Michael Carney

Reporter

Michael Carney is a West Coast Editor at PandoDaily, covering venture capital, financial technologies, ecommerce, on-demand services, and the future of television, among other subjects. He has spent his career exploring the world of early stage technology as an entrepreneur and early-stage investor, working in multiple countries within North and South America and Asia. He is an enthusiast of all things shiny and electronic and is inspired by those who build businesses and regularly tackle difficult problems. You can follow Michael on Twitter @mcarney.

Boost VC startups to get 300 BTC ($112K today) of follow-on funding from Draper Associates

By Michael Carney December 5, 2014

Boost VC and its founder, Adam Draper, have been vocal proponents of bitcoin for some time now. After dedicating half of every startup accelerator class to bitcoin ventures for the last two years, Boost recently decided to go “all in,” with an announcement that its upcoming Tribe 5, which begins in Q1, would be 100 percent bitcoin. The goal is to accelerate 100 bitcoin companies by 2017. As if this weren’t enough commitment to the crypto-cause, Boost and…

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On-demand as a service: Meet Dispatch, the answer to Uber-envy for any service-oriented enterprise

By Michael Carney December 5, 2014

On-demand economy (aka, instant gratification economy) startups like Uber, Postmates, Instacart, MyTime, and Homejoy have quite literally put services ranging from transportation to food delivery to home repair in the palm of our hands. Whether you believe we’ve reached peak laziness, or write these services off as solutions for the 1 percent, the reality is that any business not moving toward this new paradigm instantly feels outdated and inconvenient. Believe it or not, your local plumbing company would most likely…

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Can nice guys win? Lyft’s softer side could be its advantage

By Michael Carney December 4, 2014

Can nice guys win? That’s the question we’re seeing explored in a real-life battle between ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft. Of course, Uber is the far larger company by nearly any measure: valuation, funding, drivers, riders, and revenue. But it’s also got a massive lead in terms of scandal, executive bad behaivor, and all around questionable corporate character. It remains to be seen whether the latter will eventually overshadow the former. Lyft, on the other hand, comes…

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Google makes a $120M bet on LA, potentially expanding its presence in the region nine-fold

By Michael Carney December 4, 2014

In what’s shaping up to be major news for the Los Angeles technology community, Google has made a significant investment into expanding its presence in the region. After months of rumors to the effect, the search and mobile giant has officially acquired 12 acres – the space is zoned for 900,000 square feet of commercial space – in Playa Vista, a coastal enclave immediately north of LAX. The cost of the deal? a cool $120 million. The new Google plot…

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CallFire acquires FireText, planting its enterprise SMS flag in the UK and Europe

By Michael Carney December 4, 2014

CallFire, a Santa Monica-based mobile marketing and customer communication platform for the enterprise, is expanding its footprint into the UK and Europe via the acquisition of FireText. Both companies are in the hot B2C cloud-based SMS and voice messaging category that is rapidly growing in importance as consumers shift their Web browsing, content consumption, and online shopping behavior to mobile. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. FireText is four-year-old, bootstrapped success story that counts household names like…

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Corporate giants among BitLicense commenters: Western Union appears scared of bitcoin, Walmart and Amazon unfazed

By Michael Carney December 3, 2014

Despite the obvious stress and uncertainty created by the still evolving BitLicense regulatory situation, one positive that has come out of the process has been the public dialogue throughout the lawmaking process. As we’ve covered previously, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has taken an open approach to this lawmaking exercise, soliciting feedback and input from crypto-currency entrepreneurs and investors, large retailers, financial services companies, law enforcement, and other regulatory bodies. Earlier today, the NYDFS published…

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Pantera Capital doles out Changetip cash, wins the company fans in the process

By Michael Carney December 3, 2014

Weeks after ChangeTip seemingly crossed the chasm from niche to mainstream, facilitating micro-payment love across the internet, the company yesterday announced $3.5 million in new funding led by Pantera Capital. Being a bitcoin-focused fund, Pantera is already different than most VCs, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the firm went a little above and beyond the typical investor behavior when the round was announced. Pantera spent much of yesterday tipping Twitter users who…

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Sure Stripe has more cash, but does it have a path to exit?

By Michael Carney December 2, 2014

Following reports this morning by The Financial Times that Stripe has again doubled its valuation, raising $70 million at $3.57 billion, we’re forced to ask (again), does Stripe have a path to exit? The problem with raising capital at nosebleed valuations is that the number of scenarios under which a positive outcome is possible becomes greatly diminished. By raising at $3.5 billion, Stripe, and its existing and new investors — Thrive Capital led the round with participation from…

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Wow. Uber gave a job interviewee full access to its user location data

By Michael Carney December 2, 2014

Uber is either incredibly stupid or incredibly arrogant, possibly both. This is the only conclusion possible given a recent report by The Washington Post’s Craig Timberg in which he reveals that the company gave a job candidate all-day access to its database of historical and real-time user location data as part of an interview. Comically, Uber responded to the Post’s report with a statement saying “As a matter of security, we don’t discuss publicly the details of our security.”…

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Not just bitcoin anymore: Coinbase allows USD deposits to enable instant bitcoin purchases

By Michael Carney December 2, 2014

Coinbase is making it easier than ever to buy bitcoin in the US. Thanks to newly announced fiat wallets, consumers in the Eurozone and, as of yesterday, 15 US states and Puerto Rico, can store USD- and Euro-denominated balances with the company to facilitate instant bitcoin purchases without the use of a credit card. Previously, users who did not have or did not want to utilize a credit card were forced to wait, often several days, for traditional ACH…

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