iOS 8 is out and I’m still deleting podcasts and photos to make space for it, so no review here. Sign up for the email here. Getting to it.
The Big One
Indiegogo is trying out a new ‘Forever Funding’ model that takes away the end date on a campaign. This really opens things up for the crowdfunding platform to act as a store and marketing platform. If they push past the pilot phase campaigns will be able to not only continue to receive funding but maintain the SEO, communications, and data that they’ve built. It’s a competitive play against rivals like Kickstarter as it will appeal to businesses and artists that want to elongate their exposure. I’ve got some concerns, lke the need to weed out scam artists and lacking the urgency that end dates provide. But for the most part this is a bold play that can really expand the platform’s capabilities.
Making Moves
Yesterday, Arlington’s Privia Health announced a $400M financing led by Goldman Sachs. The capital will align Privia with a holding company that could acquire other complementary tech companies and will support the national expansion of Privia’s physician network and services. Top execs Jeff Butler and Dave Rothenberg are still running the company and will drive its national growth.
Detroit’s transportation system is a mess with operating costs up ~20%, service hours sliced 25% and nearly a third of the cities buses out of service. Yikes. DC startup Transit Labs is now working with the city to bring its public transportation into the 21st century with data analytics and visualizations. These guys are already working departments in Atlanta, Miami, and Birmingham on similar deals. Smart cities are hot right now.
Community
DC Tech Meetup is back in action tomorrow night at the MLK library. They’ve added on new producers (Shana Glenzer, Stephanie Nguyen), new programming (Need to know, Hack of the month) and ID.me is launching a new product. Check it out.
What I’m Reading
- Yahoo and HP aren’t tech companies according to Thiel
- That new, new climate economy
- Hey HBS, inequality is all your fault
- Alcohol is changing Costco’s political donations
- Big names teaching free Stanford class on startups
- Uber is looking to the military for drivers
