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Seattle’s newest unicorn: Rec Room raises $100M as social gaming popularity fuels big growth

GeekWire

We are one of many, and we’re excited to add a consumer social company to that mix.” Year-over-year revenue growth of 566% was fueled in part by the pandemic and trends toward social gatherings online. Gaming company or social company? I think in a lot of ways gaming is the new social.”

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Seattle VR startup Rec Room raises $145M, reaches $3.5B valuation

GeekWire

This is Rec Room’s second round of funding in 2021, following a $100 million raise in March that officially catapulted the company into “unicorn” status as a privately-held startup valued at over $1 billion. I think it’s the nature of social apps to have a compounding effect,” said Cameron Brown, chief creative officer at Rec Room.

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This new Seattle VC firm raised a $10M fund to back women-led startups

GeekWire

The Graham & Walker team, from left to right: Amanda Eldridge, vice president of business development; Rohre Titcomb, COO; Leslie Feinzaig, founder & managing director; Es Famojure, program manager; and Divya Kakkad, vice president of marketing. Graham & Walker Photos).

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Amazon’s Ring names Xbox and Oculus vet Elizabeth Hamren as new CEO; founder Jamie Siminoff remains chief inventor

GeekWire

Five years after its acquisition by Amazon, smart doorbell and home security technology company Ring named a new CEO: Elizabeth (Liz) Hamren, a former executive in Meta’s Oculus division and Microsoft’s Xbox business, who was most recently chief operating officer for social messaging platform Discord.

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Julie Larson-Green retires as Qualtrics CXO following IPO; Instacart names Asha Sharma COO; and more

GeekWire

Speaking with GeekWire this week, Larson-Green said the time was right for the next phase of her life after helping Qualtrics get to its IPO by working to build key functions and teams including people operations, program management, data science and user experience. “The technology changes all the time. Read the story.

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Bringing the National Museum of African American History and Culture to the world

CIO Business Intelligence

After we opened the museum, the director and curatorial staff were talking about how to how to reach even more people who wouldn’t be able to come to the museum and experience it,” says Jill Roberts, program manager of the Searchable Museum at the Office of Digital Strategy and Engagement (ODSE). “We

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GeekWire Awards: Cast your ballot for the top CEO

GeekWire

But even in the face of significant headwinds — some of which have never been faced by business leaders — the four CEO of the Year finalists for the 2021 GeekWire Awards stood out. CEOs did not have an easy task running their companies over the past 12 months — navigating a series of tough societal, economic and public health challenges.