Eighth in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 startups. In an article last year called “10 Old Tech Ideas That Are New Again,” my colleague Greg Huang listed concepts such as group-buying sites and e-book readers that had their first tentative flowering back in the dot-com era or earlier and are now making … Continue reading “Convore, Rebooting IRC, Brings Group Chat Into the Social Media Era”
Tag: Y Combinator
Grubwithus Hits Boston On Its Quest To Bring Group Meals for Strangers to 30 Cities This Year
Seventh in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 startups. Grubwithus, a group-buying-meets-online-dating startup out of Y Combinator, is hitting Boston this week. The startup is introducing its group meals for strangers service in the city on June 1st. Similar to Groupon, Chicago-based Grubwithus works with restaurants to offer its users discounted meals. Unlike … Continue reading “Grubwithus Hits Boston On Its Quest To Bring Group Meals for Strangers to 30 Cities This Year”
Adam Wiggins on Heroku’s Pivot, Building a “Washing Machine” for Web Developers, and Joining Salesforce.com
If you had to name a single company whose storyline weaves through most of the big trends defining Internet startup life in Silicon Valley over the last few years—cloud computing, agile software development, the rise of venture incubators, and the software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service phenomena—you couldn’t find a much better example than Heroku. From its humble … Continue reading “Adam Wiggins on Heroku’s Pivot, Building a “Washing Machine” for Web Developers, and Joining Salesforce.com”
LinkedIn, Eventbrite, Optimizely, Garageband: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
Last week’s Xconomy event Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021 (nicely summarized by freelancer David Needle) kept me pretty busy, but the news rolled on: —The biggest buzz of the week, of course, was over the initial public offering by Mountain View, CA-based LinkedIn (NYSE: [[ticker:LNKD]]), which brought the company some $352 million in new funds. … Continue reading “LinkedIn, Eventbrite, Optimizely, Garageband: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Boston Venture Firms on the Move: A Roundup of Who’s Heading West (to CA), and Who’s Heading East (to Cambridge)
Updated, see below—The January 2009 announcement by Y Combinator that it was leaving the Boston area and moving full-time to Silicon Valley gave a real jolt to the local innovation community. Then, only a few months later, Greylock Partners dropped a similar bombshell. The storied venture firm, arguably in the elite of the elite alongside … Continue reading “Boston Venture Firms on the Move: A Roundup of Who’s Heading West (to CA), and Who’s Heading East (to Cambridge)”
Hunting HiPPOs: Optimizely’s Testing Tools Bring Data-Driven Web Design to the Masses
Optimizely doesn’t put its most effective sales pitch on its website; it doesn’t have to. It boils down to this: If it was good enough for Barack Obama, it’s good enough for you. “It,” in this case, is online A/B testing: the practice of altering live websites in small, controlled ways to see whether the … Continue reading “Hunting HiPPOs: Optimizely’s Testing Tools Bring Data-Driven Web Design to the Masses”
SwipeGood, Lanyrd, Samsung, and PARC—The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
I spent a couple of days at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco last week, but unfortunately the news didn’t slow down to accommodate my absence from the office. —Our marquee infotech event of the spring, Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021, is coming up tomorrow at SRI International in Menlo Park; you can … Continue reading “SwipeGood, Lanyrd, Samsung, and PARC—The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Lanyrd: Twitter Meets LinkedIn Meets IMDB for the Conference Circuit
Sixth in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 startups. I’m always on the lookout for technologies that have the potential to help us be better journalists and storytellers, and I find new ones pretty regularly—touchscreen video editing being my favorite recent example. But Xconomy is both a media company and an events … Continue reading “Lanyrd: Twitter Meets LinkedIn Meets IMDB for the Conference Circuit”
Do You Really Need an Incubator? Join the Debate at XSITE on June 16
