Bootstrap

Building apps for Facebook: A dance with the devil

Dalton Caldwell caused a stir recently when he posted an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, accusing top Facebook execs of threatening his latest startup with the Luca Brasi treatment: Sell out to us or we'll crush you.

"I had explicit approval from Facebook to build what I was building," says Caldwell, a software developer who unexpectedly found himself in the crosshairs because an app he was building to run atop Facebook was similar to Facebook's recently unveiled App Center. "They said, 'Sorry, we just need the revenue.'"

Caldwell's public dust-up with Facebook -- … Read more

Bing Fund unveils first two startups enrolled in incubator

Less than a month after unveiling the Bing Fund, Microsoft's startup/accelerator incubation effort announced today the enrollment of its first two startups.

App development services provider Buddy and online games advertising service Pinion will get access to the software giant's technology assets and expertise, as well as its funding, the Bing Fund said today.

Buddy was founded by former Microsoft employees Dave McLauchlan and Jeff MacDuff. The Kirkland, Wash.-based company aims to reduce the amount of time mobile and Web app developers spend writing, testing, and managing server-side code. Bellevue, Wash.-based Pinion helps gaming communities … Read more

Ouya console ends Kickstarter campaign $8.5 million richer

Yesterday was your last chance to get in on the Kickstarter fundraising for Boxer8's Ouya. After 30 days and more than 63,000 backers, the Android-powered home gaming console pulled in a total of $8,596,475 ($99 of those from your correspondent).

As my colleague Michelle Starr reports from Australia, you can now visit the Ouya Web site to place a preorder for the console. The price is now $109, and it's due to ship in March 2013.

Regardless of your thoughts on Ouya's merits, the little console that seems like it maybe could has captured … Read more

Did Starbucks just add $2.2B to Square's valuation?

Jack Dorsey, the 35-year-old tech star who runs mobile payment company Square, today announced what he called an "epic" deal with Starbucks that could bring the "Pay with Square" app into the mainstream.

How big? It's too soon to say for sure, of course. But a firm that researches private companies, PrivCo, calculates that Square's deal with Starbucks will add $120 million in annual revenue for Square next year and, even more impressive, boost its valuation by $2.2 billion by the end of 2013. That would give Square -- already one of the most highly valued private tech companies … Read more

In the social media era, even VCs need personal brands

Nobody wants to admit it, but building a personal brand is essential if you want to thrive in a business world dominated by social media. This is especially true for entrepreneurs and even venture capitalists who have only recently stepped out from the shadows and into the spotlight.

I became intrigued by the rising role of personal branding in the VC world by a New York Times article last week that discussed how more VC firms are hiring PR specialists to help brand their firms.

Here's a quick excerpt from that article:

"Now, Sand Hill Road in Silicon … Read more

Is venture capital broken? Hardly

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Ashton Newhall's bio below.

Let's begin with our conclusion: Venture capital is not broken. It is thriving -- albeit in a smaller, more concentrated ecosystem of fund managers who are largely closed off to new investors.

In May, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation - the world's largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship - published a report entitled We Have Met the Enemy ... and He Is Us. It stated that the Foundation had a less than a positive experience investing in the asset class over the past twenty years. The report'… Read more

Gesture control coming to Windows 8 computers

Wave at your new computer. Technology from PointGrab might soon be there to watch you. The Israeli company, which builds gesture-recognition technology, says it's in talks with many vendors bringing out Windows 8 laptops this year.

Currently, PointGrab technology is deeply embedded in a few TV sets from one manufacturer. PointGrab executives begged me not to name the vendor, but there's only one company shipping gesture-controlled TVs so it's not hard to figure it out.

In the living room environment, the technology makes a lot of sense. Instead of having to poke at buttons to control your … Read more

New Enterprise Associates raises $2.6B VC fund

New Enterprise Associates, one of the world's largest venture capital firms, has raised $2.6 billion for NEA 14, its 14th venture capital fund, TechCrunch reported this evening.

TechCrunch figures the new fund may be the largest in venture capital history, beating out a $2.56 billion fund that Oak Investment Partners raised in 2006.

The new fund will have a pretty broad deployment target, New Enterprise Associates partner Tony Florence told TechCrunch.

"From a sector perspective we will continue to be very enterprise-focused, but also very, very active in the consumer Internet space, where there are certainly … Read more

Ben Horowitz: Fueling the tech boom and learning from hip-hop

Never mind the slew of economic concerns -- hell, make that catastrophic concerns -- hanging over the world. Silicon Valley is riding high. And no venture firm is leading the charge harder than Andreessen Horowitz.

The company started three years ago this month by longtime business partners Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (first Netscape, then LoudCloud and Opsware). They've since raised $2.7 billion and have backed 150 companies, including newly-public Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, as well as hot private companies such as Pinterest and AirBnb. Earlier this month, Andreessen Horowitz made a $100 million bet on GitHub, a … Read more