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MHT's Galen Moore: Hiring trends and opportunities
MHT's Galen Moore: New 'hyperlocal' web trend
It’s official: Two venerable Boston venture capital firms are in bed with rapper MC Hammer, sadly departed celebrity TV host Ed McMahon and a business model that is far, far from producing society-changing technological innovation.
A document posted publicly by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week notes Highland Capital Partners and General Catalyst Partners have put $535,000 into Florida-based Green Bullion Financial Services LLC, otherwise known as Cash4Gold LLC. The company operates much like a downtown jewelry exchange or pawn shop, providing ready cash at a steep discount in exchange for valuables.
The real amount invested may be much higher — as much as $40 million, the website PEHub reported in January, citing no sources. The SEC filing appears to be Cash4Gold’s first, but $535,000 might have bought about a half a second of the superbowl ads Cash4Gold placed this February, featuring Hammer, McMahon and a golden hip replacement.
So far, General Catalyst managing director Joel Cutler and Highland Capital general partner Dan Nova — both named in the SEC document as investors in the company — have been unwilling to confirm they invested in Cash4Gold LLC. They did not return phone calls or e-mails this week.
Can a local strategy work online?
Ask Rafe Anderson. In November, the founder of Trumedia Networks LLC publicly eschewed (in the pages of this publication) the notion that he should expand nationally with his suite of social networks for Boston sports fans.
Instead, Sawxheads, Patsheads, Celtsheads and BlackandGoldHeads would build their credibility with the Boston fans, before seeing if the local model could be duplicated elsewhere — in five other cities, at most, he said at the time.
That changed with the flick of a switch in April, when the company went beta with a site for every major league team in baseball, basketball, football and hockey. At first glance, the only difference from site to site is the URL.
The credibility Trumedia originally hoped to get with its local focus will now come through affiliation with local media outlets, Anderson said.
The company is hoping to duplicate a licensing agreement it has with Boston.com, the web property of the Boston Globe, providing social media applets like Slugfest — a debate-formatted blogging applet that allows fans to get a piece of each other and of Globe sportswriters, with the winner decided by user vote.
Globe parent New York Times Co. is part-owner of the Boston Red Sox, where Anderson worked in the front office developing online marketing programs, before founding Trumedia in 2008. The company now has three full-time employees and has taken some angel investment. Anderson declined to disclose the amount invested.
They won’t say much about it, but a group of academic entrepreneurs are starting up a new company.
Based in Cambridge, stealthy Gen9 Inc. has received $500,000 of a $2 million equity financing round, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Franco Cerrani, head of Boston University’s computer and electrical engineering department, is running the company.
MIT Media Lab microelectronics professor Joseph Jacobson and former MIT professor Drew Endy, now at Stanford University, are both involved, Cerrani confirmed — as well as Harvard Medical School genetics professor George Church, who is also a co-founder of Cambridge-based genetic sequencing company Knome Inc., and an investor in the Personal Genome Project and 23andme Inc.
Church, Endy and Jacobson’s prior collaborations include Codon Devices, a Cambridge startup focusing on applications of synthetic biology. Cerrina specializes in semiconductor lithography and nanofabrication, according to his biography on BU’s website.
Cerrino declined to say anything about the company, beyond confirming it exists, saying the technology isn’t ready for public discussion.
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