Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Menlo Park, CA-based venture firm with a network of 17 partner funds around the world, announced July 16 that it has closed fundraising for its tenth venture fund at $350 million. DFJ originally set out in 2008 to raise $600 million for the fund, which would have made it slightly smaller … Continue reading “DFJ Closes $350M Fund”
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/
Pixazza Picks Up $12M
Mountain View, CA-based Pixazza, whose “visual commerce” software supplements standard Web images with pop-up shopping information, announced today that it has closed a $12 million Series B financing round. New investor Shasta Ventures led the round, which also included returning investors August Capital, CMEA Capital, and Google Ventures. The startup said it will use the … Continue reading “Pixazza Picks Up $12M”
Was ‘Antennagate’ a Side Effect of Apple’s Secrecy Culture?
Repeat after me: rubber baby iPhone bumpers, rubber baby iPhone bumpers. That’s more or less the mantra that emerged from Apple’s “Antennagate” press conference in Cupertino, CA, on Friday, called to address consumers’ and reporters’ (and Senators‘!) concerns about reception problems with the iPhone 4. CEO Steve Jobs shared data confirming that the iPhone 4—and … Continue reading “Was ‘Antennagate’ a Side Effect of Apple’s Secrecy Culture?”
The Top 10 Northern California Venture Deals of the Second Quarter—Two Ways
Followers of venture capital industry statistics know that at least three separate organizations tally the data and publish summaries a couple of weeks after the end of each quarter. They also know that the three organizations—Dow Jones VentureSource, MoneyTree, and CB Insights—rarely agree on all of the numbers. Today we wanted to bring you a … Continue reading “The Top 10 Northern California Venture Deals of the Second Quarter—Two Ways”
Google Buys Metaweb
Metaweb, the San Francisco startup that runs the Freebase open database of 12 million interconnected entries on people, places, and things, has become part of Google, the Mountain View, CA, search giant announced on its company blog today. Google (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GOOG]]) said it hopes the acquisition well help it upgrade its search engine so that … Continue reading “Google Buys Metaweb”
$15M More for Calisolar
According to a July 14 regulatory filing, Sunnyvale, CA-based solar cell manufacturer Calisolar has raised an additional $15 million in a sale of equity, rights, and securities. The “vertically integrated” manufacturer, which purifies silicon, crystallizes it, cuts it into wafers, and assembles it into solar cells and modules, had raised at least $131 million prior … Continue reading “$15M More for Calisolar”
Axcient Pulls in $9M
Mountain View, CA-based Axcient, which provides backup and disaster recovery services to managed service providers serving small and medium sized businesses, has collected $9 million out of a potential $10 million in equity-based Series B funding, according to a July 14 regulatory filing. The funders were undisclosed. Axcient last raised $6 million in a May … Continue reading “Axcient Pulls in $9M”
Evernote Opens a Trunk of Goodies for Online-Notes Fans
If I only had a second brain—one that could hold my Web clips, store my business cards, transcribe my voice memos, keep my to-do lists, preserve my receipts and recipes and passwords, and archive items from my Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds, just to list a few of the myriad types of information I attempt … Continue reading “Evernote Opens a Trunk of Goodies for Online-Notes Fans”
Trilliant Gets $106M from GE, ABB, Others
Trilliant, the Redwood City, CA-based maker of wireless equipment and software for managing smart utility grid networks, has collected $106 million in Series B equity-based financing and venture credit from a group that includes General Electric and ABB, according to a report in VentureWire today. Investor AB, VantagePoint Venture Partners, MissionPoint Capital Partners, and Zouk Ventures … Continue reading “Trilliant Gets $106M from GE, ABB, Others”
In Facebook Experiment, Microsoft Works to Deliver Shared Documents and Connect with Consumers Online
Quick, what’s the world’s most popular photo-sharing application? It’s not Photobucket or Flickr or Picasa. It’s Facebook, where users share billions of new photos every month. “The Facebook Photos application may or may not be the best, but it is the most popular, by an absurd factor,” notes Pat Kinsel. “More photos are uploaded to … Continue reading “In Facebook Experiment, Microsoft Works to Deliver Shared Documents and Connect with Consumers Online”
Crocodoc Raises Cash, Upgrades Web-based Document Review Service
