In a key hire, Jawbone said today that it had hired Mindy Mount, a top corporate VP at Microsoft, as its president.

The move by the San Francisco-based maker of wireless, music and wearable devices is part of what has been a major upgrading of its management and board. Recently, Jawbone added Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Rob Wiesenthal of Warner Music as directors.

Jawbone has also recently done a big acquisition — purchasing BodyMedia, a wearable health and fitness company, for $100 million. The move comes just a couple months after it bought data and digital-design companies Massive Health and Visere.

All this expansion requires tight organizational efforts and Mount has a lot of financial and operational experience, having held several key jobs at the software giant. She was most recently corporate VP and CFO at Microsoft’s Online Services Division, which includes Bing, MSN and Microsoft Advertising. Before that she held a similar job at the Entertainment and Devices Division, which has the Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone units.

Previous to that, Mount ran AOL’s U.K. unit, worked in strategy at Time Warner and also was an exec at Morgan Stanley. She has an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In an interview today, Mount said that what attracted her to Jawbone was the challenge of scaling the fast-growth company, which is helmed by CEO and co-founder Hosain Rahman.

“Right out of the block, I’ll be spending time on business operations, since the scale and scope and complexity of Jawbone has really increased,” she said. “What really attracted me to the role is that it is a really meaty one … It’s a company with great products, where I can come in and have real impact, because consumer electronics companies really have to execute.”

Jawbone products include Jawbone wireless headsets, Jambox speakers and the Up personal fitness wristbands. The company has raised a lot of funding, totaling about $210 million from such venture firms as Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital, as well as Deutsche Telekom, investor Yuri Milner and others.

It’s a huge round for the company, which is much loved for its community spirit and pink “carstaches,” but has also been much questioned for its practice of having regular people essentially act as city taxicab drivers in their own cars.

The deal was a speedy one; it was negotiated over the course of the past week, said Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer.

And it brings Lyft to $83 million in total funding, having just raised a round about six months ago.

Why so much money so fast? It’s to try to get Lyft to the next level, given the expansion, competition and regulatory challenges it faces. “We can scale globally in the next 12 months,” said Zimmer.

For those paying close attention, Lyft was formerly known as Zimride, and it continues to operate a long-distance ride-sharing service under that brand, but it changed its name a month ago to reflect the momentum of the Lyft business, which is a year old.

Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss, who led the investment, contended that Lyft differs from competitors like SideCar and Uber, which are both based in San Francisco as well and have been expanding nationally. He likes that Lyft’s mission is around “taking cars off the road,” not replacing or augmenting existing systems.

Weiss said Andreessen Horowitz was motivated to swoop in and make a deal because Lyft “looked and smelled so much like Airbnb.”

Weiss noted that he’d been following Lyft closely, and saw the service grow from 14,000 rides per week two months ago (mostly in San Francisco, but expanding in other newer cities like Los Angeles and Chicago) to 30,000 rides per week now. Plus, he said, more than half of the company’s passengers are women, which says something about safety.

“With the risk of the Samwer brothers [who infamously replicate consumer Internet businesses for the European market] and the copycats, you can’t let grass grow under your feet,” Weiss said. “You have to grow it as quickly as you can, and that’s where we come in.”

You can count on it — when a deal works out spectacularly everyone involved will take credit for it. This behavior is particularly annoying to the entrepreneurs who put the sweat, blood, and tears into the Company.

– “Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, one of Tumblr’s earliest investors, celebrating the Yahoo deal without celebrating

The Yahoo board has approved a massive $1.1 billion all-cash deal to buy Tumblr.

It’s not clear when the official vote was taken, but sources close to the board said the acquisition was a foregone conclusion and was unanimously approved by the directors of Silicon Valley Internet giant.

The deal will likely be announced Monday morning, said numerous sources.

AllThingsD.com initially broke the story of the acquisition efforts and later followed up with details of the exact price and the board meeting to approve the transaction.

There were no other competing bids, despite reports, to snap up the New York-based social blogging service. That said, Tumblr had held some very preliminary discussions about various deals with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and also Twitter earlier this year.

As part of the Yahoo deal, Tumblr CEO David Karp — who will get a windfall of cash from the acquisition — will stay at Yahoo for four years at least and retain a lot of control over the service, much in the same way Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom does at Facebook. But, as there, Yahoo will undergird Tumblr’s nascent advertising business with its large and established infrastructure, said sources.

Yahoo had been mulling some kind of deal with Tumblr, from a strategic investment to an outright acquisition, for about six weeks. Sources said that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had decided that buying the company was going to be “the stake in the ground of what her strategy is going forward for Yahoo.”

And that is to attract younger audiences with just the kind of user-generated content Tumblr has pioneered to impressive growth.

