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Angels Get Carry For Helping A Startup Raise Money With AngelList Syndicates
Jul 28, 12:49AM
AngelList is testing out a new service that lets angel investors syndicate deals with each other, a feature that could allow startups to raise venture-sized rounds of money with relative ease. Called Syndicates, the private-beta product lets any accredited investor on the AngelList fundraising platform essentially create, lead and collect carry for a fund of angel money for a specific startup. The carry part could help motivate an angel who truly believes in the startup to put in the hard work of helping it raise all the money it thinks it needs. In a world where more startups than ever are trying to raise money, and more investors are competing to find the best ones, this model may quickly become popular. Here’s a bit more about how it works, as gleaned from the newly-public FAQ from AngelList, the resulting conversation around the news on Twitter, and a conversation with AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant. The news, we’ll note, was broken by anonymous startup personality Startup L. Jackson… who presumably has investor-level access to AngelList, whoever he or she is. VCs and their limited partners (the entities who put money into VC funds) already use carry to align their interests. In addition to the VC partners collecting a set management fee for each fund, the carry provides them with a percentage of the profit for the fund. In the AngelList implementation of the concept, the lead angel picks the percentage carry that they’ll get from a positive return in the company if it has a liquidity event. They can set this to zero, which would make the most sense if they’re relatively unknown and most concerned with building a reputation. Or they can set any amount above that — 40% could make sense, for example, if you’re a top angel and looking to monetize your reputation and deal flow. The FAQ provides the following example of how a lead angel would use Syndicates: Sara decides to invest in a startup and asks for a $250k allocation in the company. She personally takes $50K of the allocation and decides to syndicate the rest. She shares the deal with investors and specifies that she is charging a 20% carry on the remaining $200k of her allocation. Sara’s capital and her co-investor’s capital is pooled into a $250K fund which invests in the startup. Sara’s co-investors pay carry for her access, governance and value-add. She sourced the dealWhy You Should Never Digital Detox Alone
Jul 27, 10:57PM
For the first time in years, I spent 72 hours without Internet or cell phone reception. While I didn’t experience any life-altering epiphanies that some claim comes from a digital detox, I now enjoy a handful of very meaningful relationships that never would have existed, with the constant temptation for shallow interactions with dozens of peoples’ avatars, thousands of miles away. I learned that when you’re stuck with people, you’re forced to find meaning in conversations that otherwise wouldn’t have seemed more entertaining than YouTube at the time. I don’t buy the snake oil that cutting ourselves off from the net makes us better thinkers; access to the world’s information has made me more informed and creative. But, the Internet can’t give you friendship, nor can it help you discover ideas that people have never told anyone about. Last week, I had the fortune of testing the “never detox alone” hypothesis at two back-to-back business conferences held in the mountains. The first, Summit Outside, was an invite-only Burning Man-like gathering of 800 young social entrepreneurs in the Utah Mountains. Completely cut off from the Internet, attendees slept in tents, could go horseback riding, dance to A-list DJ’s under a fool moon, or attend spirituality-themed talks. I left Summit Outside with more friends and business ideas than I have at any other conference–some from people I’d know for years, but thought I didn’t even like very much. On the flip side, CEOs and investors that normally would have avoided a tech journalist like the plague, were forced into uncomfortable conversations that unexpectedly led to great ideas. The Internet has spoiled us; at the slightest hint of boredom or unpleasantness, we escape to the Internet. Modern life is a constant elevator pitch. Potential friends and projects that don’t enjoy a good first impression get tossed out. Indeed, Summit Series itself has built a thriving company on top of the theory that the best business relationships start out as friendships. Since 2008, Summit Series has held a pricey annual conference of socially oriented entrepreneurs. Held on a cruise ship, at a ski resort, and in a makeshift camping mountain village, the Summit conferences intermix crazy-fun activities, such as shark tagging in the Caribbean, with A-list speakers, from the likes of Richard Branson and Bill Clinton. Now, Summit has raised $40 million to purchase a mountain and build permit home in Eden, Utah forCrunchWeek: Google Chromecast, Apple's No-Growth Q3, And Earnings Madness