Although nobody seems to like the term “incubator”—mostly because of failures from the dot-com era—it’s clear that mentorship and accelerator programs like Y Combinator, TechStars, and MassChallenge have taken off in the mainstream consciousness of innovation. They provide lots of coaching, financial support, office space, and connections to investors and other startups. Yet in most … Continue reading “Do You Really Need an Incubator? Join the Debate at XSITE on June 16”
Inporia Obtains $1,250,000 New Round
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=7f46b343-7ca6-46ef-a208-ab4202238823&Preview=1 Date 5/11/2011 Company Name Inporia Mailing Address Undisclosed Seattle, WA 98104 Company Description Inporia is your personal shopping concierge, helping you find sales and new arrivals for brands, Website http://www.Inporia.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $1,250,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes The company will use the financing to continue to … Continue reading “Inporia Obtains $1,250,000 New Round”
Churnless Consults Big Corporations and Incubates Startups Focused on Helping Consumers Change Behavior
Mix one part consultancy with another part incubator and then toss that with an entrepreneur’s passion project. Sprinkle on some academia, too. And there you have New York-based Churnless. The firm’s founders, Matt Wallaert and Avi Karnani, come from Thrive, a company focused helping consumers make better financial decisions. They sold it to Lendingtree.com in … Continue reading “Churnless Consults Big Corporations and Incubates Startups Focused on Helping Consumers Change Behavior”
SwipeGood Works to Make Giving So Easy, It’s a Rounding Error
This is the fifth in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 (YC W11) startups. “Keep the change.” You might say that to a taxi driver who’d delivered you speedily and safely to your destination, but it’s unlikely you’d ever say it to a grocery checkout clerk or a Nieman Marcus salesperson. Yet … Continue reading “SwipeGood Works to Make Giving So Easy, It’s a Rounding Error”
Grubwithus Receives $1,600,000 New Financing Round
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=f37ef2e0-6a4b-4771-b502-719b357892c6&Preview=1 Date 5/9/2011 Company Name Grubwithus Mailing Address Undisclosed Chicago, IL 60606 Company Description The company operates an online website and service that allows people to find people to eat with via an online reservation service. Website http://www.grubwith.us Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $1,600,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes The company … Continue reading “Grubwithus Receives $1,600,000 New Financing Round”
Disqus Talks Up $10M Round
Daniel Ha, CEO and co-founder of Disqus, the San Francisco startup whose commenting system is used by the publishers of 750,000 websites, said in a blog post today that his company has secured $10 million in Series B venture financing from new investors North Bridge Venture Partners and existing investor Union Square Ventures. North Bridge partner … Continue reading “Disqus Talks Up $10M Round”
Anybots, DrChrono, TRUSTe Join Lineup for Beyond Mobile on May 17; How to Win Free Tickets on Twitter
The big IT event we’re running this spring, Beyond Mobile, is now just two weeks away. We’ve got a trio of big thinkers from big organizations coming in to help us grapple with our big question—namely, what comes after the current wave of smartphones and tablets? What will our computers look like, and how will … Continue reading “Anybots, DrChrono, TRUSTe Join Lineup for Beyond Mobile on May 17; How to Win Free Tickets on Twitter”
David Cancel, Stephen Kaufer, Katie Rae, and Others Join XSITE Program on June 16
As we hurtle towards XSITE 2011, our full-day conference on June 16 at Babson College, a few thoughts come to mind. The theme this year is “the entrepreneurship era”—the idea that there is increased attention to startups and company-building as a key to revitalizing the U.S. economy. But now that entrepreneurship is at the top … Continue reading “David Cancel, Stephen Kaufer, Katie Rae, and Others Join XSITE Program on June 16”
HealthTap, Qwiki, Bo.lt: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
Last week saw an unusual number of acquisitions and several interesting company launches in the San Francisco / Silicon Valley corridor. —San Francisco-based HealthTap opened its health information site to the public. Focused initially on pregnant women and new moms, the site is designed to provide users with personalized health tips and background information on … Continue reading “HealthTap, Qwiki, Bo.lt: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Order Your Next Burger on a Tablet Computer from E La Carte