According to numerous sources, Mayer determined quickly in her research that the site was just the kind of property that Yahoo needed to make it both “cool” and relevant to new consumers.

Yahoo is looking to bolster its strong set of existing media offerings to appeal to a different demographic and also get into the social space via consumer-based software solutions that are both elegant and easy to use.

Tumblr’s mobile usage has also been strong, which also interested Mayer. While Tumblr started as a desktop-based service, its mobile offering has ramped up quickly in the last few years. ComScore says that a quarter of the service’s U.S. visitors now come from mobile devices.

At this price, it will be Mayer’s biggest acquisition so far. Since she became CEO last summer, Mayer has made only a series of small acquisitions of mobile startups at a low cost.

According to sources, the Tumblr brand will continue.

The deal, if consummated, will be a big win for investors. In a series of fundings since 2007, Tumblr has raised $125 million so far and is now at a reported valuation of $800 million. Investors include Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners and the Chernin Group.

While Tumblr’s Karp has resisted various offers for the company over the years, Mayer spent a lot of time with him reassuring him that Yahoo could turbocharge his business. He has also been searching for a COO to help him build out the infrastructure of its business, especially its advertising one.

And as Peter Kafka and I previously wrote, Tumblr could certainly bring Yahoo a big, young audience. Its worldwide traffic was at 117 million visitors in April, according to comScore. On its home page, Tumblr claims it has 107.8 million blogs and 50.6 billion posts. U.S. desktop traffic to Tumblr was 37 million in April, close to LinkedIn and Twitter, although Twitter obviously has much more via mobile.

But figuring out how to make money from that is a task that the company has only recently started to tackle.

Like other recent Web startups that have seen rocketship growth — see: Twitter, Facebook — Tumblr resisted advertising for its formative years, and its user base seems particularly unwilling to accept standard banner ads. In addition, many industry observers think that Tumblr’s pages are packed with porn or other questionable content that would scare off advertisers.

But within the last year or so, Tumblr has started selling modestly sized “native ads” promoting brands’ Tumblr pages, on users’ “dashboards,” which has shown promise. Tumblr has said it had $13 million in revenue last year and sources said it could get up to $100 million this year.

Tumblr has been represented by Qatalyst Partners’ Frank Quattrone, while Yahoo’s Mayer, as well as M&A head Jackie Reses and CFO Ken Goldman, have been on the company’s side.

Interestingly, what got me first focused on Tumblr last week were Goldman’s comments at JP Morgan’s Global Technology conference last week, where he underscored the need for the aging Yahoo to attract more users from the coveted 18-to-24-years-old age bracket. Along with more marketing, he explicitly said Yahoo needed to be “cool again.”

“One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic,” said Goldman at the Boston event. “Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years.”

Tumblr, apparently, fits the very expensive bill.

Karp’s interviewer is Howard Lindzon, who’s now known as the guy behind StockTwits. Assuming that the interview was taped close to the time it was published, it would have meant that the two men were talking as Karp was raising his first funding round of $750,000, led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital.

No need to say anything else:

Earlier this week, Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman spoke at JP Morgan’s Global Technology conference and underscored the need for the aging Silicon Valley Internet giant to attract more users from the coveted 18-to-24-years-old age bracket. Along with more marketing, he explicitly said Yahoo needed to be “cool again.”

“One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic,” said Goldman at the Boston event. “Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years.”

According to sources close to the situation, that could mean a strategic alliance and investment in or outright buy of perhaps the coolest Internet company of late: Tumblr.

Sources said the talks were serious, but any kind of deal — of course — could come to naught.

But it’s not the first time Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been interested in the New York-based hipster blogging service. As an executive at Google, she had closely watched its fast growth, along with that of Foursquare. Since she took over at Yahoo, several sources said that she has met with its top execs, including founder and CEO David Karp.

But sources said that interest has gotten stronger more recently, coming at the same time as Tumblr has been stepping up its efforts to raise a large funding round that could value the New York company at $1 billion. In a series of fundings since 2007, Tumblr has raised $125 million so far, at a reported valuation of $800 million.

In the latest round, one source close to the situation said Tumblr was considering “strategic” investments, which would presumably be of the kind that Yahoo had tried and failed to do recently with France’s Dailymotion video service. Since then, Mayer and her team have looked at the ongoing deal to purchase Hulu that has many possible other bidders.

Tumblr is different from Dailymotion or Hulu, of course, in that it focuses heavily on user-generated content, largely text and photos, although there is an increasing use of video on the site.

But this puts it directly in Yahoo’s main wheelhouse, especially recent efforts to undergird its strong set of existing media offerings to appeal to a different audience and also get into the social space via consumer-based software solutions that are both elegant and easy to use.

“If you could pick a company that fits in with what Marissa Mayer has demonstrated in her career — aesthetics software technology and fast-growing — you could not land on a better choice,” said another source.

