Eyeing an entry into China, Roblox enters strategic partnership with Tencent

Revolution Growth; New Enterprise Associates; funds and accounts managed by T. Rowe Price; Novo Holdings; and the investment management company Franklin Templeton.n”,”protected”:false},”excerpt”:”rendered”:”

When serial entrepreneur Eric Lefkofsky grows a company, he puts the pedal to the metal. When in 2011 his last company, the Chicago-based coupons site Groupon, raised $950 million from investors, it was the largest amount raised by a startup ever. It was just over three years old at the time, and it went public […]n”,”protected”:false,”author”:89646803,”featured_media”:1547059,”comment_status”:”open”,”ping_status”:”closed”,”sticky”:false,”template”:””,”format”:”standard”,”meta”:”outcome”:””,”status”:””,”crunchbase_tag”:0,”amp_status”:””,”relegenceEntities”:[],”relegenceSubjects”:[],”jetpack_publicize_message”:”Groupon cofounder Eric Lefkofsky just raised another $200 million for his newest company, Tempus https://tcrn.ch/2KhCPQz by @cookie”,”categories”:[576596927,576602979,446313605,20429,17396],”tags”:[15862365,576597868,44501400,18308320,70387869,576669824],”crunchbase_tag”:[576669855],”tc_stories_tax”:[],”tc_event”:[],”jetpack_featured_media_url”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/gettyimages-675486238.jpg”,”jetpack_publicize_connections”:[],”shortlink”:”https://tcrn.ch/2KhCPQz”,”rapidData”:”pt”:””,”pct”:””,”featured”:false,”subtitle”:””,”fundingRound”:false,”seoTitle”:””,”seoDescription”:””,”premiumContent”:false,”premiumCutoffPercent”:1,”tc_cb_mapping”:[“slug”:”eric-lefkofsky”,”cb_name”:”Eric Lefkofsky”,”cb_slug”:”eric-lefkofsky-person”,”cb_link”:”https://crunchbase.com/person/eric-lefkofsky”,”slug”:”groupon”,”cb_name”:”Groupon”,”cb_slug”:”groupon-organization”,”cb_link”:”https://crunchbase.com/organization/groupon”,”slug”:”baillie-gifford”,”cb_name”:”Baillie Gifford”,”cb_slug”:”baillie-gifford-organization”,”cb_link”:”https://crunchbase.com/organization/baillie-gifford”,”slug”:”tempus”,”cb_name”:”Tempus”,”cb_slug”:”tempus-3-organization”,”cb_link”:”https://crunchbase.com/organization/tempus-3″],”associatedEvent”:null,”event”:null,”authors”:[89646803],”hideFeaturedImage”:false,”relatedArticles”:[],”_links”:”self”:[“href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1835319″],”collection”:[“href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts”],”about”:[“href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post”],”version-history”:[“count”:13,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1835319/revisions”],”predecessor-version”:[“id”:1835553,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1835319/revisions/1835553″],”authors”:[“embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/89646803″],”replies”:[“embeddable”:true,”count”:0,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1835319&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat”],”https://techcrunch.com/edit”:[“href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1835319&action=edit”],”author”:[“embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/89646803″],”wp:featuredmedia”:[“embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1547059″],”wp:attachment”:[“href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1835319″],”wp:term”:[“taxonomy”:”category”,”embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1835319″,”taxonomy”:”post_tag”,”embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1835319″,”taxonomy”:”_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy”,”embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1835319″,”taxonomy”:”tc_stories_tax”,”embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1835319″,”taxonomy”:”tc_event”,”embeddable”:true,”href”:”https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1835319″],”curies”:[“name”:”wp”,”href”:”https://api.w.org/rel”,”templated”:true],”_embedded”:{“authors”:[“id”:89646803,”name”:”Connie Loizos”,”url”:””,”description”:””,”link”:”https://techcrunch.com/author/connie-loizos/”,”slug”:”connie-loizos”,”avatar_urls”:”24″:”https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/52bc07c5a4dde8dabe873328ca360e36?s=24&d=identicon&r=g”,”48″:”https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/52bc07c5a4dde8dabe873328ca360e36?s=48&d=identicon&r=g”,”96″:”https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/52bc07c5a4dde8dabe873328ca360e36?s=96&d=identicon&r=g”,”links”:”homepage”:”http://www.strictlyvc.com/”,”twitter”:”https://twitter.com/cookie”,”linkedin”:”http://www.linkedin.com/pub/connie-loizos/0/282/380″,”crunchbase”:”https://www.crunchbase.com/person/connie-loizos”,”position”:”Silicon Valley Editor”,”cbDescription”:”

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Slack origin story”,”content”:{“rendered”:”

Let’s rewind a decade. It’s 2009. Vancouver, Canada.n

Stewart Butterfield, known already for his part in building Flickr, a photo-sharing service acquired by Yahoo in 2005, decided to try his hand — again — at building a game. Flickr had been a failed attempt at a game called Game Neverending followed by a big pivot. This time, Butterfield would make it work.n

To make his dreams a reality, he joined forces with Flickr’s original chief software architect Cal Henderson, as well as former Flickr employees Eric Costello and Serguei Mourachov, who like himself, had served some time at Yahoo after the acquisition. Together, they would build Tiny Speck, the company behind an artful, non-combat massively multiplayer online game.n

Years later, Butterfield would pull off a pivot more massive than his last. Slack, born from the ashes of his fantastical game, would lead a shift toward online productivity tools that fundamentally change the way people work.n

Glitch is bornn

n

In mid-2009, former TechCrunch reporter-turned-venture-capitalist M.G. Siegler wrote one of the first stories on Butterfield’s mysterious startup plans.n

“So what is Tiny Speck all about?” Siegler wrote. “That is still not entirely clear. The word on the street has been that itu2019s some kind of new social gaming endeavor, but all theyu2019ll say on the site is ‘we are working on something huge and fun and we need help.’u201dn