The latest from TechCrunch
- Google Will Soon Let You Jump Between Multiple Accounts
- Live Long And Prosper With YC-Funded FutureAdvisor
- Recurly Raises $1.6 Million To Help Companies Manage Subscription Billing
- True Ventures Invests In 19 Year Old Entrepreneur Brian Wong
- Did Shopkick Just Change The Check-In Game? You Be The Judge [Video]
| Google Will Soon Let You Jump Between Multiple Accounts | Top |
| If you’re a big user of Gmail, Calendar, or any of Google’s other account-based services and have spread your data across multiple accounts, Google has a new feature that you’re going to love: Multiple Sign-In. Yes, you’ll finally be able to quickly swap between multiple Google accounts without having to go through the tedious process of logging out and logging back in every time. Granted, the process generally takes less than a minute, but for those of who have been doing it a dozen times a day, this is a very welcome change. The feature, which was first noticed by Google Operating System, will only work for some Google Apps: Gmail, Calendar, Reader, Sites, Voice, App Engine, and Google Code. It is reportedly rolling out to users this week, and can be enabled through this page (I don’t see it yet). It’s also a bit confusing — you’ll probably want to read through the help section before you activate the feature (note that you can’t use offline access with Multiple Sign-In activated). CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Live Long And Prosper With YC-Funded FutureAdvisor | Top |
| With 13 billion dollars in mutual fund fees generated each year, so much about the investment process is made needlessly complicated by companies who want to sell you funds. Y Combinator-backed FutureAdvisor , which launches tonight, wants to help. The company likens itself to a Mint for retirement investment, but unlike retirement calculators from funds like Fidelity and Schwab, the web app aggregates all your independent mutual fund data into one place. And, unlike web services Betterment , Plant.ly , and the stealth Blueleaf , FutureAdvisor takes into account what stocks and funds you already own including your 401k. “We want to provide you with the minimum number of steps to get the most bang for your buck,” says co-founder Bo Lu. FutureAdvisor imports your investment info from multiple sources, focusing on serving up your retirement plans in convenient and easily understandable graphic formats. You can also enter in data about your age and retirement goals and the FutureAdvisor algorithm provides you with options for asset allocation, how to optimize your return, and, if you currently work at Google, Microsoft or Intel, the app can tailors its advice within your 401k’s limits. From founders Lu and and John Xu, "We eventually realized that most of our friends were asking the same questions (how should I allocate my money?), making some of the same mistakes (buying high-fee funds), and that the best way for us to help everyone was implement the wisdom of index investing in software." Bo Lu and Jon Xu's future plans include providing people with the data they need to make better investments, and eventually complete long term goals like buying a house or paying for their children’s education, "You used to have to be rich and talk to some guy in a suit, now you just have to come to our website." Photo: Mark Hardin CrunchBase Information FutureAdvisor Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Recurly Raises $1.6 Million To Help Companies Manage Subscription Billing | Top |
| Recurly , a startup that makes it easy for other companies to manage their subscription billing, has closed a $1.6 million round of seed funding. The round is being led by Polaris Ventures, with participation from Harrison Metal (Michael Dearing), FreeStyle Capital (Dave Samuel and Josh Felser), Larry Mohr, Dave McClure’s recently-launched 500 Startups, Dharmesh Shah, Sherry Coutu, Nivi Babak, Naval Ravikant . Recurly’s service allows businesses to quickly implement a subscription billing system, handling tasks like credit card number storage (it also supports integration with financial software like QuickBooks). Recurly recently changed its pricing structure to a hybrid fee/usage model, which President Dan Burkhart says this was a result of user feedback. Under the new system, which went into effect July 1, new members can start using Recurly for $29 a month, plus 20 cents per transaction; pricing scales up from there, with the price per transaction dropping as volume rises. With these fees Recurly obviously isn’t going to be ideal for a company dealing with microtransactions of only a few dollars, but it’s affordable enough for many businesses. The service has over 1,300 companies signed up, though not all of those are paid; Burkhart declined to give exactly how many paying customers Recurly has, but says that they have “hundreds” of them so far. He also noted that Recurly is getting traction with more than just web services — he says that they’ve also seen some offline businesses, including yoga studios and a law firm, use the service as a virtual terminal to manage their recurring fees. CrunchBase Information Recurly Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| True Ventures Invests In 19 Year Old Entrepreneur Brian Wong | Top |
| When Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg took venture money from True Ventures in 2005 and others he was just 21 years old. Now the firm has invested in someone even younger – 19 year old Brian Wong . Wong founded Kiip.me (pronounced Wii-style as “keep me”), a mobile advertising platform that is bridging the mobile and gaming worlds. I don’t know much more about it, but whatever he’s doing it was enough to catch the attention of True Ventures partner Phil Black . He’s invested $200,000 in Kiip.me, he tells me, as part of a round that is still filling out. As young as he is, Wong has experience with startups. He briefly worked at Digg and helped launch their Android application. And he founded Followformation , an automated categorized Twitter discovery tool. He’s Canadian, skipped four grades and finished college when he was 18. He may be the youngest entrepreneur to raise venture capital – Mark Zuckerberg was just 20 when he raised early money for Facebook. Mullenweg as I said above was 21. We’ve got our crack team of research interns looking into exactly who holds the record as the youngest entrepreneur to have raised a proper venture round. Kiip.me is still a few months away from launching. Stay tuned. CrunchBase Information Kiip Brian Wong True Ventures Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Did Shopkick Just Change The Check-In Game? You Be The Judge [Video] | Top |
| Earlier, we wrote about shopkick , a company with a different take on the whole check-in revolution as it relates to retail. But it’s one thing to read about it, it’s another to see it. That’s exactly why shopkick invited several members of the press to a Best Buy in San Francisco this morning to see the app in action. As you can see in the full 15-minute walk-through video below, the execution is impressive. The minute you enter a Best Buy location, your phone recognizes it and you get points and a message that there are deals available at this location. You can also use it to scan items and get more points and other potential deals. Unlike other location-based apps, this doesn’t use GPS (or even WiFi triangulation), instead this is a custom hardware plus app system shopkick created and installs in partner stores. This means no more fake check-ins and it allows the app to do some other potentially interesting things. The most impressive element may be one that is still in the works. As you can see in our demo, as we walk around the Best Buy, our phones get pinged as we enter a new area with special deals — the home entertainment area, for example. That type of technology is already working obviously, but shopkick says that at first they’re going to focus on the more basic walk-into-the-store experience. While shopkick isn’t a full-on rival to the popular Foursquare and others in the check-in space, it is interesting that they’re going after the type of experience that those guys are trying to establish between consumers and retailers. As Foursquare’s Tristan Walker said at our CrunchUp event last week , they’re attempting to “socialize loyalty.” He also noted that everyone was looking for a location-based coupon Holy Grail that doesn’t exist. Shopkick seems to think it does, and that they’ve found it. Update : Walker clarified to say that he meant the whole “show your phone” part of the coupons isn’t going to work. He does think the location-based coupon Holy Grail exists. Something tells me he doesn’t think shopkick has found it though. CrunchBase Information shopkick Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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