That said, Yahoo has been sticking to smaller acquisitions under Mayer’s regime, spending very little on a clutch of small mobile startups to up its game in the important sector. And at the same investment conference, Goldman also said additional M&A would continue to be smaller for Yahoo.

Still, any kind of deal with Tumblr could certainly bring Yahoo a big, young audience. Its worldwide traffic was at 117 million visitors in April, according to comScore. On its home page, Tumblr claims it has 107.8 million blogs and 50.6 billion posts. U.S. desktop traffic to Tumblr was 37 million in April, close to LinkedIn and Twitter, although Twitter obviously has much more via mobile.

But figuring out how to make money from that audience is a task that the company has only recently started to tackle.

Like other recent Web startups that have seen rocket ship growth — see: Twitter, Facebook — Tumblr resisted advertising for its formative years, and its user base seems particularly unwilling to accept standard banner ads. In addition, many industry observers think that Tumblr’s pages are packed with porn and/or other questionable content that would scare off advertisers.

But within the last year or so, Tumblr has started selling modestly sized “native ads” promoting brands’ Tumblr pages, on users’ “dashboards.” That’s the equivalent of running ads in a Facebook user’s News Feed or a Twitter user’s main feed.

Initial signs are promising. Tumblr told Forbes that it generated $13 million in revenue last year, and suggested it could do as much as $100 million this year; people close to the company say its momentum has continued this year.

In addition to figuring out its top-line business, Tumblr and its backers have also been spending a long time trying to figure out a managment structure. Even Karp’s strongest backers say that the 26-year-old needs help running the company, and for months they have been looking for a “Sheryl Sandberg”-style COO candidate.

“David is very charming, and clearly very very bright, and understands the product,” said an executive who talked to Tumblr about the role. But, “he’s incredibly confrontation averse, and there’s almost a ‘Game of Thrones’ palace feeling to the management team.”

Possibility of death by wildfire aside, sources said that the search has yielded two or three candidates that Tumblr is considering. It is a key hire since the company needs to build out an extensive infrastructure quickly, given its sharp consumer growth, including fielding a more robust advertising team. Tumblr hired an experienced exec, Lee Brown, from Groupon last fall, who has been busy hiring more sales execs. Interesting aside: Brown was a longtime Yahoo ad exec.

But building out the needed structure at the company is a long slog, and Tumblr might be seeking more help one way or another.

Yahoo declined comment and Tumblr has not gotten back to us as yet.

Airware, a startup that is creating a software platform for commercial drones, said it had raised $10.7 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Google Ventures also participated. As part of the deal, Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon will join Airware’s board.

The Newport Beach, Calif., company said it would use the money to expand staff for its universal development platform as the market for non-military drones expands.

Airware founder and CEO Jonathan Downey said that uses of drones will be increasing for a wide range of purposes, from checking infrastructure to monitoring mining operations to preventing poaching.

In an interview, Downey said that he expects to compete with a range of ex-military efforts, but that the most successful companies will be those that provide a platform to allow for the widest range of innovations.

“This is going to be about a lot more than we know or can guess,” he said. “The industry is at its very beginnings.”

Dixon agrees. “Hardware is the new software,” he said about the investment in Airware, which he said he discovered after attending conferences about the fast-moving drones business, noting that the overall field of robotics has “overpromised and underdelivered.”

Airware came out of both the Lemnos Labs and Y Combinator incubators and had raised seed financing from First Round Capital, Firelake Capital, RRE Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Promus Ventures and several Y Combinator partners.

The video network will add the cash to an earlier funding round, where it picked up $6.5 million from Bertelsmann’s Digital Media Investments arm and other investors. And it means that StyleHaul has now essentially received two different investments from Bertelsmann, since Bertelsmann owns a majority stake in RTL.

StyleHaul has now raised close to $17 million; it says it generates 300 million video views a month. Industry sources say RTL had previously talked to YouTube network/tool startup Fullscreen about an investment; Fullscreen ended up taking money from Comcast and the Chernin Group.

StyleHaul CEO Stephanie Horbaczewski said she’ll use the money to keep building out a non-YouTube home for StyleHaul. Like other YouTube networks, StyleHaul is trying to develop revenue streams that aren’t dependent on the world’s largest video site.

Other projects on tap for Horbaczewski include a “shoppable player” that will let viewers click on videos and purchase stuff they see displayed (here’s a cool example of one at Mr. Porter, starring Elijah Wood).

Horbaczewski said she is also working on two scripted series, which will be StyleHaul’s first foray into original video; it also plans on distributing other people’s work, like a long-delayed “Zoolander” cartoon series from Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Digital.

“This is really going to be a content story for us now,” she said.

