Ingrid Lunden
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Is Rocket Lawyer Free To Use ‘Free’? Court Denies Rival LegalZoom Its Motion For Summary Judgment, Orders Trial For False Ad Claims
Another development in the case between rivals Rocket Lawyer, the online legal services startup, and LegalZoom, which is suing Rocket Lawyer over claims of false advertising and other Federal Trade Commission violations. The court has denied LegalZoom's motion for a summary judgment in the case and ordered it to trial. Judge Gary Allen Feess, of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of… Read More
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E-Loan Specialist Wonga Buys BillPay, The PayPal Of Germany, To Move Deeper Into Payments
Wonga is a UK-based startup best known for its online payday loan services, but today the company made a move that could see it not only extending across to other markets in Europe but also into other services like payments: the company today is announcing the acquisition of BillPay, known as the "PayPal of Germany". This is yet another major exit for Rocket Internet, which incubated and backed… Read More
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Oracle Buys Compendium, A Content Marketing Startup, To Build Up Its Arsenal Against Salesforce
On the heels of Oracle's $871 million acquisition of Eloqua in December 2012, today the CRM giant is sailing into another acquisition in the cloud-based marketing space. It has bought Compendium, a six-year-old startup that, out of Indianapolis and largely bootstrapped, has managed to build up a business with a number of large clients including CVENT, Gymboree and Trane. The acquisition puts… Read More
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Tailwind Buys PinReach As Pinterest Analytics Startups Consolidate
When Pinterest frenzy was at a peak (adding users in record numbers; $1.5b valuation), and before Pinterest started to roll out its own tools for marketers, a rush of startups emerged that third parties could use to track how popular pins were across the network and related details. Now, some news of consolidation among them: Tailwind (formerly known as PinLeague) is buying PinReach from social… Read More
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Telefonica Takes A Strategic Stake In Rhapsody, Will Bring Napster Into Latin America, Deeper Into Europe
In the allegro-paced race between music streaming providers to see who will be the first to achieve profitable scale, today Rhapsody got a significant leg up, courtesy of Telefonica. The Spanish-based mobile carrier, which has some 316 million customers globally, is making a strategic investment in Rhapsody, which will include a deal to bundle and resell Rhapsody's Napster music service and… Read More
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Akamai: Half Of All Internet Connections Now At 4Mbps+, Safari Remains Most Used Mobile Browser
The ITU has recently published figures noting 2.7 billion internet connections globally, and today Akamai has released some numbers pointing to how fast those connections actually are. The company, a specialist in traffic optimization, says that we have now reached a tipping point of sorts: half of all connections made to its network are currently running at 4Mbps or higher -- a sign that… Read More
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Supercell Dominates The Realm: Game Maker Sells A 51%, $1.53B Stake To SoftBank and GungHo Online
Another big move for Softbank into the gaming world, and a massive investment for Finnish gaming juggernaut Supercell: the company is selling a 51% stake for $1.53 billion to Japan's SoftBank and games developer GungHo OnLine Entertainment. This strategic investment, which makes Supercell a subsidiary of Softbank, will be used to fuel Supercell's global expansion. It effectively represents a… Read More
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Yandex Buys KinoPoisk, ‘Russia’s IMDb’, To Move Into Film Search And Recommendation
Yandex, the search company often referred to as the Google of Russia, is today announcing its latest acquisition: KinoPoisk, an online film database known as "the IMDb of Russia" (after the Amazon-owned company that KinoPoisk recreated in Russia) with some 18.6 million visitors per month. Read More
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Apple Ups Its Fashion Cred, Names Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts As SVP Of Retail And Online Stores
If you had any second thoughts about how Apple sees itself as a high-end fashion brand in the consumer electronics world, doubt no more: today the company announced that it is appointing Angela Ahrendts, currently the CEO of Burberry, as its SVP of retail and online stores. This is a new position at the company that will report directly to Tim Cook, and it takes effect in the Spring of 2014. At… Read More
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With An Eye To More Revenue, Foursquare Opens Its Ads Platform To All Small Businesses
When free app Foursquare announced an injection of $41 million from investors earlier this year, CEO and founder Dennis Crowley described how the new funds would help the mobile search and location-sharing platform move away from its perception as a simple "check-in app" and "get closer to being able to prove that there’s a real business here." A lot of that proof has been coming in the form of… Read More
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Facebook Buys Mobile Data Analytics Company Onavo, Reportedly For Up To $200M… And (Finally?) Gets Its Office In Israel
