Deleted Tweet archive PostGhost shut down after Twitter cease and desist

twitter-eats-newspaper2 PostGhost was a nascent website that archived the tweets of the famous, rich, and important. The site got popular for finding and storing the deleted Tweets of politicians and even Lindsay Lohan who plead with the English PM to #remain. “We created the website postghost.com to provide the public with a more accurate history of public statements made by the most influential public figures… Read More

Inside the ape cage with Antonio Garcia Martinez, author of Chaos Monkeys

B1ZoR2ZlxTS._SY600_ If you’re in a startup or even plan to sue one, Chaos Monkeys is the book to read. Antonio Garcia Martinez is a former physics major turned Wall Street quant turned startupper and he’s an amazing writer, able to encapsulate in a few words an era of greed, avarice, and ridiculous button-down-shirt/sweater vest combos. The world in which Garcia Martinez operated wasn’t pretty.… Read More

The two best pieces of early-stage pitching advice

Magic Over the past 10 years I’ve been on the first cap tables of three startups for which I’ve been responsible for closing their capital-raising efforts. I’ve raised money from the smallest angel investor to the biggest European VC funds and some of the world’s largest corporate investors. My present role has me on the other side of the table, assessing the pitches of… Read More

Westphalexit

the-ledgers As technology advances, a world partitioned into nation-states makes less and less sense. That may sound crazy, if you take it as granted that our world must be divided into nations. But the whole concept of a “country” is a 400-year-old weird hack, riddled with crippling bugs, plagued by contradictions that sharpen each year. It is unlikely to survive this century. Read More

The Brexit hangover has left UK startups drained — Are the brains next?

Screen Shot 2016-07-09 at 10.46.32 AM As the UK referendum result dropped in that fateful Friday morning, the tech startup world didn’t immediately grind to a halt. Websites kept loading. Apps kept opening. But what left UK technology entrepreneurs aghast was not just that Britain had chosen to leave the European Union after 40 years, but that all those years of trying compete with the giants of Silicon Valley would now… Read More

Austria: The up-and-coming early-stage investment capital of Europe

The Stephansplatz is a square at the geographical centre of Vienna. It is named after its most prominent building, the Stephansdom, Vienna's cathedral and one of the tallest churches in the world. To many, Austria can seem like a country of the past, one whose very charm lies in the fact that its best days are behind it. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed almost 100 years ago, and, with it, the aspirations this landlocked, Central European nation of 8.5 million had to control the global stage. Perhaps that’s why the Austrian startup scene has been so easy to overlook. Read More

CARTO makes geographical data visualization and analysis accessible to non-specialists

Carto CartoDB, a data visualization company founded in Madrid in 2012, changed its name to CARTO to celebrate its new analysis tool CARTO Builder and to emphasize its attempt to enlarge its audience from developers to business people and non-coders. Historically, CartoDB has helped data specialists with knowledge of SQL perform location data analysis. In addition, the company allowed data… Read More

Facebook explains censorship policy for Live video

fb-live-on-off2 Facebook only removes content if it celebrates or glorifies violence, not if it’s only graphic or disturbing, according to a spokesperson. Facebook also insists that the video of Philando Castile’s death was temporarily unavailable due to a technical glitch that was Facebook’s fault. That contradicts theories that the video disappeared due to Facebook waffling on whether… Read More

Study of Candy Crush players finds virtual currency buyers don’t go for upsells

candy-hearts (1) The upsell we all fall for at fast food joints and places like Costco doesn’t seem to work on purchasers of in-game currencies, according to a study conducted on millions of Candy Crush players. Turns out the decision to buy fictional bars of gold isn’t quite rational, economically speaking. Who would have thought? Read More

Bain Capital Ventures raises $600 million (and another big fund is born)

American dollars falling in the sky It’s starting to happen like clockwork. Firms are closing new funds almost exactly 24 months to the date from their last fund closing. The newest example? Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), which this morning announced a new, $600 million fund. It last closed two funds — a $650 million early-stage vehicle, and a $200 million co-investment fund to back maturing BCV investments —… Read More

Google’s Self-Driving Car Project has a new legal lead

PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 30:  A Google self-driving car project is displayed during the Viva Technology show on June 30, 2016 in Paris, France. Viva Technology Startup Connect, the new international event brings together 5,000 startups with top investors, companies to grow businesses and all players in the digital transformation who shape the future of the internet.  (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images) Google’s Self-Driving Car Project is one step closer to becoming its own independent business. Recode has confirmed that the autonomous-driving company under the Alphabet umbrella has hired The Climate Corporation’s chief legal officer, Kevin Vosen, as its first general attorney. He’s slated to begin later this month. Currently, Google’s self-driving unit is under… Read More

Blackmoon launches in the US to match investors with balance-sheet lenders

Detail of document with ballpoint pen, studio shot It was only a matter of time before Tinder for balance sheet lenders and debt investors became a thing.
Financial matchmaking platform Blackmoon launched this week in the United States. The platform is designed to help institutional investors access non-bank balance sheet loans. The Russian marketplace lending as a service platform is also adding a New York office to its international… Read More

Signs of a new Samsung Gear VR are surfacing

Gear_VR_Still_3 It’s been less than a year since the consumer Gear VR was first shown off and it already seems as though Samsung and Oculus are regrouping to push out a new version of the pre-eminent mobile VR headset. A Dutch Samsung rumors site inexplicably found a listing from an Indian imports database that highlights a new model number (SM-R323) for the Gear VR device being shipped.… Read More