Because I get bored on Sunday nights, I opened up Yahoo’s recent regulatory filings for some light reading and, as usual, found some tasty information that the company had kindly dropped in for my erudition, but declined to call my attention to.

Namely, that the Silicon Valley Internet giant is paying not so very much for its mobile acquisitions, according to several documents the company has filed.

In fact, Yahoo’s average price paid for each of five of the 10 startups it has purchased since last fall is a tiny $3.2 million in cash.

For example, here’s last week’s 10-Q referring to three of CEO Marissa Mayer’s first acquisitions — content curation app Snip.it, which Yahoo bought in January (funding amount unknown, but the $10 million acquisition price reported by some sites is clearly wrong, as you will see from the filing); recommendation app Alike (funding amount unknown), which was on February’s menu; and recommendation app Jybe (funding amount unknown), which the company picked up in mid-March:

The Company did not make any acquisitions during the three months ended March 31, 2012. However, during the three months ended March 31, 2013, the Company acquired three companies, all of which were accounted for as business combinations. The total purchase price for these acquisitions was $10 million and consisted entirely of cash consideration, primarily allocated to goodwill. Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of the net tangible and intangible assets acquired and is not deductible for tax purposes.

The Company’s business combinations completed during the three months ended March 31, 2013 did not have a material impact on the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements.

Going back further, Yahoo’s purchase of recommendation app Stamped last October (it had $3 million in funding) and video-chat app OnTheAir ($880,000 in funding) in December were also on the cheap — a bargain at $6 million total — according to its 10-K filed a few months ago:

During the year ended December 31, 2012, the Company acquired two companies, which were accounted for as business combinations. The total purchase price for these acquisitions was $7 million. The total cash consideration of $7 million less cash acquired of $1 million resulted in a net cash outlay of $6 million. Of the total purchase price, $6 million was allocated to goodwill and $1 million to cash acquired. Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of the net tangible and intangible assets acquired and is not deductible for tax purposes.

The Company’s business combinations completed in 2012 did not have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements, and therefore pro forma disclosures have not been presented.

It will be interesting to see what Yahoo reveals as to the price, and how it will account for the late March acquisition of Britain’s news reader Summly, which AllThingsD reported was a loftier $30 million.

The Summly deal did not appear to have closed by the end of the quarter, so no purchase information has been released, although it will be soon enough, along with that of the more recent string of mobile buys by Yahoo: To-do app Astrid, social polling app GoPollGo, travel rewards app MileWise and mobile gaming studio Loki.

For those four tiny companies, which were doubtlessly also bought for very little, Yahoo did tout what it’s really after in a festive tweet on Friday.

Warm entrepreneurial bodies:

We recently added 22 entrepreneurs to our growing mobile team. Welcome to Yahoo! @astrid @gopollgo @milewise @lokistudios!

— Yahoo! Inc.(@YahooInc) May 10, 2013

Now add another one to the list: SoundCloud, the digital audio platform, is trying to court brands with its own specialized ad unit. This one lets a marketer stick what amounts to a moving billboard behind the startup’s signature “waveform” audio units.

Here’s what one of those looks like, from Blue Bottle Coffee:

SoundCloud officially rolled these out in March, but the concept is so new that CEO Alex Ljung said the company hasn’t figured what to charge for it, or how the mechanics will work. That’s one of the reasons he has hired Dan Gerber, a sales vet from Pandora, to open up a New York office next month; SoundCloud started out in Berlin and also has an operation in San Francisco.

“There’s a lot of interest from other brands that want this, and we’re taking it out step by step. We want to build this out,” Ljung said.

Up until now, SoundCloud has only made money with a “freemium” model, where most of its users pay nothing to upload and play audio files, and a small minority pay a monthly fee for extra features.

But just like lots of other Web services that started out ignoring ads, SoundCloud figures its future will involve them, after all. See: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. SoundCloud has raised more than $60 million in the last few years, so it’s not surprising to see them start playing with ads themselves.

One of the challenges for all these platforms is that every one of them requires advertisers to experiment with a new format, which reduces the chance that any of them will truly scale. (See Felix Salmon’s excellent BuzzFeed analysis for more on this.)

Ljung argues that his audio files reach an audience of 200 million people a month (SoundCloud used to provide “registered user” numbers, which told you how many people could conceivably upload an audio file, it but doesn’t anymore), so presumably that will entice some brands.

On the other hand, audio advertising on the Web is still in its embryonic stage, as a Pandora vet like Gerber knows very well.

Now Lerer has figured out a new line extension: Selling stuff to dudes overseas, via their phones.

In the last few weeks, New York-based JackThreads has pushed into Australia, the U.K. and Canada. It turns out there were a lot of youngish, affluentish guys out there waiting to give him money: Lerer said international sales went from essentially zero at the beginning of the year to 7 percent in April. In May, it is on track to do 10 percent, he said.

