The home décor site has a strong pedigree (backing from Kleiner Perkins and a founder named Pincus). Can it become the Groupon of throw pillows and footstools?
Online retail is hot again, thanks to the growing popularity of "deal-a-day" and private sale sites. The latest obsession of tech investors? Home décor site One Kings Lane, which will announce today that it has raised a $23 million second round of funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Greylock Partners, First Round Capital, TriplePoint Capital, as well as some high-profile angels: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Google VP Marissa Mayer.
Riding the same wave that's propelling Internet sensations like Groupon and Gilt Groupe, One Kings Lane aims to do for housewares and furniture what Gilt has done for haute couture. Founded in early 2009 by Susan Feldman and Alison Pincus (whose husband, Mark, is CEO of online gamin company Zynga), the company matches undiscovered vendors who typically sell only through interior designers or specialty retailers with consumers who wouldn't normally have access to their wares. Like Gilt, it offers discounts on the items, and sales last only a few days. More
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.
"The PC industry's inability to significantly innovate, and its overreliance on a business model predicated on driving volume through price declines, are finally impacting the industry's ability to induce new replacement cycles." -- Gartner Research director George MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Nov 30, 2010 6:00 AM ET
After taking a long detour into green-tech investments, the storied venture firm is returning to its sweet spot: the Internet.
Just two years ago people (including Fortune) were fretting that venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins -- an early investor in Netscape, Amazon (AMZN), and Google (GOOG) -- had missed the wave on the latest round of hot Internet startups in favor of a slew of risky wagers on "green" energy. (See MORE
Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large - Nov 29, 2010 3:00 AM ETBen Baer, Senior Producer - Oct 15, 2009 12:31 PM ET
Last week, the nation's third-largest utility, Duke Energy (DUK) filed an application for $200 million in federal stimulus funds to bolster its $1 billion smart grid initiative in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Today the company is announcing that it has found a partner to supply the guts for the project -- and it's not who you might think.
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |