Kevin Rose's mobile lab, Milk (http://milkinc.com/), has a new investor: Google Ventures. The startup raised $1.5 million (http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/26/milk-completes-1-5-million-angel-round-packed-with-valley-names/) in a seed round last April from investors including Chris Sacca, Evan Williams, Dave Morin, Joshua Schachter, Ron Conway, Chamath Palihapitiya, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, First Round Capital, and True Ventures. The total amount now raised in the seed is $1.7 million.
"We started talking to Google after we closed our round," says Rose, "but decided to open it up for them as they've been adding a ton of value right away."
Google Maps is a big part of Milk's first mobile app, Oink (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oink/id451160341). And Rose wants to build in more Google technology in future updates.
Oink lets people rate and discover things in the places around them. It is a first step at creating a directory and recommendation system for things in the physical world. When it launched last week, Rose gave me a demo (http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/04/kevin-rose-shows-oink/), which you can watch below.
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- MILK (http://www.theinfostride.com/javascript:void(0))
- KEVIN ROSE (http://www.theinfostride.com/javascript:void(0))
- GOOGLE VENTURES (http://www.theinfostride.com/javascript:void(0))
Company: Milk (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/milk) Website: mi.lk (http://mi.lk/) Launch Date: November 8, 2011 Funding: $1.7M Milk is a mobile development lab founded by Kevin Rose, Jeff Hodsdon, and Daniel Burka. Milk has announced its first mobile app, Oink, to be released this fall.
Learn more (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/milk) Person: Kevin Rose (http://www.crunchbase.com/person/kevin-rose) Website: kevinrose.com (http://kevinrose.com) Companies: Pownce (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/pownce), Revision3 (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/revision3), WeFollow (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/wefollow), ngmoco (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ngmoco), Six Apart (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/six-apart), i/o Ventures (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/io-ventures), Sofa Labs (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/sofa-labs), Digg (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/digg), Chomp (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/chomp), About.me (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/aboutme), Milk (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/milk) Kevin Rose is an angel investor and serial entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of Milk and previously the founder of Digg and WeFollow. Rose also co-founded Revision3, and Pownce (acquired by Six Apart). In addition, Rose is also the co-host of the tech news podcast Diggnation and founder of Foundation, a private newsletter and podcast.
Learn more (http://www.crunchbase.com/person/kevin-rose) Financial-organization: Google Ventures (http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/google-ventures) Website: googleventures.com (http://www.googleventures.com) Google Ventures was founded in March 2009. Google Ventures is broadly interested in startups in industries including consumer Internet, software, hardware, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and others. They invest amounts ranging from seed funding to tens of millions of dollars, depending on the stage of the opportunity and the company's need for capital.
Learn more (http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/google-ventures)
Attribution: CNET, ECTNews and TechCrunch.