If you’ve got a touchscreen-based tablet computer, odds are you’ve noticed the way it speeds up tasks like managing e-mail. Doctors and other professionals like them too, for browsing or entering information in the workplace. And now the devices are starting to show up in a more surprising setting—your local burger joint. E la Carte, … Continue reading “Order Your Next Burger on a Tablet Computer from E La Carte”
GiftRocket Seeks to Take the Pain (and Loss) Out of Gift Cards
This is the fourth in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 (YC W11) startups. Gift cards, also known as stored-value cards, may be one of the most popular types of gifts—Americans spend at least $80 billion on them every year. But let’s face it, the little plastic rectangles are so 1994. They’re … Continue reading “GiftRocket Seeks to Take the Pain (and Loss) Out of Gift Cards”
HelloFax, Anyleaf, Gmail Fail—The 1-Minute Summary of Last Week’s Bay Area Biztech News
Time for the summary of last week’s news from Xconomy San Francisco. —On the heels of Y Combinator’s climactic Winter 2011 Demo Day on March 23, I continued my profiles of “YC W11” startups with a look at HelloFax, which lets users paste signatures into digital documents, thereby hastening the demise of the fax machine. … Continue reading “HelloFax, Anyleaf, Gmail Fail—The 1-Minute Summary of Last Week’s Bay Area Biztech News”
Cloudkick Founder Alex Polvi on the Experience of Getting Acquired by Rackspace in Startup Year One
Alex Polvi is on the tech world’s express elevator. Just a few years ago, the 25-year-old computer science graduate from Oregon State University was a system administrator at Open Source Lab, the home of Linux, Apache, Drupal, and other huge open-source software projects. It’s the place developers around the world depend on to maintain and … Continue reading “Cloudkick Founder Alex Polvi on the Experience of Getting Acquired by Rackspace in Startup Year One”
HelloFax Lets You Ditch Your Fax Machine and Sign Everything Electronically
This is the third in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 (YC W11) startups. You don’t run into many startups that are already planning for their own technology’s demise. But that’s the case at HelloFax, part of the Winter 2011 batch at the Y Combinator venture incubator. Ostensibly, the company’s service is … Continue reading “HelloFax Lets You Ditch Your Fax Machine and Sign Everything Electronically”
Anyleaf—Putting an End to the Old Supermarket Circular
Having a computer-science background, an appetite for risk, and an eye for solvable problems put you in a decent position be an Internet entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. But there’s also a downside to these traits. You wind up seeing all the flaws and inefficiencies in everyday things and wondering how you could use Web tools … Continue reading “Anyleaf—Putting an End to the Old Supermarket Circular”
Chegg, Inkling, Color, Y Combinator—The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area Biztech News
For followers of the Silicon Valley startup scene, 320 Pioneer Way in Mountain View, CA, was the place to be last week. The converted warehouse was the scene of Y Combinator’s Winter 2011 demo day, featuring pitches from 43 newly minted startups, 24 of which have already been publicly unveiled (the rest are still in … Continue reading “Chegg, Inkling, Color, Y Combinator—The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area Biztech News”
TechStars Takes Off, Jumptap Touts Patents and Partnerships, & Other Tech Tidbits Around Town
There were a number of tech developments this week that I didn’t get a chance to digest yet. That’s in part because I couldn’t eat solid food for, like, two days. Let’s just move on. —As one incubator class (Y Combinator) wrapped up its session on the West Coast, another one got started here on … Continue reading “TechStars Takes Off, Jumptap Touts Patents and Partnerships, & Other Tech Tidbits Around Town”
Y Combinator’s Winter 2011 Demo Day: The Definitive Debrief
The Y Combinator venture incubator program, now finishing its sixth year, seems intent on growing until it breaks. And in fact, it may be reaching that point already. There were 43 companies in the Y Combinator Winter 2011 (YC W11) batch; that’s nine more than the Summer 2010 class, and one side effect was that … Continue reading “Y Combinator’s Winter 2011 Demo Day: The Definitive Debrief”
