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

Startup funding is a major concern for many entrepreneurs, so it’s always a welcome relief to learn of organizations that are still ready, willing and able to help out on the monetary front. Chicago-based group ScaleWell is currently accepting applications for their first installment of their grant program, rewarding $1000, two months of work space in downtown Chicago, and mentorship from local vets in the startup business.

Several trustees in Chicago have donated to the program, acting as caretakers towards the preservation of Chicago’s innovative startup scene for technology. One such trustee, Sean Corbett, is a graduate of TechStars Boston, having experienced this type of environment designed in helping an entrepreneur grow his idea and business. Read below for more details, and click here to apply.

ScaleWell was created to assist Chicago’s startup scene – a community without a dedicated early-stage funding program like the YCombinator and TechStar-esque programs supporting other non-coastal cities like Boulder, Austin, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. Trustee Sean Corbett – a graduate of TechStars Boston and Chicago resident – expressed the importance of support for small ventures: “Mentors from the TechStars program provided invaluable insight and I hope ScaleWell can provided a similar resource for Chicago companies.” ScaleWell also hopes the simple act of consistently recognizing and cultivating innovative ideas in Chicago should encourage more potential entrepreneurs to explore starting new ventures.

Credit: Shutterstock

How much is Twitter worth? Raise pinky to lip…

According to a new report by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, Twitter is currently worth 1 beeeeellion doll hairs.

The company is rumored to be closing an additional round of funding estimated at $50 million, which will purportedly place Twitter at a $1 billion valuation as a result.

Earlier this year Twitter closed a round of $35 million in a round led by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, which valued the company at $250 million.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, or Facebook

—
Now available! (click below to purchase the new book or poster):

I’m a big fan of BlogHer and I’m speaking on a panel at their Chicago conference this summer. So I was thrilled to hear that the organization “for women who blog” has grabbed a third round of funding for $7 Million. The new round is financed by two current investors, Venrock and the Peacock Equity, and new investor Azure Capital.

BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone told Boomtown that

“This is a true grassroots effort that is shows that growing influence women in social media,” said Stone. “We want to focus on taking advantage of that growth and momentum with this new funding…We have been trying to create a place for women to participate in social media with civil respect and also to engage readers.

BlogHer was founded in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, and Jory Des Jardins. They run their popular conferences, including the large bi-coastal BlogHer and the traveling BlogHer Business events, as well as an advertising network and the social networking site.

__

Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

Magnify.net is a service that allows you to create your own video channel, showcasing videos from across the Web, as well as your own Webcam captures. Magnify offers a free version and a more in-depth Pro version for content enthusiasts, online communities, and small businesses. Additionally, Magnify offers an Enterprise version for larger corporations.

For most of us though, Free is all we need. The free version allows you to build your channel, capture videos from your webcam, find videos from the more popular video sharing sites, and social networking integration. There is also an ad inventory share of 50/50, which is nice. With the free version, you retain control over your site name, URL, and design (including CSS) and can upload twenty 50-MB files per week.

The startup has raised about $750,000 in Series A1 financing, in addition to $1 million raised earlier this year. According to the Silicon Valley Insider,

Innovation Ventures led the round, and all major investors returned, including RoseTech Ventures, NextStage Capital, Ogden Capital, and individual angel investors. Magnify also took on some debt issued by Vencore.

Magnify’s clients include Taste of Home Magazine, which uses Magnify to power its Web video site. All told, almost 47,000 sites use Magnify, which is on track for 30 million video impressions this month.

Magnify.net has around 10 employees and is based in New York City.

More at CenterNetworks.

–
Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email at michelle[at]writetech.net, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.

by Brian Solis

John Batelle and Tim O’Reilly

The Web 2.0 Summit opened up with a few powerful statements from Tim O’Reilly in defense of the idea of “web 2.0,” not the moniker that is argued to have lost its soul and meaning.

“Do you think web 2.0 is over,” he asked emphatically.

“Are we done evolving the Web as a platform,” O’Reilly continued.

O’Reilly is referring to the confusion of technology and business opportunities that have yet to be discovered and introduced with “me too” startups not closing critical rounds of financing.

With many leading bloggers and influencers citing the end of Web 2.0, O’Reilly truly believes that the opportunity for innovation is only pervasive.

I agree.

This isn’t a market for startups to capitalize on leap-frogging existing solutions and trying to change the world and carry the industry one iteration at a time. This is our chance to create new pioneering solutions and business models to not just generate revenue, but carry forward the true spirit of “Web 2.0″

Pictures from the Web 2.0 Summit Day One are available in my album on Flickr.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.

by Brian Solis

LinkedIn announced a huge $22.7 million addition to $53 million Series D it closed in June bringing the company valuation to a staggering $1 billion.

The latest fusion of cash includes news investors SAP, Goldman Sachs, and McGraw Hill along with existing investor Bessemer Ventures.

This places the popular network in a strong cash position to not only weather the financial storm, but also excel in it. Tomorrow’s leaders seize today’s opportunities!

