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As we profiled in our Never Mind the Valley series last month, New York is increasing its stronghold on the east coast startup scene. The city's rich media and international business ecosystems make it the perfect launch pad for startups looking to leverage these markets. One other reason the city has seen successful growth of entrepreneurship is the holding company Betaworks, which shows no signs of slowing after raising $20 million from Intel, AOL, RRE Ventures and several others.

Longtime technology innovation investment firm Battery Ventures increased its capital to over $4 billion Thursday as the firm announced the securing of its ninth fund at a value of $750 million. Startups and entrepreneurs may be able to look at 2010 with high hopes as Battery's fund, one of the largest seen in the last year, comes after a period of decline in venture funding.

Last week we talked about managing split teams with Danny Wong of Blank Label, a site for creating custom men's dress shirts and a startup in the growing field of co-creation. These types of startups, which have gained more traction overseas than in the U.S., run on a model of on-demand production, which allows them to become cash-flow positive in a relatively short period of time. Wednesday I had the chance to talk about co-creation with Carmen Magar, a German woman living in New York who works for chocri, a German startup that sells customizable chocolates.

Early stage startups in Europe will be the primary beneficiaries of a new €6 million seed fund just announced by Berlin-based Team Europe Ventures. In the past we've talked about Europe's entrepreneurial woes, most notably a dearth of seed funding due to having a culture largely averse to taking risks financially. This new fund is a good step towards changing that trend and keeping more startups from looking for funding elsewhere.

Here at ReadWriteStart, we've been following the Open Angel Forum closely as Jason Calacanis' project moves from city to city bringing angel investors and worthy startups together in one room. The first event in Los Angeles was of particular success to Backupify, which provides backup for your online social network data, including Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Wordpress, Gmail, Basecamp and many other services. Following the event, the company raised a Series A round of $900,000 from Calacanis, Chris Sacca, First Round Capital and a few others.

One the interesting differences for startups on the east coast compared to the west coast is how much more compact the east coast is. For Silicon Valley, the nearest major metro cities are 400 to 800 miles away, which makes the San Francisco area much more secluded. Boston, New York, Washington D.C. and Baltimore are all within a short drive of each other, which makes the sharing of resources, talent pools and events much easier that on the west coast. Philadelphia, conveniently located between Washington D.C. and New York, is home to DreamIt Ventures, which is now accepting applications for its 2010 summer accelerator class.

When a startup entrepreneur tells the story of his/her mistakes and how they've corrected them, it's endearing. When an investment associate for one of the more prestigious VC firms does it, it's surprising.

Union Square Ventures' Andrew Parker recently started a Got It Wrong Series on his Gong Show blog where he identifies his own mistakes and mis-judgements about the industry.

While so much of the startup scene is funded by investment capital, it's tough to know exactly where all of that money comes from. In chasing the power behind the investment throne it's easy to believe that everything conspires by the hand of the Illuminati and leave it at that. As of today, Volition Capital's Larry Cheng spells it out for us in perfect clarity. You may be indirectly pitching for your own money.

While the government in Washington slowly inches their way toward a bill to create jobs for Americans, tech corporations and venture capital firms across the nation are teaming up in a private sector effort to create more companies and more jobs in the tech space. Led by Intel, the Invest in America Alliance, consisting of 17 companies and 24 VC firms, announced Tuesday that it has pledged to provide $3.5 billion in tech startup funding and jobs for over 10,000 new grads in the next two years.

As we head toward the final week of February, and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver get set to begin their second half of competition, it's that time again for the ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup. In this week's edition we've got some tips to get your iPhone app ranked higher, as well as a funding opportunity for getting your iPad app ideas off the ground. Our Never Mind the Valley series returns as we profile New York City, and in the most discussed topic this week we talk about Square's new mobile credit card scanner and its possible implications for small business.

It's easy to construct an "us" versus "them" mentality between startups and investors, especially when there are so many disgruntled founders who've had the door slammed in their face. But I'd hardly make the generalization that investors avoid innovation. While it's true that proven returns are required in the majority of portfolio companies, it's these revenue generating deals that tend to lift up the longer term innovation-based investments.

