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The Fort’s launch is supported by a grant of $100,000 from DC mayor Vincent Gray. Initial startups will include Venga and Social Tables – you’ll find them over at 1627 K Street NW. (According to this tweet, The Fort is open for business.) Many VCs – and startups themselves – recognize that funding is not the only thing investors should provide. Opening The Fort helps Fortify.vc systematize its mentorship, and that’s a move other VC firms could emulate....

Outside of Bessemer Venture Partners, the Series A round included 500 Startups, Crunchfund, Golden Gate Ventures, Eduardo Saverin, Bill Ackman, Larry Link, Razmig Hovaghimian, and Hari Kumar. Bessemer Venture’s Sunil Nagaraj will be joining the board alongside Andrew J. Solimine, CEO of Nitrous.IO. The idea behind Nitrous.IO is to increase power and performance in the software developer world, much like an expert driver might get by adding nitrous oxide to their engine: hence the name of the company....

It promises that users of the Norton 360 platform will be able to easily, and safely, mine for cryptocurrency with just a few clicks, as well as store any mined crypto in a dedicated wallet. Mining for cryptocurrency can be a lucrative business, when done at scale, but for personal users, this could be an easy way to earn a few dollars on the side. What is Norton Crypto? Norton Crypto is the newest feature to be added to the company’s Norton 360 range of security products, available to customers in the early adoption program as of today....

The winners provide a mix of solutions to promote an open Internet that is free and accessible to all. They address issues from privacy and censorship, to expanding the diversity of the tech workforce, to improving digital access and connecting communities with online content in easier, more useful ways. In a city where 27 percent of households don’t have access to broadband, the New York Public Library will expand its efforts to bridge the digital divide by allowing the public to borrow portable wifi hotspot devices for up to a year....

That’s right – a DC building will file for an IPO, allowing individuals to invest in a piece of real estate for the first time. The Washington Post reports that New York-based Etre Financial, LLC is working on a platform for investing in shares of commercial real estate properties. Of course, you don’t have to live in DC to own a share of the 12-story office building, located a few blocks south of one of the District’s thriving areas, Dupont Circle, at 1201 Connecticut Avenue....

High-level and C-suite executives are being increasingly targeted for a number of reasons, most notably their unadulterated access to all parts of a company network. When attacks of this nature are on the rise, it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re equipping yourself with a password manager to ensure you stand the best chance of warding off attackers, whether you’re an executive or not. What is password spraying?...

While some major companies are considered “good” or “great” organizations, Simon favors individual or smaller-scale operations. When consulting companies, Simon recommends that they remain small, in order to avoid the roadblocks necessitated upon larger companies by political, social, or cultural influences. Despite this emphasis on the small, Simon believes there’s a lot of value in observing and following certain strategies of such larger companies. This is especially the case when it comes to studying how companies like Google or Facebook have interacted with Big Data to further elevate their already well-regarded positions in society....

The Odds Mattermark got curious about the metriculation rate of startups from funding round to funding round. Assuming you start with all those startups who successfully gained a seed, how likely are they to go on to a series A, B, C, or D? Increasingly less likely. Here’s the official chart, tracking the drop-off on a linear timeline: Interestingly, this same data, presented on a logarithmic scale, shows a steady decline....

As a memorial to Steve Jobs, we have pulled together tweets from various entrepreneurs and techies around the web that pay tribute to the man whose innovation, charisma and endless vision changed our lives forever: Bill Gates, Microsoft founder Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO Steve Case, AOL co-founder Richard Branson, Virgin Group founder Gabe Rivera, TechMeme founder Loic Le Meur, Seesmic.com founder Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder Jeff Pulver, Entrepreneur Joel Johnson, Tech Blogger Heather Meeker, Corp Comm at GOGII VP Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path founder Katie Jacobs Stanton, Twitter Head of International Strategy Mark Bao, Avecora CEO & OnSwipe CTO Gabe Roth, via Mark Bao Sarah Lane, TechTV personality Daniel Brusilovsky, Teens in Tech Labs founder & CEO Jonathan Schwartz, via Schematic Labs founder & CEO Steve Jang Nicholas Longo, Entrepreneur David Cohn, Spot....

