beRecruited Acquires Fanvibe.

I am both excited and proud to announce that beRecruited (the sports recruiting network I founded way back in 2000) has acquired Fanvibe (a former Dogpatch Labs and YCombinator company). I have known Vishwas Prabhakara (now CEO), Art Chang and Joe Pestro for several years and am thrilled about what they bring to beRecruited and it's 1,000,000+ users:

As I mentioned to TechCrunch, “beRecruited is far and away the largest recruiting network on the web — and it has consequently become a really great business. With the Fanvibe acquisition, we are thrilled to move headquarters to San Francisco and have Vish, Art and Joe lead the business into its next phase. They are perfect fits as they all have strong backgrounds in sports, product and social web.”

The most satisfying part about being involved with beRecruited is the daily emails we get from successfully recruited athletes (and their families). With the Fanvibe team leading beRecruited's next stage, the volume of those emails should soar.... and that's exciting for everyone!

Here's a fun infographic the team put together. It does a good job outlining beRecruited's scale - we have athletes in 81% of all high schools and 68% of NCAA coaches. Between the two sides, we have now made 26.5m connections.

Dogpatch Labs Updates Heading into 2011

As we head into 2010 winds up and we head into 2011, there is a lot of terrific news coming out of Dogpatch Labs. Here is a sampling from just the last couple weeks in Dogpatch Labs San Francisco. Of course, I have missed several exciting updates... and I apologize! We look forward to a terrific 2011! There are several great new companies and entrepreneurs joining in January. Dogpatch Labs New York is currently taking applications (apply here) and you can always drop me a note for San Francisco here.

End of 2010 Dogpatch Labs Updates:

- Movity was acquired by Trulia earlier in the week (Movity is also a Polaris company). Read more...

- Instagram hit 1,000,000 users. Read more...

- Curated shopping site Everlane soft launched this week

- Trazzler launched a deal platform specifically for travel

- ChompOn launched a couple killer partners. Read more....

- Cardpool released a new marketplace version yesterday. Read more...

- Stickybits released a totally new iphone version to great brand feedback (Note: a Polaris company). Read more...

- Frid.ge released an enhanced version of http://frid.ge, including full email integration (Note: a Polaris company)

- AllTrails has the #1 noteworthy iphone app in travel. Download here...

- Fanvibe released a new iphone version and NBA integration. Read more...

- Yardsellr and Formspring recently closed follow on rounds of funding. (Note: Formspring is a Polaris company) Read more here and here...

A Week of Dogpatch Labs Updates

A handful of various updates from Dogpatch Labs companies across our three locations: Boston, New York and San Francisco. This is by no means a complete list - but it is includes links from TechCrunch articles within the last week:

YCombinator Demo Day Includes Dogpatch-ers

Congratulations to the 36 companies that launched at the most recent YCombinator Demo Day. Three of the companies are of Dogpatch Labs: FanVibe, Rapportive and one that is 'off the record'

Zozi Funding

Local-Activity Site Zozi Lands $3 Million Series A From 500 Startups And Zig Capital

WiseStamp Launches Its Platform

WiseStamp Signs Your Emails With Tweets, Stumbles And Plans

Facebook Places vs. Foursquare at YCombinator Demo Day

I had the pleasure of spending yesterday at YCombinator's Demo Day. 36 companies presented and launched - three of which were Dogpatch Labs residents: Fanvibe, Rapportive, and an off-the-record company. While there was plenty of news around the companies, spaces, etc - I found it interesting to see how the crowd of YCombinator entrepreneurs, investors and friends / family checked into the event.

The result? Totally even: while the numbers fluctuated a little bit, there were roughly 15 check-ins on Facebook Places and 15 on Foursquare.