Noteleaf Seeks to Sync Up Online Calendars, Contacts, For Meeting Prep On-The-Go
This is the second in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winters 2011 (YC W11) startups. Whatever your thoughts about modern technology and whether it’s making life better or just busier, you can’t say that no one feels your pain. In fact, hundreds of new startups pop up every year to fix perceived pain … Continue reading “Noteleaf Seeks to Sync Up Online Calendars, Contacts, For Meeting Prep On-The-Go”
Taskforce—the Y Combinator Startup With a Solution for E-mail Overload
This is the first in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 (YC W11) startups. E-mail: it’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s become the central tool for business and personal communication, yet for exactly that reason it gets more and more difficult every year to keep up with the growing number … Continue reading “Taskforce—the Y Combinator Startup With a Solution for E-mail Overload”
Google Funds HubSpot, AdGrok Emerges from Beta, Steve Blank Calls for “E-Schools,” & More Bay Area BizTech News
Our infotech coverage at Xconomy San Francisco was on the thin side last week, mainly because I spent the week in Boston organizing and emceeing Xconomy’s annual mobile technology conference, Mobile Madness. Here’s the brief rundown: —Three Bay Area organizations—Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Salesforce.com—led a large Series D financing round for Cambridge, MA-based HubSpot, … Continue reading “Google Funds HubSpot, AdGrok Emerges from Beta, Steve Blank Calls for “E-Schools,” & More Bay Area BizTech News”
AdGrok Emerges from Beta, Simplifying Search Engine Marketing on Google
San Francisco-based AdGrok is one of those companies that takes something that used to be hazardous for non-professionals—in this case, managing keyword-based ad campaigns on Google—and makes it into a self-service task that average businesspeople can handle without fear. The startup’s CEO, Antonio Garcia-Martinez, compares his service to TurboTax in the tax preparation arena or … Continue reading “AdGrok Emerges from Beta, Simplifying Search Engine Marketing on Google”
The Changing Face of Boston VC: A Chat With NextView Ventures’ David Beisel
I have glimpsed the future of Boston venture capital—one possible future, anyway—and it looks a bit like David Beisel. He’s kind of an unassuming guy, but those are the ones you have to watch because they can make big things happen. Traditional VCs might scoff at the notion that so-called micro-VCs or “super angels”—earlier-stage, smaller … Continue reading “The Changing Face of Boston VC: A Chat With NextView Ventures’ David Beisel”
Crocodoc Goes HTML5, SearchReviews and GravityEight Go Live, & More Bay Area BizTech News
Last week saw the emergence of several interesting new startups like GravityEight and SearchReviews. But some 2010-vintage startups, including Crocodoc and 1000memories, also made news. —Crocodoc introduced the world’s first embeddable HTML5 document viewer. The San Francisco startup, backed by Y Combinator and angel investors, says it wants to be “the new Adobe of the Web,” … Continue reading “Crocodoc Goes HTML5, SearchReviews and GravityEight Go Live, & More Bay Area BizTech News”
Crocodoc Rolls Out Embeddable HTML5 Document Viewer; YC Startup Wants to Be “The New Adobe of the Web,” Sans Flash
If you’re a Web geek, you know all about the death match between Flash and HTML5. Even if you’re not, you’ve probably heard at least in passing about the controversy over Adobe’s proprietary video and animation platform, and how Apple won’t provide support for Flash videos on its mobile devices, and how Steve Jobs and … Continue reading “Crocodoc Rolls Out Embeddable HTML5 Document Viewer; YC Startup Wants to Be “The New Adobe of the Web,” Sans Flash”
1000memories, With $2.5M from Greylock and Big-Name Angels, Explores New Ways to Capture Online Memories of the Deceased
Most Silicon Valley startups with the good fortune to line up $2.5 million in Series A venture backing from a blue-chip venture firm like Greylock Partners and famous investors like Ron Conway and Mike Maples would immediately be shouting the news from the rooftops. But the founders at online memorial site 1000memories say they were … Continue reading “1000memories, With $2.5M from Greylock and Big-Name Angels, Explores New Ways to Capture Online Memories of the Deceased”
Astia: Knocking Down the Hurdles for Women-Led Startups