“International has already made an actual substantive change in our business overnight,” Lerer said.

And he said that international customers — who tend to buy more per order than their U.S. counterparts — should help Thrillist Media Group do at least $75 million in sales this year, and perhaps as much as $100 million. The majority of that money will come from JackThreads, which he bought in 2010. But Lerer said that, unlike other e-commerce startups, his operation is “significantly profitable.”

It’s worth noting that Lerer attributes much of his JackThreads success to mobile apps the company has launched — especially its iOS app, which is currently ranked eighth in the “lifestyle” section of Apple’s App Store. More than half his international sales, he said, come via mobile.

And he attributes much of that success to work he has been doing via Facebook’s newish app-advertising program. Facebook, which is pushing the notion that app ads will be a big new revenue stream for the company, is a big Lerer fan, too. Facebook officials highlighted his company as a success story during their January earnings call.

Last year, Lerer raised $13 million in a round led by Oak Investment Partners — just the second round Lerer has raised since he started his company in 2005.

Kreiz, formerly the CEO of TV production studio Endemol, joined Maker as an investor and its chairman last year.

Asked to explain the change, Kreiz described it as standard operating procedure for a startup that needed more professional help as it matured; Zappin will become a “special adviser” to Kreiz, and will stay on the company’s board. COO Courtney Holt will continue in his position.

“I’m not the first professional help that’s coming on board,” Kreiz said. “It became more obvious that we had to run Maker in sync with the potential in terms of where it can go.”

Maker is one of YouTube’s biggest content hubs, and boasts more than three billion views a month. The majority of those come from video makers the startup represents via its distribution network, but it is increasingly focused on creating stuff for itself.

Late last year, as Maker was closing a $36 million round led by Time Warner, the company got involved in an ugly spat with Ray William Johnson, one of its former stars, who has since left the channel for a deal with Blip. Johnson and Zappin engaged in a weird public back-and-forth, which eventually prompted Zappin to write a companywide memo acknowledging a former conviction for felony drug possession.

I’m told the spat did worry both Maker and its investors, but not enough to scotch the deal. But Kreiz says Zappin’s move isn’t related to the incident.

Here’s the memo Zappin is sending to Maker employees today:

Hey Everyone,
I have some important and exciting news I want to share with all of you.
First off, I would like to thank everyone for being part of this amazing journey of building Maker Studios. It’s been quite a ride and I feel very proud of what we’ve all accomplished together!
I founded Maker with Lisa and Ben because we were passionate about creating content and making things verses pitching and auditioning. Youtube gave us a platform as content creators to do just that. We were able to reach a world wide audience and actually make a living doing what we loved, being creative.
The vision for Maker was to create a company that would provide resources, knowledge, and monetization opportunities for content creators around the world so they too could make a living doing what they love.
We have now grown from a small production studio with offices above a Campos Tacos in Venice to being a global media company with a Network of more than 50,000 individual partners in less than 2 years. The rapid evolution of this organization has been an incredible thing to witness.
Being the CEO of Maker Studios has been the single most challenging and rewarding experience of my life. I’ve learned more and accomplished more than I could have ever imagined. The amazing people I’ve shared this journey with will always be loved. Despite all odds Lisa, Ben and I have successfully led and navigated a rapidly growing company that has become the market leader in the space, despite having very little or no business background. No one thought it was possible. I know I could not have done it alone.
It is the very unique partnership between the 3 of us that made it work. While challenging and full of complexity there is no doubt that what we have is special and rare. The success is unquestionable. I feel honored to work along side my cofounders Lisa and Ben. I’m happy to be sharing this journey with them and with all of you at Maker Studios.
As we’ve grown, we’ve added many other remarkably talented people who I also feel privileged to work alongside. From Shay, Kassem, Alex, Christina, Matt, Glasgow and Paul in the early days to our current executives Courtney, Chris, Ryan, Karen, Amy and Sam. It’s a privilege to work with all of you. To all my friends and family, thank you for joining me in this unique opportunity and journey. Working along side so many people that you love has been a rewarding and unique experience that I am extremely grateful for. Mike.D. Without you none of this would be possible. Thank you.
So back to the exciting news!
A little over a year ago I had the privilege of meeting Ynon Kreiz. We both shared a great passion for Youtube and the new media space. He was very excited about what were doing at Maker and believed in our vision of what it could become. We connected immediately and developed a friendship over the next few months. About a year ago I asked Ynon to join Maker’s board of directors as the Chairman.
Since then Ynon has been an advisor, mentor, and sounding board for me. We have spoken almost daily for the past year. We could not have navigated the company through the past year without his help and support. Not only has he helped advise me, he has also learned a lot from his relationship with, Lisa, Ben and I. We have all grown close and have a lot of trust and mutual respect.
As we now prepare to move into the next phase of growth for Maker Studios, I felt it was the right time to make a significant transition. As the former CEO and Chairman of Endemol, the worlds largest independent production company, and as the co-founder and CEO of Fox kids, Ynon has the specific media exec experience that we need to take Maker to the next level. After much thought and discussion with Ynon, my co-founders and the board, I am happy to announce that I will be stepping down as the Maker Studios CEO. Ynon, our Executive Chairman will now be taking over my responsibilities and operational oversight of Maker.
While I won’t be responsible for day to day operations, I will remain on the board of directors and will serve in an advisor role to Ynon and the company. I will work very closely with Ynon during this transition phase to make sure everything goes smoothly.
I love this company and all of you. I’ve always been committed to do what I feel is best for the company and that will never change. This transition is what is best for the company right now. I am confident in my decision. I’m very fortunate to have had the experience of being the CEO of Maker Studios. I also feel lucky to now have the opportunity to hand over the keys to Ynon after a proper amount of time to build a solid relationship, trust, and mutual respect. I feel fortunate to have Ynon join the team. I’m very excited about the future of Maker Studios.
Thank you all,

