Category Archives: Funding

Many here in Silicon Valley are eagerly trying to get funding for their startups. Out of those few who are able to get funding from Venture Capitalists, I wonder how many actually hear what’s in the above video. Following in line with the “Sh*t” memes that are the flavor of the month on YouTube, August Capital’s David Hornik posted this hilarious one about “Sh*t VCs Say”.  There are some really great gems in this video like poking fun at the negotiating process (e.g. “$10 million pre”) and much more…here are a few of my favorites:

• Is an 11 good on Klout?
• Is that the biggest plane they got?
• I got one word for you: participating preferred
• That’s what you’re doing? Are you kidding? I had that idea 3 years ago.
• S-1, baby!
• What if we put it in the Cloud?
• Mary, can you come here for a second? I need you to tweet something for me!
• I just got back from Paris.
• You’d be better off with Snooki on your board.
• What? You only have 7 million users.
• Why in the world are people skiing on the weekends when the lines are shorter during the week?
• You gotta check it out, it’s like the AirBnB for cosmetics

Thanks David Hornik for the laughs this Saturday morning. You can watch the whole video here.

SoundCloud, the Berlin-based open platform for audio sharing on the web and mobile devices keeps making noise. During the past six months it’s grown from 1 Million to 2 Million users, having attracted both Snoop Dog and Justin Bieber as customers. To keep up with its fast growth in order to become the leader in audio hosting and sharing, as to establish its US presence and the San Francisco office, it needs more fuel to execute. The rumors of raising new funding ($10 Million) were confirmed today, and we can congratulate Union Square Ventures with Fred Wilson and Index Ventures with Mike Volpi for joining the SoundCloud journey together with its prior investor Doughty Hanson Ventures.

I’ve been a fangirl of Soundcloud since its private beta, and long before Spotify Social came along, SoundCloud had been my home for music discovery. Citysounds.fm is still one of my favourite apps, perfect to discover new music from different cities. And now, with the new updated iPhone app, I finally get access to my SoundCloud favourite tracks list streaming nicely on the background. What. A. Relief.

Something tells me that my perfect world scenario, where I can check-in and discover the best food, music and places recommendations all in one isn’t that far away in the future…

By Julie Blaustein

A company’s failure is something that people don’t usually speak of, as if it were a bad omen or a skeleton in the closet. But, as FailCon ’10 made clear, failure happens to everyone, including those used to always being on top. The conference, held Monday in San Francisco, made failure appear to be a badge of honor. In the world of start-ups, failure is a way for one to learn lessons and to succeed as a result of failing in the past. FailCon ’10, now in its second year, was launched by event planner Cassie Phillipps of WebWallfower Events and took place in the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.

Steve Blank of Four Steps to the Epiphany

The opening speaker was serial entrepreneur and business school professor Steve Blank who was also available to sign his book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany. It’s about early stage start-ups and the four stages of growth any start-up goes through in order to become a real company. Right on target with the theme of the conference. His talk was based on the key task of any start-up; creating a working business model. He also provided some practical advice such as, “Don’t expect the VC’s to be lined up waiting for you to hand you money when you get off the plane in Silicon Valley.”

Jay Adelson of Revision3

Blank was soon followed by a number of speakers from very successful companies who spoke about what they learned from their mistakes. The line-up included Chad Dickerson of Etsy, Chrysanthe Tenentes of FourSquare and Cathy Brooks of OtherThanThat, who asked her usual probing questions when interviewing former Digg CEO, Jay Adelson. Adelson did not share too much with the audience that wasn’t already news, such as his departure from Digg as CEO, but he did share his thirst for being a part of the start-up process, whether it is successful or not.

Hotel Kabuki is a convenient venue, not only for its great restaurants in Japantown but ideal for a conference thanks to its numerous rooms that provided both speaker presentations and workshops. How Not to Fail at SEO presented by Vanessa Fox, formerly of Google and now of Nine By Blue, provided a great presentation of do’s and don’ts for SEO that one can find in her book, Marketing in the Age of Google.

The Audience of FailCon '10

A number of start-ups provided demos of their products and services in the “Demo Room” including: Footfeed, Near2There, FoodSprout, Wordchuck, SurfMark, Doochoo, CardMunch, Soup.me, MogoTix, hiyakoo, MyNextCustomer, R/A Profit$, and Bee.TV. Throughout the day they offered demos of their product or service for those that wandered into the demo room during sessions and breaks. The audience texted their favorite using Poll Everywhere and the three favorites of FailCon were MyNextCustomer, CardMunch and MogoTix. MogoTix, the winner of the popular vote, provides scannable tickets on your mobile phone and for the event organizer, instantaneous viewing of who has arrived. Perhaps they will have some small failures in order to ensure that they will be successful in the end.

We recently had a chance to sit down with recently funded CEO Brian Wong, to find out more about what he’s working on with Kiip.me

Brian was recently funded by True Ventures and has had an amazing couple of weeks. Being the youngest to be funded by True Ventures, Brian said that he is looking forward to what is to come, and excited to to be launching at the end of the year.

Thanks to @KickLabsSF for sharing the space, and @Brian_Wong for the interview! We look forward to many more to come!

*Photo by www.RyanChuaPhotography.com

At the time of year when the airports are busiest, FlightCaster has announced $1.3 million in funding. FlightCaster launched a service that predicts the probability of a flight leaving on time, reporting up to 6 hours before the airline will announce a delay. Combining data from air traffic control, airport information, airline information and countless other parameters, FlightCaster emerged earlier this year as a nifty but questionable tool.

FlightCaster’s applied use cases were in question, as calculating the probability of a flight delay does not always give a flier the guarantee of making their flight should they change their plans accordingly. A lack of integration with other major travel-planning tools also isolated FlightCaster in its service provisions.

However, The funding of FlightCaster shows interest in its product, though details regarding plans for FlightCaster growth have not been released. Increased features for usability will improve the FlightCaster service based upon its existing functionality. Furthered integration with other services, especially those that are related to travel planning and alerts. Additionally, trending personal concierge services with well-integrated mobile features are targets for FlightCaster integration as well.

According to TechCrunch, FlightCaster has already begun discussions with companies for future inclusion of its predictions services. From airlines and airport information hubs such as RSS feeds and mobile apps to travel planning tools that already offer similar alerts, FlightCaster may have found itself in a nice position.

Whether this is indicative of a future acquisition for Flightcaster or not is too early to determine. The funding of Flightcaster, however, shows the potential behind niche services such as this. Many others that were too far advanced for their time have missed opportunities in not being able to integrate with the services and methods already employed by the average consumer.

As mobile phones make concierge services even more prevalent in our lives, the necessity for personalized updates grows accordingly. With larger companies creating robust mobile apps to connect more directly with consumers, startups such as Flightcaster have more opportunities to become integrated features promoted through these apps, accessing consumers on a broad level.