Khosla Ventures

Fast-Growing Cloud Management Start-Up Okta Hires Two New VPs

Arik Hesseldahl in News on February 1 at 7:38 am PT

Customers are up threefold and end users are up by a factor of six. Time to put some more talent on the executive team? Yes.

Miso Helps Watchers and Networks Annotate TV

Liz Gannes in Social on December 14, 2011 at 9:28 am PT

The social TV start-up Miso today introduced a new iPhone app built to give added information, products, links and commentary while people are watching TV.

eBay Buys Hunch

Peter Kafka in Commerce on November 21, 2011 at 6:57 am PT

One of a string of pickups for eBay.

Kaggle Solves Big Data Problems With Contests — And Now Has Big Funders and $11M on Board

Liz Gannes in News on November 3, 2011 at 12:00 am PT

What if the Netflix Prize model — solving hard problems about big data sets using contests — could be applied to all sorts of other things? A remarkable start-up called Kaggle is doing just that.

Khosla Venture’s $1.05 Billion Fund

Pui-Wing Tam, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on October 13, 2011 at 4:07 pm PT

Khosla Ventures, the venture-capital firm run by longtime Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla, closed a $1.05 billion fund that ranks as one of the biggest new venture funds this year, from which it plans to invest a large portion in clean technology.

What Bad Economy? Three Big Silicon Valley VCs Poised to Haul in $2B in New Fund Raising.

Kara Swisher in News on September 8, 2011 at 6:15 am PT

Despite the bad economy, turbulent markets and lackluster venture returns of late, limited partners looking for an investment edge seem to still be adding more dough to the VC kitty.

Ness: The Latest, Smartest and Prettiest App to Help You Figure Out Where to Eat

Liz Gannes in Social on August 25, 2011 at 1:22 pm PT

Ness Computing today launches its first product: a sexy, smart, ingenious iPhone app that does … restaurant recommendations. Yes, that again!

News Byte

Skype Pays Around $85 Million for GroupMe

Tricia Duryee in Mobile on August 21, 2011 at 3:21 pm PT

Skype has agreed to acquire GroupMe, a company that has developed a way for groups of people to send messages to each across various smartphone platforms. People familiar with the transaction say Skype will pay around $85 million for GroupMe, which was founded at a TechCrunch event in April 2010. Early investors include First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and Betaworks; last fall, Khosla Ventures won a bidding war for a $10 million funding round that valued the company at around $35 million. Skype is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft.

Jawbone Nabs $70 Million in a Jammed Box of Funding

Kara Swisher in Mobile on July 12, 2011 at 12:30 pm PT

Jawbone, the maker of elegant mobile and wireless devices, has added $70 million in funding to its coffers, with a new investment from J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The San Francisco-based company has now raised a total of $170 million from a panoply of high-profile investors, all of whom are making a big bet on consumer electronics, an always dicey arena, and on Jawbone’s innovative products, such as its initial Bluetooth headsets and its more recent nifty Jambox wireless speakers.

Former Top Editor Makes Another Talent Raid on AOL’s Engadget for New Competing Gadget Site

Kara Swisher in Media on July 7, 2011 at 9:24 am PT

I love the smell of blog wars in the morning! Acting as Facebook often does to Google, a new site started by former Engadget editor Josh Topolsky just hired away yet another passel of tech journalists from the giant gadgets news and reviews organization. It is Topolsky’s second major talent raid since he left his editor-in-chief job there in March, for a new gadget property aimed at unseating Engadget.