Looking for recommendations for the perfect plumber or a cheerful contractor? Porch is launching on Wednesday, hoping to provide location-based home improvement info along with a social layer.
Y Combinator, one of the oldest and most prestigious startup incubators in Silicon Valley, announced a change to its funding structure Monday, taking control of the VC investments made in each of its startup classes, and adding more facetime with local investors.
Where can you find a place to look for genealogy advice, Lucius Malfoy costume ideas, a recipe for pomegranate sauce, and Navy SEAL training all at once? Rewarder, a social site reminiscent of TaskRabbit or Kickstarter, launches with $7 million to fulfill your dreams.
Education startup Codecademy — which promises to help anyone learn to program with its game-like online courses — is stepping up to the international market with a $10 million round of funding from new backers including Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.
BetterWorks, one of the most known startups to emerge from LA seems to have hit an air pocket. The company which was started by super angel, Paige Craig is said to have laid off close to thirty people and is looking at making some dire choices.
More than perhaps anyone else in Silicon Valley, SV Angel’s Ron Conway knows how important free expression on the Internet can be for fledgling technology companies to grow and prosper. So it’s probably not a surprise he’s against the proposed PIPA and SOPA bills.
Anti-SOPA protesters are taking their cause to the streets on Wednesday, with protests scheduled in New York and San Francisco. We will cover the event in San Francisco, which will feature Ron Conway as a headline speaker, with a live video stream.
The key to success in startups is making sure you’re young, experienced and not the only founder. That’s the takeaway from a new survey being conducted by SV Angel of successful startups that have gone on to or are projected to have big exits.
As legendary investor Ron Conway has pointed out in a strongly-worded email to some of the super-angels who were at a recent secret meeting, the most important part of the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem is the entrepreneur — something certain angels seem to be forgetting.
Many Y Combinator startups from this summer’s class already have money in the bank, and many hit up the same angel investors. I conducted an informal survey of investors at YC’s Demo Day to ask how many of the companies they had already invested in.
