Vroom! eBike maker Brammo raises $28 million

Electric motorcycle maker Brammo has raised $28 million in a new funding round led by Polaris Industries, the company announced today.

The money will help Brammo solidify its position in the market against electric bike rivals such as Zero Motorcylces, and to reach new customers. Brammo also produces and distributes the Brammo Digital Drivetrain, and the Brammo Power battery back, which can be used by manufacturers in their vehicles.

“We are excited to add … Continue Reading

iOS Newsstand is a success for Condé Nast: digital subscriptions up 268 percent

Condé Nast’s weekly digital subscription sales increased 268 percent since Apple launched its Newsstand feature on iOS 5 earlier this month, the company revealed Tuesday.

Newsstand is essentially a collection of iOS applications from print publications. Newsstand appears as a separate folder on the iOS 5 home screen that houses each publication’s app. The app automatically downloads new content and sends users a notification when it’s available. Some of the 295 publications participating in Newsstand … Continue Reading

Hands on with Nokia’s Lumia 800 and 710 Windows Phones

Nokia finally let its wildcat out of the bag on Wednesday morning with the announcement of its Lumia 800 and 710 smartphones, its first phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Nokia has a lot to prove with the new devices, and it needs to recapture the fanbase it once had around the world. Although a little bit of thunder was stolen from the company by a major leak yesterday, these phones pose a … Continue Reading

Sprint losses defy Wall Street, its iPhone 4S launch is best ever

Things may be shaping up for Sprint.

The third-place US carrier reported losses of $301 million for the third quarter on $8.3 billion in revenue, but that was about half of what Wall Street expected the company to lose.

Additionally, the company confirmed that the iPhone 4S launch on October 14 (which doesn’t count towards its third quarter), was its best ever day of sales.

Sprint added 1.3 million subscribers during the quarter, consisting of … Continue Reading

Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America (exclusive)

The Indian government thinks the $35 Aakash Android tablet has the power to change the world. After testing one out, we’d tend to agree.

An Aakash tablet was brought to the VentureBeat office on Tuesday by Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Duke. Wadhwa, who is researching the Indian education system, and is a columnist with the Washington Post, was given the tablet by Kapil Sibal, the Indian … Continue Reading

Dylan’s Desk: Is it already too late for Nokia and Microsoft?

When does half a billion plus half a billion equal zero?

That’s the question that is on my mind this week, as Nokia has just unveiled news about its upcoming Windows Phone lineup at the annual Nokia World conference in London.

(Check out our hands-on with the Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710.)

Nokia and Microsoft are in an unusual position: They are both enormous giants that dominate their respective industries, but are largely regarded … Continue Reading

Nextdoor: a social network for your neighborhood

Stealth startup Nextdoor believes it has cracked the social/local code, and is today launching a digital platform  that brings together  your real-world neighbors.

Nextdoor is creating the “neighborhood graph” by combining the best of  Web 2.0 sites like  Yelp and Facebook, with the features of early Web tools such as Craigslist and Yahoo! Groups to reconnect neighborhoods and re-establish a sense of community, on and offline.

Nextdoor has the look and feel of Facebook, with … Continue Reading

Nokia unveils its sexy Lumia Windows Phones — won’t hit the US until 2012

Hello Nokia, we’ve missed you.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced the company’s flagship Windows Phone device, the Lumia 800, during his Nokia World keynote earlier this morning. The Finnish phone maker also announced a lower-end option, the Lumia 710 as well as several low-end phones running its aging Series 40 software. Unfortunately, neither of the Windows Phone devices will hit the US this year.

Details about the Lumia phones leaked yesterday, which sort of put … Continue Reading

Atlassian brings JIRA and other major development tools to the cloud

Enterprise software startup Atlassian announced Tuesday that is moving its collaboration and development products, including JIRA and Confluence, to the cloud with an innovative pricing structure.

Atlassian‘s products, especially bug-and-issue tracker JIRA, are important to enterprise and small clients alike. The company currently serves 26,000 customers, including Cisco, Citigroup, Netflix, Facebook, Zynga and Adobe. But now even more companies will have access to Atlassian products because there’s no need to set up a server to … Continue Reading

IBM names Virginia Rometty as first female chief executive

IBM named its new president and chief executive today, Virginia Rometty, who will also serve on the company’s board of directors.

