Facebook today announced it has raised U.S.$1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion. This is not all news to us as we had reported the first signs of this deal earlier this month, but Facebook had not confirmed. The details of the deal are as follows: “Goldman Sachs completed an oversubscribed offering to…
Read MoreStartup businesses need cash to operate. At the very least, an entrepreneur needs sufficient cash to pay bills, and buy some equipment or server space while things get up and running. For entrepreneurs, available capital, aka money, can be broken into two broad categories: Your money and other people’s money. In today’s post, we’ll explore…
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SnagFilms, a Washington, D.C. based startup, announced earlier this week it has received $10 million in growth capital from new investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC). The round of funding also included existing investors, including Ted Leonsis (SnagFilms’ Founder) and Steve Case. The additional financing will be used to expand its…
Read MoreBack in the wild and wooly days of the mid-1990s Internet boom, most DC business pundits were projecting that the capital region was going to be the “Next Silicon Valley.” It was heady times as local tech-star AOL, acquired Silicon Valley Internet pioneer and darling, Netscape. All of a sudden DC firms like UUNET, and…
Read MoreTap Me, a Chicago-based, in-game advertising platform, which we covered previously, announced today that they have just closed over $1 million in Series A funding. The funding came from lead investors Hyde Park Angels, the i2A Fund, and David Cohen (CEO and Founder of TechStars) to continue the development of their mobile in-game advertising platform, iComplishments. Tap.me offers…
Read MoreWe are excited to hear the news today that Chicago-based startup FeeFighters (formerly TransFS) has raised a round of funding from Sandbox Industries, OCA Ventures, i2a Fund and Hyde Park Angels, 500Startups and Arizona Bay Technology Partners that totals $1.6 million dollars. We expect FeeFighters to use the money to continue to expand and market…
Read MoreTrying to remember the name of a song you heard? There is an iPhone app that can help by allowing you to sing a tune and it will help recognize it. Khush is the company behind the slick karaoke application for the iPhone called LaDiDa that allows users to sing into the phone. The application analyzes…
Read MoreChicago-based Ifbyphone announced today that they raised another $8 million in funding. The National Association of Realtors has invested in Ifbyphone through its strategic investment fund, Second Century Ventures. As part of the arrangement, NAR is also collaborating with Ifbyphone to develop solutions that enhance voice interactions for its more than 1.1 million realtors. We…
Read MoreLook at your inbox. Now look at me. Look back at your inbox. Is it full of lame holiday emails from your dentist and other service providers? Mine is. But then I saw this holiday video from First Round Capital. Two parts creativity, three parts humiliation for all involved is a recipe for a thoroughly…
Read MoreBack in October, we produced a full day conference called Startup Mixology in Chicago. Over twenty amazing entrepreneurs, investors and experts took stage to share their advice. We knew that this was a special event and wanted to capture some additional words from our experts before and after they hit the stage. For this video…
Read MoreWorking in the education field for years in the Chicago area, Jeff O’Hara got frustrated seeing that social networking and sharing sites were blocked in the classroom. This did not seem right to Jeff as he thought that education was the ideal place for social collaboration. So Jeff decided he was going to do something…
Read MoreStarting up, you may not know exactly how you are going to get your idea funded. It could start out as a simple bootstrapped project which gets traction and takes on a life of it’s own. Or you could start with a specific funding goal in mind to bring your dream to life. Whatever your…
Read MoreThe last two weeks have been filled with the updates on the Groupon acquisition by Google. We figured an acquisition of Groupon would shift attention to top competitor LivingSocial. Today LivingSocial continued to trek on as they look to grow just as aggressively as Groupon and announced that it has secured a $175 million investment…
Read MoreGrubHub, a service that organizes restaurant menus and information to make ordering for delivery and takeout a breeze, announced today that it has closed $11 million in Series C funding from Benchmark Capital. To date the company has raised $14.1 million so this is by far the largest round of funding they have taken yet….
Read MoreLast March the Tech Cocktail crew rented a house in Austin for SXSW and was happy to have some entrepreneurs from both coasts stay at the TC Headquarters. One of whom was Dave Lifson, Founder and CEO of NYC-based Postling. Dave came to Austin with a mission – to meet with a number of investors…
Read MoreCreating an exceptional mobile experience is becoming more important everyday as most of us are connected to our phones all the time. Chicago-based startup Red Foundry is looking to help create exceptional mobile experiences with ease and this week shared news that they just raised a $1.1 million round of funding from OCA Ventures and…
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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