Alastair Goldfisher

Anthony Lee and Chris Albinson are hoping that C100 does for Canadian tech entrepreneurs, execs and investors in Silicon Valley what TiE has done for entrepreneurs, executives and others with roots in the Indus region. Lee, general partner of Altos Ventures, and Albinson, managing director of Panorama Capital, launched C100 in the same week in […]

Entrepreneur Eric Gradman sports a five-inch, dark red Mohawk. But when you hear his story, your hair might stand on end. Gradman is an interactive artist in Los Angeles and co-founder and CTO of Virsix, which he describes as an immersive entertainment company that aims to take a new approach to the out-of-home expeience. Gradman […]

George Northup was in a good mood last week, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the Duke University graduate was ecstatic to see his Blue Devils about to roll into the NCAA Final Four. Northup is president of VC-backed Memeo, an Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based provider of digital life management solutions for […]

Socialcast announced this morning that it raised an $8  million Series B round of funding from Menlo Ventures and True Ventures. This is on top of a $1.4 million Series A round that the San Francisco-based provider of social business communication software raised last year from True and undisclosed individual investors. The company, much like […]

The Cleantech Group this morning announced first quarter VC investments stats, and the buzzword was "bounce back." As in: "Following the decline in cleantech investments from 2008 to 2009, the industry has bounced back in the first quarter of 2010," said Sheeraz Haji, president of Cleantech Group. Get key talking points from the press conference after the jump...

It’s spring, which means it’s time for the CTIA Wireless conference, which bills itself as the largest trade show for the wireless industry. CTIA, which kicked off yesterday in Las Vegas and lasts through tomorrow, comes at a time when mobile advertising sales worldwide reached $530 million last year and is expected to jump to […]

Owing much to my provincial attitude, I’ve never given much thought to the notion that U.S. cleantech investors are that much different from their U.K. cousins. Thankfully, there are bloggers doing that comparison for me. Such is the case if you read this article by SolveClimate, an Internet news site that aims to cover climate […]

Rachel Polish knows how to command a room. That may be due to her Armed Forces experience, since she serves as a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve in addition to her fulltime job as senior digital strategist for Ogilvy PR’s global, digital word-of-mouth marketing practice. Last week, Polish spoke to a group of about two dozen local business leaders at the Silicon Valley Capital Club in San Jose. She told the gathering of mostly small-business owners how best to use social media, like Twitter and Foursquare, in practical ways. Afterwards, I spoke to Polish and asked her how PE and VC folk should be using social media. Get our Q&A after the jump...

If you're not one of the supposedly 48 million people who listen to and explore some of the 700,000 songs on Pandora, probably the last time you tuned into the company was in July 2009. That's when the Oakland, Calif.-based company. which develops music recommendation technology and provides other music-streaming services, raised $35 million in funding, led by Greylock Partners. Pandora, f.k.a. Savage Beast, has now raised about $65 million from Crosslink Capital, DBL Investors, Hearst Corp., Labrador Ventures, Selby Venture Partners and WaldenVC. Dan wrote about the recent funding in a previous post. Earlier this week, the New York Times wrote about the company and its growth. Though the company gave the standard line that it is focused on growth, not a public offering, the

It's been nearly six months since we last wrote about Jesse Draper, the daughter of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper (and granddaughter of Bill). So I figured it was my turn to pick up the relay baton and revisit what the younger Draper was up to with her Web show, "The Valley Girl," in which she interviews local VCs and entrepreneurs. One recent show had her sitting down with Ted Barnett, co-founder and CEO of SuperSecret, a San Francisco-based developer of online social games for tweens. The company has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Opus Capital and other investors. At about the 3:10 mark of the video, something unusual happens. Draper has Barnett put on a pair of bunny ears--which were pink, of course--as he goes on an egg hunt, which is reminiscent of the website's activities.