Good news for the hordes of students hopelessly addicted to Facebook and Farmville.
Grockit, a company that applies social networking and gaming mechanics to studying, just closed another $7 million round of financing to fuel its international growth.
The startup …
What do Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Skype CFO Jonathan Chadwick, Benchmark Capital general partner Bill Gurley and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have in common, besides the filthy rich tech rockstar thing?
They’re among a dozen or so Silicon Valley personalities …
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $500,000 grant to web research startup Scrible, which is launching its public beta today. Scrible’s bookmarklet is meant to facilitate annotation of web pages for the sake of research, archiving and collaboration.
Web …
If only schools were addictive like Farmville, maybe we could fix our education system.
That’s the thinking behind a partnership announced today between the high-profile charter school network KIPP and test-prep startup Grockit, which applies social gaming principles to studying. …
The classroom is no place for fighting. Unless it’s between education startups.
In a move that signals an aggressive expansion into the online learning platform market, social learning startup Grockit is hiring Rusty Greiff as chief strategy and development officer. …
Waiting for Superman, a popular documentary about America’s public school woes which drew particular attention from Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial class, comes out on DVD today, February 15. In September, Paramount Pictures announced that NewSchools Venture Fund had committed to investing …
Knewton, a company that provides personalized help to boost scores on tests such as the GMAT, is taking online education to the next level: It will now power actual university math programs for Arizona State University (ASU) students.
The announcement …
Rupert Murdoch is media’s ultimate contrarian, with a reputation for plunging into new businesses well before others agree on their promise. So could his newfound enthusiasm for education startups give the sector a boost?
Last week, New York was abuzz …
We’re excited to announce the finalists of the GreenBeat 2010 Innovation Competition. VentureBeat and its advisors selected these companies for having the most promising ideas for making the next generation of the smart grid — a bionic upgrade we’re calling …
Why is VentureBeat putting on GreenBeat 2010? The energy revolution depends on two disparate groups. Call the first the pipe dreamers: entrepreneurs, politicians, and pundits. They have great ideas. Then there are the powermongers — the folks who quite literally …
On Monday, during Steve Jobs’ now-storied connection meltdown during his iPhone 4 demo, he asked for suggestions from his tech-savvy audience. One snarky attendee shouted, “Verizon!”
The carrier seems to be at the center of mobile innovation, even when uninvited.…
We’ve gotten over 150 nominations for our MobileBeat 20 Startup Competition, and it’s clear from the submissions that the advent of 4G and superphones is igniting a conflagration of innovation in the startup world. In fact, it’s reminiscent of the …
We’re pleased to announce that Phil McKinney, VP and CTO of Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Systems Group, will be keynoting at MobileBeat 2010, a conference held by VentureBeat on July 12 to 13 in San Francisco. As the man in charge of …
One of the most useful features of Mac OS is Spotlight—hit “command-space bar,” then type a term into the search field and Apple quickly skims through everything on your hard drive. As more data moves to disparate places online, however, …
The real-time web is a hyperactive, fragmented place, and lurkers who want to now what’s happening now have to search through myriad services and filters. Y Combinator-backed Nowmov wants to help the energy-challenged masses stay informed by bringing the real-time …
Startup incubator Y Combinator is hosting its semi-annual Demo Day today. Twice a year, the Mountain View, Calif.-based incubator parades its latest batch of companies onstage to present before potential investors.
This afternoon, 26 companies will pitch their business plans. …
A year ago, we published an exposé on Oak Investment Partners, which has become one of largest venture-capital firms by attracting large sums from investors despite a mediocre track record. Of particular concern was the continued support of the Washington …
Knewton, an online test prep company that uses adaptive learning to boost scores on standardized tests, announced today the launch of its new SAT prep course. The company already provides prep courses for the GMAT and LSAT, and now hopes …
Juniper Networks upped its offensive against rival Cisco today with the announcement of a $50 million venture fund. The Junos Innovation Fund will primarily target early and growth-stage startups that can help accelerate the speed and variety of network solutions. …
The Brits invaded Plug and Play’s Sunnyvale campus Monday night to introduce a group of promising European tech startups to Silicon Valley. Six young companies showed themselves off to an audience of potential partners.
The event was part of a …