Quick: Name the Bay Area startup accelerator where 60 percent of the companies go on to get acquired or win funding within 12 months of graduating, and where the 220 companies that have participated since 2003 have raised, in total, nearly a billion dollars in venture funding. If you answered Y Combinator, you’re wrong. In … Continue reading “Astia: Knocking Down the Hurdles for Women-Led Startups”
Cymer Sees Growth in Chip-Making, Northrop Grumman Combat Drone Takes First Flight, TurboTax Launches Mobile Tax-Filing App, & More San Diego BizTech News
The innovation economy took center stage last week in San Diego, where new innovations were announced in mobile apps, unmanned aircraft, and new technology platforms developed for smart grid operating systems. We’ve got it wrapped for you here. —Diego-based Cymer (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CYMI]]), which is considered a bellwether for the semiconductor industry, said during a fourth-quarter … Continue reading “Cymer Sees Growth in Chip-Making, Northrop Grumman Combat Drone Takes First Flight, TurboTax Launches Mobile Tax-Filing App, & More San Diego BizTech News”
Incubators ‘R’ Us: Kauffman Labs, Highland Capital, Betaspring, & Other Startup Accelerators Round Out Busy Week
I don’t know about you, but I’m incubatored out. With all the news and PR this week about Startup America, MassChallenge, TechStars Network, Y Combinator, and other programs across the nation, startup incubators/accelerators have suddenly gone mainstream. Which, just like when alternative rock became mainstream in the early ‘90s (always a key analogy), makes me … Continue reading “Incubators ‘R’ Us: Kauffman Labs, Highland Capital, Betaspring, & Other Startup Accelerators Round Out Busy Week”
ReadyForZero’s Free Service Eases Credit Card Troubles
Y Combinator founder Paul Graham likes to advise entrepreneurs taking part in his startup incubator program to focus on “hair-on-fire” problems—areas where new ideas can take hold faster because people are in urgent need of a solution. In the consumer market, there couldn’t be a much bigger hair-on-fire problem than credit card debt. Households with … Continue reading “ReadyForZero’s Free Service Eases Credit Card Troubles”
White House Startup Investment Coincides with Sweeping Changes for TechStars, Y Combinator, Other Incubators: A Road to Recovery, or Another Bubble?
It’s been an unforgettable seven days for tech entrepreneurs—as if somebody poured startup juice into the nation’s water supply. First President Obama dedicates a good chunk of his State of the Union address to the virtues of high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship. Then Russian investor Yuri Milner and Silicon Valley super-angel Ron Conway pair up to … Continue reading “White House Startup Investment Coincides with Sweeping Changes for TechStars, Y Combinator, Other Incubators: A Road to Recovery, or Another Bubble?”
MassChallenge, With Lessons Learned, Gears Up for 2011 Startup Competition: A Definitive Debrief
It’s billed as the world’s largest startup competition and accelerator program, and it takes place right here in Boston. MassChallenge, coming off a successful first run in 2010, is gearing up to do it again this year—but not without some important changes and improvements to its structure. Last year, the Boston-area nonprofit organized a $1 … Continue reading “MassChallenge, With Lessons Learned, Gears Up for 2011 Startup Competition: A Definitive Debrief”
$120M for TripIt, $16M for Bump, A New CEO at PARC, & More Bay Area Biztech News
The Bay Area business and technology news last week was dominated by a string of acquisitions and financing deals. —TripIt, a four-year-old travel planning startup in San Francisco’s Mission District, was snapped up by Redmond, WA-based Concur in a deal that could yield as much as $120 million for TripIt’s shareholders. Azure Capital Partners, which … Continue reading “$120M for TripIt, $16M for Bump, A New CEO at PARC, & More Bay Area Biztech News”
Exits for Two More Y Combinator Startups, Movity and Etacts
It’s been a busy month for young startups backed by the Mountain View, CA-based venture incubator Y Combinator. Salesforce.com revealed a couple of weeks ago that it had acquired Heroku, which runs a hosting platform for Ruby on Rails websites, for an eye-popping $212 million. Then Rackspace bought Cloudkick, a San Francisco cloud management startup … Continue reading “Exits for Two More Y Combinator Startups, Movity and Etacts”
For Startups, Is Friction Always Bad?
