- CRUNCH NETWORK
There’s more to early-stage funding than VC money
Good companies will always get funded. If that’s your company, it’s important to make sure you have the resources to keep it alive long enough to get funded. Murmurs of a looming downturn in venture capital are pressuring more companies to preemptively begin fundraising, whether or not they have gained sufficient traction to justify their stated valuations. Read More MIT spin-out Thunkable hopes its drag-and-drop app builder can be a money-spinner too
Bagging lots of users is a challenge one of the startups in Y Combinator’s 2016 winter batch is worrying about a bit less than the average. The two-man strong founder team of Thunkable is coming from the rather more comfortable position of already having fostered a community over four million strong — thanks to the drag-and-drop app builder interface they helped developed at MIT… Read MoreTechCrunch went skiing with a drone
Add this one to the bucket list. A startup called Cape Productions will use a drone to capture videos of you skiing. Stationed at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe, the team provides aerial footage of you racing down the slopes, including different angles from your GoPro. Because of its impeccable safety record, Cape is currently the only FAA-approved company that’s allowed to fly… Read MoreRando is a random social sharing app that lets you play Russian Roulette with photos, GIFs and more
A new app from David Barnard, the developer behind the popular Launch Center Pro, promises to be the cure for boredom. Rando, as the app is called, offers a crazy twist on our carefully curated online personas — instead of allowing you to choose a photo or GIF to share with friends, Rando will randomly pick one for you. You can also share random text quotes, then post them to Facebook… Read MoreTwo new apps, Daycap and VideoSlam, help you create GIFs and videos to remember your day
Two recently launched applications, Daycap and VideoSlam, make it easy to summarize your day in the format of videos or GIFs, which can then be shared out to social media. Do you need these apps on your iPhone? No. Are you totally going to download them on your lunch break because it’s Friday, they sound fun, and those TPS reports can wait? Yep! Daycap The first application… Read MoreBumble launches BFF, a feature to find new friends
Bumble, the popular dating app where girls make the first move, has released an update that may turn the dating app world on its head. The new feature, called BFF, essentially lets users use the same swiping and matching algorithms for friendship instead of dating. Here’s how it works: After switching into BFF mode, users will see their potential dates replaced by people of the same… Read More- CRUNCH NETWORK
When capital prefers venture over public markets
Market movements in the technology sector — particularly in SaaS tech companies — are causing a stir among investors. It’s always a challenge to estimate valuation ranges for publicly traded companies because these calculations require assumptions of growth. Investors are trying to draw parallels between publicly traded companies and private venture-funded companies, but a… Read More ICX Media raises $2.5M to connect video creators with publishers and marketers
ICX Media, a Washington, D.C. startup promising to help video creators find an audience and make money, announced today that it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The company was founded by Michael Avon, Tom MacIsaac, Steve McCord and Joey McCord (pictured above). Three of the four co-founders previously worked together at mobile ad company Millennial Media, where Avon was chief… Read More
Facer brings its popular watchface customization utility to Apple Watch
A popular smartwatch customization platform for Android, Facer, has today made its way to iOS and Apple Watch. While there are already dozens of utilities on the App Store that allow users to better personalize their Apple Watch’s home screen, Facer stands out because of its sizable collection of free watchfaces, range of exclusive content, which also includes premium brands and its… Read MoreimDown’s mobile entertainment network focuses on one-minute vertical videos
Thanks to smartphones and the rise of apps like Snapchat and Periscope, vertical videos have gone from being an annoyance requiring a workaround to a popular and often preferred video file format. That shift has inspired a number of startups to focus on the medium, in an effort to carve out a niche in YouTube’s shadow. The latest to join the fray is imDown, a mobile-first… Read MoreEvertoon wants you to build funny 3D cartoon videos on your phone
Niniane Wang was watching the infamous “iPhone vs. Evo” video — a short animated film of two creatures poking fun at the iPhone — on YouTube and was thinking of all the ways a video like that could be more customizable and personalized. It also helped spark the idea for her to start Evertoon, an application launching today that makes it easy to make short… Read MoreBieber-backed Shots goes beyond selfies with links and comedy
Life is hard enough for teens, so Shots sidestepped bullies with a selfie sharing app that doesn’t allow commenting. Now the 6.6 million monthly active user social network wants to boost kids’ spirits by refocusing around comedy. Today’s iOS and Android update lets users share any link, not just self portraits, and the most LOL-worth ones will end up in a special… Read MoreDwolla fined $100,000 for misrepresenting its data-security practices
Online payment processing startup Dwolla has been hit with a $100,000 penalty by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB, a government agency, said in a consent order that Dwolla misrepresented the safety of its data-security practices. Read MoreWeebly expands beyond easy-to-build websites, adds easy-to-build marketing emails
Weebly isn’t just for building websites anymore — it recently launched Promote, a platform for building marketing emails. CEO David Rusenko said this is actually Weebly’s second big expansion, after adding an e-commerce platform. But at least e-commerce is, y’know, part of a website. Why move into emails? “Email marketing is the number two concern for small… Read More- CRUNCH NETWORK
What Lending Club’s falling share price means for the P2P lending sector
Lending Club, the largest P2P lending platform in the U.S., has seen its share price drop by more than 50 percent since December 10; the price per share on the NASDAQ Stock Market dropped from $14 to less than $7 (current price per share will vary). So what is the reason for such a precipitous decline in the share price of the world’s leading P2P lender, and what does it tell us about… Read More Dot & Bo to help startups with office design
Home furnishings site Dot & Bo is expanding into workplace design, with the launch of Dot & Bo for Business. The e-commerce startup will be offering a free styling service to other startups and businesses who are looking to find the right vibe for their offices. Read MoreSlack voice calling arrives on desktop
Slack was being cheeky when yesterday it said voice chat would start testing “very, very soon”. Today the new “Calls” feature starting rolling out on Slack for desktop and on the Chrome browser. It lets you start a private Slack Call or launch a conference call in a channel that anyone can join with a click. And in keeping with Slack’s lighthearted style, once… Read More
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