The most impressive thing about Scan is that it, as a humble QR code app, has raised over $1.7 million in seed funding from, wait for it, Shervin Pishevar via Menlo Ventures, Google Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Yuri Milner’s Start Fund, Social + Capital Partnership, Transmedia Capital, Ludlow Ventures and angels Ariel Poler, Naval Ravikant of AngelPool, Jim Pallotta of Raptor Group and Gaga manager Troy Carter.

Provo, Utah-based Scan co-founder Garrett Gee finds QR codes as distasteful as the next person, but he believes in exceptions. He thinks Scan can go beyond its modest ambitions as a QR code and 1D barcode scanner and make those awkward squares that now serve as hopeful addendums to things like movie posters and conference badges ubiquitous and user-friendly.

To this end, the Scan web interface allows normals to generate QR codes with no prior development experience. With Scan.me businesses or individuals can create QR codes representing a person’s online presence (sort of like an About.me for QR codes) or a QR code for any website. “In our 3 step process…the actual QR code is last (on purpose),” says Gee “We first focus on what the person is trying to accomplish. Then content…”

Gee views his closest competitor as being QR code generator Paperlinks, but says that his company differentiates itself by focusing more on brand and consumer experience, straddling the line between reader and generator in an easily accessible way. ”Although [Paperlinks] also has a consumer facing app, it does not nearly have the adoption, user-base, or name that Scan has with our 10 million in one year.”  Oh and did I mention that it already has ten million downloads.

“We understand that there is a negative connotation around QR codes,” Gee, who insists that QR codes do actually work, says,”That is why we focus on the content and experience. The QR code and other mobile transaction technologies are simply the medium.”

Gee tells me that he purposefully named the company Scan so as not to limit it to QR codes and has already started to expand into  1D barcodes, NFC and image recognition. Social media friendly features like  ”Scan to Follow”(Twitter), “Scan to Like”(FB), and “Scan to Check-in”(Foursquare) are also in the works.

Gee also tells me that Scan already had the skills in-house to build everything they needed (skill based founders)…but will use the money to grow bigger/better/faster. Like that Daft Punk song.

You can download Scan in the app store here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Can ccLoop Rid Us Of Our Collective Email Woes? – I asked in a headline when the startup made its formal debut at TechCrunch Disrupt earlier this year. The answer, sadly, is a resounding no.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Michael Wolfe, the company will shutter the service by January 9, 2012, and will henceforth focus on trying to solve user relationship management as Pipewise.

The ceasing of ccLoop operations doesn’t come as a surprise – in fact, they announced that the service would be phased out over a month ago, albeit with a different timeframe given.

Writes Wolfe in an email to users:

We are announcing that we are stopping development on the ccLoop product. We have received a great deal of interest and positive feedback, but we saw a long and difficult path ahead to build ccLoop into a large business.

Fixing email will have to be done by another startup, another day.

Benchmark Capital, FLOODGATE, SV Angel, Felicis Ventures and Ariel Poler are investors in what is now Pipewise, and have collectively injected $3.5 million into the venture already.

They will continue the back the startup, which aims to help companies “acquire, engage, convert, and support customers via web and mobile channels”.

To learn more about Pipewise, check out and follow this Quora thread.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Hands across the water everyone! It appears that pulling together a combination of European and U.S. investors is creating some interesting synergies for young startups. UK-startup GroupSpaces, which recently announced new funding, has partnered with WePay, a former ycombinator startup billing itself as the “Paypal for groups”. With some deep API integration, GroupSpace users can now sign up to WePay within GroupSpaces and collect money for their groups. This gives groups a U.S. bank account with a debit card, something even PayPal doesn’t do.

Since its launch in 2007, GroupSpaces has hit 500,000 group memberships and recently secured a $1.3m investment from Index Seed Fund and leading angel investors including Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Simon Levene, Meagan Marks, Ariel Poler and Quincy Smith of CODE Advisors.

Note that it’s extremely rare for this many high-profile Silicon Valley angel investors to invest in a U.K. startup, and it appears these U.S. links are paying dividends for GroupSpaces in enabling it to set up deals with U.S. partners like WePay. Let’s have more of the same.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Last year, Y Combinator held a special event called AngelConf, where it invited dozens of prospective angel investors to get advice from some of Silicon Valley’s most seasoned veterans. The event was a hit, and this year, they’re doing it again — AngelConf 2010 will be held on July 29 in Mountain View, CA. You can request an invitation right here.  We’ll also be covering the event, in case you can’t make it.

The premise behind AngelConf is simple: there are a lot of rich people out there who are probably interested in making some angel investments, but don’t know where to start. The event is meant to help them get off and running (which has the obvious benefit of nurturing the startup community in the process). Here’s a list of the confirmed speakers so far:

Sam Altman
Michael Arrington
John Bautista
Paul Buchheit
Jeff Clavier
Ron Conway
Paul Graham
Mitch Kapor
Mike Maples
Greg McAdoo
Ariel Poler
Geoff Ralston
Naval Ravikant
Joshua Schachter
Aydin Senkut

You may also be interested in watching the video archive of last year’s event, which you can find at the bottom of this page on Justin.tv.

Other annual YC events include Startup School and Work at a Startup.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch