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Plex's latest funding will boost its own streaming catalog while supporting others
Plex has raised $50 million in new funding as part of its bid to become a one-stop shop for all things streaming.
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.
Smule raises $3.9 million in funding
There's money in them thar App Store! Smule, the company behind the popular Ocarina and Zephyr apps for the iPhone, has informed us that they raised a whopping $3.9 million from a round of venture funding led by a firm named Granite Ventures. That's a lot of capital -- while a lot of people are aiming to get their hands in the cookie jar in a big way in the burgeoning economy of the App Store, $3.9 million is the biggest single payout we've seen yet (the iFund actually paid out $100 million, but that was split among various companies and people, and we haven't heard specifics on exactly what they got). The company brags that they've attracted over one million users already, and that they will use the funding to "help people experience music as it's never been experienced before and in turn find new ways of bringing people together." We can't help but wish them well -- hopefully we'll see more high quality apps in the App Store, and hopefully that'll pay off for both investors and consumers.
