Amidst the usual rush of funding and M&A news last week, there was one interesting story about a controversy that could reshape the startup landscape in San Francisco (and no, I’m not talking about CrunchFund):
—Entrepreneurs based at the Pier 38 tech hub in San Francisco began looking for ways to challenge the Port of San Francisco’s recent move to evict all tenants due to safety concerns. A group of startup founders held a protest rally at City Hall on Tuesday and spoke with San Francisco supervisors about the pier’s importance to the local technology community. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee visited the pier on Friday, right before a meeting between tenants and officials from the city and the Port.
—A new network of regional angel investing groups is taking shape. Called the Angel Syndication Network, the group is intended to assist growing angel-funded startups that need more funds than any single angel group can provide. Founding members of the network include Band of Angels here in the Bay Area, as well as Irvine, CA-based Tech Coast Angels and New York-based Golden Seeds.
—Berkeley startup Magoosh, which we first profiled in June 2010, launched a new series of online videos designed to help students prepare for the newly revised Graduate Record Exam (GRE).
—My Seattle-based colleague Curt Woodward profiled Shopobot, a shopping search engine startup that fled San Francisco for Seattle in an effort to sidestep the political battle over Internet sales taxes that has pitted Amazon against numerous states governments, including California’s, with local affiliates as the casualties.
—After acquiring San Jose-based Atheros Communications five months ago, San Diego-based Qualcomm has incorporated Atheros’ Wi-Fi and Ethernet technologies into its femtocell wireless modem chipsets, as my colleague Bruce Bigelow reported.
—“A day in the life of an Xconomy reporter” was the theme for my Friday column, as I summed up one day’s worth of appointments, lunches, and interviews with leaders in the Bay Area tech community.
—In funding news, 10gen raised $20 million, Sungevity raised $5.6 million, BonitaSoft raised $11 million, GetAround raised $3.4 million, Red Robot Labs raised $8.5 million, Zetta raised $9 million, Apsalar raised $5 million, Xignite raised $10 million, InMobi raised $200 million, SaveUp raised $2 million, Alphabet Energy raised $12 million, and RRKidz and Rumble Entertainment both announced that they had raised undisclosed sums.
—In M&A news, Mindjet acquired Cohuman, Ebates acquired FatWallet and AnyCoupons, 8×8 bought Contactual, Solta Medical acquired Medicis Technology Corporation, Broadcom bought NetLogic, Bluefin Robotics acquired Hawkes Remotes, Chegg acquired Zinch,
—In IPO News, San Jose-based GCT Semiconductor filed S-1 registration papers saying it hopes to raise $100 million in an upcoming public offering.
