Entrepreneurs

Highlight, the people discovery app that could change the world

Every year at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, hundreds of apps vie to do what Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Beluga, and Group.me have done over the years: Dominate the conversation and springboard to huge success.

Each of those apps became the talk of Austin, Texas, during SXSW because they were total game-changers when it came to how people communicated with each other. And because SXSW is the confluence of all the movers and shakers in the interactive community, there's no better place to have an app blow up. Succeed there, and the community will yell out your app'… Read more

Charles River Ventures raises $375 million startup fund

Charles River Ventures today announced that it's keyed in a $375 million fund to continue its investments in technologies.

CRV intends to focus investments from its latest fund on startups with, "disruptive technologies, teams and business models." Startups like Hubspot, Vlingo, Yammer and Zendesk, all count themselves among CRVs investments.

"CRV has seen consistent liquidity from our portfolio over the last decade, with 21 major liquidity events, IPOs and company acquisitions since the collapse of the bubble," said CRV general partner Izhar Armony.

In addition to its strong startup portfolio, CRV boasts a number of … Read more

Twilio bringing voice chatting to any iPhone or iPad app

Coming soon to an iPhone or iPad app near you: simple and easy person-to-person voice chatting. No carrier required.

While Apple has made iMessage a staple of iOS communications, it's not behind this new development. Rather, it's Twilio, a San Francisco startup that has become a major player in the cloud communication space by giving everyone from small app developers to large corporations an inexpensive and efficient way to integrate voice communications.

Now, with the release of its software development kit today, Twilio is giving iOS app developers the same voice over IP (VoIP) tools. And while those … Read more

Dogpatch Labs fosters innovation among early startups (video)

Much of the investment world is about relationships, says Ryan Spoon, a venture capitalist with Polaris Ventures and co-founder of Dogpatch Labs.

Dogpatch Labs was founded in 2008 as a place where early-stage startups could innovate. Entrepreneurs share work space, but more importantly it's a place where they can interact with each other and share knowledge, says Spoon.

There are no contracts or commitments for the startups participating in Dogpatch. The upside from an investment perspective is that Polaris gets a first look at startups early on. SmartPlanet visited Dogpatch Labs in Palo Alto, Calif., its newest office, to … Read more

Andy Rachleff: With Facebook, Valley unearths lost art of IPO

Editor's note: This is a guest column by Andy Rachleff, whose bio is below.

Like everyone else here in Silicon Valley, I'm excited to see Facebook going public. No, I don't own a piece of the company, and I don't believe a blockbuster IPO will revive the entire global stock market, as some commentators have hyped.

What I do think--or certainly hope--is that a successful offering by Facebook will help young entrepreneurs understand why Silicon Valley embraced IPOs in the first place. And, importantly, why we need to revive the culture of the IPO.

When I … Read more

Startup Secret No. 25: In praise of the CEO idiot-savant

"Do it because you can't do anything else."

--Me

I've made a minor career of studying entrepreneurs. Among them, there's an especially interesting subset: The serial entrepreneur.

Being a serial entrepreneur who's successful at more than one company is not the American Dream. In the standard-issue American fantasy, the one that politicians and banks promote, you start one company, and if it doesn't work out, you do it again. Until you hit on a winner. And then you cash out, buy a lake-front house and a fishing boat, and retire. The dream is … Read more