Garage Sale App Rumgr R...

Three Zappos alums are trying to replicate the garage sale experience on your smartphone — and their startup  Rumgr just raised a $500,000 seed round from a group of investors that includes Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Co-founder Dylan Bathurst says the basic idea came from his own attempts at selling furniture before a move. When users open the app, they’re presented with a list of goods that people nearby are offering for sale. If they see something they like, there’s a public chat associated with each item, where they can ask the owner questions. And if you’re ready to make a purchase, you can negotiate the price, then go to a private chat to work out the hand-off details. An early version of Rumgr is already live, but the startup is launching an update today that includes a separate screen for making offers, a map of nearby sales, and new tabs for tracking what you want to buy and sell. (It’s currently iPhone-only.) Now that Bathurst and his team are actually launching a company, they’ve discovered that there are, in fact, other garage sale-type services out there — and of course there’s always Craigslist. The difference, says co-founder Ray Morgan, is that Rumgr wants to fundamentally reinvent the experience for a new device. “We’re not trying to replicate Craigslist on the phone,” he says. For one thing, Rumgr is trying to make the listing process as easy as possible. You just upload a photo and that’s it — no description necessary. And the app doesn’t allow users to search for a specific category, like couches or beds. It sounds like the company isn’t completely ruling out a search feature in the future, but Morgan says that’s not the point. Instead, users are supposed to stumble on random, cool stuff, just as they would at a garage sale. Bathurst and Morgan admit that it may be a challenge to attract enough people in each location for the app to be useful, but they say Rumgr can become a vibrant community with a relatively small core of engaged, connected users — which is what happened in early tests, with only 40 or so of the team’s friends and colleagues. In addition to Hsieh, Rumgr’s investors include Zappos CTO Arun Rajan, Fred Mossler, and Andrew Donner, CEO and owner of Resort Gaming Group. Following  Hsieh’s vision of revitalizing downtown Las Vegas  and turning it into a startup hub, Rumgr is based in Las Vegas. (After all, as former Zappos employees, Bathurst, Morgan, and their third co-founder Alex Morgan already live there.) Among the items in their office? A whiteboard purchased off Rumgr.

Forget An IPO For Now, ...

In a sign that it may be pushing off an IPO after Groupon’s lackluster performance, rival LivingSocial has raised $176 million in a new round of funding, according to a new SEC filing . Reports of the new funding first surfaced in the New York Times a few weeks ago. While the SEC document does not name the investors, we’ve been able to independently confirm the round was led by JP Morgan, with existing investors Lightspeed Ventures and Amazon also participating. We’ve also heard that no existing shareholders or executives took money off the table (*cough* Groupon *cough*) According to the SEC filing, Code Advisors (Quincy Smith’s boutique firm) and JP Morgan were both advisors and received $5.3 million in “finders fees.” Who needs IPO fees when there is plenty of private capital to go around? (Did JP Morgan just pay themselves? Funny how that works). This funding brings the total capital LivingSocial has raised to $808 million . Groupon shares are trading at about $21, which is down from their first-day pop of $28 , but back up from the lows of last week when they hit $15. The IPO window is still open, but seems like it could crash shut at any moment. This fundraising will allow LivingSocial to keep expanding organically and through acquisitions without tapping the public markets. And this may be but the first tranche of a larger $400 million funding, which is the total offering amount (meaning LivingSocial can raise up to that amount in future tranches as part of this round).

Source: This Hulu/Yahoo...

Interesting story breaking that Yahoo put an unsolicited bid in to acquire Hulu. For all I know it’s completely true. But I’ve just received an unsolicited message from a source close to Yahoo that says it’s completely untrue (probably because of all my digging the last week on this Yahoo story ). Yahoo hasn’t had any meaningful conversations with Hulu about a buyout, says this source. The source added that Hulu is actively looking for a buyer and has hired Morgan Stanley to represent them. Like I said, this is all I’ve got right now. The WSJ and the LA Times say they have sources confirming that Yahoo made an offer. With big acquisitions the press is a huge pawn in negotiating strategy. The one thing I’d like to know is who’s the source for the LA Times article. If that source is close to Hulu or Morgan Stanley, I’d be wary. Of course, my source has her own agenda, too. CrunchBase Information hulu Yahoo! Information provided by CrunchBase

Verizon Slated To Cance...

According to Verizon’s Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo, speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, Verizon’s current unlimited data plan is untenable and cannot remain in place forever, a bit of news that is disconcerting at worst and obvious at best. The operator currently offers a $30/month “unlimited” (but potentially throttled) data plan. Read more…

IAB Gave Thousands to I...

The IAB's political action committee, funded by the likes of AOL's Tim Armstrong and industry vet Dave Morgan, gave thousands to U.S. lawmakers who could decide the fate of behavioral ads and other key issues