There’s probably nary a Web entrepreneur who hasn’t had a forehead-slapping “Why didn’t I build Groupon?” moment at some point in 2010. Well, I had an experience like that this week, reading Devin Friedman’s superb article “The Viral Me” in the December issue of GQ. It’s all about the Y Combinator venture incubator in Mountain … Continue reading “For Startups, Is Friction Always Bad?”
Inside Project 11 Ventures: A Chat with Katie Rae and Reed Sturtevant
Does the world really need another seed-stage technology investment fund? Maybe not—but Boston entrepreneurs can use all the expertise they can get. That’s where Project 11 Ventures comes into play. In the increasingly crowded field of early-stage tech investing, Project 11, which is co-led by Reed Sturtevant and Katie Rae, is taking a very hands-on … Continue reading “Inside Project 11 Ventures: A Chat with Katie Rae and Reed Sturtevant”
Google Chrome Shines, Salesforce Scoops Up Heroku, Wings Gets Clipped, & More Bay Area BizTech News
Maybe, while the rest of the country endures a jobless recovery, the Bay Area is blowing itself a new bubble. Or maybe everybody just wanted to release their year-end news before the holiday rush. Whatever the reason, the Bay Area infotech scene was packed with back-to-back news events last week. Take a deep breath: —Google … Continue reading “Google Chrome Shines, Salesforce Scoops Up Heroku, Wings Gets Clipped, & More Bay Area BizTech News”
Heroic Heroku: Snapped Up By Salesforce.com for $212 Million
In the biggest exit by far for a company emerging from Mountain View’s Y Combinator venture incubator program, application platform provider Heroku is being acquired by San Francisco-based cloud giant Salesforce.com (NYSE: [[ticker:CRM]]) for a whopping $212 million in cash. The acqusition was announced yesterday during Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference, and it means Heroku customers like Best … Continue reading “Heroic Heroku: Snapped Up By Salesforce.com for $212 Million”
$1.2M for Optimizely
Optimizely, a San Francisco startup specializing in automated A/B testing of websites, has collected a $1.2 million seed round from a group of prominent individual investors, according to report today in Venture Wire. Investors include Paul Buchheit, Steve Chen, Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, Mitch Kapor, Ashton Kutcher, Deep Nishar, Naval Ravikant, Chris Sacca, Joshua Schachter, … Continue reading “$1.2M for Optimizely”
Y Combinator Adds Buchheit, Taggar as Partners
Y Combinator, the Mountain View, CA-based venture incubator, announced the addition of two partners today, the first to join its team since the outfit’s founding in 2005. They are Paul Buchheit, a former Google engineer who developed both Gmail and the original prototype of AdSense, and Auctomatic founder Harj Taggar, who has been advising Y … Continue reading “Y Combinator Adds Buchheit, Taggar as Partners”
At AngelPad Demo Night, Ex-Googlers Share Plans to Overhaul the Web
It seems you can’t walk a block in SoMa these days without passing the door of a new venture incubator. The latest addition to the startup-school scene is AngelPad, which announced its existence in August and has already graduated its first class of founders. Eight AngelPad companies pitched their audacious ideas to a standing-room-only crowd … Continue reading “At AngelPad Demo Night, Ex-Googlers Share Plans to Overhaul the Web”
Travel Sites Go After Google, Trimble Buys ThingMagic, Digg Downsizes, & Other Bay Area BizTech News
Last week wasn’t awash in early-stage startup news—familiar Bay Area software, Web, and energy companies dominated the technology headlines. —A coalition of online travel companies including Expedia, Farelogix, Hotwire, and Sabre Holdings launched a lobbying effort to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to block Google’s proposed acquisition of Cambridge, MA-based ITA Software. The group, … Continue reading “Travel Sites Go After Google, Trimble Buys ThingMagic, Digg Downsizes, & Other Bay Area BizTech News”