Instagram is a hot social photo app. This week, it raised $7 million.  Part II of video of Chris Dixon's Founder Stories discussion with CEO of Instagram, Kevin Systrom is a worth watching video if one wants to get knowledge of how best products are conceived and manufactured.

A Deal was struck by Cerberus Capital Management to acquire Caritas Christi Health Care, which is a large Massachusetts hospital chain. About $400 million will be injected by the New York-based buyout firm into the hospital chain and about $430 million in debt and pension liabilities will be assumed.

Marking the first ‘outside’ capital that angel investor Ron Conway has brought into his SV Angel fund, which was separated from the Steve Anderson-led investment vehicle Baseline Ventures last year, a new $10 million fund is being raised from outside investors.

With the aim of helping the US economy and boosting its competitiveness in the world, an Intel-led group of venture capital firms and IT businesses have formed an "Invest in America Alliance," which will invest up to $3.5 billion plan to enhance the jobs and innovations scenario at the US-based technology companies in the coming two years.

As per the media reports, the fundraising activity among venture capitalists has dropped for the second continuous quarter. Thus, it touched its lowest level of money invested since 2003 and the fewest funds raising money since 1994.

According to a not-so-recent academic paper, titled "Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance," by Yael Hochberg, Alexander Ljungqvist, and Yang Lu suggests that, more often than not, venture investors who boast the biggest and finest networks generally yield superlative returns.

When it comes to the enviable revenue figures of one billion in one single year, the publicly-traded, foremost Chinese web portal Tencent has accomplished the feat, and the left the other popular social networks well behind!

In a private financing transaction nearing a close, American Apparel Inc will be receiving a substantial $80 million investment from Lion Capital LLP, in secured second lien notes, with detachable warrants, that would mature on December 31, 2013.

The newly-exhibited sports games in the offing from Electronic Arts have been created with the aim of catering to the interests of a more diverse range of buyers. The "transforming the business and innovating" move appears to be EA's aggressive growth attempt.

Going by the recent announcements from Zimbra - the Yahoo-owned email and collaboration software - the supposed increase in the number of users appear to be ominous to Gmail's popularity. All the more so since Zimbra's mailboxes are paid ones, and not free accounts!