Angel Investing: Rise of women investors fuels businesses run by women

women investors

Amy Norman and Stella Ma started pitching investors on their San Francisco-based startup, Little Passports, in 2009. Both women had young children and Norman was pregnant. The overwhelming majority of the investors they met with were men who wanted to know “if we were running this as a ‘lifestyle company,’” Ma recalls. Investors passed and word got around Silicon Valley that “there’s no way women like this could grow a company fast enough” to satisfy venture capitalists, Norman says.

 

 

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An open source future for synthetic biology

synthetic_biology

Synthetic biology is an emerging area that threatens to become as controversial as GMOs.

It’s indisputable that genetically modified organism (GMO) food products from corporations like Monsanto are suspected to endanger health. But on the other hand, an individual’s right to genetically modify and even synthesize entire organisms as part of his dietary or medical regimen could someday be a human right.

 

 

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The zero marginal cost economy

car sharing

The consumer “sharing economy” gives us a taste of what it’s like to live in a world where we own less.

There’s a tremendous change going on right now in our society. Those of us who enjoy services like Uber and Kickstarter are experiencing it firsthand. The sharing and collaboration practices of the internet are extending to transportation (Uber), hotels (Airbnb), financing (Kickstarter, LendingClub), music services (Spotify) and even software development (Linux, Drupal).

 

 

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Culture clash looms over the Internet of Things

dropcam

Dropcam’s computer algorithm lets a camera know who people are in the field of view.

There’s a gold rush underway to connect our devices to the web. For many, the devices are the keys to the kingdom — either riches in the form of selling data or from creating a widely used platform for services or applications. Yet what is becoming increasingly clear is that these models reflect a divide between cultures when it comes to the internet of things.

 

 

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10 wearable technologies that are competing to win half a million dollars in the Make It Wearable Challenge

vumbl

Vumbl

Some interesting partnerships have been created in the race to create the next big thing in wearable technology. Big brands from the fashion and technology industry are teaming up to design products that go beyond fitness trackers.

 

 

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Millennials represent the largest group of smartphone owners in the U.S.

Millennials-mobile

The millennials are very heavy mobile users.

In the U.S., Millennials are one of the largest generational groups and they are also the largest group of smartphone owners, according to a new report by Nielsen. And their adoption of the devices is still growing: by the second quarter of this year, 85% of those aged 18 to 24 owned a smartphone, and 86% of those aged 25 to 34 did.

 

 

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Cignifi raises funding to provide credit scores for people in emerging markets

mobile-money

Cignifi relies solely on mobile phone behavioral data.

Financial institutions, in the developed world, use credit history in order to assess a person’s creditworthiness and subsequently issue them financial products at personalized terms.. Unfortunately, that’s difficult to do in emerging markets, where mobile phones are more prevalent than traditional credit history.

 

 

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Here’s what the geography of NFL fandom looks like

nfl

A map of Facebook fans of NFL teams across the United States

In the first regular season NFL football game of the season last week, the Seattle Seahawks crushed the Green Bay Packers. One way of looking at that: The 46 players wearing Seattle Seahawks uniforms had a higher score than the 46 players in Green Bay Packers uniforms, in a nationally televised game of American football.

 

 

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