Launches Aspect Ventures
Gouw and Fonstad start Aspect Ventures, a venture capital fund focusing on the “emerging mobile marketplace.” Gouw and Fonstad have together created $10 billion in public market value, helped lead 15 M&A transactions and over 300 rounds in follow-on capital raised for their portfolio companies. The founders have pooled enough of their own money to back companies for the next couple of years. Aspect will make around a dozen investments per year, ranging from $500,000 to $2 million in seed and Series A funding. The firm will lead investments but also co-invest. Gouw:
We’ve launched Aspect to meet the need in the market for a new kind of firm that can provide investment and advice to entrepreneurs over the long arc of their companies’ growth. From the start, Aspect Ventures is built to partner and collaborate – with entrepreneurs and also other players in the startup world from angels to multi-stage venture capital firms.
Fonstad:
Through our diverse perspectives and experience, we work to add value to our companies from Day One, as active advisors, board members, and partners throughout the roller-coaster ride of building important and successful companies.
Founding
Kirk founds Turning Point just after leaving high school. The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.
222 Records
Levine starts his own record label titled 222 Records. Levine created the record label to sign his first artists Rozzie Crane who is a USC music student and Glee star Matthew Morrison.
Starting my own label has been a long time goal of mine and I am thrilled to be at the point in my career where it is finally happening. I am excited for everyone to hear Matthew’s forthcoming album. Great things are in store for him with this release.
Founds AF Square, A\IDEA
Under the umbrella of Atom Factory, Carter founds A\IDEA, a product development and branding agency, and AF Square, an angel fund and technology consultancy that holds interests in many technology companies at various stages of growth.
Starts Dealer’s United
Biter and Sarasota Ford operations manager, Matt Buchanan, son of U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, launch Dealers United. The plan is to build a nationwide network of dealers that will have combined buying power with vendors.
The firm creates deals services common to many dealers, from search-engine optimization to customer management software. Network members decide independently if they want to buy into the deal.
Biter and Buchanan say they will spend at least $1 million in startup costs on the business. Five employees have already been hired and Biter plans to hire at least five more for a Dealers United call center.
Buchanan: We are going to work for the dealers. We’ll be more powerful than any one group.
Entrepreneurial Spark launches
Duffy launches Entrepreneurial Spark in Glasgow with office space supplied by Haughey, who gives over an entire floor of his City Refrigeration headquarters in the Gorbals, for the project. Duffy:
The whole ethos of the Entrepreneurial Spark is helping start-ups to get to their first and second birthday. We have wrapped around a whole lot of business professionals – we call them ambassadors – legals, accountants, PR firms. The whole idea was that these people would come on board, give free stuff, support Entrepreneurial Spark and then support the start-up chicklets, as we call them, that want to go through our hatchery…A fair number of young companies die very early unfortunately and what we are trying to do here is take away barriers such as cost. Some of these young businesses pay for expensive business plans and for start-up advice and it’s not really what they need…When someone walks in the door, you can tell if they are the real deal, or you can tell if someone has the potential to be that. They will be sparky, they will have an idea, they are willing to collaborate – that’s a big one in Scotland.
Haughey:
A fair number of young companies die very early unfortunately and what we are trying to do here is take away barriers such as cost. Over the years we are probably going to put £1m into this project, but if we get one, two or three decent companies out of here that create 20, 30 or 40 jobs, then it will be money well spent.
Starts Uncrunched
Arrington starts a new blog after being removed from TechCrunch:
Now I’ve got a new pen, though. And a blank slate. Infinite choices, I get to choose my own path. All that jazz.
So as William Shatner would undoubtedly ask if I gave him another $149, what exactly am I going to do here at Uncrunched?
I’m going to do the same thing I’ve been doing since 2005. I’m going to write about startups, and the people who build them, and the people who fund them, and the people who use them.
Starts CrunchFund
Arrington starts the fund with $20 million. He will run it with Gallagher and Siegler. Arrington:
I don’t claim to be a journalist. I hold myself to higher standards of transparency and disclosure.
He will take a reduced role at TechCrunch but continue to report to Huffington. Investments will be disclosed on the blog. AOL is putting about $10 million into the fund. Armstrong:
We have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of TechCrunch, which is different but is transparent about it.
Backplane
Backplane is founded by Carter, Michelson, Lonsdale and Lady Gaga. The seven-person project aims to provide a way to organize and power online communities based on certain interests, such as sports teams, musicians, and also bring in feeds from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Gaga has a reported 20% stake in the business. $1 million has been raised in angel funding from investors including Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures.
Starts Demand Progress
Swartz founds Demand Progress, a Progressive Political Action Committee and grassroots activism organization. The group runs online campaigns and lobbies in Washington, D.C. and in various states for progressive causes, such as stopping Internet censorship and issues of privacy.
Founds Atom Factory
Carter founds Atom Factory, a “multi-dimensional entertainment and artist management company” based in Los Angeles, CA, where he serves as chairman and chief executive officer. He says the company can be much more than a simple artist-management firm.
It was more about building a platform on top of music—because music, we realized, sells everything but music.
Founding
Lynn B. Schramek creates the Parkinson Cafe to provide social, cultural and intellectual interaction for people with Parkinson’s disease and their care partners.
When my husband Brad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease we started recreating our lives and finding activities that we ‘can do.’ Less became more. Stress-free became a major goal. I decided to create a new program that met Brad’s needs. That’s how the Parkinson Cafe concept was born.
Monthly events running from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. take place at three locations in upstate New York. Art, music and dance therapists provide stimulating interactive programming at Lifetime Care on the first Wednesday, at Home Care of Rochester on the second Thursday and at the Pittsford Library on the third Thursday October 2009 through April 2010.
Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen and Horowitz launch Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm. The two are well known investors, backing half a dozen startups each year, including social investing site kaChing, virtual worlds company Metaplace, mobile video company Qik, online publishing company Crowdfusion, dating site I’minlikewithyou, search company Blekko and media/technology company EQAL.
Opens first store
Georgetown University graduates Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman and Nathaniel Ru open their first store in Georgetown. They want to connect with people through food. Because they have nowhere healthy to eat, they decide to start a healthy restaurant that is fun and also promotes their core values. They focus on creating a farm to table experience from food that is locally sourced.
Sweetgreen was born when we were still students. The three of us really bonded over the fact that there was something missing in our life — we had nowhere healthy to eat. . . . We wanted to create something healthy, that was fun. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was someplace that did our values. We shared this passion for creating something and we just decided to close our eyes and do it.
Founds Wikileaks
Assange founds WikiLeaks, an international not-for-profit organization, with the launch of their website wikileaks.org. The mission of the organization is to to bring news to the public, by allowing anonymous sources to leak information in a safe and secure way to journalists. The website is run out of Sweden, due to their strong laws protecting a person’s anonymity.
Co-founds (RED)
Bono and Shriver team up for another humanitarian venture to found (RED) to raise money from businesses to buy AIDS drugs for people in Africa unable to afford them. After setting up DATA, the two noticed that there was still a need for greater private sector funding and created (RED) as a division of ONE, to fill that need. They hopes to generate a sustainable flow of money to aid in their efforts.
Product (RED) has an ongoing relationship with a number of iconic global brands that sell (RED) products and donate a percentage of the profits directly to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Launch Crisscross Social Network
Crisscross Social Network is launched. The site uses a sophisticated drill-down search to connect people with the multiple, diverse interests.
The system grows to over 30,000 users, mainly in Japan.
It was not until 2012 that sites like Facebook offered similar “graph search” functions. In 2012 the site was being prepared for relaunch in the U.S. as CRXSS, a social search engine.
Y Combinator starts
Graham, Livingston, Morris, and Viaweb employee Trevor Blackwell offer $6,000 seed capital for a company with one founder, $12,000 if the company has two founders, and $18,000 if the company has three. In exchange, Y Combinator gets around 6% in common stock. Graham publicizes the program on the web:
We give you enough money to live on for a summer, as with a regular summer job. But instead of working for an existing company, you’ll be working for your own; instead of showing up at some office building at 9 a.m., you can work when and where you like; and instead of salary, the money you get will be seed funding.
Starts TechCrunch
0 0 reuben reuben2014-10-23 21:14:282015-02-12 10:06:57Starts TechCrunch
Audio Eagle Records
Carney founds Audio Eagle Records, an independent record label dedicated mainly to local Ohio artists. The label’s first release is Gil Mantera’s Party Dream’s Bloodsongs.
Audio Eagle, a new label imprint from Patrick Carney of the Black Keys, is proud to announce Bloodsongs. Known for their live shows, Gil Mantera’s Party Dream demands an audience’s attention. Formed in Youngstown, OH, they show their talent for creating dance-worthy synth melodies on their debut Bloodsongs.