You lose some, you win some. Less than four weeks after Paul Graham’s unceremonious announcement that his formerly bicoastal startup school Y Combinator would be taking up permanent residence in Mountain View, CA, ending a tradition of summer sessions in Cambridge, MA, a new startup program is coming to town: Boulder, CO-based TechStars. Founded in … Continue reading “TechStars “Entrepreneurship Boot Camp” Comes to Boston: An Interview with Co-founder David Cohen”
Tag: Y Combinator
Paul Graham and Y Combinator to Leave Cambridge, Stay in Silicon Valley Year Round
Viaweb founder Paul Graham and his legendary startup incubator Y Combinator, which is arguably the most vibrant, innovative technology startup school in the country, are no longer going to be part of the summer scene in the Boston area. In a message posted on the Y Combinator website (I think last night sometime), Graham has … Continue reading “Paul Graham and Y Combinator to Leave Cambridge, Stay in Silicon Valley Year Round”
Archemix Partners with GSK, EMC Acquires SourceLabs Assets, Satori Raises $22M to Take on Alzheimer’s, & More Boston-Area Deals News
New England tech and life sciences firms have cut many a deal since last we rounded up. Here are some of the most interesting ones. —Cambridge, MA-based Semprus Biosciences, a spinoff from the famed Langer Lab at MIT, closed an $8 million Series A round of venture capital co-led by 5AM Venture and Pangaea Ventures. … Continue reading “Archemix Partners with GSK, EMC Acquires SourceLabs Assets, Satori Raises $22M to Take on Alzheimer’s, & More Boston-Area Deals News”
Y Combinator Startup Posterous Raises Round, Launches Group Blog Feature
This past summer, I had a great time at the Y Combinator Demo Day, schmoozing with guests and watching some altogether fascinating demos from the incubator’s latest batch of startup companies. One of those that made my list of favorite demos was Posterous, which today announced a $750,000 funding round from a group of high … Continue reading “Y Combinator Startup Posterous Raises Round, Launches Group Blog Feature”
CRV Funds Scribd
Waltham, MA-based Charles River Ventures is the lead investor in a $9 million Series B financing round for Scribd, a San Francisco startup and Y Combinator graduate whose “iPaper” document reader allows users to upload documents such as Word, PDF, and PowerPoint files to the Internet and share them by embedding them in Web pages. … Continue reading “CRV Funds Scribd”
Attention, Startups: Move to New England. Your Gay Employees Will Thank You.
If you’re trying to decide where to build your new tech startup, California obviously has a lot of attractions. You’ll be close to the heart of the venture capital community. Non-compete agreements, which are said to slow innovation in states like Massachusetts, are illegal in the Golden State. The weather is beautiful year-round. And let’s … Continue reading “Attention, Startups: Move to New England. Your Gay Employees Will Thank You.”
MTLC Awards Give Nods to Cleantech, Gaming, and Inkless Printing
The Mass Technology Leadership Council gave nods to cleantech and gaming investors, inkless printing technology, and Web innovators with its 2008 Mass Technology Leadership Awards, according to the industry group. Over the last year or so, Xconomy has written stories that capture many of these award-winning accomplishments. Here’s a complete list of this year’s winners … Continue reading “MTLC Awards Give Nods to Cleantech, Gaming, and Inkless Printing”
Downturn is Perfect Time for Startups, Paul Graham Says
Paul Graham may be the founder of famed Mountain View, CA- and Cambridge, MA-based startup academy Y Combinator, but he’s almost as well known for his monthly essays about the technology business. His latest edition, out today, argues that it’s no harder to get a technology startup off the ground during bad economic times than … Continue reading “Downturn is Perfect Time for Startups, Paul Graham Says”
Founder’s Co-op Gets Warm Reception, Wants Startups That Will Survive Cold Recession
Andy Sack’s favorite coffee drink is a 12-ounce, single-shot, non-fat latte. But if you’re meeting with him to pitch your latest technology startup idea, be advised that he’s probably on his second or third cup already. These days, his schedule is filled with meetings and networking—most of it pretty informal. “I’ll have coffee with anyone,” … Continue reading “Founder’s Co-op Gets Warm Reception, Wants Startups That Will Survive Cold Recession”
Y Combinator Recombined: Talking with Philadelphia Startup Incubator DreamIt Ventures
Everything is moving faster in the Internet age, it seems—including startup incubators. At incubators that follow the traditional model, like Idealab or Biogen Idec’s Innovation Incubator, young companies get to spend a leisurely year or two getting their first product out the door, while benefiting from the financial and administrative support of a larger parent … Continue reading “Y Combinator Recombined: Talking with Philadelphia Startup Incubator DreamIt Ventures”
Princeton Undergrad Brings Scavenger-Hunt Startup to Boston
