It’s a common question thrown at me by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, or the more cynically minded corporate leaders.
That is, why bother trying to innovate if no matter what they do, large companies can no longer maintain a sustainable advantage and their life spans are just getting shorter and shorter? Isn’t it better to hasten Joseph Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction and move capital and employment from inefficient dinosaurs to more vibrant and agile upstarts?
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/
ULMA Handling Systems-ek, aholkularitza eta ikerketan diharduen GLOBOPE Research and Consulting enpresarekin elkarlanean, “Logística Sanitaria: retos y nuevas tendencias” liburua argitaratu du.
Guztira, iaz, Gaztenpresa Fundazioak 389 lanposturen sorkuntza sustatu zuen. Araban 116, Gipuzkoan 117, Bizkaian 180 eta Nafarroan 45. Datuak aintzat hartuta, lanean hasitako pertsonen %47 emakumeak ziren eta %53 gizonezkoak. Ekintzaileen batezbesteko adina 38 urtekoa da, eta sektoreei jaramon eginez gero: %59k zerbitzuetan dihardu, %35 merkataritzan eta %6 bestelako sektoreetan. Guztira, batezbesteko inbertsioa 52.700 eurokoa izan zen eta mailegua 38.100 eurokoa.
The he parking “pay by phone” market is heating up in the US, with app developers closing deals with municipalities and counties all over the country for implementation of their parking solution. So far, based on market share, the leader is Israel’s Pango – and as a sign of investors’ faith in the company, and in the business model, Pango several weeks ago locked up an additional round of financing, raising an additional $6.5 million that will enable it to expand its services to additional cities in the US and elsewhere.
Les enfants nourris au sein par une mère atteinte du sida ne seraient pas affectés par la maladie s'ils suivent une certaine médication, d'après une récente recherche de l'Université de Bergen. Il est estimé que 420.000 enfants sont déclarés positifs au VIH chaque année, dont la moitié a été nourrie au sein de leur mère, elle-même porteuse du virus. Ce phénomène se retrouve majoritairement dans les pays en développement. Jusqu'à présent, ce type d'infection a été considéré comme un problème non résolu.
Last year, voice technology giant Nuance quietly acquired VirtuOz, a developer of virtual assistants for online sales, marketing and support — a “Siri for the enterprise” that counted with the likes of PayPal and AT&T as customers. Now, Alexandre Lebrun, the founder and CEO of VirtuOz, has taken a dive back into the startup world to launch Wit.ai, a platform and API that will let a developer incorporate speech recognition and a natural language interface into any app or piece of hardware.
