna Fong, co-founder of ElationEMR, who has done just that. ElationEMR is a health-care startup based in San Francisco that offers a clinical platform to physicians to assist them in viewing, capturing and quickly acting on the health-care needs of their patients. Kyna and her brother Conan have designed a web-based electronic medical records solution based on the perspectives of physicians in order to make it as easy as possible for doctors to quickly make well-informed medical decisions.Liquor.com Raises $3.1 million In Series B Funding
Jul 17, 7:35PM
If you ask me you don't mess around with people like that you get out of the room and then you get into the car and go home you don't call nobody you know or whatever, right? So I'm talking with Suffolk Equity Partners, some people out of Cambridge, and they got some investments, right and they invest in Liquor.com and it's a site for liquor and news about liquor and recipes and whatever, you know?ColAR Uses Augmented Reality To Bring Your Kid's Drawing To Life
Jul 17, 7:08PM
I would've written this earlier, but I was busy picking pieces of my mind up off the floor. I get to write about cool stuff all day, but this... this is incredible. colAR is the coloring book of the future. By mashing up traditional coloring books with some good ol' augmented reality voodoo, colAR brings your More Tickets Are Now Available For The 8th Annual August Capital Party In Silicon Valley
Jul 17, 7:02PM
Ready, set, click. We just released one of the last batches of tickets to our annual party at August Capital. Space is very limited. The deck at August Capital's beautiful Sand Hill Road office can only hold so many entrepreneurs, founders, VCs, and tech nerds.Puppet Labs Acquires Cloudsmith For Its Tools That Connect GitHub To AWS
Jul 17, 6:51PM
Puppet Labs is acquiring Cloudsmith, a provider of development tools for building out infrastructures that are automated in the manner that is becoming essential in this age of the cloud. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Luke Kanies, CEO and Founder of Puppet Labs said in an email that the Cloudsmith team has deep expertise with the Eclipse developer tools ecosystem and open source and that they have worked with the company for several years.Tumblr Lets Users Make Gifs From Their Webcams, But Not Yet From The App
Jul 17, 6:49PM
Tumblr users can now make four-frame GIFs using their webcams; the feature is not available yet for Tumblr apps. Users can press "Take a Photo" in photo posts and select "GIF," then record themselves. This is the first step in what could be a very interesting feature for Tumblr.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.
To stop all future emails from feed2email.net you can reply to this email with STOP in the subject line. Thanks
