First Growth Venture Network

From TechCrunch: Lover.ly (a First Growth Venture Network graduate) Raises $500K To Be An Online, Visual Inspiration Engine For Weddings

admin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:25:27 +0000

February 14, 2012 via TechCrunch by Leena Rao – Lover.ly, an inspiration engine and Pinterest-like startup for weddings, has raised $500,000 from Joanne Wilson, Michael Edwards, Michael Yavonditte, Charles Smith, Anu Duggal, Jordan Levy, and Rick Webb.

Launched in the Fall of 2011, Lover.ly is a centralized place that helps brides discover and save wedding ideas. The site is designed to help brides, vendors, and wedding enthusiasts find inspiration (from wedding blogs), people to hire, and things to buy. Similar to Pinterest, the site allows users to curate board of ideas and make them public for users to view and draw inspiration. Read more at TechCrunch…

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From finance to fashion: Julie Macklowe uses her $250 million hedge fund wizardry in the beauty world

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:30:22 +0000

February 10, 2012 from Houston CultureMap by Lindley Arnoldy – Don’t let her 5-foot, three-inch frame fool you; Julie Macklowe is a powerhouse. By the age of 30, this savvy investor was running her own $250 million hedge fund after stints at Chase Capital Management and SAC, happily married with a beautiful daughter, and known on the fashion circuit for her outrageous sense of style.

After spending 12 years in finance, she recently closed Macklowe Asset Management to pursue her real passion: Investments in emerging entrepreneurs in the fashion industry.

She made her first investment in Bauble Bar (a First Growth Venture Network graduate), a site that sells jewelry directly from suppliers and designers, and then shifted her efforts from fashion financier to entrepreneur in her own right.

From Bloomberg TV Money Moves: First Growth Venture Network founder Ed Zimmerman on Environment for Tech Startups

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:35:01 +0000

February 9, 2012 from Bloomberg — Edward Zimmerman, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler PC, talks about the outlook for angel investing in technology start-ups. Zimmerman speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television’s “Money Moves.”

Watch the video here at Bloomberg.

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From VentureBeat: With powerful new apps, Producteev (a First Growth Venture Network alum) is the task management service of your dreams

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 07:48:12 +0000

January 24. 2012 via VentureBeat by Devindra Hardawar If you’re like me, you’ve tried and abandoned countless task management services. It’s easy to make a half-hearted promise with yourself to organize your tasks, it’s tougher to find a service that’s flexible and simple enough to use without becoming a chore in itself.

Producteev (a FGVN graduate), which is launching a slew of new apps today, comes the closest to being the task management service I’ve always wanted. It works on a multitude platforms, can be used for both group and individual tasks, and even integrates directly with other task services (including some that it’s directly competing with).

(VentureBeat Disclosure: Producteev angel investor Aydin Senkut is also an investor in VentureBeat.)

The company also announced today that it has landed over 1,000 paying business customers, including companies like Orbitz, the Financial Times, and Logitech.

GoldRun Founder & CEO, a First Growth Graduate, Talks True HD and Augmented Reality in the Second Installment of On Display

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:46:33 +0000

January 25, 2011 via Gawker
Hand-held devices are revolutionizing the way we interact with the world, and pioneers like Vivian Rosenthal, Founder & CEO of GoldRun, a mobile augmented reality (AR) platform, have taken cues from the technological advancements of the LG Nitro HD. Specifically, the True HD IPS Display with 16:9 widescreen capabilities are innovations that inspire GoldRun developers…

Check out the video and read more at Gawker…

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From TechCrunch: (First Growth graduate) Producteev Drops Slew Of New Apps; Now Lets You Crowdsource Your Tasks On TaskRabbit

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:03:18 +0000

January 24, 2012 via TechCrunch by Rip Empson

…Today marks a big step forward for Producteev, as the service now leverages the cloud to sync its new apps, managing tasks and to-do lists across most of today’s popular devices and platforms. As to its traction since launching in 2008? Producteev Co-founder Ilan Abehassera tells us that more than 1,000 business customers are now using the service, including Orbitz, Trulia, Logitech, Financial Times, and Boston College, and more than 7 million tasks have been created to date. More than 50 percent of its clients are checking in more than once a week, and the co-founder also said that the startup raised another round of venture investment late last year, adding to its existing bank of $1.3 million…

From NY Daily News – New York Tech: 12 people to watch in 2012 (including First Growth participant Kellee Khalil)

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:42:01 +0000

January 19, 2012 By Meena Hart Duerson

The New York tech scene is booming and the next Mark Zuckerberg might be right here in the city, sharing space with a dozen other startups in a loft near Union Square.

As the number of new companies explodes, we’ve chosen twelve people in New York tech you should keep an eye on in 2012. These individuals are shaking up major industries, changing the way things are done in education, retail, media, investing, event planning, computing, and more. They work in dramatically different fields but each one is an integral part of the tech community, and they share a drive and determination to be on the cutting edge…

From TechCrunch: TaskRabbit Acquires Service Provider Directory SkillSlate (A Fall 2010 Vintage FGVN Graduate)

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:42:36 +0000

January 9, 2012 via TechCrunch by Alexia Tsotsis
Collaborative consumption startup TaskRabbit has acquired SkillSlate (a First Growth Venture Network Fall 2010 Vintage Graduate), according to this press release I just received. This will be TaskRabbit’s, which has a total of $24.7 million in financing, first acquisition.

Even a cursory glance will tell you that the services are a good fit. TaskRabbit is a platform that allows people to pay other people to complete tasks. SkillSlate allows people to search for local businesses that provide the services they want.

From TechCrunch: 500 Startups backed (and FGVN participant) 72Lux Wants To Help Turn Your Site Into An eCommerce Platform

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:16:07 +0000

TechCrunch December 15, 2011 by Rip Empson:

Not many startups can lay claim to being part of two recognizable accelerators at the same time, but 72Lux would be one of those exceptions. The New York City-based luxury eCommerce startup was selected as a member of 500 Startups’ third batch of companies this October and was also chosen to participate in the fourth “vintage” of NYC accelerator, First Growth Venture Networks, at about the same time.

Has 72Lux found a way to be in two places at once? No, the truth is that FGVN does not promise investment in exchange for a stake in the company, as 500 Startups does (and Y Combinator, TechStars, etc.), so technically FGVN is a mentorship network and community, even though it looks and smells like an accelerator. Thus, there’s no love lost here, it’s a win-win situation, especially for 72Lux.

So why the interest in this young fashion startup? Read more at TechCrunch…

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The Life and Tats of Al3x Payne

admin — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:21:23 +0000

Wednesday December 7, 2011 by Ed Zimmerman from the EdGrapeNutZimm Blog

I wanted to talk to Alex Payne.

Alex co-founded Simple (formerly BankSimple), the Portland-based startup that’s changing the face of banking at a time when people really want banking to change! Customers… Simple currently has 80,000+ people on a wait list to use the service — how’s that for backlog! Alex was an engineer at Twitter, who started there so early that he arrived before it was Twitter (and before it incorporated). But what did I want to talk to Alex about? His dropping out of college…a little, his departure from high school, which he almost didn’t even finish, a little, his tattoos…oh yeh! His well written blog appears at al3x.net

Let me say this (in case my kids read this): Daddy doesn’t necessarily want you to get a tattoo and I don’t have any. That said, Alex’s tattoos are so thoughtful and interesting and his insanely eloquent telling of the back-story so intriguing, that I decided that I’d do a post about them because they open a portal into this intensely intelligent and fascinating man who is one of the most engaging dinner companions I know.

To read more, please visit Ed’s Blog…

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