Rob Solomon: Too rich for Groupon?

The No. 2 executive at daily-deals purveyor Groupon, Rob Solomon, has taken advantage of the company’s unlimited-paid-days-off policy — for good.

In an email to Groupon staff that was forwarded to VentureBeat, CEO Andrew Mason announced that Solomon (pictured), who joined Groupon just a year ago, is leaving the Chicago-based company to move back to northern California. (It’s not clear how settled Solomon ever was in Chicago: He never changed the location in his LinkedIn … Continue Reading

Watch out, PayPal: Facebook gets serious about payments

How committed is Facebook to broadening its revenue streams beyond advertising?

So serious that it’s formed a subsidiary, Facebook Payments, Inc., and is registering it in a host of states.

The move could signal an intent by the world’s largest social network to get more broadly involved in the payments business while also making its business operations more efficient. Right now, it appears unlikely that Facebook will roll out any kind of consumer-facing payments service … Continue Reading

A startup scribe goes native

For 16 years, I’ve written about startups and the people who found them. I’ve even worked at startups for about half of my career as a reporter and editor — for the past year, at this startup called VentureBeat.

But I’ve never actually been part of a founding team.

That’s changed. Yes, I’m leaving VentureBeat. For a startup.

It was with great surprise that I recently found in my email an offer to become the … Continue Reading

Can Google get social in Texas?

The South By Southwest Interactive conference could prove a crucial testing ground for Google’s ambitions to compete with Facebook.

The hot rumor now sweeping the hallways of the Austin Convention Center, where the conference has been going since Friday and will continue next week, is that Google will launch a new social network here called Google Circles, sparked by a report in tech blog ReadWriteWeb. The notion is flattering to SXSW’s notoriously self-involved attendees, who … Continue Reading

Why SXSW's party in Austin matters

The Internet, like soylent green, is made of people. And startups can never get enough.

That’s the insight I’ve gathered from years of attending South By Southwest Interactive, the annual conference/festival/five-day rave held every year in Austin in conjunction with the more established SXSW film and music festivals. (You can show your veteran status, or fake it, by calling it “South By.”) The streets of Texas’s capital city are swarming with San Franciscans; I knew … Continue Reading

Fab.com throws in the big gay towel and bets on e-commerce

Does the world need a gay social network?

The answer is no, if you ask entrepreneur Jason Goldberg, who folded up shop on Fab.com after raising $3 million to build an online community targeted at gay men and is in the process of reinventing the startup as a daily-deals site for design enthusiasts.

It’s a surprising decision, given Goldberg’s aggressive push into the gay market. But Fab.com went through many business models since launching last … Continue Reading

Not so pretty: Layoffs at e-commerce darling ModCloth

ModCloth, the hot e-commerce startup backed by Accel Partners, First Round Capital, and the Floodgate Fund, laid off just over a dozen of its 248 employees today, the company told VentureBeat.

The company, which sells vintage clothing and apparel from independent designers, raised $19.8 million last year in a round led by Accel. Founded in Pittsburgh in 2002 by Susan and Eric Koger, the company is now headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in … Continue Reading

Flash-sales site Privalia in $280 million global shopping spree

The second wave of e-commerce is coming, buoyed by a flood of fresh cash. European flash-sales site operator Privalia, which offers short-term, steeply discounted fashion deals in Spain, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico, is expanding to Germany with a $280 million acquisition of rival Dress-For-Less.

The deal is funded in part by $123 million in fresh cash from General Atlantic, Highland Capital Partners, Index Ventures, and Insight Venture Partners, as well as debt and newly issued … Continue Reading

How we rocked DEMO Spring 2011 (photos)

Team VentureBeat is still recovering from DEMO Spring 2011, the product-launch conference we co-produced in Palm Desert, Calif. this week. From Sunday afternoon into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, we went nonstop.

As exciting as it is to tell the story of innovation unfolding, it’s even more of a rush for the companies presenting at the conference. They have a lot at stake — the months or even years of development, the harrowing selection … Continue Reading

White House-backed Startup America teams up with DEMO

The Startup America Partnership, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to backing entrepreb neurship, announced today that it is teaming up with DEMO, the IDG- and VentureBeat-produced product-launch conference series, to expand opportunities for startups.

