Last week San Francisco welcomed the latest unicorn to the herd – P2P lending site Prosper. Prosper announced that it brought in another $165 million in venture funding and sailed right past the “unicorn-making” $1 billion mark to a total valuation of ~$1.9 billion. For...
When the history of the mobile revolution is written, the chapters on payments, media and small businesses will be among its richest reading. And while we anticipate that the complete history of the mobile wallet wars will be very interesting, for our part here at...
One of online gaming’s hottest rivalries is at an end. Yesterday, Optimal Payments – parent company of the Neteller digital wallet – announced its $1.2 billion dollar acquisition of Skrill – parent of the eponymously named mobile product. The deal will combine Neteller digital payments...
Prominent tech investor Bill Gurley captured headlines coming out of SXSW last week with his rather grim predictions of things to come for the startup economy – and unusual addition to what is generally a celebration of all the potential of what’s new and now...
When Sophia Amoruso’s first version of Nasty Gal launched in 2006, it was as her personal store on the eBay marketplace. That small, original venture developed a reputation for eclectic and edgy fashions combined with a young, visible and fashion-forward following. Fast forward nine years,...
“Uh-uh. No way. Cold cucumber mush for thirty-something bucks?” –Phoebe Buffay, “Friends,” The One With Five Steaks And An Eggplant Every year, hundreds of perfectly nice meals are ruined when it comes time to pay the bill. As it turns out, nothing alienates lifelong friends, convivial...
When Credit Karma came on the scene in 2007, it entered the startup marketplace with a fairly simply goal: help consumers better manage their financial lives by giving them truly free access to their credit reports. “We’ve been handing out free credit reports since 2008,”...
Slacktivism: The act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem. Everyone with a Facebook page or a Twitter feed knows at least one “slacktivist” – that probably well intentioned soul who seems to have...
What do professional baseball, Google, political forecasting and retail all have in common? A love of big data. Whether that comes in the form of Billy Beane harnessing its power to build a better baseball team, Nate Silver taking all the fun out of the...