Danny

There’s no picture of the moment when everything changed for Kevin Systrom. But if there were, it would look something like this: A lanky, very tall, dark-haired man in his late 20s sits on a bench at the Caltrain commuter station in Palo Alto, Calif. A sepia tone and weathered patina might underscore the mood of weighty contemplation.

It was early April of last year, and Systrom was waiting for his business partner, Mike Krieger, to arrive from San Francisco. Systrom had just left Mark Zuckerberg’s nearby house and was still digesting the offer that the Facebook founder and CEO had made him: To buy Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Systrom and Krieger had launched just 18 months before. The price Zuckerberg offered was $1 billion — $300 million in cash and the rest in Facebook stock, an especially generous-seeming deal on the eve of his company’s much-anticipated initial public offering.

The offer was even more impressive given Instagram’s size and age. At the time, it had just 13 employees, operating out of a cramped space in the South Park section of San Francisco. Still, the small crew had managed to attract 30 million Apple iPhone users in just a year and a half by offering a service that allowed a person to quickly upload, prettify through the use of filters and publish images to the Web for friends to see. A version for Google’s Android mobile operating system had launched the week before, attracting another million users in a single day.

What’s more, although the app generated no revenue, it had attracted so much attention from venture capitalists that the startup had nearly closed an impressive new round of funding at a wildly high valuation of $500 million. Zuckerberg had just doubled that, leaving Systrom with a lot to think about on that train-station bench.

Click. If there ever was a money shot to take for Instagram and Systrom, that was it.

(Photo by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson, used with permission by Vanity Fair)

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Joyus, the video shopping platform startup led by former top Google exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, said it had raised $11.5 million in a second round of funding, led by InterWest Partners and Time Warner Investments. Existing investors Accel Partners and Harrison Metal also participated.

In related news, Joyus said that Ido Leffler, co-founder of natural beauty brand Yes To, would join its board.

The San Francisco-based Joyus has now raised total capital of $19 million to push its efforts to combine video with retailing online. Along with the funding news, the company underscored the efficacy of its approach in a study it also released that it says shows “fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands can directly monetize video through direct response product sales.”

Using premium video content to flack its wares, Joyus said that it converts at 5.15 times the rate of visitors who only browse product listings on the site and that its viewers buy 4.9 times more than those who don’t watch the product videos.

“Every time someone watches a video, Joyus can measure the resulting sales revenue, creating the first ever metrics for return on investment (ROI) using online video to drive product sales,” said Joyus, which noted that on a half-dozen product areas that the average revenue per video (RPV) view ranges from 47 cents to 93 cents, meaning every thousand views of video on Joyus produces between $470 and $930 in direct sales revenue. Joyus shares a cut of the sales on its site with its merchants and provides the purchasing tools.

While others might dispute this performance and many online retailers have added video to their sales processes, Joyus CEO and founder Cassidy said in an interview that online retail has to shift from a focus on engagement statistics and monetization via brand advertising to direct product sales results.

“The data on video shopping needs to be aimed at a return on the investment rather than on just brand recognition,” she said. “We think by providing an informative and entertaining experience, where you can make purchases right away, consumers buy and that this is the direction online commerce is moving.”

As I noted in a previous post about Joyus when it launched in mid-2011: “If you think about a link-laden infomercial, you’ll get a general idea of what is being created by Joyus.”

While Cassidy did note that a comparison could be made to television shopping networks like HSN, which shows elaborate demos of its products, Joyus has its own tech stack and video platform that allows shoppers to watch in a non-linear way that is preferable online and also on mobile.

“We are aimed at those customers who are bred and born on digital, so the merchandising formula is different,” said Cassidy. “This is a shopper from 30 to 50 who wants entertainment and commerce together in a format that is convenient.”

