Pinterest joins the billion dollar club with $100m funding from Rakuten
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.
The words made famous by the movie that dramatized Facebook's beginnings may soon be passé in Silicon Valley, as investors clamouring to get in on funding rounds for the hottest tech startups seem increasingly willing to put their cash in at billion-dollar valuations.
Crazy? Perhaps, but Facebook's $1bn Instagram acquisition shows that big valuations don't exclude companies from the startup lottery, at least for the time being.
The latest entrant to the billion dollar club will be Pinterest, thanks to a $100m funding round led by Rakuten. The funding round puts a $1.5bn valuation on Pinterest.
Twitter hits 10m UK users, 80% use mobile
Facebook may be the subject of all of the headlines with its public debut looming this Friday, but another major player in the social networking space is reminding the world that it's still growing too.
Twitter, which has built a company that one day might go public too on the back of 140 character messages, has waived its hands in the air by announcing that it has surpassed 140m users worldwide.
The CROWDFUND Act: everything you need to know
Yesterday, United States President Barack Obama signed into law the JOBS Act, which may be the most significant update to securities regulations since Sarbanes–Oxley was passed in 2002.
One portion of the new law, the CROWDFUND Act, has been creating a lot of buzz in Silicon Valley for months, as it will make it legal for startups the ability to raise money in small chunks from large numbers of non-accredited investors.
Will Facebook help or hurt the startup economy?
When Facebook filed to go public earlier this week, you can be sure that the excitement in the halls of Facebook's offices was palpable. After all, the company's wild ride is going to make a lot of people very wealthy.
But the excitement around Facebook's IPO isn't just being felt amongst Facebook's employees. It's creating increased excitement for technology entrepreneurs, some of whom hope their startups could be the next Facebook.
Are the good times over (again) for startups?
In 2008, just as the global economy was collapsing, one of the most storied venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, Sequoia Capital, gave a presentation that encouraged entrepreneurs to raise as much money as they could, and hunker down for a nuclear winter.
Three years later, the startup economy is zooming along. Many young companies large and small have been raising money at significant (and arguably exorbitant) valuations. A new breed of angel investor -- the 'super angel' -- has emerged, buoying the market for startup capital. And thanks to secondary markets for private company stock, founders and early employees at some of the most successful companies have been able to obtain liquidity.
But are the good times coming to an end, again?
Caveat emptor: SeedSummit's standardized seed financing terms
Times are good for internet entrepreneurs. VC money is flowing again, supporting a startup boom the likes of which hasn't been seen since the late 1990s.
Large companies aren't shy about acquiring technology and talent, and for the most promising companies, the public markets are once again open for business.
Although much of the startup investment activity and buzz is focused on startups in Silicon Valley and New York, Europe isn't without startup action of its own.
Online takeaway service Just-Eat secures £30m in funding
Online takeaway ordering service Just-Eat has just secured $48m (£30m) in funding which will allow the company to consolidate its position in the UK and accelerate its expansion into other markets.
The funding round was co-led by Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures, with support from existing investor Index Ventures.
Founded in Denmark in 2000, the company partners with small takeaway restaurants and allows them to display menus and take orders from online customers.
Digg's painful lesson: take the money and run while you can
At one point in the no-so-distant past, Digg was one of the hottest startups on the internet. The Web 2.0 boom was in full swing, and Digg and its founder Kevin Rose were the poster children for the next generation of companies that would ride the wave to fame and fortune.
Digg, of course, rose to popularity by providing a platform that democratized the news. Why rely on editors to determine what's important and what's not?Let the wisdom of the crowd works its magic. It was a simple idea, but a powerful one.
Are super angels conspiring against entrepreneurs?
Startups looking for funding increasingly have a new class of investor
to pitch: super angels. These are individual angels who have raised
money from others in the hopes that their smallish funds will serve as
the basis for an investing model that merges the best of the angel and
VC models.
The value proposition to entrepreneurs looking for funding: we're as
nimble and friendly as angels, but we have more money available if we
decide to make a big bet. But is this all a facade?
Ten dangerous ideas for startup entrepreneurs
Starting a new business is a positive action, and in my experience most entrepreneurs are positive people. But sometimes that positivity can mask harsh realities that many entrepreneurs would rather ignore, and can lead them to buy into ideas that are detrimental to success.
Here are ten dangerous ideas that many startup entrepreneurs buy into that they shouldn't.
