square

Mobile payments startup Square has formed an extensive partnership with Starbucks that includes a $25 million investment from the coffeehouse giant.

Under the terms of the deal announced this evening, Square will process credit and debit card transactions at U.S. stores. Also, Starbucks customers will be able to make purchases with Pay with Square -- Square's payer app -- at Starbucks locations later this fall.

In addition to investing $25 million in Square's fourth round of funding, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz will join Square's board of directors. In June 2011, the company raised $100 million in … Read more

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

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

On this day in 1992, "Jeremy" premiered on MTV.

Great collection of what Olympic divers look like mid-jump.

NASA to air Mars landing in Times Square.

Digg unveils revamped home page.

FCC to Verizon: You don't have a right to block tethering apps.

Direction of Justin Bieber documentary to reboot He-Man movie.… Read more

Square has once again raised a ton of money, closing a $200 million round of funding that will make CEO Jack Dorsey a certified paper billionaire, according to those watching the industry.

Although neither the company nor its lead investor -- little-known private equity firm Rizvi Traverse of Michigan -- would confirm the matter, news of the dollar figure has been swirling around today.

Rizvi Traverse other investments include Playboy, Facebook and Twitter, according to the company's Web site.

The funding, which is twice the amount the company raised last year, puts a valuation of $3.25 billion, an … Read more

I've been working the device torture beat here for a while, but this video of an iPad and Google Nexus 7 going head-to-head in drop and submersion tests almost gave me a full-blown case of DTSD (device trauma stress disorder).

Once again, the device warranty folks at SquareTrade subjected two devices to some low-level maiming to see which survives with the least damage and the iPad suffered the most battle scars, at least from the drops. … Read more

Square, the mobile-payments startup that has made a big splash around the U.S., is looking to go overseas.

The company's chief executive, Jack Dorsey, told reporters yesterday at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, that Square is "going outside the U.S. soon." According to Bloomberg, which was first to report on the news, Dorsey didn't say where his company would be expanding. He also wouldn't say when it would happen.

Even without help from international efforts, Square has been growing quite rapidly and announced in March that it was … Read more

If you've ever read user reviews of rugged or waterproof cameras, you probably wouldn't think they could handle having a glass of water spilled on them, let alone a 33-foot dive in the ocean.

The fact is, however "rugged" a manufacturer says a camera is, whether it can survive such treatment has a lot to do with the user. Maybe too much.

For example, the top-rated Olympus Tough TG-1 iHS is marketed with some of the highest durability claims for a compact camera: waterproof down to 40 feet, shockproof up to a 6.6-foot drop, freezeproof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, and crushproof up to a weight of 220 pounds. That sounds pretty great and it is, but there's a bunch of fine print that goes with that marketing message.… Read more

Fred Wilson states the obvious. "Web is flattish. But mobile is growing like a weed," he wrote in a recent post on his blog.

Smartphone subscriptions worldwide were about 700 million in 2011 and are expected to grow to an estimated 3 billion in 2017, according to a recent report from Ericsson (PDF). Add in mobile PCs and tablets with cellular connections, and the numbers grow from 850 million in 2011 to 3.8 billion in 2017.

But Wilson, a venture capitalist from Union Square Ventures, with investments in hot startups such as Foursquare, Tumblr, Twitter, and Zynga, … Read more

June is the perfect time for backyard barbecues, lemonade and tablet warfare:

Microsoft is taking tablets into its own hands with the Surface. And next week, so will Google. It's expected that Google will show off the Nexus tablet at its developers conference that begins next week. And some reports have Google's tablet launching in July -- which will likely be before the Surface hits stores.

The Surface boasts solid hardware, a kickstand and a cover that also serves as a keyboard. But how much will it cost? All we know is that the light version, using Windows … Read more