Microsoft said Tuesday it had asked the US government for permission to disclose details of how it handles national security data requests, citing "inaccuracies" in recent media reports. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said the company had asked…
While ’gift cards’ is a massive, $100 billion industry, the market hasn’t really been disrupting with social and mobile technologies until Wrapp entered the market. After only three months live in Sweden, one percent of the Swedish population had interacted with Wrapp and in January 16, the company had 1 million users according to Techcrunch.
Wrapp announced on June 13 that it has closed on $15 million in fresh funding to continue to grow its business, which is jointly based in Stockholm, Sweden and San Francisco, California. The round, which serves as Wrapp’s Series B, included participation from existing Wrapp investors Greylock Partners, Atomico- the VC firm formed by Niklas Zennström, the co-founder of Skype and Kazaa, and Creandum, along with new investors American Express, Qualcomm Ventures, and SEB Private Equity. This brings the total amount invested in Wrapp to $25.5 million.
Hjalmar Winbladh
Wrapp’s board of directors includes Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Niklas Zennström and Creandum partner Johan Brenner.
Here is an interview with Hjalmar Winbladh of Wrapp and Adiba Cremonini - Executive Director Silicon Vikings:
On Friday, June 28th, 2013 at 9:00am at the Plug & Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale Enterprise Estonia Silicon Valley held their Innovative Estonia & the Skype Phenomenon event. In truth I do not know much about Estonia, except it has an obscure language and unenviable weather that produces more startups per head of population than any other country in Europe.
There does appear to be an Estonian secret sauce that brought us Kazaa and Skype and continues to grow the next generation of startups going global.
If you are an entrepreneur, you will learn if the fledgling tech tiger Estonia is the best place to start your next start-up or out-source your development. If you are an investor, you might find the next Skype. You will see and hear from established players and young hot startups.
Here are some videos of the event. Opening Remarks: Andrus Viirg, Enterprise Estonia Silicon Valley Keynote: Disruptive Innovation & Entrepreneurship Steve Jurvetson, General Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ):
Microsoft presses US on data request disclosures (via AFP)
