LanzaTech turns industrial waste into fuel, raises $55M

LanzaTech, a biofuel company that turns waste gasses into fuel, announced Monday that is has secured $55.8 million in its third round of funding.

Creating biofuels and biochemicals from factory waste emissions is LanzaTech’s specialty. The company uses carbon monoxide emissions from steel mills, factories, oil refineries, and other waste sources to create ethanol, using a gas-liquid bacterial fermentation. LanzaTech captures  the carbon monoxide, pumps the gases into a bioreactor, and mixes with liquid. Bacteria … Continue Reading

How to get a programming job at a startup (infographic)

We have only a few days before the new year ball drops and 2012 is upon us. Many will hope for good health, good fortune and good friends, but in this economy, even more may hope for jobs.

If you’re a programmer, here’s an infographic of tips to help you get that job you’re looking for.

Silicon Valley has a number of resources for programmers looking to stretch their digital fingers into the startup world. … Continue Reading

Headset maker Jawbone raises another $40M, bringing its total to $210M raised

Jawbone, the maker of Bluetooth headsets for cell phones and other cool hardware, announced today that it has raised $40 million.

That amount is one of the biggest raised by a mobile hardware company, but San Francisco-based Jawbone has always been ambitious. As we noted when the company raised its $49 million round earlier this year, you could say that “over-engineering” a headset has gotten Jawbone pretty far.

The company makes wireless Bluetooth headsets for … Continue Reading

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

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 while watching things on television. As VentureBeat previously reported, Miso has partnered with satellite and cable television service providers such as DirecTV and AT&T’s Uverse, to allow users to automatically pull up the show they’re … Continue Reading

YuMe grabs $11.9M, video advertising industry seeing more action

YuMe, a video advertising network, has raised $11.9 million in funding, according to a Form D filed with the SEC.

A YuMe spokesperson told VentureBeat the company is not ready to comment.

YuMe connects advertisers and video content creators, so videos appearing on mobile devices, computers, or connected televisions can include advertising revenue in their monitization plans. It uses the “ACE Relevance Engine,” which pairs relevant video content to an ad with the right message. … Continue Reading

Kaggle raises $11M to make data science competitive, and Silicon Valley bigwigs are impressed

“Spec work” is a term of derision in the creative industries, applied to work that’s done for free to win a prize or a contract. But for some, the model has worked so well that Kaggle is applying the model to science.

The company’s hope is that the competitive spirit can produce new data analysis algorithms as well as it does logos and website designs.

Promulgated by sites like 99designs, the idea behind speculative work … Continue Reading

Vinod Khosla: Freedom to fail is key ingredient in success

The willingness to fail is the key ingredient in success, billionaire investor Vinod Khosla told the audience at the Failcon conference in San Francisco today.

Failcon is an annual event where people gather to talk about failing their way to success, a unique forum that celebrates mistakes.

Khosla (pictured) has had may successes, but he also knows about failure first hand. He was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, as well as a partner … Continue Reading

Financial security startup BillGuard raises $10M to protect you from fraud

Personal finance startup BillGuard has raised $10 million in second-round financing, and it’s using it to expand its service that helps protect accounts from fraudulent activity, the company said Tuesday.

BillGuard protects users by registering their credit and debit cards and keeping an eye out for questionable and fraudulent charges. The company uses a crowdsourced approach to identifying unauthorized charges, by not only providing its own detection but also incorporating users’ billing complaints to track … Continue Reading

Medical appointment startup ZocDoc grabs another $25M from Goldman Sachs

Online doctor appointment startup ZocDoc on Thursday announced that is has raised an additional $25 million in third-round funding from Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs.

ZocDoc is shaking up the businesses of scheduling doctor appointments, as well as making doctors more accountable by having patients publicly rate them. The company makes its money by charging doctors $250 a month to list their practice. It lets patients find a doctor easily, set up appointments and rate … Continue Reading

Khosla Ventures adds clean tech investor Andrew Chung as partner

Venture capital firm Khosla Ventures today announced the addition of veteran clean technology investor Andrew Chung as a partner.

Khosla Ventures is known for its investments in bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies as well as other areas of the technology sector.

Chung will focus on the Khosla’s clean tech and information technology investments, according to the firm.

Chung is one of six Khosla partners, which includes joining founder … Continue Reading

Vinod Khosla thrashes deal-focused venture capitalists

“I don’t like being one of the venture capitalists … everything is a deal to them.”

That’s what storied investor Vinod Khosla said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 on Tuesday. He is considered a venture capitalist by most as he has invested in companies like GroupMe and Jawbone, but he’ll deny that any day of the week, he said.

“I am a venture assistant. I want to help out entrepreneurs with what they actually … Continue Reading

Vinod Khosla says get rid of experts and invent the future you want (video)

Vinod Khosla‘s advice for entrepreneurs is to ignore the experts and invent the future you want. That’s what he told the graduating class of Singularity University last week in a closing speech.

He said entrepreneurs will catch a lot of criticism for ignoring the experts and yet they should plow forward anyway. Khosla, founder of venture firm Khosla Ventures, is one of the most successful venture capitalists of our time, having invested in companies such … Continue Reading

Has cleantech investing lost its glamour? Khosla Ventures loses two partners

Two partners are leaving storied cleantech investment firm Khosla Ventures, as excitement has started to peter out in the once-buzzing clean technology space.

Khosla Ventures partners Jim Kim and Alex Kinnier have followed former partner Gideon Yu in leaving the cleantech investing firm. The turnover has clouded the future of clean technology investment firms, which are exposed to higher risk and lower returns now that the initial excitement has died down.

“Not unlike most sectors, … Continue Reading

SeaMicro drops its third low-power ‘atom bomb’ on server makers

For the third time in nine months, SeaMicro is announcing a new line of servers that can pack an awful lot of computing power in a sixth of the usual space and a quarter of the electricity.

SeaMicro shook up the world of data center computing by making energy-efficient servers built around Intel’s low-power Atom chips, which are usually used in netbooks and laptops.

“This is more computing power in a given space than anyone … Continue Reading