MG Siegler wrote to TechCrunch since 2009. It covers web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, in fact all. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, mg attended the University of Michigan. He had previously lived in Los Angeles, where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where ... ? Read More
In November last year, the location of the launch, SimpleGeo, former CEO of Digg's Jay Adelson has replaced co-founder Matt Galligan, Director-General. While Zach Galligan slid as Chief Strategy and became a public face of the company. Now he is leaving the company altogether.
You can read news on the SimpleGeo blog here, as well as Zach Galligan own thoughts here. But in fact it is something that has been in the works since Adelson took over these many months ago, Zach Galligan said. The company is now moving into the next phase of Zach Galligan believes that the time has come to step aside. He will continue to act as an adviser, but Sheldon Adelson and SimpleGeo co-founder Joe Stump will continue to steer the ship.
While Zach Galligan figures that he wants to do next, he's going to take an extended period of time. He dove right into SimpleGeo (then known as Crash Corp.) following the resignation of AOL in May 2009. He sold his first startup, Socialthing, AOL in August 2008.
But Zach Galligan did not fully away from the scene at the time of its launch. He'll be helping out of TechStars incubator, giving much needed voice and presence on the West Coast. Zach Galligan has long had ties with TechStars community as Socialthing first class in 2007.
In addition, he will soon be starting a non-profit foundation with Shervin Pishevar, longtime businessman and currently the Managing Director of Menlo Ventures. "1% of nothing", the Fund will request the founders to commit one percent stake in their company should be given to charity in the event of a liquidity event. Zach Galligan did it himself, giving a percentage of the sale of Socialthing Foundation in Boulder, Colorado.
SimpleGeo has raised about $ 10 million in funding so far. As they enter the next stage whispers have them there more.
SimpleGeo provides ready-to-use location infrastructure, which allows you to easily location-aware ad functionality for applications. The company was founded in 2009, Galligan as Matt and Joe Stump.
Read MoreTechStars is a seed fund. He offers $ 6000, the founder of the company that make your list for up to 3 founders. In turn, TechStars is 6% of the shares.
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Creative Brain Studios is a game development engine that solves many of the common problems facing game engineers. Their turnkey solution offers easy management of audio and visual files, incorporates game play, analytics, hosting, and monetization, as well as leveraging HTML5 to publish the game once and deploy it across smart phones, tablets, and desktops.
Because tours and activities don’t have a mature distribution system, online travel companies are losing out on a $20+ billion opportunity. FlexTrip offers its API to online travel companies to monetize one of the most profitable areas of travel: tours and activities. The startup claims to boast “the world’s largest selection of tours and activities” as well as a unique recommendation engine to ensure the traveler gets matched with activities most suited to them. FlexTrip has already tallied a few cool integrations, including one with TripIt.
FlixMaster creates technology that enables anyone to build what they call “branching-path video mash-ups”. This allows people to pull videos, audio files, forms and images from all over the web, enabling viewers to travel different paths through the video — all right within the video player. Their branching path video mashups provide a richer and more engaging experience for the consumer.
FullContact is an API that keeps contact information current. Developers can easily tap into FullContact’s database of more than 100 million contact records to quickly turn partial, out-of-date contact records into fresh, complete contact records. They use a crowdsourcing model to update the contact information, only share contact information that’s publicly available on the web, and unlike competitors like Plaxo and Jigsaw, they allow any software application to leverage their contact database via their API.
GoSpotCheck is crowdsourced secret shopping for brands. They provide brands with realtime insights, such as price checks, shelf positioning, photos, and videos of in-store displays via a smartphone-weilding mobile workforce. Shoppers get paid cash to conduct these ‘missions’ simply by completing these simple tasks in the stores they’re already visiting. Unlike GigWalk, which allows for a range of activities, GoSpotCheck delivers a customized solution for brands in their retail settings.
InboxFever is a platform and marketplace to build and sell email-powered applications. Email-powered applications are a new breed of applications to help people do common tasks faster on the web. They allow you to control your web applications simply by sending an email – no logins, no new user interfaces, no downloads. Test it by sending any word document to pdf@inboxfever.com and watch it return to you in seconds as a PDF. 
MealTicket provides a mobile, social web platform for foodservice distributors to better engage with their restaurants. They do this via a deals and promotions social marketing tool that foodservice distributors pass on to their restaurants. The deals and promotions are distributed via MealTicket’s mobile app, Twitter and Facebook apps, and most importantly, their API partners, who ensure the offers are distributed across many web channels. The foodservice distributor and restaurant can collaborate on creating deals and promotions, ultimately protecting the restaurant’s bottom line, leveraging the salesforce of the foodservice distributor, and enabling the restaurant to leverage the social web with little-to-know social media expertise.
According to the startup, Mocavo is “the first and largest free genealogy search engine”. Previously, genealogists and family-history enthusiasts had to visit dozens of disparate websites to conduct searches, or pay an expensive monthly fee to find limited content. Today, people can now start an ancestral search for free at Mocavo.com.
ReportGrid provides an API that makes it easy for SaaS vendors and technology platforms to give their customers deep analytics and insightful reporting. Different than normal analytics tools — this API plugs into a SaaS vendor’s product, allowing visualizations and analytics to become part of the product offering to their customers.
Simple Energy is changing how millions of people save energy by changing how utilities engage their customers. Their web and mobile application uses game mechanics to compare real energy usage to friends and neighbors, making energy efficiency social, fun and simple while addressing an $11 billion-a-year problem for utilities.
SocialEngine turns any company into a “social engine” through an array of products. Their flagship product, a downloadable social networking platform, is in use by over 7000 customers today. The newest addition to their toolset is a recommendation engine that gives tactical and practical suggestions on what to post, who to follow, what to read, what to reply to — in effect turning anyone into a social media guru.
TruantToday instantly contacts parents when students skip school, bringing students, and funding, back to the classroom. Current truancy products contact parents too late, at the wrong locations, or in a non-native language to the family. Because TruantToday contacts parents instantly, they have the ability to return the student back to the classroom and keep funding in schools. TruantToday is founded by Zak Kukoff, the 16 year old who is the youngest founder ever to participate in TechStars (and yes, he does plan to go back to school while operating the startup).