Major Moves
Tango, a Bay Area social networking startup reminiscent of WhatsApp, has raised $280 Million in a Series D round of funding, led by DFJ, Qualcomm Ventures, and new board member Jerry Yang. Notably, Alibaba Group became a major player in the funding round, marking Tango's first Chinese-based backer since they opened an office in Beijing three years ago. Alibaba may be seeking a direct competitor to WeChat, backed by rival Tencent Holdings.
Cloudera, a Palo Alto startup that uses Apache Hadoop to provide analytic data management for enterprises, raises $160 Million in venture funding, leading Dan Primack to wonder whether an IPO may be in its near future.
Y-Combinator announces the addition of two new partners - Justin Kan of Justin.tv and Twitch.tv fame, and Tutorspree founder Aaron Harris, whose joining in October hadn't been formally announced until today.
Personal Blogs
Sam Altman, the man taking over after Paul Graham's announcement of his departure from Y-Combinator, explains he'd like to see YC fund more breakthrough technologies across all sectors.
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures posts about his Flappy Bird experience, powered by MIT's Scratch and Scratch Jr programming platforms.
Entrepreneur-turned-Venture Capitalist Mark Suster posts about why you should determine the outcome of a board meeting before ever setting foot in the room.
Lessons and Lists
MIT's Tech Review sheds some light on 5 secretive startups spun off by former NSA employees.
Inc.com's Adam Varccaro explains that high performance is not the same as high potential, and why failing to take potential into account can hurt your company's leadership.
FastCompany's Maryam Banikarim offers 7 Enduring Lessons from Silicon Valley 1.0.
No comments:
Post a Comment