Jul 27, 10:00PM
Welcome to a brand new episode of CrunchWeek, the show that brings a few of us writers together in front of the TechCrunch TV cameras to dish on some of the more interesting stories from the past seven days.Snapchat And The Beauty Of Ephemeral Photography And Fleeting Creativity
Jul 27, 8:00PM
Traditionally photography is about preserving a moment in time; you take a picture literally because it'll last longer. The entire art is built around a quest for permanence, and archival desires. But with Snapchat, you're casting off those things you photograph almost as soon as you take the picture – in many cases it's less permanent than just continuing to look at something. For a an avid hobbyist photographer, it's somewhat counterintuitive, but also very liberating.Gillmor Gang: Christmas in July
Jul 27, 5:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — celebrate Google's gift to StreamTV. ChromeCast is cheap, small, simple, and extensible, just in time to kickoff the run up to Apple's big move to the Big Screen. It's a win-win for everybody involved, except maybe Microsoft and its XBox offering. Suddenly 3 screens and the cloud has shrunk to 2, or maybe 1. It's no cakewalk for Google, who must navigate and resolve desktop and mobile OSes and native hardware only seen briefly held to the ear of Eric Schmidt. But Chromecast altering the landscape, making the new Nexus 7 into a peripheral controller for the TV rather than the other way around, will shake up Hollywood's world view just as Netflix is reprogramming our kids' attention from channels to apps.SETT Is A New Blogging Platform That Has Community At Its Heart
Jul 27, 3:50PM
Although blogging is nearly as old as the Internet, it still feels like something is amiss. From Dustin Curtis’ Svbtle to Ev Williams’ Medium, there is a feeling afoot that existing platforms for blogs and long-form content still need a lot of improvement. Five years ago, early platforms like Blogger gave way to micro-blogging and networks like Tumblr. Now we’re seeing the pendulum swing back with platforms for longer-form stories and media. SETT is a blogging platform that’s looking to emphasize community, so that new users can find a right audience immediately and long-time bloggers can interact with higher-quality commenters and contributors. Aside from features that are now standard these days like a news feed of content and WYSIWYG editing, SETT has a top bar where it’s easy for bloggers to track comments or even private messages from others in the SETT community. From the start, when new users sign up for an account, SETT refers readers to your site. It has a word-matching system internally that compares posts to one another. If a reader happens to like a post about one topic, the platform will recommend other similar ones to them. The site is the brainchild of a long-time blogger named Tynan (who declines to use his last name online ever) and Todd Iceton, a developer who worked for Nutshell Mail, the company that was acquired by e-mail marketing giant Constant Contact. Tynan has been actively blogging for six years but found that it was a bit of a slog for any new user. “For people who are just starting out, their biggest hurdle is just getting that community first,” he said. There are other features meant to enhance a reader’s relationship with a blogger like a simple, one-click e-mail subscription system. Subscribers get notified of new posts and new comments on posts they’ve decided to individually follow. Readers can also start their own independent discussions about posts in a community section, where they can see who is online and which posts are being actively read by a lot of users. The site has had about 100 or so active blogs in beta form, but they’ve opened it up since. Some of the more popular voices on the platform are entrepreneurs like Dick Talens, who co-founded 500 Startups-backed Fitocracy and blogs about how to stay in shape. The bootstrapped startup earns revenue through premium or subscription accounts that rangeReminder: The London Pitch-Off+Meetup Is Monday
Jul 27, 3:10PM
In preparation for TechCrunch Disrupt Europe I've been running around the Continent for more than a month, hitting the Balkans for a huge tour and Warsaw for an amazing meet-up. Now I'm back for a meet up+pitch-off with our own Mike Butcher and the rest of the UK team. Tickets are free so grab yours now.Technology And The Ruling Party
Jul 27, 1:00PM
"Power tends to corrupt," said Lord Acton, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The sexism needs updating but the sentiment remains true. That's been all too obvious this week, during which the powers that be did their damnedest to protect their once-secret surveillance programs...while the NSA responded to Freedom Of Information Act requests with the claim "There's no central method to search [internal NSA emails] at this time."Are Adidas Springblades The New Crazy Monkey Shoes?