At 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 18, 500 couples will fan out across Philadelphia in search of a $25,000 diamond ring hidden by a local jeweler. Equipped only with cell phones, the couples will receive text-message instructions directing them to an array of local landmarks, where they’ll have to complete puzzles and other challenges to … Continue reading “Princeton Undergrad Brings Scavenger-Hunt Startup to Boston”
$1M Gratuity for TipJoy
Cambridge, MA, startup Tipjoy, a Y Combinator-launched company whose technology allows Web surfers to leave small payments at the blogs of their favorite content creators, announced on its own blog this week that it has closed a $1 million Series A funding round. The round was led by New York-based seed stage investor Betaworks and … Continue reading “$1M Gratuity for TipJoy”
RescueTime Raises $900K
Seattle-based RescueTime, a maker of Web-based time management software, has announced it has closed a Series A round led by True Ventures. Several angels also participated, including Tim Ferriss, Mike Koss, Chris Sacca, and Mike Seckler. RescueTime, which got seed funding from Y Combinator, lets you monitor the amount of time you spend on various … Continue reading “RescueTime Raises $900K”
Chatterous Chats About Happy Hours, Investors, and Moving to San Francisco
It must be the weather—or rather, the climate. How else to explain another tech startup with Seattle roots moving to the San Francisco Bay Area? Last week I heard from DocVerse, a collaborative-document software company, which relocated from the Seattle area to San Francisco this summer after raising a round of funding from Bay Area … Continue reading “Chatterous Chats About Happy Hours, Investors, and Moving to San Francisco”
The Italian Job, Part One: Startup Designer H-Farm Comes to Seattle
Sometimes you just have to write the story even when you don’t know all the details yet. This is one of those times. This is the story of H-Farm, an Italian design and investment firm, coming to America. But it’s only Part One of the story—a preview, really. That’s because it won’t be until next … Continue reading “The Italian Job, Part One: Startup Designer H-Farm Comes to Seattle”
PicWing Out to Simplify Photo Sharing on Digital Frames
In an ideal world, your digital photos would be shared and archived instantly, behind the scenes, as soon as you snapped them. They’d be wirelessly transmitted to your friends’ phones or e-mail addresses, a photo sharing site like Flickr or Snapfish, your social-networking accounts at Facebook or MySpace, a media storage site like Box.net, your … Continue reading “PicWing Out to Simplify Photo Sharing on Digital Frames”
Y Combinator’s “Open Source” Legal Documents: Up, Down, Up Again—Thank the Lawyers
It’s not easy posting legal documents: the lawyers get nervous. At least, that’s what happened to Y Combinator. Last Wednesday, August 13, the unique venture firm/incubator made a batch of boilerplate legal documents developed for its own startups freely available on its website—“open sourcing” (their term, not mine) them in hopes they would make closing … Continue reading “Y Combinator’s “Open Source” Legal Documents: Up, Down, Up Again—Thank the Lawyers”
Demo Day at Y Combinator Offers Glimpse of Web’s Future
The house was packed with investors big and small (only one limo was waiting outside, though), the food tasty, the mood upbeat, the rain hardly fell—and, most importantly, a score of very intriguing startups stood ready to present. It was Demo Day at Y Combinator, the bi-coastal incubator/venture firm that’s based in Cambridge, MA, in … Continue reading “Demo Day at Y Combinator Offers Glimpse of Web’s Future”
Y Combinator Goes Open-Source With Legal Funding Documents
If you’ve ever launched a startup with funding from a venture firm or angel group, you know the bank-account-draining toll those startup legal bills can take. I still feel the pain: an amazing $25K each from my lawyer and the lead investor’s lawyer for a simple angel deal. And guess who paid for it all? … Continue reading “Y Combinator Goes Open-Source With Legal Funding Documents”
Microsoft Entertains Idea of Funding Startups, Probably Won’t Take the Plunge
Last week I highlighted Kevin Merritt’s original blogpost in which he proposed that Microsoft develop a Y Combinator-like program to fund early-stage startups. Merritt also posted a follow-up in which he clarified that he worked at Microsoft for a year, owns some stock but remains “neutral” to the company, and doesn’t use Microsoft technologies at … Continue reading “Microsoft Entertains Idea of Funding Startups, Probably Won’t Take the Plunge”
Y Combinator Model “Too Messy” for Microsoft, Says YC Founder
On Wednesday, Greg highlighted the provocative suggestion of Kevin Merritt, CEO of Seattle startup Blist, that Microsoft should return to its “risk taking, entrepreneurial roots…” by investing in early-stage startups along the lines of the Y Combinator model. By supporting the startups in return for some stock and a commitment to use Microsoft development software, … Continue reading “Y Combinator Model “Too Messy” for Microsoft, Says YC Founder”
Will Popcuts Out-Surrge Surrge with Music Rewards Program?
