The latest from TechCrunch
- Zappos Expands To A San Francisco Office, Is Hiring
- Google To Expand And Market Movie Streaming Service In 2011
- Confirmed: Tumblr Raises $25 Million [Update: It's Actually $30 Million]
- Seesmic: From Near Death to Enterprise Chat Spoiler?
| Zappos Expands To A San Francisco Office, Is Hiring | Top |
| photo © 2009 Alain Picard | more info (via: Wylio ) Online shoes and accessories retailer Zappos announced an expansion and a move to San Francisco on its employee blog this morning, in a post called “Zappos IP, Inc. Is Looking For ‘A Few Good Developers’” Buried down deep in the post, which also announces the launch of a public API as well as the launch of Zappos iPhone and iPad apps, is this one paragraph blurb detailing the expansion plans: "We are very excited to be opening up a small San Francisco office. We're jazzed to go back to the Zappos Family’s Bay Area roots and surround ourselves by the many amazing people and companies who make the world a happier place through technology, arts and culture. The San Francisco office in some ways will be a mini-start-up within the Zappos Family. Our office is going to focus on experimentation, incubation and off roadmap projects. We will want to try a lot of fun and new zany things that might become the future of how people shop online or may end up in the huge pile of unused ideas "that sounded good at the time". We're eager to work and partner with great Bay Area companies to really put out some WOW." The company is looking for spaces in the SOMA area (unfortunately they’re not considering our home, here at startup central 410 Townsend ). Zappos Product Manager Will Young will be heading up the new office and currently plans on hiring eight senior developers and two senior visual designers. Zappos was an outgrowth of Venture Frogs , an incubator CEO Tony Hsieh and CFO Alfred Lin started in the Bay Area. The two ended up moving to Nevada to get away from the Valley during the crash and tap into that city’s customer service oriented culture. This move back represents a rekindling of some of that startup energy. Says Young, “We’re thinking this office will hopefully hit a sweet spot for developers/designers who want to work in an environment that feels like a start-up (10 people) but also want to join an existing company that has a pretty awesome culture and brand.” The new hires will still have to go through the rigorous four week Zappos customer service training that all potential employees do. “It’s harder to get into Zappos then to Harvard,” Hsieh told me in this pretty infamous interview . Here’s the company’s dorky “A Few Good Men” inspired recruitment video, below: CrunchBase Information Zappos Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Google To Expand And Market Movie Streaming Service In 2011 | Top |
| Google is expanding its feature film streaming service, says a source who’s been briefed on the product. The service will likely be an expansion of the current movie rental/streaming test launched by Google earlier this year. Announcements should be made in early 2011, says our source, and will be heavily marketed. Ex-Netflix executive Robert Kyncl , who was hired by Google earlier this year, is negotiating studio deals, says our source. The service will initially focus on top tier films and to focus marketing efforts there, including pairing with Google TV. A deeper library will be added over time. Existing rental titles are certainly not new release top tier films. Earlier this month Google acquired video delivery company Widevine. Technology from Widevine may be used to power the new movie service. We’ve reached out to Google for comment. CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Confirmed: Tumblr Raises $25 Million [Update: It's Actually $30 Million] | Top |
| For the past several weeks there’s been reports of blogging platform Tumblr raising a boatload of money. That was confirmed today in a SEC filing with numbers on the Series D round. $25 million to be exact. According to the filing it looks like Spark Capital, Sequoia and Union Square Ventures participated in the round. We’ve heard that the post-money valuation is in the ballpark of $155 million. We had also heard that the total amount of funding was $30 million, no word on whether the round was reduced in size or there is just a second tranche coming later. Tumblr founder David Karp will have plenty of things to spend the money on, Tumblr just opened a new office in New York Cityand hired another four people to bring the total up to 16 people now. David Karp recently told TechCrunch that he plans on expanding the company to 20 employees before the end of the year. Update : Tumblr President John Maloney tells us that the full round is actually $30 million, as we previously thought and there will be a second SEC filing on Monday for $5 million. Maloney also gave us the breakdown: Sequoia went in at $20 million, Spark Capital at $5 million and Union Square Ventures at $5 million. You can read more about the company’s plans for the cash in its blog post “ Getting ready for 2011 .” CrunchBase Information Tumblr Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Seesmic: From Near Death to Enterprise Chat Spoiler? | Top |
| We’re hearing that Salesforce is investing in Seesmic’s next round of venture funding, along with other investors. We don’t yet know how much or at what valuation but the tie up is interesting. Just a few months ago Mike was saying Twitter deciding to compete with developers had essentially killed Seesmic . That may be true for consumer chats, but enterprise is another matter. And between Yammer’s new round of funding and Salesforce’s Chatter product, enterprise chat is heating up. Might Seesmic be a spoiler? The two have already been chummy , with Seesmic integrating into Chatter and Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appearing on stage together multiple times. We’ll post more details when we hear them. (Disclosure: This may come as a surprise since Mike is so hard on Loic, Seesmic and the French generally , but he was an early investor in the company.) CrunchBase Information Seesmic Information provided by CrunchBase CrunchBase Information Salesforce Chatter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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