Y Combinator Raises Over $8M to Expand Incubator Membership

Silicon Valley-based startup incubator Y Combinator http://ycombinator.com/ (YC) announced today that is has raised $8.25 million with which it plans to provide funding to a larger group of startups this summer. Leading the funding was Sequoia Capital along with several angel investors, including Ron Conway, Paul Buchheit, Aydin Senkut, XG Ventures, and Geoff Ralston – many of same investors which provided YC with $2 million in March of last year.

"The new fund is more than four times larger than the preceding one, partly because it’s meant to last for several years, and partly because we’re going to use it to increase the number of startups we fund," wrote Y Combinator founder Paul Graham today on the program’s blog. "It looks like we will have at least 35 in the summer 2010 funding cycle."

Written by Chris Cameron

Full Story: http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/05/y-combinator-raises-over-8m-to-expand-incubator-membership.php

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Web 2.0 companies settling in San Francisco Bay Area Penninsula

After David Sacks decided to move his social networking startup to the Bay Area last year, he faced another choice: Should he set up shop in Santa Clara County, the traditional heart of Silicon Valley?

Instead, the founder and CEO of Yammer — a Twitter-like microblogging service for the office — settled amid a cluster of other social networking startups in the South of Market area of San Francisco, close to restaurants, bars and other big-city entertainment attractions.

By Mike Swift

Full Story: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_15137372?nclick_check=1