StumbleUpon's Second Wind Continues as It Raises $17M

StumbleUpon, the content discovery service, has raised $17 million in new funding, according to sources close to the company.

More Mobile Ad Money: InMobi Raises $8 Million

The mobile ad market is still more theoretical than anything else. But it’s got to show up one day, right?

The Beaver Brothers of Zazzle Talk About Customizing, Well, Everything!

A few weeks ago, BoomTown motored down to Silicon Valley, to the Redwood City, Calif., HQ of Zazzle, the online site that lets users order a variety of custom products by using a special (and patented) printing technology. I went to talk to the Beaver brothers–Jeff and Bobby, who founded the company with their father, who is CEO, way back before the first Web 1.0 bubble burst in 1999–about recent changes, including finding more ways to slap custom designs on more products and recent international expansion.
new-zazzle-logo

StumbleUpon's Garrett Camp Speaks (About Being a Born-Again Start-up)!

Last week, StumbleUpon announced it was buying itself out of its much-vaunted previous corporate buyout, by being born again as an “investor-baked start-up.” The Canadian-born social-bookmarking company, which was launched earlier, came to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy venture investors and soon became a traffic-generating hit. Then StumbleUpon was bought by eBay two years ago for $75 million in one of Web 2.0′s high points. End of a fairy tale? Um, nope. Here’s CEO and co-founder Garrett Camp, talking to BoomTown in a video interview about it all.

StumbleUpon Stumbles Out of eBay's Arms to Be Reborn as a Start-Up (Plus the Entire Press Release)

The content-discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago. It announced today that it was returning to being an “investor-backed startup” by a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital. Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, are also back, with Camp now in place as CEO. “We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp, stating the very obvious. That’s quite a boomerang since it was acquired by the auction giant in 2007 for $75 million.