Chris Sacca

Exclusive: Backupify Closes $5 Million in Round Led by Avalon Ventures

Arik Hesseldahl in News on September 8, 2011 at 5:20 am PT

Even in the cloud, data gets deleted by mistake. Backupify aims to have your back.

Take the Money and Run? Twitter Shareholders Now Mulling Cash-Out Offer From DST.

Kara Swisher in Social on August 31, 2011 at 10:13 am PT

To sell or not to sell any of their shares is the question facing Twitter stakeholders right now, as the second $400 million part of the company’s funding by Russia’s DST Global nears completion.

Kickstarter Fesses Up: The Crowdsourced Funding Start-Up Has Funding, Too

Peter Kafka in Media on March 17, 2011 at 6:47 pm PT

About $10 million in funding, it turns out. From some pretty high-profile folks, too: Union Square Ventures, Betaworks and lots of angels you’ve heard of. For some reason, the company hasn’t talked about them before. But that’s over now, courtesy of a Wired profile.

1000Memories Funded by Greylock, Angels

Liz Gannes in Social on February 16, 2011 at 4:00 am PT

1000Memories, the social media site for friends and family to memorialize loved ones who’ve passed away, is disclosing today it has raised $3 million worth of funding.

Instagram Raises $7M Led by Benchmark

Liz Gannes in Social on February 2, 2011 at 9:08 am PT

The photo-sharing community Instagram this morning announced it has closed $7 million in a first-round funding led by Benchmark Capital’s Matt Cohler.

"Super Angel" Aydin Senkut Talks About VCs, Start-Ups and Shaking Up Tech Investing

Kara Swisher in News on August 23, 2010 at 7:11 am PT

While in Vancouver last week, BoomTown got some time to chat with Aydin Senkut about his recent announcement of a new $40 million investment fund, which is part of a “super angel” trend in Silicon Valley. In many ways, the concept of a super angel was pioneered by well-known tech investor Ron Conway, but now the market is getting very crowded with others.

Novelty? Sure. Business? Could Be! Stickybits Raises Another $1.6 Million.

Peter Kafka in Media on May 19, 2010 at 6:05 am PT

Stickybits is the kind of thing that might make more sense if you’re not entirely sober: It’s a funky, practical-joke-from-the-future concept that involves stickers, scannable bar codes and geo-tagging. It might also be a business.

Accel Keeps Its Wallet Open: Lookout Grabs $11 Million in Funding and Adds Execs

Kara Swisher in News on May 18, 2010 at 4:00 am PT

Accel Partners has been pretty busy handing over giant wads of dough to start-ups this week–and today is focusing its largess on San Francisco-based Lookout, a smartphone security provider. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture firm will be the lead investor in an $11 million Series B funding round for Lookout, which offers solutions to protect phones from malware and viruses, back up and restore valuable data and help users find their phones in the event they are lost or stolen.

Swipely Nabs $7.5 Million in Series A Funding for Social Spending (And to Attack Blippy!)

Kara Swisher in News on May 11, 2010 at 1:59 am PT

Oh, joy: More venture bucks for more socializing of credit card information. Today, it is Swipely’s turn to grab the spotlight in the ever-crowded space to, as its press release so aptly says, “turn purchases into conversations.” BoomTown excitedly awaits the next big thing to be intrusively socialized, such as: Wipely (it records and shares every time you clean your bathroom), Diaply (don’t let your friends miss every diaper change!), and, of course, Hypely (every time a social category is overfunded by VCs, you get a poke).

The Start Project Gets Start-Up Stars as Advisers, Including Stone, Sacca, Mullenweg

Kara Swisher in News on February 1, 2010 at 1:57 pm PT

A new Silicon Valley business incubator called The Start Project has recruited a high-profile group of entrepreneurs as advisers, which it announced today on its Web site. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, former Google exec and angel investor Chris Sacca, as well as Mike Tatum and David Liu, have all agreed to help the company’s start-ups before and during their creation.