Big news for a Monday/late Sunday night (depending on where you are): Onavo, the Tel Aviv-based mobile analytics company, has just announced that it has been acquired by Facebook. Onavo will become the anchor for Facebook in Israel -- its first office in the country. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed; we are trying to find out. Right now we're seeing reports of between $100 million and… Read More
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Xero Zeros In On Another $150M To Do Battle With Intuit In The World Of Online SMB Accounting Software
Nearly a year after Peter Thiel, Matrix Partners and others put an extra $49 million into Xero, the online accounting software company is adding yet more capital to its coffers. Today the New Zealand-based startup announced that it has raised $150 million (NZ$180m), led again by Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures and Matrix Partners. Xero says it will use the funds to continue building out its… Read More
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Tony Espinoza Steps Down As CEO Of Couchsurfing, Jennifer Billock Steps Up As Interim As Startup Lays Off Staff, “Doubles Down” On Mobile
Big changes at Couchsurfing, the social travel site that lets people connect and crash on their sofas and spare beds when visiting each other's towns. Today, CEO Tony Espinoza announced that he is stepping down as the company lays off staff and refocuses on mobile. In the interim, Jen Billock, who currently is listed as director of member experience at Couchsurfing on her LinkedIn profile, will… Read More
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Cloud Security: Mobile Startup Lookout Gets $55M Led By Deutsche Telekom To Go Global & Target Enterprise
Mobile security company Lookout may be all about protecting user's devices and offering people more privacy, but today it's raising its own profile a little bit more. The startup is announcing another $55 million in funding, led by strategic investor Deutsche Telekom, parent of T-Mobile. This will be used to help the company keep building out its service in Europe and other international markets… Read More
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Pinterest Gets A Widget On Telefonica’s Android Handsets, A Deal That Will Give 316M Users Instant Access To Its Social Network
Pinterest is ramping up its business development with new ad units, and also with some key partnerships with third parties. Today the company is announcing a deal with Telefonica, the mobile carrier giant with some 316 million customers, to preload a widget on new handsets that it sells in Latin America and Europe, starting first with its O2 UK subsidiary. Read More
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Photo-Sharing Service Familiar Gets Acquired By Taser’s Evidence.com For An Enterprise Turn, After Offers From Twitter And More
The consumerization of enterprise services is one of the more persistent trends in the world of IT today, and today it's gaining yet more ground by way of an acquisition: Familiar, a private photo and video sharing service, has been bought by Evidence.com, a division of Taser. With Taser probably best known for its eponymous stun-guns that police and others use to subdue people, Evidence.com is… Read More
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Amazon Makes A Play For Startups With Its AWS Activate Service Bundle And Support Network
Amazon's AWS cloud services division has become one of the go-to places for startups looking for hosting and other services for their apps and other business. Today, Amazon redoubled its efforts to target new ones with the launch of AWS Activate, a bundle of services that offers startups and the incubators and accelerators that support them assistance in the form of training, geniuses to help out… Read More
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XL Marketing, The Direct Marketing Company Co-Founded By John Sculley, Buys UK Rival Intela
As our physical mailboxes gradually get a little less stuffed with direct marketing letters, two of the companies that have played a part in shifting that business to email, mobile and social media networks are coming together. XL Marketing, the NY-based direct and email marketing company co-founded by former CEO of Apple John Sculley, is buying Intela, a UK-based rival. The deal makes good use of… Read More
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Flipkart Raises Another $160M For Its Amazon-Style Indian E-Commerce Marketplace
Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce marketplace that's often referred to as the "Amazon of India," has raised another $160 million. This is an extension of the $200 million raise announced in July of this year, with the final $360 million Series E round the largest ever to be raised by an Internet startup in India. It brings the total raised by Flipkart since 2007 to $540 million. Read More
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With Payment Code, PayPal Taps QR Codes And Existing Hardware For Large Retailer Mobile Payments
PayPal has been pushing ahead with its Here business, offering smaller businesses a way of taking card payments, processed by PayPal, by way of small readers attached to merchants' smartphones. Today, the eBay division unveiled one of the new services it hopes will help it win with larger retailers. Payment Code is a new technology that PayPal is rolling out so that shoppers can pay for goods… Read More