DEMO executive producer and VentureBeat editor-in-chief Matt Marshall made the announcement today during an interview with Startup America CEO Scott Case on stage at DEMO Spring 2011, which concludes today in Palm Desert, Calif. (IDG owns DEMO, while VentureBeat is paid a … Continue Reading

Watch DEMO Spring 2011 now (live feed)

Missing the action in Palm Desert, Calif., where the best startups and smartest companies out there are presenting their products? One way to listen in is on Twitter, where I’m providing real-time commentary on the #democon hashtag. But you can also watch the show as it happens on a live feed provided by our partner, Fora.tv. It’s not the same as being in the thick of things and getting the full social experience. But it … Continue Reading

DEMO: Why Manilla is the Postal Service's worst nightmare

Manilla is one of 53 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2011 event taking place this week in Palm Desert, Calif. After our selection, the companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Born out of one of the U.S. Postal Service’s biggest customers comes a threat that could speed the mailer’s inevitable death: Welcome Manilla, a startup backed by magazine publisher Hearst, which aims to put … Continue Reading

What President Obama's Web-hipster beer hoax tells us

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” the kids like to say on Internet discussion boards when confronted with an unlikely scenario that calls for photographic verification.

How about making that “Pics and it didn’t happen”? That’s the scenario that unfolded after the founder of a popular tech news-headlines site claimed he checked into a San Francisco bar popular with young startup workers and happened upon President Obama, who was in the Bay Area yesterday to meet … Continue Reading

Can Groupon take to the skies with its first airline deal?

From laser waxing to fusion barbecue, it seems there’s nothing Groupon can’t — or won’t — sell. But the email discount offers service could be on to a lucrative new market with its latest discount.

If you wanted to get on board Virgin America’s $70-off sale for new service between San Francisco or Los Angeles and Chicago, too bad. In typical Groupon fashion, the offer — the service’s first ever deal with an airline — … Continue Reading

Palantir's third black eye: i2 lawsuit settled

For a company named after a magical talisman of vision, Palantir didn’t seem to see what was coming these past few weeks.

The secretive data-analysis startup, based in Palo Alto, Calif. and backed by early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, has suffered a number of blows to its public image of late. The most recent is the settlement of a lawsuit filed by rival i2 Group, based in McLean, Va., over accusations that Palantir employees fraudulently … Continue Reading

Silicon Valley's shopping spree: One Kings Lane, Abe's Market and more

A new wave of e-commerce is coming, backed by tends of millions of dollars from Silicon Valley’s savviest investors, that’s reinventing more than just how consumers shop online.

From One Kings Lane to Plum District and Abe’s Market, from Stella & Dot to Bonobos, we’re seeing a generation of companies that are rethinking relationships with vendors and acting as middlemen and marketplaces as much as they are merchants.

Today, One Kings Lane, an online home-décor … Continue Reading

Marc Bodnick opens up about his move to Quora — on Quora

When VentureBeat first reported on Silicon Valley investor Marc Bodnick’s departure from Elevation Partners, the private-equity firm he cofounded, I noted his enthusiasm for Quora, the online question-and-answer community founded by Charlie Cheever and Adam D’Angelo, two early Facebook employees.

When rumors broke that he was actually taking a formal job at Quora, I asked him — on Quora — how the startup recruited him.

This morning, he finally answered my question! Here’s his response:… Continue Reading

Elevation Partners makes it official: Marc Bodnick resigns

It’s official: Elevation Partners has announced the resignation of Marc Bodnick from the high-profile private-equity firm, just a couple days after VentureBeat first reported his impending departure.

While Bodnick hasn’t commented on his plans, he’s widely understood to be joining Quora, a highly valued question-and-answer startup founded by former Facebook employees, in an unspecified role.

Elevation cofounder Roger McNamee made the following statement:

“Marc has made the decision to leave Elevation to pursue new opportunities. … Continue Reading

Open question: What is Marc Bodnick going to do at Quora?

Marc Bodnick, the cofounder of Silicon Valley private-equity firm Elevation Partners, is leaving to join Quora, according to multiple reports. (VentureBeat first reported his pending departure yesterday.)

Quora is a hotly watched, much-discussed question-and-answer service that won buzz from the Silicon Valley crowd early on — including from Bodnick, who proudly notes that he’s the service’s 137th user. It also stirred talk of a startup bubble when it raised $11 million at an $86 million … Continue Reading

Superstar Marc Bodnick leaving Yelp, Facebook investor Elevation Partners

One of the most-watched private-equity partnerships in Silicon Valley is coming apart.

Marc Bodnick, a cofounder of Elevation Partners, is planning to leave, according to a source close to the firm.

His departure could threaten Elevation’s plans to raise a second fund, which have been on hold as the firm has struggled to convince investors it can recapture its early magic.

Elevation Partners, formed in 2003, brought together a literal rock star — Bono of … Continue Reading