Today, many documents are not only born digital, they’re also born social. Companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Google provide online tools where documents of many different types can be collaboratively generated and edited. The problem is that online editing is still a fragmented affair: If you want to mark up an Adobe PDF document with … Continue reading “Crocodoc Raises Cash, Upgrades Web-based Document Review Service”
Livefyre Works to Bring Web Comment Sections Back to Life
[Corrected, see page 2] Publishing on the Web was always supposed to be a many-to-many affair, not a one-to-many lecture like so much of radio, TV, and newspaper content. But much of the burden of keeping the Web bidirectional falls on the familiar comment sections below most news articles and blog posts. And comments, in … Continue reading “Livefyre Works to Bring Web Comment Sections Back to Life”
MSpot Challenges Netflix with New Movie-Streaming App for iPad
Up to now, there have been two main ways to watch full-length movies on your Apple iPad: buy or rent them from Apple itself through the iTunes store, or, if you have a subscription to Netflix’s DVD rental service, choose from the subset of movies available for instant viewing using the Netflix iPad app. Now … Continue reading “MSpot Challenges Netflix with New Movie-Streaming App for iPad”
General Electric, Venture Firms Unveil $200M Investment and Prize Program to Promote Smart Grid Technologies
At a glitz-filled press event in San Francisco’s financial district today, General Electric announced an “innovation challenge” designed to promote smarter, more efficient electric grid technologies. It pledged to invest $200 million in proposals from entrants in three areas—renewable energy, smart grid technologies, and “eco homes/eco buildings”—and said it would collaborate on the program with … Continue reading “General Electric, Venture Firms Unveil $200M Investment and Prize Program to Promote Smart Grid Technologies”
Zendesk Has a Twicket to Ride Twitter
Score another one for Twitter. Like Facebook and Google, the San Francisco-based microblogging service has ingrained itself into so many corners of the Internet that other companies are altering their strategies, and their vocabularies, to accommodate it. The latest example: Zendesk, the provider of Web-based customer support software, today introduced a new feature allowing companies … Continue reading “Zendesk Has a Twicket to Ride Twitter”
Filing: Webfilings Adds $5.1M
Webfilings, which has offices in Los Altos, CA, and Ames, IA, has collected $5.1 in equity-based funding in a round that could total as much as $12.5 million, according to a regulatory filing with the SEC. Some 33 investors participated in the round; their identities have not been disclosed. The company, whose software helps businesses manage … Continue reading “Filing: Webfilings Adds $5.1M”
Mobile Iron Collects $16M
Mobile Iron, a Mountain View, CA-based startup whose software helps enterprises manage smartphone usage by employees, has raised an additional $16 million in equity-based financing, according to a regulatory filing. Mobile Iron previously raised $11 million in Series B funding in August, 2009 from a group that included Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Storm … Continue reading “Mobile Iron Collects $16M”
Will Jelli’s Crowdsourcing Kill the Radio Stars (and Save the Stations)? Stay Tuned
As the Web enters its third decade, it’s getting harder to think of industries that haven’t been transformed in major ways by its ubiquitous, disintermediating, democratizing force. But we wrote about one of them last week—banking—and there’s another that’s just as ubiquitous as the Web itself: broadcast radio. “If Alexander Graham Bell came from the … Continue reading “Will Jelli’s Crowdsourcing Kill the Radio Stars (and Save the Stations)? Stay Tuned”
Playdom Takes Over Metaplace
Mountain View, CA-based social gaming company Playdom announced yesterday that it has acquired Metaplace, a San Diego-based startup that built social virtual worlds software and introduced two Facebook social games, Island Life and My Vineyard, earlier this year. Metaplace co-founder and CEO John Donham will run Playdom’s new San Diego office, according to the announcement, … Continue reading “Playdom Takes Over Metaplace”
EMeter Collects $12.5M
EMeter, a San Mateo, CA-based maker of software that helps gas, electric, and water utilities manage smart meters, announced yesterday that it has raised $12.5 million in a round of equity-based funding led by Sequoia Capital and Foundation Capital, with participation by newcomer Northgate Capital. “Given the exponential growth of the Smart Grid industry over … Continue reading “EMeter Collects $12.5M”
Adventures in YouTube-Land: The Making of “World Wide Wade Goes West”
It’s one of the cardinal rules of startup life: stick to your knitting. Don’t get distracted by all the cool things you could do, at the expense of the thing you already do well. At Xconomy, we’ve followed that rule pretty well: We’re journalists who write about technology and entrepreneurship for a living, and we … Continue reading “Adventures in YouTube-Land: The Making of “World Wide Wade Goes West””
