Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Brad Feld

President Obama Announces Startup America Partnership, Chaired By Steve Case

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:55:35 +0000

President Barack Obama said in the State of the Union address last week that the U.S. needs to out-educate and out-innovate our competition to win the future. One of the biggest ways by doing so is by encouraging entrepreneurship. Today the President announced Startup America, a campaign to accelerate entrepreneurship and it will be headed by Steve Case. Carl Schramm, the President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, will be a founding board member of Startup America.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is committing $2 billion to match private sector over the next 5 years for high-growth companies. Brad Feld and the TechStars team will also mentor startups. Over the next 3 years, the TechStars Network will help 5,000 entrepreneurs and investors.

The government is planning to expand collaborations between large companies and startups as well. Intel Capital is committing $200 million of new investments for U.S. companies and IBM will invest $150 million in 2011 to fund entrepreneur programs. Mark Zuckerberg will be launching a new initiative called Startup Days, where the companies will host 12-15 events around the country to provide entrepreneurs with expertise and resources to accelerate their businesses.

Cheezburger Blog Network Raises $30 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:29:30 +0000

The Cheezburger network of websites include FAIL Blog and LOLcats. The company has raised $30 million in funding led by the Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, and SoftBank Capital. Brad Feld (Foundry), Greg Gottesman (Madrona), and Rich Levandov (Avalon) will be joining the board of directors at Cheezburger. I Can Has Cheezburger now has a total of $32.5 million.

Ben Huh founded Cheezburger in 2007. Now there are about 50 websites in the Cheezburger network of websites and they has a user base of about 16.5 million people that have uploaded 500,000 pictures and videos. Between all of their pictures and videos, the Cheezburger network sees about 375 million pageviews and 110 million videos per month.

Huh plans on increasing their staff size from the existing number of 50 people. The company is also planning on expanding internationally.

NewsGator Raises $10 Million In Sixth Round From Masthead Venture Partners, Mobius Venture Capital and Vista Ventures

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:15:14 +0000

NewsGator is a social computing, enterprise RSS and social widgets company. NewsGator had the strongest quarter in its history. NewsGator’s list of customers has grown substantially too. Given this growth, investors were confident enough to provide them with $10 million in their sixth round of funding. The investors involved include Masthead Venture Partners, Mobius Venture Capital and Vista Ventures.

Some of NewsGator’s clients include 2 out of 3 of the top world banks, the world’s largest private public relations firm, the second largest U.S. advertising agency, the second largest law firm, four out of the top pharmaceutical companies, the fourth largest U.S. electrical company, and one of the top five investment banking companies in Canada.

“We’re very proud to continue to extend and expand our Global 2000 customer relationships,” stated NewsGator CEO and President JB Holston. “Demand is accelerating for our on-premise and SaaS-based social computing offerings as top quality companies turn to immediate, high-ROI solutions for content and collaboration.”

NewsGator is also well known for NetNewsWire, an RSS reader. NetNewsWire was named one of the Top 10 iPhone Apps for 2008 in TIME magazine.

“The social computing models that have rocked the consumer world have equally important roles to play in the enterprise – and now more than ever in the current business environment,” stated NewsGator Director and Managing Director of Mobius Venture Capital and Foundry Group Brad Feld. “It’s inspiring to see NewsGator tapping this rich vein of need and achieving remarkable results to document the value of its approach.”