The news in TechCrunch last night about the public beta launch of Popcuts, a startup founded by Cambridge, MA- and Mountain View, CA-based Y Combinator that proposes to reward music buyers by giving them a slice of the revenue every time someone else buys a song they already bought, sounded awfully familiar. Then it came … Continue reading “Will Popcuts Out-Surrge Surrge with Music Rewards Program?”
Software Startups No Longer Need As Much Venture Capital, Says Founder of RescueTime
Venture financing—who needs it? Not early-stage software and Web startups, if you ask Tony Wright. I sat down with the serial entrepreneur and founder of Seattle-based RescueTime yesterday, and he had some intriguing thoughts about recent trends in the innovation community. “The nature of VC is changing,” he said. “The notion of a ‘big launch’ … Continue reading “Software Startups No Longer Need As Much Venture Capital, Says Founder of RescueTime”
Y Combinator Alum Omnisio Joins Google’s YouTube
The latest win for Y Combinator, Paul Graham’s Mountain View, CA- and Cambridge, MA-based startup incubator, is Omnisio, a California Internet video startup that announced today that it’s been acquired by Google, which plans to fold it into YouTube. The companies didn’t report the purchase price, but TechCrunch is saying that it was in the … Continue reading “Y Combinator Alum Omnisio Joins Google’s YouTube”
30 Startup Ideas from Y Combinator
Fresh out of ideas for your next technology startup? No worries—investor/programmer/Web guru Paul Graham, founder of the Cambridge, MA, and Mountain View, CA-based Y Combinator startup incubator, published a handy list this weekend of 30 niches waiting to be filled by clever entrepreneurs. Graham says he published the list because the ideas represent the kind … Continue reading “30 Startup Ideas from Y Combinator”
One Founder’s Opinion: Internet Entrepreneur Andy Sack Says Seattle Startups Need Less Money, More Mentoring
It’s going to be a busy summer for Andy Sack. The serial online entrepreneur and investor is getting deep into his latest venture, Founder’s Co-op, and he doesn’t have much time for chit-chat. I’m just able to catch him on his cell, while he’s rushing off to a meeting and getting ready to head out … Continue reading “One Founder’s Opinion: Internet Entrepreneur Andy Sack Says Seattle Startups Need Less Money, More Mentoring”
As Y Combinator Prepares to Open Summer Camp, Paul Graham Speaks
Y Combinator bills itself as “a new kind of venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups.” The company also has a different kind of headquarters, one that alternates between Cambridge, MA, during the summer and Mountain View, CA, during the winter. And, as Wade noted a few weeks ago, Y Combinator’s summer camp for … Continue reading “As Y Combinator Prepares to Open Summer Camp, Paul Graham Speaks”
Capturing the Facebook Flag: Harvard, Yale Students Launch Rival “Social Online Sports” Companies
How to Build a Web Startup: Step 1: Get into a prestigious university like Yale, Harvard, or Stanford. Step 2: Organize some kind of Web-mediated event or service, and get a few thousand of your fellow students to participate. Step 3: Start answering the calls from venture capitalists and online advertisers. It worked for Facebook, … Continue reading “Capturing the Facebook Flag: Harvard, Yale Students Launch Rival “Social Online Sports” Companies”
Y Combinator Gears Up for Startup Summer
Time’s a wastin’ for East Coast technology entrepreneurs who want help from Y Combinator, investor Paul Graham’s startup camp, which returns to Cambridge for its fourth year this summer. Applications for summer 2008 funding are due April 2. Y Combinator winters in Mountain View, CA, where it just held its semi-annual Demo Day, its equivalent … Continue reading “Y Combinator Gears Up for Startup Summer”