Xactly Raises $7.5M
San Jose, CA-based Xactly, which makes software for automating the tracking of commission-based compensation for sales staff, has raised $7.5 million in equity-based financing in a round that could total as much as $12.5 million, according to a regulatory filing published today. The identities of the investors weren’t disclosed, and Xactly representatives were not immediately … Continue reading “Xactly Raises $7.5M”
$5M for Aurora Feint
Burlingame, CA-based Aurora Feint, maker of the OpenFeint social mobile gaming platform used by thousands of Apple iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad developers, has raised $5 million in new funding from Chinese gaming company The9 Ltd. and technology incubator YouWeb, according to a report in VentureWire. The company plans to use some of the funds … Continue reading “$5M for Aurora Feint”
Synchronoss Buys FusionOne
FusionOne, a 12-year-old maker of software for transferring contact information and other content between mobile phones, will be purchased by Bridgewater, NJ-based Synchronoss (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SNCR]]), the companies said yesterday. Synchronoss, which makes systems that automate new-subscriber activation on mobile networks, will pay $40 million up front for FusionOne ($32 million of that in cash, and … Continue reading “Synchronoss Buys FusionOne”
Innovating Where Banks Won’t: Talking with Rich Aberman About WePay’s Vision for Group Payments
It’s too bad the economic collapse of 2008-2009 gave “financial innovation” a bad name, because the online banking and payments sector could actually use a lot more of it. When’s the last time your bank’s website surprised you with a cool new feature or service? For that matter, when’s the last time PayPal rolled out … Continue reading “Innovating Where Banks Won’t: Talking with Rich Aberman About WePay’s Vision for Group Payments”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode VII: Denver, CO
Well, I made it to San Francisco! I officially occupied my new Potrero Hill loft (which will double as Xconomy’s San Francisco bureau) Tuesday morning. But I don’t have an Internet connection there yet, so I’m writing this at the Starbucks on 16th and Kansas. Which means I’m feeling right at home—we depended on Starbucks … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode VII: Denver, CO”
Greenplum Purchase Gets EMC into the Big Data Game
[Corrected July 8, 2010, 10:20 a.m.; see below] Boston is already a powerhouse in “big data.” It’s home to companies like Netezza, Dataupia, Vertica, and Lightwolf Technologies, which all help enterprises manage and mine the huge databases used in business intelligence applications. It was the site of the first “Boston Big Data Summit” last fall. … Continue reading “Greenplum Purchase Gets EMC into the Big Data Game”
EMC Buys Greenplum
Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE:[[ticker:EMC]]) announced today that it will acquire Greenplum, a San Mateo, CA-based maker of massively parallel database software for corporate data warehousing and analytics. The size of the all-cash transaction was not disclosed. EMC said Bill Cook, CEO of seven-year-old Greenplum, will head a new data computing product division within the company’s … Continue reading “EMC Buys Greenplum”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode VI: Wall, South Dakota
If Xconomy had an official interstate highway, it would be I-90. The longest highway in the whole interstate system, it stretches 3,099 miles from Logan Airport in Boston (Xconomy’s birthplace) to Safeco Field in Seattle (the second city in our network). On our way to San Francisco, we followed I-90 from Boston to Buffalo, and … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode VI: Wall, South Dakota”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode V: Minneapolis, MN
When I hatched this kooky plan to drive across the country to San Francisco, shooting, editing, and publishing videos along the way, I had no idea it would be quite so exhausting. So when we reached the home of Graham’s friend Oliver Zhou in Minneapolis Wednesday night, we were grateful to have a place to … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode V: Minneapolis, MN”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode IV: Torch Lake, MI
Sharon Branson, a retired nurse, and her husband Dean Branson, a retired industrial chemist and toxicologist, are busy enough for any three non-retired couples. I met this fascinating couple through my parents, who serve with Dean in the Three Lakes Association, a conservation group working to preserve the natural environment around Michigan’s Torch Lake and … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode IV: Torch Lake, MI”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode III, Who’s Wade?
