Monday, 23 September 2013
MLB.com At Bat gets iOS 7 support, multi-camera postseason video
Can Microsoft Ride Surface 2 to the Top?
Microsoft's Surface 2: New tablet, same problems
Microsoft Surface 2: A Better Tablet, But Is It Good Enough?
Coolpad intros 5.9-inch Magview 4 phone with CoolHub and cWatch accessories
Google launches Constitute, a tool for creating and comparing governments (video)
Engadget + gdgt Live is hitting Boston October 10th!
Announcing our Expand Throwback winners!
Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear smartwatch for Sprint: ships October 4th with 'unlimited data for life'
Microsoft Surface Pro 2 hands-on
Microsoft Surface 2 hands-on
Microsoft reveals Surface Music Cover, gives DJs more musical tools
Surface 2 buyers get 200GB SkyDrive storage for two years, free international Skype calls for one year
How AngelList Hacked Its $24M Round
AngelList, the mailing list that turned into one of the Valley’s most powerful fundraising channels for early-stage startups, just picked up $24 million of its own.
Like we reported nine months ago, Google Ventures participated. They are one of the leads along with Atlas Ventures, a firm that’s supported AngelList through its early years. On top of that, there are another 100 or so investors involved. While not confirmed by the company, we hear the valuation was about $150 million as we previously reported.
What started out as a curated mailing list of high-quality angels has since grown into a potent force for seed-stage funding. Co-founders Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi were longtime critics of the way venture funding has been traditionally done in the Valley — especially for its lack of transparency.
But now, they’ve gradually changed it from the inside, insinuating their platform into several major deals of the last few years like Uber’s initial financing.
The company estimates that it has facilitated around $200 million in investments, with $186 million through introductions and $14 million through a new, more direct “invest online” product. They have about 21,000 investors on the platform and 1,300 companies have successfully raised funding on it.
So how did the company pioneering the way early-stage fundraising is done in the Valley construct its own round? Through following some of their own advice, naturally.
They didn’t give up board control to an outside venture firm, for fear that it would create a perception that they were biased or passing on better deal flow to specific investors.
“We were able to do it in a ‘no strings attached’ way,” Ravikant said. “This allows us to maintain control and stay neutral.”
AngelList wanted an angel on its board to represent the community, but not any person associated with a venture firm. Notably, many of the Valley’s top-tier firms aren’t on AngelList’s very long list of investors. Ravikant wouldn’t comment on specifics, except to say that many firms couldn’t budge on asking for board seats and taking a certain percentage of the company.
Then on top of Google Ventures, The Kauffman Foundation and Atlas Ventures, the company took another on another 100 or so investors. There were bigger venture firms like Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Kleiner Perkins, then earlier-stage firms like SV Angel, CrunchFund, 500 Startups and Floodgate.
Then there is a long list of angels like DST’s Yuri Milner, Mitch Kapor, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, Yammer co-founder David Sacks, Paypal co-founder Max Levchin, Bebo co-founder Michael Birch, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, former Twitter CEO Evan Williams, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever, Friendster’s Jonathan Abrams, Delicious’ Joshua Schachter and Google’s Brian McClendon.
In total, there were 116 investors in the found, 70 percent of which invested purely online through a product AngelList announced earlier this year. It lets accredited investors put in as little as $1,000 in startups on the platform. Most of AngelList’s individual angels were longtime friends of the company.
Unfortunately, because of general solicitation laws, which have prevented companies for openly or publicly asking for money until today, they couldn’t widen out their ask beyond specific accredited investors.
“We ended up inviting people that we knew because there’s a liability issue,” Ravikant said. “Otherwise, people could turn around and say that we abused our platform. We were only able to do a limited distribution and we could not go out to our entire investor base.”
With the round, AngelList is also building out its revenue model. With the “Invest Online” product, they’re taking a 10 percent carry fee off every deal. This comes on top of many other product releases happening today.
With these new revenue streams, here’s the bet from an investor’s point of view. If AngelList’s now massive funnel of early-stage companies ends up helping at least one of them become a once-in-a-decade Google or Facebook-style home run, then their carry could seal their own return for investors.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/iARqiHK-Zvw/
Microsoft Announces the Surface 2
Microsoft Reveals the Surface Pro 2
Microsoft announces the Surface 2, the follow-up to the original Surface RT
Microsoft announces seven Surface Pro 2 accessories including a docking station and Power Cover
Archery Game Uses Real Bow to Hit Virtual Targets
Microsoft's new Surface Pro 2 gets official
Microsoft Surface 2 liveblog!
Fitocracy Adds A New Revenue Stream With Group Fitness Plans
Fitocracy, the fitness gamification network with over 1 million users andmore user engagement than Twitter, is today launching a group fitness pilot in a big move towards monetization.
A big part of Fitocracy’s core offering is a community-driven encouragement platform. At first, users come to the app and get hooked because of the gamification and quantification of the user’s own fitness data.
However, founders Brian Wang and Dick Talens believe that it’s the encouragement aspect — giving and receiving feedback on progress from your friends’ and family — that keeps people engaged.
With Group Fitness, Fitocracy is simply taking that to the next level. Start by choosing a group to join, and you’ll instantly be brought into a private community with your trainer and your group mates. Within that group, you’ll all be given a personalized training plan and/or diet, with 24/7 access to your trainer and team mates to answer questions or give feedback.
“We think that this is what is going to make Fitocracy a billion dollar company,” said Dick Talens. “If you look at fitness spend in the last decade, a relatively small amount of money has shifted from offline to online. That shouldn’t make sense. People and products should get paid if they yield results, and from what we’ve seen on Fitocracy, the Internet is often unparalleled when it comes to getting people fit.”