In the ancient times before the internet, a business plan was what you wrote to appease the Gods of private equity and venture capital. It was a thick document, full of scientific analysis, market data and of course, a J-curve shaped projection of sales. The problem was that few investors would make it through your epic masterpiece. Instead, they'd skip to the juicy parts. Former CEO of Elance and current founder of Roach Capital Partners, Eric Roach, shares what he's kept in the business plan to raise $55 million dollars in venture capital in two months.

It's coming up on three weeks since Apple announced its highly anticipated iPad device, and the news frenzy surrounding the announcement has begun to die down. As is the trend with many new devices, the response to the iPad has covered both extremes, from fans who claim the device will change the world, to haters wondering why anyone would spend a dime on it. One thing that is certain is that iPhone application developers are excited by the possibilities provided by the new tablet device, and now a new fund raising collaboration, AppFund, is looking to capitalize on this excitement.

Entrepreneurship in Europe has a problem. A lot of their talent is "crossing the pond" to increase their chances of finding early-stage funding. A lot of venture firms in Europe tend to play the safer hands that they are dealt, investing in proven companies rather than new startups looking for seed funding. Though organizations like Seedcamp are doing what they can to reverse this trend, incubators in the U.S. like TechStars are still seeing an increase of international applications, many likely from Europe.

New office, same job. After just 10 months as president and CEO of Activision Blizzard's Guitar Hero division, former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig is packing up shop and relocating to online textbook rental startup Chegg where he will hold the same title. Chegg claims to have saved students over $140 million on textbooks by offering their "Netflix style" rent by mail service.

Earlier this week we told you how New York Times op-ed contributor and author Thomas Friedman urged President Obama to take steps to help foster a new age of innovation and entrepreneurship. Well it seems that Obama may have received that message, as Wednesday night during his State of the Union address to Congress the president proposed a bill to help small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Perhaps Obama listened to Friedman, or maybe he saw the frenzied excitement that grows around new innovations like the iPad - either way, the president seems to have taken the first baby steps toward a more entrepreneurial culture in America.

American startups are not alone when it comes to the well of venture funding drying up. A recent report by the Israel Venture Capital Research Center has found that funding in Israel fell drastically to $1.12 billion in 2009, nearly half the amount from the previous year. The 46% decrease marks the lowest funding numbers since 2003 and ends Israel's streak of three consecutive years with increasing number of companies and funding dollars.

The numbers are a sign of the worldwide economic stress that is affecting countries large and small across the globe. While funding plummeted between 2008 and 2009, the number of companies funded only fell roughly 7% from 483 to 447, which means less money is being given to each company. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the average financing round was just $2.2 million, down from $3.61 million during the same period in 2008.

Early-stage New York City startups are about to get some tender loving care and it's got nothing to do with Valentine's Day. As highlighted in Jason Calacanis' blog seed-stage investment group NYC Seed just launched an eight week incubator program where ten lucky companies will gain from startup mentorship, much-needed space and modest funding.

One of the biggest tests of startup founder savvy is the period after you've just raised funding. It's akin to the Amish rite of passage rumspringa, as young and sometimes inexperienced founders are given the opportunity to explore new opportunities in the hopes that the experience will ground them and strengthen them as leaders. Unfortunately, many do not find their way back to the path of revenue, or even to a product roadmap.

Settled in the 1830s along the banks of the Colorado River and named for the Father of Texas Stephen F. Austin, the city of Austin is known for its thriving music scene and as the home of the University of Texas (UT) Longhorns. But in the past few decades, the Texas capital has built up a reputation of a different sort.

With companies headquartered in Austin like Dell and Freescale Semiconductor, a spin-off of Motorola, the city has become a hotbed of information technology hardware and software. In the mid 1990s, Austin was put on the map by software companies like Motive, Vignette and Tivoli, the latter of which was quickly scooped up by IBM in 1996.