In any case, it is coming, and at some point some of you who have one are going to want to use it post a YouTube video after you’re done skydiving or showering.

And now you can do so, courtesy of YouTube startup Fullscreen:

Fullscreen, recall, just rounded up money from the Chernin Group and Comcast.

So if you’re paying the country’s biggest cable company for monthly access to TV, take heart in the fact that a tiny slice of your check just made it easier for people with $1,500 gadgets to upload clips of your co-workers eating lunch.

Stick around to the end to hear an exchange Google Glass users are going to hear many times.

But what about an ink-and-paper printing business?

That makes sense, too, says Joel Quadracci, CEO of Quad/Graphics. Quad, which prints a good chunk of the country’s magazines, catalogs and direct mail, has put money into Pixability, a Cambridge startup that helps brands manage their presence on YouTube.

Quad, based in the suburbs of Milwaukee, took the majority of a $4.1 million round that Pixability closed last month. Other investors include Progress Ventures and Ikea chairman Göran Grosskopf.

Like several other startups, Pixability sells software subscriptions that are supposed to help customers navigate the world’s biggest video site. Pixability focuses on helping marketers like L’Oreal promote their clips on YouTube, said Pixability CEO Bettina Hein — she suggests thinking of it as “Buddy Media for YouTube.”

Again, there are a lot of companies who would like to be YouTube’s Buddy Media — $800 million exits inspire lots of people – so it’s hard to handicap Pixability’s chances. In the meantime, though, the Quad deal is supposed to give it a boost: In addition to the money the printer is putting into the startup, the two companies will co-sell each others’ services, and Quad will integrate some of Pixability’s offerings into the digital tool sets he provides to his customers.

The idea, Quadracci says, is not to use Pixability or other digital deals as a way out of the printing business, but as a way to augment them. He talks about selling advertisers and publishers package deals where there are digital components tied in to their print products, like “augmented reality” ads that create special effects when viewed on smartphones; he figures offering video services to his clients will be a good idea, too.

“I’m a huge believer in print,” he said. “And I think video makes print even better.”

Justin Kitch — the founder and CEO of Web 1.0’s Homestead small-business site that was sold to Intuit in 2007 — is returning with Curious, a lifelong learning startup aimed at connecting teachers and students on “subjects as varied as salsa dancing, integral solving, pipe soldering, jewelry making and knife sharpening.”

A little eclectic, perhaps, but the new company has raised $7.5 million from Redpoint Ventures, as well as prominent individual investors such as Bill Campbell.

That amount is a lot, but is part of a new rush to fund a range of educational startups of all kinds. Most recently, Lynda.com raised $103 million in January for its popular software, creative and business video courses. Other high-profile and well-funded MOOC — massive online open course — providers include Udacity and Coursera.

Curious will offer short-format video-based interactive lessons, noting that it currently has about 500 of them collected from a private beta phase, with 100 teachers and 10,000 learners in 140 countries.

In a post on the new effort, Kitch wrote: “To be clear, the earth would still be rotating on its axis without our launch today. But it would be without one little new idea that just might turn into something big.”

Here’s the official press release:

CURIOUS LAUNCHES NEW MARKETPLACE TO TEACH OR LEARN ANYTHING ONLINE

Platform Designed for Lifelong Learning Gives Teachers Tools to Easily Build, Market and Monetize Content

Already More than 500 Interactive Video-Based Lessons on Everything from Brewing Beer and Creating Excel Spreadsheets to Learning Conversational French

May 1, 2013 — Menlo Park, CA – Curious.com, Inc., today unveiled a new marketplace for lifelong learning where students and teachers can connect around subjects as varied as salsa dancing, integral solving, pipe soldering, jewelry making and knife sharpening. The company debuts as the home to hundreds of short, engaging video-based lessons for consumers interested in learning about anything, anytime. Founded by former Homestead CEO and founder and Intuit executive, Justin Kitch, Curious also provides teachers with the tools to market, share and monetize their lessons as well as interact with their students. The company has received $7.5 million in funding from Redpoint Ventures, individual investors Bill Campbell and Jessie Rogers, and a personal investment from Mr. Kitch.

“No matter what you want to learn, there is a great teacher somewhere in the world who could teach you. However, those teachers often don’t have the tools or the marketing expertise to teach online. The internet hasn’t caught up to them yet, which means that people trying to learn on the web are too often stuck wading through piles of low quality content and are then underwhelmed with the static way content is delivered,” said Mr. Kitch. “We believe online learning needs to be more fun and digestible for the lifelong learner in all of us, and easier and more lucrative for the world’s best teachers. Curious was designed from the ground up with those two objectives in mind.”

