Where are John and Todd?

Earth Class Mail’s extraordinary appetite for fresh capital continues, with the Seattle startup sealing a $5.1 million infusion from more than four dozen angel investors.
The new capital is expected to convert into the company’s second round of funding, with Earth Class Mail founder Ron Wiener saying that he is looking to raise $12 million to $25 [...]

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Venture capital deals and dollars dipped slightly in Washington state during the third quarter, a trend that could continue as the economic storm looms.
Thirty six deals representing $226 million were reported during the quarter, which compares to 41 deals and $288 million for the same period last year, according to the MoneyTree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers [...]

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Ever wonder what happened to tech executive Martin Tobias since he parted ways with Seattle biodiesel company Imperium Renewables?
Turns out he’s the CEO of a new company called Kashless.org.
Tobias isn’t saying much about the company yet, but did say it’s in the ReCommerce space, which he described as “clean tech meets software.”
The Kashless.org website says [...]

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Zillow.com, the heavily-funded Seattle online real estate startup, today cut 25 percent of its staff in a move that the company hopes will extend its cash position long enough to ride out the economic crisis.
The elimination of 40 employees brings staffing at Zillow to about 105 employees.
In a blog post titled “Difficult times, difficult decisions,” [...]

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Y Combinator’s Paul Graham offers an insightful analysis on why this might just be a fine time to start a new company. He writes:
“If we’ve learned one thing from funding so many startups, it’s that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a [...]

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AdReady of Seattle will be facing some additional heat in the self-service online display advertising category after Google today announced a new product that allows small businesses to quickly create display ads.
“Today we released the AdWords display ad builder, which lets you create professional-looking display ads in AdWords without needing to hire a designer or [...]

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A number of companies are trying to feed off the corporate detritus left by the Entellium mess.
So far this week, I’ve seen two three press releases from companies looking to pick up Entellium’s customers following wire fraud charges last week for the Seattle company’s top two executives.
Here’s how one started from Vancouver, B.C.-based Maximizer Software:
Help [...]

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ClayValet, the Seattle online personal shopping service, has decided to close down after three potential acquisition offers fell apart in the past week.
While the economic crisis may have caused at least one of the acquisition offers to disintegrate, ClayValet founder Mikhail Seregine blamed the shut down more on his own inexperience as a startup CEO [...]

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In these tough economic times, we could all use an education on what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
And I am sure there will be plenty of lessons to learn at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network’s annual Entrepreneur University, which will be held Nov. 6 at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. Scheduled speakers include [...]

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The jazz band was playing. The sun was setting over Elliott Bay. And the lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists all appeared to be having a good time last night as Fenwick & West celebrated the opening of their spectacular new office in downtown Seattle.
But as I made the rounds at the party, two topics [...]

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Winshuttle is one of those startup companies that has grown the old fashioned way: without venture capital.
And today the Bothell company is using some of its own cash flow to buy a French company by the name of ADAR. With the acquisition, Winshuttle is setting up a new operation in Paris led by ADAR’s [...]

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Eyealike’s advertising: Bellevue startup Eyealike is pushing online advertising in a new direction.
The company today rolled out a contextual advertising platform that recognizes images in photos and videos — a person’s facial features, skin color, gender or age, for example — and targets ads to those images.
The company gives the example of an infant’s face [...]

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Redfin today said it is cutting 20 percent of its staff as the Seattle online real estate broker prepares for what Chief Executive Glenn Kelman described as a “big dip.”
About 20 employees were let go, bringing total staff at the company to about 75 people.
Kelman said it was a difficult decision, but the right move [...]

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Redmond’s MobUI today is announcing that it has raised an undisclosed amount of capital and purchased Action Engine, a heavily-funded Redmond mobile application startup that hit the wall in August.
MobUI isn’t saying how much it paid for Action Engine, though it would be surprising if the price tag came anywhere near the $65 million that [...]

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Former Entellium Corp. CEO Paul Johnston was deemed a flight risk and ordered to remain in detention Friday afternoon after a federal prosecutor revealed new details about his alleged financial misdeeds, saying Johnston used the company as his “personal piggy bank.”
Investigators have not been able to account for about $9.6 million in Entellium funds that [...]

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Former Entellium Chief Executive Paul Johnston is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Seattle this afternoon on charges of wire fraud. I’ll be attending the hearing, so check back later for all the details.
Meanwhile, Entellium’s Web site has been down most of the day. Representatives of the company were [...]

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PeHub.com today has an interesting read on the Entellium situation, reporting that, in addition to the venture backers, firms such as Cascadia Capital and Silicon Valley Bank appear to have been “snowed.”
The story notes that several of the players involved were “asleep at the wheel” and some steps were missed in the due diligence process, [...]

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In every bad situation, there’s opportunity.
Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Salesboom.com, which like Entellium offers hosted customer relationship management software, is trying to pick off customers of the embattled Seattle software startup. It is calling the effort the “Entellium Rescue Initiative.”
“Salesboom.com’s Entellium Rescue Initiative offers current Entellium customers a safe haven during these rocky times by offering [...]

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Darren Vengroff, the former Amazon.com engineer who resigned from Seattle startup Pelago earlier this year, has re-emerged in a new role at San Francisco startup richrelevance.
Vengroff, who will serve as chief scientist, said he plans to open a new Seattle office for the company with a handful of engineers. Backed with more than $9 million [...]

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The allegations of overstated revenue and financial fraud at Entellium are sparking a debate in the Seattle technology community about board oversight and the role of audits at venture-backed companies.
Now we’ve learned this: Moss Adams, the accounting firm for Entellium, says it never completed a full audit of the Seattle software startup. The information [...]

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