Tomio Geron

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CapLinked Wants To Make Deal Opportunities Go Social

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 23, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

Picture this: LinkedIn-meets-Salesforce, for potential start-up financing opportunities. That’s the vision for CapLinked Inc., a new start-up that wants to be the go-to place for setting up and closing deals, as well as managing portfolio companies after the close.

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Vicarious Systems Says Its Artificial Intelligence Is the Real Deal

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 10, 2011 at 12:41 pm PT

A number of websites, such as Face.com and Google Inc.’s Like.com, provide facial-recognition tools that enable users to search through digital photos. But new stealthy start-up Vicarious Systems intends to go much further with its artificial intelligence software.

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Will Car-Sharing Among Strangers Catch On?

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on December 15, 2010 at 11:14 am PT

Would you lend your car to a stranger? A new start-up, RelayRides Inc., hopes to encourage people to rent their wheels to others, the same way sites like Airbnb Inc. have popularized the notion of people renting out their homes.

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LivingSocial, Groupon Riding Deals "Frenzy," But Will It Last?

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on December 3, 2010 at 2:26 pm PT

Just a couple of years ago, the idea that start-ups offering modest local business discounts would be the hottest properties in the tech world would have brought snickers. Now, Google may be on the verge of buying one of those companies, Groupon Inc., for $6 billion or so, and another one, LivingSocial Inc., just bagged a $175 million investment from Amazon.com Inc.

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A Former Google Executive's Payday-Loan Alternative

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on October 14, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Doug Merrill, former Google Inc. chief information officer and vice president of engineering, came up with the idea for start-up ZestCash Inc. after seeing his sister-in-law struggle to pay for new tires.

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Peter Thiel: Why Facebook Is Like Ford Motors In The 1920s

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on September 28, 2010 at 8:02 am PT

Peter Thiel is not as hot on consumer Internet investing these days, despite how bullish he is on one of his own portfolio companies, Facebook Inc.

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Groupon and the Clone Wars

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on September 17, 2010 at 7:55 am PT

Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of its local-discount offers, Groupon Inc. now generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, commands a valuation north of $1 billion, and has attracted some $170 million in venture capital–all in less than three years.

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Comparison Shopping Online Is for Small Businesses Too

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on August 11, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Efficient comparison shopping is a major benefit for consumers who purchase products online. A new start-up, TransFS LLC, is seeking to bring similar benefits to small businesses. TransFS, which stands for Transparent Financial Services, is starting with providing merchants a comparison of credit-card processing companies.

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The $100M Revenue Club: EHarmony Captures Hearts Of VCs

Tomio Geron, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on July 13, 2010 at 12:00 am PT

EHarmony Inc. may not be the trendiest or flashiest dating Web site out there, but it has steadily grown to become a big piece of the online dating space. The company has done this by bucking the trends, both when it was founded during the dot-com bubble–when a slew of companies launched to marry the power of the Internet with the age-old desire to meet Mr. or Ms. Right–and more recently, when a new crop of sites has focused on casual dating through features such as social networking or video chat.