Michael Arrington, Kevin Rose and others invest in online education startup CreativeLive

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CreativeLive, the Seattle and San Francisco online education startup founded by photographer Chase Jarvis and entrepreneur Craig Swanson, disclosed some more of its high-profile investors today. It also announced that Flickr founder Caterina Fake is joining the board. The investor list now ncludes some well known folks in the technology and entertainment industry, including TechCrunch founder… Read More…

CrunchFund, Madrona invest $3.4M in dog-sitting service Rover

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Dog-loving venture capitalist Michael Arrington is among the new investors in Rover.com, the Seattle online service that helps pet owners find lodging for their canine companions. The company, started by venture capitalist Greg Gottesman at a Startup Weekend event in Seattle last year, just closed a $3.4 million series A financing round. In addition to Arrington’s… Read More…

Is Zynga’s culture really rotten at the core? Hear how Mark Pincus described the mission in April

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The New York Times published an unflattering story this past weekend about the hard-charging culture of game maker Zynga, noting how the maker of FarmVille and Mafia Wars operates like a metrics-driven New York investment bank. Interestingly, Seattle’s PopCap Games, which turned down a buyout offer from Zynga in favor of a deal from Electronic… Read More…

Meet Wavii: The world’s longest-running stealth startup?

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Over the course of the past few weeks, a couple people in the Seattle startup community have independently asked me the same question: Whatever happened to Wavii? I first discovered the Adrian Aoun-led company back in July of 2010 — writing at the time that stealthy startup was working on new natural language technologies to… Read More…

Gary Flake names all-star cast of investors in Clipboard’s $1.4M round

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Back in April, we discovered Gary Flake’s stealthy Internet startup Clipboard, reporting on the company’s $1.38 million venture round. At the time, however, we didn’t know who was bankrolling the former Microsoft and Yahoo researcher. Now, we’re getting a clearer picture. And, let’s just say it is an all-star group. Backers of Clipboard — which… Read More…

Vinod Khosla on failure, thinking big and why the best entrepreneurs are under 25

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Don’t call Vinod Khosla a venture capitalist. After all, the venerable Silicon Valley investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist doesn’t really have the best opinion of those who invest other people’s money in startups. “I refuse to call myself a venture capitalist, and it pisses off most venture capitalists,” said Khosla, speaking at the kick-off event for… Read More…

Vinod Khosla invests in Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund

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At a talk this evening on the University of Washington campus, it didn’t take long for Michael Arrington to break some news about his newly-formed venture capital fund, CrunchFund. Arrington was interviewing notable venture capitalist Vinod Khosla as the kick off for Startup Weekend EDU when the outspoken TechCrunch founder — wearing his green Unpaid… Read More…

Michael Arrington, Tony Hsieh bankroll ex-TechCrunch writer Paul Carr’s stealth startup

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TechCrunch writer Paul Carr resigned in a blaze of glory a week ago, writing a blistering blog post about the activities of the tech blog’s parent company, AOL. But the writer has landed on his feet with a new stealth startup that just so happens to be backed by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh and CrunchFund founder… Read More…

Hadi Partovi to Michael Arrington: Valuations are ‘out of control’ and Seattle is a ‘viable’ startup hub

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We’ve been talking a lot about the startup ecosystem in Seattle and what needs to happen to make the region an even better place for entrepreneurs. Given that discussion on GeekWire, I was particularly interested in some comments that Seattle entrepreneur-turned-angel investor Hadi Partovi made at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco this week…. Read More…

“Unpaid Blogger” Michael Arrington departs TechCrunch

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A near two week saga at TechCrunch has come to a close. Kind of. Founder Michael Arrington has officially stepped down from the influential technology news site that he started just over six years ago in order to become a full-time venture capitalist. AOL issued this statement this morning: “The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for… Read More…

Should startup scribe Michael Arrington invest in startups?

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Michael Arrington, the flame-throwing founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, is starting his own venture capital fund. The $20 million CrunchFund includes backing from AOL — which purchased TechCrunch last year — as well as venture capitalists at firms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners. TechCrunch covers many of those… Read More…