Mobile banking pioneer mFoundry nabs $18M from MasterCard, Intel Capital and others

December 5, 2011 8:53 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

You could say that mFoundry was totally into mobile payments before it was cool. Now the company is reaping the rewards of being an early adopter, announcing today that it has received $18 million in growth-capital funding led by MasterCard, …

uTest grabs $17M from QuestMark, others to expand its crowdsourced testing biz

December 5, 2011 8:42 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Crowdsourced app-testing startup uTest has raised $17 million in its fourth round of funding.

uTest commands a community of more than 45,000 professional testers from 180 countries and helps companies like Google, Microsoft and Intuit extensively test software applications in …

Can Asia out-innovate America?

December 5, 2011 8:00 AM Rebecca Fannin

Guest Post


Go East, young entrepreneur! The chance to become rich and famous with a startup is no longer just an American dream. It’s happening in Asia too, as talent, energy and resources flow from the U.S. to the east.

Venture capital …

SAP-SuccessFactors: 9 reasons why this is a smart acquisition

December 5, 2011 3:42 AM Matt Marshall
Matt Marshall

Editor's Pick

Software giant SAP acquired internet software company SuccessFactors on Saturday for $3.4 billion, in what most accounts praised as a commendable move to embrace the so-called “cloud.”

The “cloud” is a buzz-word that refers to the new way applications are …

U.S. government green-lights Google’s $400M acquisition of Admeld

December 2, 2011 11:45 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

The U.S. Department of Justice today put its stamp of approval on Google’s acquisition of Admeld, an online ad startup.

The $400 million deal was under some scrutiny to determine whether or not it posed antitrust issues.

However, as the …

New York Times is eyeing new tech companies to acquire

December 2, 2011 11:27 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

The New York Times Company is looking around for new acquisition targets. Any businesses the company buys will be its first acquisitions in more than three years.

In a Bloomberg interview, the company’s CEO, Janet Robinson, said The New York …

Social TV startup Miso closes $4M round from Khosla, Google Ventures & others

December 1, 2011 2:19 PM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Social TV service Miso has raised a new $4 million round of funding, the startup announced on its blog today.

Miso’s service, which has about 250,000 users, works by allowing people to check-in, rate, comment, earn badges and complete quizzes …

Zynga: Beyond the IPO

December 1, 2011 1:37 PM Andrew Cleland

Guest Post

Three years ago, Mark Pincus told me that he was going to make Zynga more valuable than EA within five years. It took him only two.

Zynga is a remarkable venture story, and the company’s impending IPO is a huge …

Sprint bails out Clearwire with $1.6B deal

December 1, 2011 11:33 AM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Sprint has agreed to pay $1.6 billion to struggling wholesale wireless provider Clearwire over the next four years, the companies announced today.

The deal will give Sprint unlimited access to Clearwire’s WiMax wireless network, which is noticeably slower and much …

NewsCred offers a better kind of newswire, raises $4M round

November 30, 2011 6:38 PM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Digital newswire service NewsCred has raised a new $4 million round of funding, the startup announced today.

NewsCred is basically a reinvention of the current newswire model made famous by the Associated Press. However, NewsCred doesn’t produce its own news, …

AT&T and T-Mobile discussing joint venture if merger fails

November 30, 2011 4:37 PM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Contrary to previous statements, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom are working on a backup plan that would take place if U.S. regulators don’t approve the $39 million sale of T-Mobile.

The “Plan B” both companies are discussing involves forming a joint …

Floating technology incubator gets cash infusion from Facebook funder Peter Thiel

November 30, 2011 10:24 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

Blueseed, a new incubator to be based on a ship 12 miles off the California coast, will see its first round of funding led by big-name investor Peter Thiel.

The floating “seastead” will host 1,000 entrepreneurs just a few miles …

FCC report blasts T-Mobile merger, AT&T cries about it

November 30, 2011 7:52 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

The Federal Communications Commission last night released a damning 157-page report (PDF) against AT&T’s proposed $39 billion T-Mobile takeover, which concludes that the merger would ultimately hurt US consumers and the wireless market.

AT&T, not surprisingly, is none too pleased. …

Scripted is a writer smorgasbord for those in need of community outreach, gets $700K

November 29, 2011 1:14 PM Meghan Kelly
Meghan Kelly

As a small business, it’s hard to keep up excited web content due to time costs, commitment to a full time community manager, and more. Writer marketplace Scripted, however, has a cheaper option and a seed round of $700,000 to …

Shop online, try it out in person: Kembrel gives hybrid retail sales the old college try

November 29, 2011 12:49 PM Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove

If I told you that the flash sales sites of today would give birth to the offline retail experience of tomorrow, you’d probably laugh in my face. Who would want to take the “e” out of e-commerce in uncertain economic …

WordPress takes on Google’s AdSense with new WordAds service (update)

November 29, 2011 11:13 AM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Popular content management system (CMS) company WordPress is launching a new word-based advertising service that will compete directly with Google’s AdSense, the company announced today.

WordPress, which is owned by Automattic, powers over 24 million blogs and runs on 15 …

AT&T hopes a deal with Leap Wireless will save T-Mobile merger

November 29, 2011 8:28 AM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

AT&T is hoping that a new deal with Leap Wireless will save its plans of merging with Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Mobile USA.

The deal would see Leap purchasing both T-Mobile’s customer base and most of its wireless spectrum, while AT&T would …

Facebook’s New Year’s resolution: Go public

November 28, 2011 4:26 PM Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove

With 2011 winding to a close, talk of Facebook’s long-rumored 2012 initial public offering is crescendoing to cacophonous levels. A new report purporting that Facebook is targeting an IPO date between April and June of the upcoming year is adding …

StyleCaster grabs $1M from Zynga exec David Ko, Owen Van Natta and others

November 28, 2011 1:37 PM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Fashion-focused media company StyleCaster has raised $1 million in a new bridge round from investors including Zynga chief mobile officer David Ko and Zynga board member and former MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. The move will help the startup make …