Mile 971—northern Michigan. We definitely aren’t taking the direct route from Boston to San Francisco. We’ve veered north in order to take in Torch Lake—where we’ve spent the last two nights with my parents—and Minneapolis, our next destination. We were at Torch Lake long enough to record two videos. The second, coming tomorrow, is a … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode III, Who’s Wade?”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode II: Rochester, NY
A confession: Graham and I recorded the first episode in this week’s video travelogue series, the interview with Mark Nelson at C.B. Fisk in Gloucester, MA, a couple of weeks ago as a dry run for our trip. Today’s episode is the first one shot en route. We left Boston early Sunday morning, June 27, … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode II: Rochester, NY”
World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode I: Gloucester, MA
If you don’t know where you started from, it’s harder to figure out where you’re going. That’s why we chose to kick off this week’s special video travelogue series, World Wide Wade Goes West, in a place that’s as East Coast as they come: the historic seaport of Gloucester, MA. While Gloucester is famous for … Continue reading “World Wide Wade Goes West—Episode I: Gloucester, MA”
mSpot Opens Up Freemium Cloud Music Service in a Bid to Pre-empt Apple and Google; In-Depth Q&A with CEO Daren Tsui
MSpot might be the biggest mobile music service you’ve never heard of. The Palo Alto company has been profitable since shortly after its launch in 2004, and its streaming music service has six million users across 10 different wireless carriers in North America. But it white-labels that service, meaning it shows up under names like … Continue reading “mSpot Opens Up Freemium Cloud Music Service in a Bid to Pre-empt Apple and Google; In-Depth Q&A with CEO Daren Tsui”
Automattic Buys Plinky
Plinky, a “content encouragement” service that provides daily prompts to people in need of help composing social media updates, was presumed to be headed to the junk heap after its creator, San Francisco-based Thing Labs, announced plans in April to stop updating the site. But in a post on the Thing Labs blog today, the … Continue reading “Automattic Buys Plinky”
26 Apps to Drive Your iPad Wild!
Being one of the earliest of early adopters—I got my first iPad about half an hour after they went on sale on April 3—I’m often asked by friends, family members, and readers about my favorite iPhone and iPad applications. I’ve written plenty of columns about iPhone apps, so now it’s the iPad’s turn. Given the … Continue reading “26 Apps to Drive Your iPad Wild!”
26 Apps to Drive Your iPad Wild!
NEXT APP >> 1. Bento for iPad — This $4.99 app from Filemaker, an Apple subsidiary, is my favorite app for making to-do lists (see this May 14 column). Of course, it’s vastly more powerful than that. Based on the Macintosh desktop application of the same name, Bento is a sophisticated yet easy-to-use front end … Continue reading “26 Apps to Drive Your iPad Wild!”