The AI gives you the option to accept or reject the variety of suggestions that it uses to rank each email. You may have too many complicated words or sentences, you might not be polite enough, you might be too subjective or negative, and the word count might run a little long. In each case, Respondable will offer a few words of explanation, pointing out that a 3rd grade reading level is optimal....

While acquiring new customer is certainly a noble strategy for any business, the reality is that retention marketing is a far more lucrative endeavor. It’s cheaper, it’s generates more revenue, and it makes your customers feel appreciated. What’s not to love? Now, Salesforce is launching a new Customer Loyalty platform designed to help you drive sales, improve customer satisfaction, and engage with your loyal following. Loyalty Management will give companies a full, 360-degree view of every member in their loyalty program, facilitating unique, personalized experiences for everyone....

The Bill would provide a one-time infusion of $300,000 into the Maine Coworking Development Fund, which the Legislature created in 2015 to provide $100,000 a year to help develop coworking spaces around the state. Democrats supported the Bill and Republicans opposed. At the time, Rep. Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford), the Bill’s sponsor, was not hopeful that his bill would be able to pass the Senate, which is controlled by the Republicans, if it suffered another party-line vote....

Collaborative Consumption Provides Jobs In a declining economy, new members of the workforce begin to look for odd jobs. Additionally, active members of the workforce who find themselves unexpectedly laid off can find a way to supplement their income through the sharing economy. Random talents, such as musical expertise or a love of cooking, can become a marketable skill in the sharing economy. That’s what propelled Mushtaq to create AskForTask. Making meaningful connections with people in and outside of your community is simply an added bonus to this economy....

Spinnakr takes a new approach to analytics. While traditional web analytics offer complex graphs and reports that only a data scientist can truly decipher, Spinnakr distills the data into recommended actions. Behind the scenes, the little snippet of Spinnakr code on your website is analyzing visitors and their behavior. For example, it might recommend you add an AngelList button if the visitor is an investor, or a special discount for visitors from Pinterest....

A Memphis, TN-based company, Start Co., is taking this discipline approach and guiding new founders through the startup journey. In an interview at this year’s SXSW, founder and CEO Eric Mathews explained the importance of facilitating the growth of burgeoning startups. His company aims to ease founders through the “startup valley of death,” the chaotic and often fatal stage of the startup journey between great idea and product success. Their methodology is rigorous and four-fold....

In many ways, gambling is like entrepreneurship. The odds are stacked against you, unless you cultivate your own unfair advantage or delicious secret sauce. You could have a rousing success one day and an utter failure the next, and your emotions can swing along with them. And the key is staying level-headed and being persistent. So it’s no surprise that, when Jones began to tire of blackjack, he parlayed his card counting expertise into entrepreneurship....

The startup ecosystem in Phoenix and the surrounding area has been growing in recent years, partially thanks to Arizona State University. The city is now home to several successful startups including AppVirality, RubyRide, ReplyBuy (based in nearby Scottsdale) and AwareLabs. Phoenix Startup Week will be held February 22-26 and will celebrate the oasis ecosystem that is thriving in this desert city. The event follows Tampa Bay Startup Week, which was held just last week....

StubHub has partnered with the Washington Nationals in order to provide one of the most practical uses for virtual reality since video games. The new feature on StubHub will allow future attendees to dawn a virtual reality headset and check out the view from their seats before they even press the “buy” button. Deemed the “virtual view” on StubHub, customers can even use their phone to get a 360-degree shot of their baseball enjoying experience....

The six-month study looked at almost 700 employees from the IT division of a Fortune 500 corporation. Half of the group was given more control over when and where they worked, allowed to work more from home and outside the usual 9-5. The flexible workers did choose to work from home more often, upping their remote hours from about 10 to about 20 hours per week. Unsurprisingly, they felt they had more control over their schedules and felt their supervisors were more supportive of their personal lives....

However, with vaccines rolled out and COVID-19 cases on the decline, employers around the world are trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. That’s right, many businesses are now requiring employees to return back to the office indefinitely, despite study after study showing that employees don’t want it, don’t need it, and are willing to quit if they have to. Well, even more surveys have come out that show the future of work is clearly hybrid work, but employers are still dragging their feet when it comes to building out the infrastructure necessary to manage this shift....