Group members can participate in Google Hangouts and Q&A’s with the trainer and eventually coaches will modify the training plan based on progress.
Fitocracy has already launched a pilot page with four different group products, ranging from $50 to $77 and lasting between two and four months.
The idea here is that personal training coaches costs hundreds of dollars per hour at a gym. By letting the trainer coach multiple people at once, the price goes down for everyone while still maintaining the same level of engagement and accountability.
Fitocracy already has a business model in place with a premium account called Fitocracy Hero, which costs $4.99/month and gives users access to special features like the ability to copy workouts and rewards like titles. But with an abundance of regular folks and highly skilled trainers on Fitocracy already, the evolution towards paid group classes seemed natural to the founders.
“In thinking about why the online training model works so well, it’s the things that matter most – nutritional instruction, accountability, constant guidance – are all things that you can do online,” said Dick Talens.
Eventually, Fitocracy will offer a self-service platform where any certified trainer can start their own group course and begin making money.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/yUXzcQdUstM/
Tesco Unveils 7-Inch Hudl Tablet in the UK
Rampersand Launches A $6M Fund For Australian Startups
Rampersand is a new firm looking to invest in Australian startups and provide them with advice on sales, marketing, and pR>
The firm is announcing that it has raised a $6 million fund for that purpose. Managing partner Paul Naphtali’s described the fund size as “tiny by Silicon Valley standards, but a start.” Although Naphtali has been working in the San Francisco Bay Area (at least for the few years that I’ve known him), he said Rampersand will be based in Australia.
“I’m a native of Australia and over the past few years have spent more and more time there,” Naphtali told me via email. “One of the things I’ve noticed is the development of a very high quality startup ecosystem, but there’s a few holes: 1) a lack of early stage capital and 2) a lack of sales/marketing/PR community that understands startups and success.”
Naphtali certainly has some relevant experience, having handled PR or communications for Snaptu (which was acquired by Facebook), Amobee (acquired by Singtel), and TokBox (acquired by Telefonica). Rampersand’s other managing partner is Jim Cassidy, whose résumé includes marketing roles at StepStone, BEA Systems, and IBM.
The firm will make investments of up to $500,000, Naphtali said — in fact, it has already made two (but it isn’t announcing them yet. He added that the plan is to invest in “companies that started/are headquartered in Australia but have global plans.”
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/Kf0sBs-gZmo/
Oppo N1 puts a 13MP camera on a hinge, keeps selfie addicts happy
The App That Will Make Sustainable Energy Cool
6 Tricks for Instantly Looking Better in Photoshop
BBM's iPhone and Android Delay and Other News You Need to Know
Apple sells nine million new iPhones in three days
Visualead Raises $1.6M For QR Codes That (Kind Of) Blend In
QR codes (you know, those square images that can be scanned by your phone and point you to mobile websites) have never quite taken off with a mass audience, but some startups aren’t giving up the technology. For example, there’s Tel Aviv-based Visualead, which just raised $1.6 million in Series A funding.
The idea of QR codes is appealing because the codes promise to connect physical, printed objects (such as business cards, fliers, and posters) to the digital world. The problem? They’re also confusing and downright ugly — unless you like random square dots printed on a square grid.
Visualead tackles the problem by incorporating QR codes into existing images. In fact, it says it can “seamlessly blend” those codes with any image or design. This doesn’t make the QR code invisible, exactly, but it does make the code look less like a message from an inscrutable alien intelligence and more like a piece of promotional art. You can see one example in the image above, and others at the Visualead website.
The company first launched in January, offering a self-serve platform for small and medium businesses. It says the platform is now used by 200,000 SMBs, who create 30,000 campaigns every month.
“We like to measure ourselves by amounts of Visual QR Codes out there,” added founder and CEO Neo Alva by email. “Within the next 6 months we are going to reach creation of 1M Visual QR Codes a month.”
Visualead also licenses its technology to large brands and enterprises — Alva told me that even though the SMB side of the business has been growing more quickly, he sees the company’s biggest opportunity at the enterprise level.
The new round was led by Kaedan Capital and Entrée Capital. Visualead has now raised a total of $2.35 million.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/KX5MdbLCUZ4/
Canva permite hacer diseños dignos fácilmente y desde el navegador web
Canva no es una herramienta de diseño para diseñadores, pero sà permite que cualquiera sin muchos conocimientos de diseño pueda hacer imágenes, invitaciones, carteles o presentaciones decentes, fácil y rápidamente y con resultados más que suficientes para andar por casa.
Para completar un diseño Canva ofrece todos los elementos necesarios: desde una base de datos con un millón de imágenes a composiciones, textos y fondos listos para utilizar. De estos elementos disponibles algunos son gratuitos y otros requieren el pago de pequeñas cantidades en concepto de derechos de uso.
También es posible subir imágenes o diseños propios y el trabajo resultante se puede guardar como una imagen o presentación para la web o en PDF para imprimir o compartir en redes sociales.
Una aplicación similar para iPad es Haiku Deck.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/arte-y-diseno/canva-permite-disenos-dignos-facilmente-desde-navegador-web.html
La NASA encuentra a Han Solo congelado sobre la superficie de Mercurio
Imagen: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Y una imagen de Han Solo congelado en carbonita en la que más o menos se pueda comprar el parecido con las formas que aparecen en la imagen He Will Not Be Permanently Damaged de la NASA,
VÃa Geekosystem y vÃa GeekAlerts.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/humor/nasa-encuentra-han-solo-congelado-en-mercurio.html
7 Bright Ways to Use Your iPhone's LED Light
Peachy Printer's sub-$100 3D printer smashes fundraising goal (video)
LG Vu 3 Has a 5.2-Inch Display, 13 Megapixel Camera
