Investors and press flooded into the Computer History Museum this morning for Y Combinator’s demo day.
The incubator has proven to be an effective vehicle for selling the startup dream. Twice a year, batches of startups pitch their ideas to potential investors, who open their checkbooks in the hopes of funding the next Dropbox, Airbnb, or Stripe — all YC alumni.
This year, the audience may have noticed a few changes. The organization has a new president, Sam Altman, and more nonprofits and “tech for good” companies made it into the lineup than ever before.
Because your home can always be smarter, allow me to introduce Droplet, the smart robotic gardener.
Effectively replacing your sprinkler system, the Droplet tries to save you money and the world’s water resources by watering only the area where there are plants.
Through a cloud software system, you can configure your Roomba-style Droplet to water the grass, the trees and the areas where you have flowers planted without indiscriminately watering the whole yard.
But it goes further than that. The Droplet actually knows about the soil, the type of plants it’s watering, and other data to help ensure each plant gets just the right amount of water to be healthy.
Call it cow computing. Or cow chips. Scottish startup Silent Herdsman has raised £3 million ($4.9 million) to create remote sensors for livestock farmers.
The wearable collars are part of the giant trend toward wearable computing and the Internet of things, which will provide a huge amount of data from sensors so we can track just about everything. The sensors will enable predictive analytics software so that farmers can make better data-driven decisions about taking care of their cows and other livestock.
The money came from Scottish Equity Partners, Albion Ventures, and Scottish Investment Bank. It will fuel the company’s growth and international expansion.
When Rey Faustino migrated from the Philippines to Southern California as an eight-year-old, he saw his family hustle to make ends meets in their new homeland.
“I grew up in a working-class family and I watched my family struggle for resources,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that other kids and families didn’t have to go through the same ordeal.”
Metabiota, a company that monitors viral disease threats around the world, just landed $2.38 million in funding, according to a recent SEC filing.
The company, known by the more explicit name the Global Viral Forecasting Inc. until July 2012, was founded by Nathan Wolfe, a daring virologist who almost died of malaria collecting data in Africa. His audacity landed him on TIME magazine’s 2011 TIME 100 list. Wolfe’s company specializes in tracking global diseases on a microscopic level.
Percolate, a startup that helps marketers create content and share it on social networks, is announcing that it has raised a $24 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital.
Co-founder James Gross told me that the big round from Sequoia is an endorsement of Percolate’s claim that it’s not just another social media management system. That’s because it’s not just allowing businesses to listen and respond on social media, but to find, create, and distribute engaging content, too. The ultimate goal is to turn Percolate into “the system of record” for brands, Gross said.
The UK’s Meducation, an online education network for medical students and practitioners, has raised $1 million in seed funding. Part of the round — approx. $300,000 — comes from the UK taxpayer-funded Technology Strategy Board, with the remaining being funded by unnamed private investors.
Founded by Dr Alastair Buick and Jeremy Walker, and launched in April 2008, Meducation is aimed at medical students and professionals globally and provides members with access to 30,000+ community resources, including tutorials, videos, images, slideshows and podcasts, to help them develop and maintain their knowledge and skills.
La primera edición del Venture Contest Euskal Valley que se celebrará el 27 de marzo en la sede de Innobasque en Zamudio, ya cuenta con finalistas. Los más de 40 proyectos recibidos han destacado por su calidad y potencial, lo cual garantiza una sesión brillante de talento emprendedor y posibilidades de inversión.
Después de una difícil deliberación, el jurado del Venture Contest Euskal Valley ha dado a conocer los SEIS PROYECTOS FINALISTAS que presentarán sus ideas en el concurso del 27 de marzo ante un importante panel de inversores. http://www.inversionev.com/
It looks so easy from the outside. An entrepreneur with a hot technology and venture-capital funding becomes a billionaire in his 20s.
But now there is evidence that venture-backed start-ups fail at far higher numbers than the rate the industry usually cites.
About three-quarters of venture-backed firms in the U.S. don't return investors' capital, according to recent research by Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School.
You may not need a degree to start a great company, but many founders have degrees — advanced degrees — from top business schools. One such school producing tech startup founders is Harvard Business School — some of the most successful startups that came out of it include Gilt Groupe, Rent the Runway and Birchbox.
At Harvard Business School, student ambitions aren't what they used to be. In the old days, the top program pumped out management consultants and investment bankers. Today, entrepreneur in residence Jules Pieri says she has to counsel students to not feel guilty if they don't start a business on the side while in school.