Sam Palmisano (pictured right with Rometty), the current chief executive, will be stepping down as Virginia, who goes by Ginni, takes the position on Jan. 1, 2012. Rometty currently serves as senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy and joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981.

“But she is … Continue Reading

Twitter reveals new timeline features

Patrick Bisch, founder of Pinglio.com, was on his Twitter earlier today when he noticed something different. His timeline, or stream of tweets, suddenly had new features including a button to expand tweets.

Thus far, Twitter’s timeline has been fairly cut and dry. There are the tweets themselves, a time stamp and the name of the source the tweet came from. A slider opens on the right side of the Twitter page to show media and … Continue Reading

Google shows how governments are getting information about you

Google has released a report on how governments and police agencies are accessing information about web users.

By showing how many requests Google gets for user information — and exactly how many users and accounts are under some kind of surveillance — the company hopes to have a positive effect on public policies around government access to citizens’ online activities.

“All too often, policy that affects how information flows on the Internet is created in … Continue Reading

Smart TV gaming startup PlayJam raises $5M round

Gaming startup PlayJam has raised a new $5 million round of funding to bring games to smart TVs and set-top boxes, the company announced Tuesday.

PlayJam is known for producing games on internet-connected TV platforms from Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic. The company says it’s seen over 6 billion game downloads on those platforms alone.

However, with the increase in devices that give televisions web connectivity — like Blu-ray players, game consoles and set-top boxes … Continue Reading

Mobli adds Leonardo DiCaprio as advisor and investor, looks for help with branding

Mobli, a photo sharing application, said today Leonardo DiCaprio will be advising the company and also participated in a $4 million first round of funding, along with other private investors.

The technology sector has seen a recent onslaught of celebrity investors such as DiCaprio, Will.I.Am, Lady Gaga and Ashton Kutcher, who is now playing an internet tycoon on CBS’ sitcom Two and a Half Men. But many have to wonder, do these people actually have … Continue Reading

SoundHound’s music discovery app hits 4 million searches a day

Music discovery application SoundHound has hit an impressive 4 million searches per day to help its more than 50 million users find songs, the company announced today.

SoundHound has a lot of similarities to rival Shazam: Its iOS and Android apps analyze particular sounds to determine the name of a song playing. Users can also hum or sing a song to get a result. The app also provides lyrics, song previews and YouTube videos connected … Continue Reading

Amazon reports Q3 earnings, misses Wall Street estimates big-time

Amazon today released its 3rd Quarter earnings, turning in a per-share performance of just 14 cents, missing Wall Street expectations of 25 cents per share by a wide margin. The ecommerce giant saw revenue decrease by 73 percent, to just $63 million, which is likely to further punish the stock price.

Amazon‘s Q3 earnings in 2010 were $231 million, or 51 cents per share. Overall revenue for the quarter rose 44 percent, to $10.88 billion.… Continue Reading

Appcelerator acquires HTML5 platform company Particle Code

HTML5 development platform-maker Particle Code has been
acquired by Appecelerator for an undisclosed sum, the company announced Monday. The deal brings together the business side of the house, as well as deep tech, says Particle Code chief executive officer Galia Benartzi.

Particle Code, which was a DEMO 2010 DEMOgod winner, allows developers to create a unified web experience across devices. Appcelerator is known for its Titanium tool, which is used by clients such as NBC, … Continue Reading

Nokia’s new Windows Phones leak ahead of tomorrow’s London debut

Several photos that give away key details about Nokia’s new Windows Phone devices have hit the web today, less than 24 hours before Nokia is set to unveil the smartphones in London.

There is much anticipation by the mobile world and Nokia followers about what the company has come up with after CEO Stephen Elop bet the company on the Windows Phone 7 operating system early this year. Nokia will be entering a crowded landscape … Continue Reading

The legal checklist every startup should reference

I’ve been a corporate lawyer for more than 17 years, and there are certain fundamental legal mistakes that I’ve seen startups repeatedly make (many of which surface when investors are conducting their due-diligence investigation).

Accordingly, I thought it would be helpful to provide a simple checklist for startups that includes links to indepth posts for a more detailed discussion.

Startup checklist:

1. Form a corporation, not an LLC (see post here) or a partnership (see … Continue Reading