Flipboard Finds $10.5M

Flipboard came out of stealth mode with a bang today. The Palo Alto startup launched a new iPad app designed to reformat users’ social media streams, such as Facebook and Twitter updates, in the form of an interactive magazine. The company also announced that it has raised $10.5 million in Series A venture funding from a group that includes Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, The Chernin Group, Ron Conway, Alfred Lin, Peter Currie, Quincy Smith, and Ashton Kutcher. At the same time, the company said that it has acquired Ellerdale, a startup whose semantic analysis software for the Web will function as “the relevancy engine for the next release of Flipboard, enhancing the readerʼs experience by always surfacing the most important and personally interesting information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks,” in the words of an announcement.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/