startups

Steve Case, who made his vast fortune as the co-founder of America Online, wants to help America's startup scene flourish. Not the scene in Silicon Valley, but in all the pockets between there and the East Coast -- what he calls the "rise of the rest." Cities like Cleveland, Memphis and Detroit. Through his Washington, D.C-based firm, Revolution, Case has invested in about 25 non-Valley startups, including LivingSocial and the now-public Zipcar.

That mission plays into his big cause at the moment, pushing to reform America's high-skilled immigration system so that the country keeps and … Read more

Square is different than any other startup that has come before it, and its growing influence and size will inevitably lead to a change in the way entrepreneurs run their companies and venture capitalists invest.

There's no doubt that Square is on the rise, but it is set to accelerate its growth, thanks to a strategic investment from Starbucks that places Square's technology in front of millions of consumers. And thanks to Starbucks, Square's revenue and valuation are set to soar.

Perhaps this is why more pundits are calling Square "Silicon Valley's next great company,&… Read more

Silicon Valley leaders are hoping that immigration reforms known as "Startup Act 2.0," which have been stalled in the U.S. Congress, will fare better under President Obama's second term.

"I think the main issue the tech industry should focus on is Startup Act 2.0," Andreessen Horowitz's Marc Andreessen told CNET yesterday. "That would be amazing not just for Silicon Valley but for American job creation -- since the companies that are founded by skilled immigrants create so many jobs for Americans."

So far, at least, the left coast's … Read more

A mobile company that wants to change how you access data just raised a boatload of cash.

ItsOn announced today that it has closed a $15.5 million Series B round of financing. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led the round. The firm was joined by investment company SV Angel.

ItsOn takes a unique stance on data usage by allowing customers to choose how much data they need and for what purpose. The company's Web site is shy about details on its service, but in a statement, ItsOn founder and CEO Greg Raleigh says that his firm's focus … Read more

Few industries are under greater assault by technology than higher education -- and few companies are doing more to upend the way people learn the world over than Udacity, the young Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup that's brought computer science classes online and watched hundreds of thousands of students enroll. For single classes.

The startup is led by Sebastian Thrun, a former Google VP and fellow who led the development of Google's self-driving car and Google Glasses. And those are just some of his accomplishments. It was while he was a professor at Stanford University that he stumbled … Read more

Color Labs founder Bill Nguyen has a relationship with Apple. In 2009, the tech giant bought one of his startups called Lala for $80 million.

Now, rumor has it that Apple may be after his Color Labs too.

According to The Next Web, sources say that Apple has picked up the startup for a price in the "high double digits," and the deal is final even though papers aren't yet signed.

Color made a big splash when it launched last year as a location-based photo-sharing app for iOS and Android. Its charismatic founder, Nguyen, won big backers, … Read more

Robot chefs can prepare everything from pancakes to sushi, and now a California startup is trying to put droids to work on farm produce as well.

Blue River Technology this week announced $3.1 million in funding for its plans to develop robots that can automatically kill weeds and thin out plants like lettuce that need adequate room to grow.

Both tasks can require large human work crews, driving up the cost of the produce.

The startup's prototype Lettuce Bot uses a camera to image the plants beneath it. Machine learning algorithms then identify which ones are desirable and … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, one of Facebook's first investors, said today he still thinks that Facebook is probably a good investment over the long term.

Hoffman, who owns 3.8 million shares of the social networking giant's stock -- which is worth around $71.4 million at current prices -- told interviewer Michael Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt here that despite the highly publicized plummeting of Facebook's stock since its disastrous May IPO, he thinks the company's fundamentals are strong and that it could well rebound. "I'm a big believer in Facebook's long-term … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Square and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said today that founders must be willing to accept new ideas -- which can come from anywhere -- if they want their companies to evolve and to keep disrupting existing industries.

Opening his keynote address at TechCrunch Disrupt here today, Dorsey noted that he didn't grow up wanting to be an entrepreneur. Now that he's helped start two of the most important companies in Silicon Valley, though, Dorsey said he wanted to share some of the lessons he's learned during his career, ideas that he clearly thinks can … Read more