Alastair Goldfisher

Layar, the Dutch provider of augmented reality software for smartphones, was named the top mobile app at Getjar’s first annual Getties Award on Monday night. The awards ceremony featured a performance by “Lady Getjar,” which was actually the emcee Lauren Mayer dressed up in a wild costume. The event billed itself as the Oscars for the mobile app community, and it didn’t disappoint John Hering, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Lookout, which was named the best Android app. “It was unlike any other mobile event I had been to before, to say the least,” said Hering, pictured below, holding the Getties trophy with other members of the Lookout team. “We need to see more of this. Support and recognition of app developers through these kinds of awards are great for end users in general as they aid in discovery of key must have apps.”

When he’s not working hard at Industry Ventures, Ken Wallace, a principal at the San Francisco-based secondary firm, is training for triathlons. Wallace told me recently he has competed in triathlons since 2001 and has finished six, with his first being Ironman Lake Placid in 2004. Most recently, he and investors and staffers from 10 […]

Let me just say right off the bat that I’m jealous of David Kirkpatrick. I’m not jealous that he wrote a book, called “The Facebook Effect,” which came out earlier this month. I’m jealous that the longtime senior editor for Internet and tech at Fortune Magazine was granted unprecedented access to the top execs at […]

In any other given week, the fact that Elevation Partners this week bought $120 million of shares in Facebook, essentially valuing the social networking company at $23 billion, would be topic No. 1 on the Twittersphere and here at peHUB. But Tesla drove forth its IPO, and Foursquare finally located that Series B funding it was looking for. Nevertheless, Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic covered the Facebook/Elevation deal earlier today, which you can read here. His story discusses the firm's previous investment in Facebook, which is also backed by Digital Sky Technologies, Microsoft and Accel Partners, among others. Also, Sarah Lacy wrote about

Lots of people are enjoying playing with their new iPhone 4 right about now. So it’s a pretty good bet that lots of them are upgrading and downloading tons of apps on their newest toy from Apple by going to GetJar. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company earlier this month announced that it has downloaded more than 1 billion mobile apps from its independent store for use on Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Symbian, among 2,000 other phones. GetJar ranks as the second largest app downloader behind, of course, Apple’s app store. Late Wednesday, just as Apple’s latest iPhone was due to arrive in stores and rival smart phone makers Motorola, Google and Verizon announced Droid X, the latest Android device, GetJar also unveiled that it raised an $11 million Series B round, funded entirely from return investor Accel Partners. The funding follows a $6 million round that GetJar raised from Accel in 2007.

I know we probably need another social networking site like we need a punch to the stomach. So perhaps a better use for our midsection is to eat food and, related to that, swap recipes and hang out with other foodies online. That’s something you can do thanks to Yummly, a Redwood City, Calif.-based startup […]

Earlier today, under pressure from the Obama Administration, BP agreed to set up a $20 billion fund to payoff claims from its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In reading about that and watching President Barack Obama’s address to the nation yesterday about the Gulf spill, I wondered what cleantech investors think of this catastrophe. […]

Lucas Carné seems like an unlikely person to launch a private, online sales site. And I’m not trying to disparage his fashion sense. After all, I don’t know the difference between a Manola Blahnik and any other high-heeled shoe. But Carné, an engineer by training, and a onetime Bain & Co. consultant, is CEO of VC-backed Privalia, a Barcelona-based operator of a private online sales club that now operates in four countries, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico, although Carné says that Spain accounts for about 70% of the company’s revenue. Privalia, which boasts at having 4 million active members, offers discounts on fashion apparel, sports wear, electronics, home furnishings and personal care items. Carné visited me in San Francisco this week, on his way to participate in the RBC Capital Markets Conference in New York today. We met over lunch while we talked at length about his company and the growth of the online sales market and VCs’ interest in the sector.

Of the 32 funds that were raised in Q1, only five were new funds, with the largest being only $50 million (by Longwood Founders Fund). So I was surprised to hear about the launch of a new firm that is set to debut with a $150 million vehicle. Olympus Capital Partners, a new Menlo Park, […]

Earlier today, my cohort Larry blogged about the latest VCJ cover story that discussed what it is like to be a female VC. VCJ subscribers can read the story here. I've heard it said that the VC industry does not have enough women as GPs since I began covering tech and venture capital in the early '90s. And even though I can name lots of notable female investors, the VCJ article contains some interesting stats that are worth mulling over from Cynthia Padnos at Illuminate Ventures. A PR spokeswoman with a client in the story told me she thought the story was insightful, educational and entertaining. She also loved all the quotes from the mentors of the women featured.