Mobile Developers Flocking to Tablets in Wake of iPad’s Launch, Survey Shows
If mobile software developers were reserving judgment about tablet computers as a platform for new apps and services, the events of the last three months—principally, of course, the advent of the iPad—seem to have changed their minds. Developers are stampeding to tablets now, and it’s about more than just the iPad. Mountain View, CA-based Appcelerator … Continue reading “Mobile Developers Flocking to Tablets in Wake of iPad’s Launch, Survey Shows”
Lowe’s Puts $8M into Recurve
San Francisco-based home energy auditing and retrofitting company Recurve, formerly known as Sustainable Spaces, has collected $8.1 million in an equity-based funding round that could eventually total $9 million, according to regulatory documents filed last week. A report today in VentureWire says the investors in the round include the Lowe’s home improvement chain as well … Continue reading “Lowe’s Puts $8M into Recurve”
$33M More for Playdom
VentureWire reports today that Mountain View, CA-based Playdom, maker of popular social games on MySpace and Facebook such as Mobsters and Treetopia, has added $33 million to its original $43 million Series A round, which closed in November 2009. The new funding comes from Bessemer Ventures Partners, New World Ventures, and Steamboat Ventures, according to … Continue reading “$33M More for Playdom”
Etude on the iPad—A Young Boston Developer Follows the Music to San Francisco
Dan Grover has seen a lot. He’s taken courses through the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and studied at Northeastern University in Boston. He’s had his own independent application development company since 2004. He’s been a staff developer at Boston-based uLocate (now Where) and Palo Alto, CA-based Tapulous. The Mac desktop program he built, ShoveBox, … Continue reading “Etude on the iPad—A Young Boston Developer Follows the Music to San Francisco”
TaskRabbit Kicks Off Errand-Running Service in San Francisco, Boston ‘Burbs
TaskRabbit—known until this April as RunMyErrand—was one of the darlings of the Bay Area investing community when it emerged from the inaugural session of Facebook’s fbFund incubator program last summer. Founding CEO Leah Busque headed out to Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters in June 2009, and by October her Boston-born startup had picked up checks totaling … Continue reading “TaskRabbit Kicks Off Errand-Running Service in San Francisco, Boston ‘Burbs”
Apptera Obtains $10M
Sunnyvale, CA-based Apptera, maker of a platform for hybrid in-call and text-message-based advertising targeted at mobile phone users, has raised $10 million in equity financing from a group of 14 investors, according to regulatory documents published June 17. Apptera’s previous investors include Alloy Partners, Efficient Frontier, Lightspeed Venture Partners, New World Ventures, and Walden International … Continue reading “Apptera Obtains $10M”
Sacca Closes $8.5M Fund
Chris Sacca, the former head of special initiatives at Google who has been active as a Silicon Valley “super angel,” has announced the kickoff of a new $8.5 million startup investing fund at his firm Lowercase Capital. Sacca’s previous investments have included Bit.ly, Gowalla, Photobucket, Poll Everywhere, Posterous, and Twitter. Sacca told VentureWire that the … Continue reading “Sacca Closes $8.5M Fund”
Solar Day, Born in San Francisco, Radiates to Dozens of Cities
After 40 years of observances, you probably know that April 22 is Earth Day. But you may not have known that tomorrow, June 19, is SolarDay. Billed by its organizers as a chance for alternative energy activists and solar energy entrepreneurs to highlight the solar technology options and government rebate and incentive programs available to … Continue reading “Solar Day, Born in San Francisco, Radiates to Dozens of Cities”
Prime View Adopts E Ink Name
Prime View International, the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based display manufacturer that acquired Cambridge, MA-based E Ink last year for a price that eventually amounted to $450 million, announced today that its entire operation will now go by the name E Ink Holdings Incorporated. Along with the electrophoretic screens developed by E Ink over the last 13 years—which … Continue reading “Prime View Adopts E Ink Name”
Goodbye, Boston
Who was it who wrote, “If Silicon Valley didn’t exist, Boston would have to invent it in order to have someplace to feel inferior to”? Oh wait, that was me. It was a snarky thing to say—but it was back in February 2009, and I was feeling piqued at the time about calls for a … Continue reading “Goodbye, Boston”
Magoosh, Test Prep Startup From Berkeley, Wins Inaugural North Bridge Seed Competition
Berkeley, CA-based Magoosh, a developer of low-cost online multimedia materials for the lucrative test preparation industry, is one of two startups to snag the top prize in North Bridge Venture Partners‘ first seed capital competition. Both Magoosh and Pittstown, NJ-based Profitably, a business intelligence software startup focused on small businesses, will receive $50,000 in seed … Continue reading “Magoosh, Test Prep Startup From Berkeley, Wins Inaugural North Bridge Seed Competition”
Redpoint Puts $9M Into Machinima
Redpoint Ventures, the Menlo Park, CA-based early stage venture capital firm, has invested $9 million in a Series B financing round for Los Angeles-based Machinima, according to an announcement today. Machinima’s entertainment portal features original fan-created videos made using the graphics engines from popular video games such as World of Warcraft, Halo, the Sims, and … Continue reading “Redpoint Puts $9M Into Machinima”