PearlTrees - A Way To Curate Your Web Posted by Tom Foremski - March 5, 2010 I first met Patrice Lamothe, co-founder of PearlTrees in November and became fascinated with the PearlTrees service because of the many ways it can be used, and because it is an example of a media technology that is closely integrated into the way people are using the web. Since then, I've played around with PearlTrees and I can see lots of interesting uses for this technology, and its potential in creating a giant, curated web, one which goes beyond simple search, and beyond social tagging as in Delicious. And I'm excited now to be working with PearlTrees, as an advisor, in helping this startup grow to the next level. [Full Disclosure: This is part of my media/business strategy consulting services that help finance my journalism on SVW. PearlTrees users create a visual metaphor of a pearl and then connected pearls, which are web pages. PearlTrees is still in early beta but it is already very useful in its current version.
Pearltrees Raises $6.7M For Its “Collaborative Interest Graph” Pearltrees, a company offering a novel interface for sharing and finding content, has raised 5 million euros ($6.7 million US) in new funding. The basic unit of the Pearltrees service is the pearl, which is basically a bookmark. Users can assemble these pearls into trees based around a topic. Following the lead from Google’s PageRank and Facebook’s EdgeRank, Pearltrees has named its technology TreeRank. Pearltrees launched in December 2009, and the company says it has been growing consistently at 15 percent per month, and that users have now created 15 million pearls which were assembled into 2 million trees. Previous investor Groupe Accueil led the new round.
Pearltrees Pearltrees refers to itself as "a place for your interests".[8] Functionally the product is a visual and collaborative curation tool[9][10][11][12] that allows users to organize, explore and share any URL they find online as well as to upload personal photos, files and notes.[13] The product features a unique visual interface[14][15] that allows users to drag and organize collected URLs, and other digital objects.[16] that themselves can be further organized into collections and sub-collections,[17] (URLs). Users of the product can also engage in social/collaborative curation using a feature called Pearltrees Teams.[18] Pearltrees was founded by Patrice Lamothe, CEO,[22] Alain Cohen, CTO,[23] Nicolas Cynober, Technical Director,[24] Samuel Tissier, Ergonomy/UI[25] and Francois Rocaboy, CMO.[26] History[edit] Development of Pearltrees began in 2007. In July 2012 Pearltrees launched their iPhone app. Pearltrees introduced Pearltrees 2.0 on May 22nd, 2014. Usage[edit] Privacy[edit]
What the heck is an interest graph? Pearltrees raises $6.6M to show us Social curation startup Pearltrees has just sealed a deal for €5 million (around $6.6 million), all in the name of creating a better interest graph. Much is being made in current social media circles of the “interest graph” concept, which is more about what you know than who you know, and which purportedly has strong connections to purchase intent and other matters of concern to online marketers. Put differently, while social networks like Facebook focus on what you have in common with your friends and how you react to friends’ recommendations, interest graph-based models (like the ones behind Pinterest, GetGlue or Foodspotting) make social connections based on shared interests, not the other way around. “Pearltrees has leveraged social curation to create an open and collaborative interest graph of the Web,” said Pearltrees CEO Patrice Lamothe in a release. “As a consequence, Pearltrees harnesses the power of people to organize and discover the most valuable content on the web”, he said.
Y Combinator Funding Application Y Combinator Funding ApplicationSummer 2007Application deadline: 12 midnight (PST) April 2, 2007. Please try to answer each question in less than 120 words. We look at online demos only for the most promising applications, so don't skimp on the application because you're relying on a good demo. We don't make any formal promise about secrecy, but we don't plan to let anyone outside Y Combinator see these applications, including other startups we fund. We recommend you save regularly by clicking on the update button at the bottom of this page. # Username: dhouston # Company name: Dropbox # Company url, if any: # Phone number (preferably cell): (redacted) # Usernames of all founders, separated by spaces. There are lots of interesting possible features. # For each founder, please list: YC username; name; age; year, school, degree, and subject for each degree; email address; personal url (if any); and present employer and title (if any). # How will you make money?
Publications Pearltrees Grabs $6.6M In Funding For 'Interest Graphs' 02/14 Lured by the promise of better “interest graphs,” investors just ponied up about $6.6 million for social curation startup Pearltrees. Great, but “what the heck is an interest graph?” asks VentureBeat. Apparently, it’s “more about what you know than who you know,” it gathers, along with “strong connections to purchase intent and other matters of concern to online marketers.” “Put differently,” VB explains, “while social networks like Facebook focus on what you have in common with your friends … interest graph-based models [Pinterest, GetGlue, etc.] make social connections based on shared interests, not the other way around.” According to GigaOm, the startup really needs the money to help scale its system for bookmarking and organizing, which is based around a clustered visual interface. “Right now, Pearltrees is small and has moderate momentum, building up 350,000 users in the past three years,” GigOm writes.
Y Combinator FAQ Frequently Asked Questions What Happens at Y Combinator? This. How can we get funding for our startup? Apply online for our next funding cycle. We fund startups twice a year. When will the application form for the next cycle be online? Usually at least a few months before the deadline, which is usually in October for winter batches and March for summer batches. We've already been working on our startup for a while. We've funded a lot of startups like that. Don't incorporate, though, if you can avoid it. We've already taken some funding. Sure. We don't want funding, but will you give us advice? Unfortunately we can't. Can you recommend other investors who might be interested in our idea? When you refer someone to an investor, you're also recommending them, and you can't recommend people you don't know. How much do you invest? Usually $11,000 + $3000 per founder. What is the valuation cap on the convertible notes? They're uncapped. What does Y Combinator get out of this? Not for us. Sorry, no. Ok.
Pearltrees Gets Funding To Chase After Pinterest So it is not surprising that investment is pouring in, as investors themselves go gaga over the most promising firms. Just this week, Pearltrees received $6.6 million in series B funding, as part of the wave of investment in sites that bring together folks with common “interest graphs.” The site uses a clustered visual interface to organize anything that users see or read on the web. This is merely the latest example of a tectonic shift among venture capitalist and merchant bankers away from funding general social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr, towards internet startups that curate user interests, which is another way of stating that these sites offer human bookmarking and organization. More popularly known sites that similarly use bookmarking and organization include Pinterest and GetGlue. Pinterest has accumulated more than 12 million users in the US alone, and has been aggressively building its engagement worldwide.
LinkedIn's startup story: Connecting the business world - Jun. 2, 2009 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (CNNMoney.com) -- In Silicon Valley, it's all about knowing the right people. Reid Hoffman knows a little something about that. Hoffman, 41, started LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals. Its 41 million members include people from more than 200 countries and executives from every Fortune 500 company. Hoffman founded LinkedIn in late 2002. From the beginning, Hoffman, a Stanford graduate, understood the importance of building and leveraging his network. Hoffman recently sat down with CNNMoney.com to discuss his entrepreneurial journey. It was the beginning of the online revolution, in 1993. Studying at Oxford, I realized I wanted to have a much broader relevance in people's lives. I networked my way to a couple of different venture capitalists. So then I networked my way to a job at Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500). I watched the whole online market heating up. We raised money from some very good venture capitalists. Taking the plunge Growing pains