Startups

Synthetic biology startups have a new friend in Silicon Valley.

Today, Singularity University pulled back the wraps on its new SynBio Startup Launchpad, an accelerator program designed to boost the prospects of entrepreneurs in the blossoming field.

As part of the unveiling of the accelerator program, Singularity University announced the first three companies that are "seeking to apply the rapid-cycle, low-cost approaches employed by tech and biotech startups."

Those companies are Evolutionary Solutions, which is building a genome synthesis device; Modern Meadow, which is using tissue-engineering techniques to generate large amounts of animal protein for textiles and food; … Read more

In order for venture-capital firms to invest in startups, they need funding from institutional investors. In many cases, such investors are happy to drop some cash in a fund. But a new study warns that doing so might not be the best idea.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, an organization that promotes entrepreneurship by investing in venture-capital funds, found things might not be as bright as some firms would have investors believe. In fact, the organization found that over the last 10 years, the vast majority of venture-capital funds have failed to outperfom the public stock market. In the last … Read more

When it comes to courting investors, especially venture capitalists, for your startup, the recipe is simple: stop worrying and start focusing.

Most investors have a singular goal -- to fund a startup that eventually becomes a large, independent, defensible company. Finding an Evernote, Airbnb, or Instagram provides the kind of return that makes or breaks a venture capital firm.

But how do VCs find a company that is going to become big? It's not an easy task, but there are a few clues investors look for in order to determine your chance at hitting the jackpot. Here are a … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Are we in a technology bubble? From the looks of things here, we may well be. The city that hosts Google, Evernote, and Pinterest hosted its first open-air startup festival today, attached to the annual Startup Conference. Although churros, cotton candy, and midway games were lacking, the carnival atmosphere was not.

Inside at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, next door to City Hall, 600 conference attendees listened to talks from investors like Dave McClure and panels on topics like crowdsourcing. Outside, organizer Alain Reynaud had set up a festival where, he said, he … Read more

Remember when kids used to play stickball, marbles, and hopscotch instead of iPhone games? Well I don't either. But this Kickstarter project wants to revive a medium of simpler times -- with a modern twist.

The Can is a tin can telephone wired for IP phone use. It has a microphone, a speaker, and a jack for your computer, phone, or tablet so you can pretend you're 7 years old and it's 1939 again.

Aside from its patently ridiculous design, alternately listening to and speaking into The Can seems like more fun than just slapping a regular phone to your skull.

As the video below shows, The Can comes in Commander and Mini editions, with the former featuring an indicator light for missed calls. The Mini, meanwhile, jacks into your cell phone with a TRS connector. … Read more

AVOS Systems, the Internet venture started by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, has closed a Series A venture capital financing round with some help from old friends.

Google Ventures led the Series A round, along with New Enterprise Associates, according to AVOS. Madrone Capital and China-based Innovation Works also participated in the financing. AVOS did not divulge how much it raised in the round.

Hurley and Chen made a name for themselves in the Web community back in 2006 when they sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion. In their new role as leaders of AVOS, they've bought social-bookmarking site Delicious from Yahoo. … Read more

When a problem arises in OS X because of a software configuration error, often one troubleshooting step to take for clearing the issue or at least investigating it further is to boot into Safe Mode; however, sometimes Safe Mode may not work.

Booting to Safe Mode in OS X is done by holding the Shift key at startup, which triggers a minimal boot environment where only basic Apple-supplied extensions and services are loaded. This will help you determine if problems are happening from peripheral devices or third-party extensions such as those supplied by some security software packages. In addition to … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--There's a whole lot of mobile startups these days, but how many of them are actually, you know, mobile?

A company called Needle is, and if you'd wandered near South Park here today, you would have seen its so-called Mobile Contact Center -- essentially a huge RV -- parked on the street with several employees working away inside.

Ostensibly based in Salt Lake City, Needle contracts with retail partners to provide them experts to chat with end users. The idea is that there's likely no one better suited to explaining a product, or answering questions about … Read more

No decision is more important in a startup's life than the decision of who to start the company with. The right founding team can quickly find product-market fit, while an imbalanced team can find themselves working two years on a product nobody wants.

"What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them," Y Combinator partner Paul Graham said in 2005. "Good people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can't save bad people."

I've seen hundreds of startups blow up because of teams that didn't know or respect each other. … Read more