Curious Turns Passionate Teachers into Entrepreneurs with Free, Easy-to-Use Tools

With Curious, teachers don’t have to take out loans, deplete their savings or put their professional lives on hold trying to start a web business from scratch. At no cost, Curious offers teachers the Curious Lesson Builder which allows them to build, publish and market informative, entertaining lessons to attract followers and turn their passion into profits by earning supplemental income. Curious also links related lessons, tracks how many views a lesson has received and enables learners to submit projects and create “Curious Cards” to share their achievements and interact with teachers. Teachers can work with students on a highly personal level to answer questions, review projects and provide feedback.

“With Curious, we’re able to reach a whole new audience — and on a much bigger scale,” said Curious teacher Jennifer and Kitty O’Neil. “The Curious Lesson Builder makes presenting our videos easy. Curious takes care of everything else, and we can focus on what we do best, teaching. Now that we’ve connected with Curious, we’re taking our business to a whole new level.”

“I was once asked at a job interview what inspired me as a teacher and I said it was helping people to achieve something they previously thought beyond their ability,” added Curious teacher Guy Badger. “Curious helps show people that they really can accomplish more than they realize and, with the right teacher, learning can not only be fun, but can develop confidence and might just assist someone in landing that dream job.”

Bite-Size Lessons Optimizes Anytime, Anywhere Learning

Through the Curious Lesson Player, Curious allows learners to engage on their own time. Whether they have 10 minutes or several hours, they can watch short-format videos and interact with teachers and the Curious community through a host of multimedia features to discover something new, improve a skill, or follow a passion. No scheduling means students can take lessons at their convenience, stop lessons whenever they want, post questions as they arise, and share projects in-process or upon completion. Curious currently houses more than 500 lessons, adding more each day. Thanks to overwhelming interest during its private beta phase, the Curious community is already comprised of more than 100 professional teachers and over 10,000 learners from 140 countries who share perspectives, knowledge, and experiences at launch.

Curious includes free lessons as well as lessons that cost a few dollars. The company has introduced its micropayment system, Curious Coins, to make it easy for learners to securely purchase premium lessons whenever they want without repeatedly using their credit cards for nominal transactions. To celebrate its launch, Curious will offer new learners $20 of free Coins. Because most premium lessons cost only a dollar or two, learners have ample opportunity to explore all that Curious has to offer.

Founders Reunite and Secure Funding, This Time to Transform Online Learning

Curious rejoins the leaders of Homestead, which became the world’s largest small business website platform before being acquired by Intuit. Mr. Kitch, Thai Bui, (Homestead co-founder and CTO; Curious CTO), and John Tokash (Homestead Director of software development; Curious co-founder and Head of Engineering) applied their key learnings from growing Homestead, helping businesses quickly and easily build excellent, user-friendly websites, to Curious. The Curious founders have since directed their vision, energy and talents to develop an unparalleled interface and learning community that teachers and students will embrace. Similar to Homestead, Curious revolves around empowering the “little guy” with all the tools and marketplace presence of larger competitors to bring the best content to the largest audience.

“Justin, Thai and John wanted to create a home for learning where consumers make every second matter,” said Redpoint Ventures general partner and lead investor, Tim Haley. “As industry veterans, these guys know how to build compelling consumer products and services. Curious already offers a wide-range of outstanding content, an array of expert teachers from around the world, and a highly engaged user community — all from its beta period. The result is that anyone who comes to Curious on Day One will find compelling lessons on the topics they want and they’ll fall in love.”

To start teaching and learning now, please visit www.curious.com.

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan said they had created an unusual $20 million fund to help U.S. startups break into the Japanese market, while also upping a presence in the U.S.

The partnership between Japan’s largest Internet company — which is also a joint venture with Yahoo — and the venture arm of the giant SoftBank Corp. will invest in companies from early-stage funding to later-stage expansion and focus on mobile applications, social media, e-commerce, online advertising, gaming and cloud computing.

The new funds for that are being put into SoftBank Capital’s $100 million Technology Fund ’10. As part of the deal, Toshiaki Chiku will become head of U.S. operations in Manhattan. SoftBank Capital also recently announced a $250 million PrinceVille Fund, aimed at growth-stage startups in Asia.

Among the firm’s recent exits: Bluefin Labs went to Twitter, Buddy Media to Salesforce.com, Huffington Post to AOL, Hyperpublic to Groupon and OMGPOP to Zynga.

Now, it will be focusing even more on helping U.S. startups in Asia.

“Japan can be challenging for many U.S. companies, and given our scale and affiliation with SoftBank Corp., we’re in a great position to help them grow and succeed,” said Chiku in a statement.

SoftBank Capital and Yahoo Japan used performance display advertising company Criteo as an example of a successful investment, in which it also helped the company enter the Asian market (although, technically, Criteo is HQed in France).