It’s a buyer’s market, so perhaps an acquisition or two may be on the horizon.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Our guest blogger, Larry Chiang, is an instructive humorist. If you liked “9 VC’s You’re Gonna Want To Avoid,” you’ll like this submission on some all-important fundraising mistakes to avoid for entrepreneurs.

by Larry Chiang

Who is the biggest fundraising loser (ever)?

Me.

And you will benefit from my pain.  You are getting nearly ten years of fundraising mistakes boiled down into ten tips in ‘how to work a VC’.

** My fundamental thesis is this:  **

“Entrepreneurs need to get benefit while temporarily ‘failing’ at the fundraising process”.

These definitely fall into the category, “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” – yeah I’m turning my pain into GigaOm blog posts and even a book coming out 09-09-09.

Why wait for the book, here are my 10 tips.

-1- Set aside your ego.

The business you gave birth to and nurtured into rocky adolescence will get hammered and torn to shreads by VCs.  It is time to learn the entrepreneur secret society method of justaposing pain and pleasure.

-2-  Know how knowledge flows.

It is like heat transfer and the three laws.  Knowledge flows from smart to dumb, experienced to inexperienced and some gets lost (so take some effen notes).

Entrepreneurs need to get feedback and advice but not get mentored by someone who just reads coverage.

Solicit granular advice.  Air dropped advice from 30,000 feet lands with a messy splat and scatters.  Sometimes it back-fires by landing on a founders head and killing his spirit.  Call out rudeness in your GigaOm blog post… oh wait, you do not blog for Om but I do.

-3-  Entrepreneurs should never be busy managing VC board member impressions OVER REVENUE GENERATION.

Building shareholder value can be a fart into your office max chair but sales are hard and real.  80% of founder mind share should be pointed answering the question, “How are we making money by solving a problem?”.

-4-  Skip the “9 VCs You’re Gonna Want to Avoid” by getting to 900k in revenue. And, learn from Robert Scoble’s Mr. No.

-5- How to close for a VC meeting via email.

When you get a good VC contact, the inclination is to draft an AIDA email. A-attention, I-interest, D-decision and A-action.  Skip the three paragraph email and send them one ping only.  The ping confirms the email address.

-6-  Close for a VC Meeting Via Voicemail It is similar to closing a new customer where I outline nine tools in a GigaOm post.

The key is to ask for ten minute conference call via voicemail.

-7- Entrepreneurs can get a soundbyte that advocates them using this hilarious technique I will ONLY tell you at a party.

This works parlaying VC probe meetings into hard-fast funding leads.

-8- How to charm an introduction.

Read my best stuff: work a party, man-charming + how to work a twitter party.

-9- Find and locate your balls.

This especially goes for female entrepreneurs and minority entrepreneurs (ie Asian).  Racial profiling is not kosher according to US laws, but character compassing has socio-economic background as a leading indicator of whether you will sack up.

Show some balls and tell them to take some notes during your meeting.

Remember!

No notes jotten…
Means your meeting went rotten

If you have it in writing, you’ve got a prayer.
If you don’t, you’ve got nothing but air.

-10- Press and speaking engagements don’t always help your start-up.

Remember, we treat VCs like the quasi hot girl who was popular with the boys at Stanford.  Once you leave the farm, its a rough world with much less deal flow.  We manage the VC similarly when;

- we politely disengage at the first sign of rudeness
- we don’t thank all meetings
- once you’ve shot your research load, you’re done. HOLD SOMETHING BACK
- NO reciprocity, no more meetings or emails

And remember. They’re ignoring you cuz they don’t think you are a winner so build your business while you are fundraising.

BONUS

-11- Pin the tail on the donkey.  Nothing will establish you better and faster than a well measure, well documented biatch slap.

Being mean back to a VC launched a community of entrepreneurs.  It is number 13 (not coincidentally crazy #13) in my GigaOm post – 13 o’clock in Shanghainese means crazy.

BONUS BONUS
VC HAWT High School GIRLS
1. They don’t get sold. They buy
2. They love the waitlist
3. They love community validation
4. They have a hard time thinking for themselves
5. They gossip amongst eawx other
6. They hate hate desperation,
7. They do not like false-ness
8. DDSS is like a tractor beam
9. Understated money/treasure/talent makes them 10. They listen with
significant preconceived notions.
11.  They love a good party.
12. Who do they wanna date?  Whoever the homecoming queen is dating?
13. Can they pick a rising star?  Do they make any carry… ever?! School is nurturing but fundraising is not.  I wrote about it in, “9 Things Stanford B-School Won’t Teach You”

Larry Chiang is the founder of duck9, which educates college student on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He is a frequent contributor to GigaOm’s Found|Read (if you couldn’t tell). His earlier posts include: How to Work The Room; 8 Tips On How to Get Mentored ; and 9 VCs You’re Gonna Want To Avoid. You can read more equally funny, founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog.