angel

Exclusive: Japan’s Rakuten Wins the Heart of Pinterest in $100M Funding Race With $1.5B Valuation

Liz Gannes and Kara Swisher in Commerce on May 16 at 8:18 pm PT

The largest e-commerce site in Japan is about to get pinned by Ben Silbermann in massive funding round.

L.A. Stories: Scarfing Up Big Media at Gobbler (Video)

Kara Swisher in Media on April 11 at 12:31 pm PT

A hopped-up version of Dropbox’s media-in-the-cloud efforts for cool music folks.

L.A. Stories: HipSwap Tries to Take the Creepy out of Craigslist (Video)

Kara Swisher in Commerce on April 2 at 10:56 am PT

The mobile app-heavy service allows anyone with stuff, including boutique merchants with quirky stuff to move, to quickly snap photos of items, price them and then — presumably — sell.

Here Come the First D10 Speakers: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Entrepreneur Sean Parker, Zynga’s Mark Pincus and More on the Red Hot Seat

Kara Swisher in D10 on March 9 at 10:40 am PT

Speakers? We got your speakers right here.

Jason Calacanis Has One Miiiiiilllllion Dollars to Give Out to Start-Ups (Video)

Kara Swisher in News on March 7 at 12:38 pm PT

Dr. Evil couldn’t make it, so heeeeeere’s Jason!

News Byte

TasteMakerX Raises $1.8M for Mobile Social App Platform

Kara Swisher in Social on February 8 at 3:00 am PT

TastemakerX, a San Francisco start-up that is developing a social mobile platform focused on “targeted taste graphs,” said it had raised $1.8 million in funding from a variety of venture firms, including Guggenheim Partners, Baseline Ventures, True Ventures and Tekton Ventures, as well as angel investors. The company said it will release its TastemakerX Music mobile app as a private beta in early March 2012.

Here’s Gowalla CEO’s Non-Denial Denial Email to Investors About Facebook Acquisition

Kara Swisher in Social on December 4, 2011 at 9:54 pm PT

Let’s put this one in the “done” column, shall we?

Marc Andreessen vs. Reid Hoffman in Yahoo Savior Face-Off? Not Yet. (But Delicious to Imagine.)

Kara Swisher in News on December 1, 2011 at 2:23 am PT

Whoa, Nelly! How fantastic would it be for Silicon Valley tech legends Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman to battle for control of Yahoo? Too fantastic to actually happen. But one can hope.