Dave McClure’s 500 Startups backs online presentation upstart 9Slides

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9Slides, the maker of online presentation software that syncs video with slides, has raised capital from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups as well as angel investors such as Terrapass co-founder Karl Ulrich and Tom Miner. 9Slides rolled out its iPad app in February, competing alongside fellow Seattle area startup Haiku Deck. The company’s other backers include Rudy… Read More…

Appature’s Kabir Shahani: Startups are 95% luck, 4% timing and 1% hard work

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Appature CEO Kabir Shahani is one of the most energetic and charismatic young entrepreneurs in Seattle. He’s also wise beyond his years, with a startup flop and a big success under his belt. So, who better to speak to a group of emerging student entrepreneurs than the 30-year-old UW grad, who is still flying high… Read More…

Meet the clean water startup that just won 1st place in the UW biz plan competition

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When you think about innovation, water usually isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But there’s a big problem to solve in cleaning up contaminated water, making it safe to drink or re-use. And for the second time in the past three years, a startup company that promises to clean up contaminated water has… Read More…

Startup lesson #3: Don’t make up a brand, be yourself

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[Editor's note: Seattle entrepreneurs Barry Chu and Dave Cotter share some of their startup lessons in starting the new mobile app SquareHub. The three-part series is running this week on GeekWire, starting Tuesday with their thoughts about minimum viable products. In part two, they talked about figuring out key product features. Part three, running here today, covers startup... Read More…

Calling all entrepreneurs: Startup Weekend and Startup America launch UP Global

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Startup Weekend is joining forces with Startup America to launch UP Global, a new program designed to help entrepreneurs through the entire startup journey. As part of the effort, UP Global will combine the education-oriented programs of Startup Weekend with the regional community networking programs of Startup America. “Startup Weekend and Startup America Partnership have been among the drivers… Read More…

Card-counting startup founders look to place a bet on Google Glass

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Colin Jones and Ben Crawford have a tremendous story to tell, and one that you may have already read about or watched. In a nutshell, the Seattle natives went from waiting tables to becoming expert card counters at the Blackjack table to organizing a Christian card-counting team that was backed by investors, shared profit and won… Read More…

Bruce Montgomery biotech startup Cardeas Pharma raises $34 million

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It has been a good week for the Seattle life sciences community. On Monday, Seattle genomics tool maker NanoString Technologies filed for an initial public offering that could raise up to $86 million. Now, comes word that Cardeas Pharma Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company led by Seattle biotech veteran Bruce Montgomery, has raised $34 million in funding…. Read More…

From shopping advice to walking devices, startups with UW ties show off their successful ideas

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The entrepreneurial talent coming out of the University of Washington was on full display Tuesday evening at the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. For the fourth installment of the Seattle Tech Meetup, five local startups with UW ties gave five-minute pitches to a crowd of more than 200 on the UW campus. But perhaps… Read More…

Chart: The top 10 biggest private tech buyouts (and where Tumblr ranks)

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In the wake of Yahoo’s blockbuster $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, Bloomberg News has produced a pretty nifty chart of the top 50 acquisitions of private technology companies. Skype leads the pack, but not Microsoft’s $8.5 billion buy in 2011 since at the time the Internet communications giant was owned by publicly-traded eBay. In fact, eBay’s… Read More…

SEO guru Vanessa Fox sells search analytics startup Nine by Blue to RKG

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Seattle entrepreneur Vanessa Fox has been bootstrapping her search analytics business, Nine by Blue, for the past six years. Today, the former Google employee is cashing out, in part because she’s found the right partner in Charlottesville, Virginia-based search marketing firm RKG. “We’ve built up Blueprint as a robust enterprise-level search analytics platform and are… Read More…