Jul 27, 3:30AM
It is a point of pride and, to an extent, shame that I introduced the TC audience to minimal running shoes aka crazy monkey shoes. Since first reviewing odd shoes back in 2009 I've tried to to keep up with the trends. The latest stop in my exploration? Adidas Springblade.Zenefits Lands $2.1M From Venrock, Maverick, Aaron Levie, Charlie Cheever And More To Automate Startup HR
Jul 27, 12:46AM
For small businesses, managing health insurance and payroll services can be a huge pain and time-sink. They probably don't have someone on staff dedicated to these issues, and they themselves would rather be dedicating that energy to building a company. Zenefits launched out of Y Combinator this winter to remove the friction of setting up and managing group health coverage and payroll by automating the process and bringing it online -- for free.Y Combinator-Backed DoorDash Delivers Food Quickly In South Bay, Hopes To Expand Beyond Food
Jul 26, 11:18PM
DoorDash, a Y Combinator summer '13 company, delivers food from restaurants in Palo Alto and Mountain View in an average time of 45 minutes. Sound familiar? It's a crowded space, but DoorDash hires and manages its own drivers, so it can bring you food from restaurants that don't have their own delivery drivers.Someone Please Actually Hack Chipotle's Twitter Account
Jul 26, 11:10PM
For whatever reason, this week has felt particularly long. It might be some astrological reason like Mercury rising. Or it might be just the emotions that are a package deal with being a woman at the end of a month. Or it might be that Chipotle fake-hacked its Twitter account on Sunday, and the stunt has left a bad taste in my mouth.Get Ready For TechCrunch TV's Tour Of The New Hollywood, Starting Next Week
Jul 26, 11:00PM
Over the last several years, we've seen a new group of digital media companies emerge in Los Angeles, driven by the growth of YouTube as a platform for distribution of video content. On Mondays and Wednesdays, we'll have a series of videos showing off all the best from the new L.A. digital media companies to show what each has to offer and what creators can expect when they sign up.Apple's Developer Center Is Back After Over A Week Offline
Jul 26, 9:57PM
Apple's Developer Center is finally back online, after taking a break for over a week. The developer site went down after a hacking attempt mid-week last week, and stayed down without any kind of return for multiple days. The hack was reportedly one that only affected developer accounts, after an intruder attempted to secure personal information.Google Asks Glass Developers To Start Working On Android-Based Apps Ahead Of Glass Development Kit Launch
Jul 26, 9:37PM
It looks like Google is about to unleash a new wave of more powerful applications for Google Glass. Currently, Glass developers can only build apps that are essentially web-based services that talk to the user's hardware through a set of relatively limited APIs. At its I/O developer conference earlier this year, Google announced that it would soon release its so-called Glass Development Kit (GDK), which would let them build Android-based apps for Glass that can run directly on the device.Ask A VC: Lightspeed Ventures' Bipul Sinha On How The Enterprise Sales Model Has Changed
Jul 26, 9:35PM
On this week's Ask a VC show, Lightspeed Ventures' Partner Bipul Sinha joined us in the studio to field reader questions and talk about enterprise investing.Mailbox's First App, Orchestra To-Do, Is Shutting Down
Jul 26, 8:31PM
Before being acquired by Dropbox for $100 million, before its app became one of the buzzier startups of 2013, the team at Mailbox had been known for Orchestra, a simple to-do list app with tasks you could assign to others, or pull in via email. Now that app is shutting down, and will be removed from the App Store on September 6th, the company says.Mobile Payment At U.S. Starbucks Locations Crosses 10% As More Stores Get Wireless Charging
Jul 26, 8:11PM
Starbucks is seeing impressive adoption of mobile payments in its U.S.-based store locations, the company revealed during its quarterly earnings conference call last night (via WSJ). Mobile payments crossed the 10 percent mark in the U.S. as a percentage of in-store purchases, indicating efforts like the Starbucks mobile app, Apple's Passbook and Square Wallet are popular among users.Gillmor Gang Live 07.26.13 (TCTV)
Jul 26, 8:07PM
Gillmor Gang - Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recording session for today has concluded.FindIt Launches A Universal Search App For iPhone With A Visual Twist
Jul 26, 8:04PM
FindIt, a new mobile application offering universal search across emails and files stored in the cloud, is today making its official debut. With the FindIt app for iOS, you can quickly connect your Gmail, Dropbox and Google Drive accounts, and then proceed to search by keyword, person, time or file type. But the ability to search for items is not what makes FindIt interesting - it's how you search that makes FindIt unique.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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