VentureFunding
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Google sets aside $100 million for promising European startups
Genius can flower anywhere, you know, that's why Google wants to give promising startups outside Silicon Valley a chance to explore their ideas. Mountain Valley's particularly eyeing up-and-coming companies from Europe at the moment, so it launched a $100 million venture fund in the region. In an official blog post, Google Ventures Managing Partner Bill Maris says the company believes Europe's startup scene has huge potential. After all, that's where SoundCloud, Spotify and Supercell came from, and these three are now successful tech properties valuing billions of dollars, according to The New York Times. "Our goal is simple," the blog post reads, "we want to invest in the best ideas from the best European entrepreneurs, and help them bring those ideas to life. "
New TechCrunch app combines the best of TechCrunch and CrunchBase
TechCrunch took its popular iPad app, shrunk it down and ported it to the iPhone. The essential research app for tech entrepreneurs shares the same features as the iPad version, but has a UI that's optimized for the iPhone's smaller screen. You can read breaking news stories, follow what top journalists are saying about hot tech topics and browse CrunchBase for information on startups, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. There's also a new video feature that'll let you watch TechCrunch TV. The iPhone version of TechCrunch is bundled with the iPad version in a universal app that's available now for free from the iOS App Store.
Occipital announces investment, new hires
Occipital, the company behind the popular iPhone and iPad app 360 Panorama, announced on Wednesday that it received US$7 million in venture funding. 360 Panorama lets you take panorama pictures by shooting a series of pictures at one and stitching them on the phone before saving them to your camera roll. Besides a healthy infusion of cash, Occipital is also expanding beyond its iOS application to create a computer vision platform that other developers can use. Occipital will create the backbone and developers will use their creative skills to produce innovative apps with advanced imaging and camera features like eye tracking. Occipital has also added four new members to its board of directors including Jason Mendelson and Brad Feld of a venture capital firm Foundry Group, Manu Kumar of venture capital firm K9 Ventures and Gary Bradski, the creator of OpenCV, an open source computer vision library.
