9 posts and columns on Naval Ravikant

Meet Evan Reas of LAL and His Proximity-Based Social Graph for Colleges (Video)

in Social on May 2, 2011 at 6:20 pm PT

The start-up LikeALittle, or LAL, had fended off NetworkEffect’s reportorial advances for weeks. Funny, considering the site helps people flirt with one another.

News Byte

Listia Raises Cash from Andreessen Horowitz for Bartering Marketplace

in Commerce on April 19, 2011 at 9:32 am PT

Listia has raised a round of funding totaling $1.75 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Others participating include: SV Angel, Founder Collective, High Line Venture Partners, Max Levchin, Naval Ravikant, Alex Zubillaga, James Hong and others. The company’s marketplace essentially allows people to barter, handing out credits when you give something away that can be cashed in to buy something for free. The funding will be used to hire developers and to continue a move into mobile that includes the recent release of an iPhone app.

Topguest Hustles Its Way into Making Travel Loyalty Pay (Video)

in Social on April 6, 2011 at 10:17 am PT

“Just hustling,” as CEO Geoff Lewis described it, has helped a small, less-than-a-year-old start-up with relatively few users score deals with the likes of Virgin America, Hilton and InterContinental Hotels Group to tie customers’ geo-located social media activity with existing loyalty rewards programs.

Venture Capitalists Actually (Slightly) More Active Than Angels on AngelList

in Social on February 15, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

AngelList ran the numbers this week and found that venture capitalists, including many top firms, are actually more active than angels on its year-old service.

DocVerse–Now Google Cloud Connect–Head Shan Sinha Talks About Web-Based Biz Apps

in News on January 14, 2011 at 4:00 pm PT

Shan Sinha headed the start-up DocVerse, which was acquired by Google in March for a reported $25 million to $30 million. Since then, he’s has been ferreting away on scaling up DocVerse’s product, which allows users of Microsoft Office documents to collaborate in real time on the Web, for the search giant. Its new name: Google Cloud Connect.

Twitter Triples Team in One Year, Acqhires Q&A Start-Up

in Social on December 21, 2010 at 10:01 am PT

Twitter announced today it has acquired the talent behind Fluther, a Q&A start-up, in order to beef up its efforts to help users discover content. The company specifically said this is a talent acquisition of four engineers and one designer, and that the Fluther product will remain independent, though mostly unmaintained.

Topguest Checks In With $2 Million Series A Round (And Peter Thiel as Adviser)

in News on November 15, 2010 at 7:33 am PT

Topguest, a check-in loyalty service that was founded just five months ago, has gotten $2 million in Series A funding, as well as nabbing well-known Facebook investor Peter Thiel as an adviser. Other investors in the round include: Thiel’s Founders Fund, as well as angels such as Ron Conway, Keith Rabois, Jeff Clavier and Naval Ravikant.

Confirmed: Google Acquires DocVerse in Office Faceoff With Microsoft [UPDATED]

in News on March 5, 2010 at 11:12 am PT

Continuing its acquisition spree, Google has snapped up DocVerse, a start-up that allows users of Microsoft Office documents to collaborate in real-time on the Web, several sources said. Sources said the price was in the $25 to $30 million range. It’s yet another shot across Microsoft’s software bow by Google, so the brewing war over the cloud between Google and Microsoft just become a lot more interesting.

When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled

in News on November 24, 2008 at 12:45 am PT

About three weeks ago, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks, in which Facebook was offering to acquire Twitter for $500 million of its stock, which also included a cash component. While rumors of Facebook’s interest were brought up in an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Web 2.0 Summit a few weeks ago, some shot down the idea as silly. Quite incorrectly, as it turns out, since top execs at both Facebook and Twitter were right then at the tail end of discussions, which were initiated by the privately held Facebook in mid-October, about bringing the two together. Those talks, sources on both sides said, are now over. So why did the deal break down?