Continuing the race to secure valuable global market share, DC-based LivingSocial has announced they have acquired TicketMonster, one of the leading daily deal sites in South Korea. TicketMonster offers daily and instant deals, travel deals, and events to more than two million members in Korea and Malaysia. The company has grown rapidly from zero to…
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DC-based Salsa Labs, which provides online organizing and fundraising solutions to nonprofits, associations, and political campaigns, has received a $5 million investment from Edison Ventures, a VC firm that focuses on emerging growth IT companies. Salsa Labs is definitely a startup success story in the making. They bootstrapped for several years and have grown into a…
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Whether you love learning new hobbies and skills, or have expertise you’d like to share, Skillshare is creating a space to come together and exchange this knowledge within your community. Reminiscent of Chicago-based CommuniTeach and Skyara out of San Francisco, Skillshare is an online marketplace where you can learn anything from anyone. Believing that neighborhoods and communities are the world’s…
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For all you networking addicts out there who feel like their lunch hour is wasted on a sandwich, iced tea and the blank wall stare, say hello to a productive lunch with LetsLunch, which is launching mid-August in Washington, DC. Professionals and entrepreneurs have been using LetsLunch in NYC and San Francisco to set up…
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Group texting was a popular and trending niche of startup development this year, and it was clearly on display this past March at South by Southwest. So I was pleased to get a chance to sit down and talk with DC-based entrepreneur Morris Panner about his latest endeavor Groupflier, which we covered previously. Morris shares…
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TroopSwap.com, a DC-based startup that offers daily deals exclusively to military families, has raised $925,000 in new funding from several prominent angel investors. We are very excited for them, as we first covered them in May and then showcased them at our Tech Cocktail DC mixer in June. “Tech Cocktail and the DC tech community…
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Congress isn’t exactly associated with innovation, but a DC-based startup has been helping bring Congress into the 21st century with more interactive, online communications that go beyond eNewsletters. iConstituent provides nearly 40% of Congress, statewide office holders, state legislative caucuses, and various non-governmental organizations with products and services that range from website publishing to smartphone…
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According to a 2010 Harris Interactive/McAfee survey, fifty-one percent of teens say they have given out personal information online to someone they don’t know in the offline world. uKnow.com is looking to make the online space, where so many kids and teens spend their time, a safer place. The company announced last week that it…
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LightSquared, a firm looking to build the first nationwide 4G wireless broadband network, is facing a lot of resistance from makers of GPS devices. The US Department of Commerce’s telecommunications division released an assessment of problems that the LightSquared 4G service might create for both commercial and government GPS. In an effort to prevent any…
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410 Labs the makers of Shortmail which we covered when they first launched and then again more recently as they opened the doors to the public, has just announced that they have raised funding. According to the announcement, the $750,000 Series A funding includes support from True Ventures, 500 Startups, Fortify Ventures and The Maryland…
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Taking on the $70 billion wedding industry in what seemed like a business savvy and calculated manner, WeddingWire quickly took on wedding customers and vendors when they began in 2007, grew revenues and today announced they acquired Project Wedding. WeddingWire is a DC-area startup founded by former BlackBoard co-founder Timothy Chi among others. In 2008, Martha…
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Apps are everywhere as mobile devices have become the first point of contact for most companies. We all use them, companies of all shapes, sizes, and industries create them, some are super clever, some are just straight up useful. At the enterprise-level, you’ve even got apps being created for internal employee use only, and until…
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Some startups can be hard to decipher, offering hosted databases or cloud-based analytics. But several DC startups are working on something everyone can get behind: having fun. If you’re wondering what to do this summer, be sure to check out Venga, Spontaneous (formerly GetSpontaneous), and BeCouply. Both Venga and Spontaneous feature local restaurants and events…
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Another one bites the dust, packs up their bags, and leaves the DC area for Silicon Valley. Last week, YouEye, a firm that we covered back in February, left town for California. The company has been out on the money-raising circuit since the beginning of the year, received offers of funding at a reasonable valuation…
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TechWomen is a professional mentorship and exchange program enabling women in the field of technology from the Middle East and North Africa to reach their full potential. The pilot program kicked off in April and offered 37 women selected from the Middle East and North Africa a chance to gain valuable mentorship experience by pairing…
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Yesterday, I attended the first ever Twitter Town Hall at the White House featuring President Barack Obama. The event was moderated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and was well attended. I was extremely thankful and excited to attend the event. I even got to be the last person to shake the President’s hand as he…
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Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
We are excited to announce the participating startups for Tech Cocktail's South by Southwest (SXSW) event: #Startuplife Celebration presented by .CO. It was one of... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More