Pieratt. (Photo: Brooklyn Beta)

eBay announced on its blog today that it has acquired Svpply, the NYC-based social shopping site that curates personalized collections of clothing and products. Located on Broome Street in Soho, Svpply raised $550,000 in seed funding back in 2010 from investors like Founders Collective, Spark Capital, SV Angel, Dennis Crowley and Jason Hirschhorn. Since then, Svpply has been bootstrapping itself to 620,000 product views per week and 140,000 registered members (as of May).

Last May, founder Ben Pieratt offered a candid perspective on first-time entrepreneurship, admitting his vulnerability. "I have zero experience or expertise in building a company," he wrote in a 2011 blog post. "So I'm learning on the fly."

Mr. Pierrat summed up a list of things he'd need to learn how to do, or Svpply would fail. Hey, in startup parlance, we'd say an acqui-hire counts as quite a success.

At least Svpply's other cofounder, parallel entrepreneur extraordinaire Zach Klein, brought some experience to the team. Mr. Klein is a partner at Founders Collective, and has had a hand in a plethora of successful startups. He cofounded Vimeo and BustedTees, helped launch CollegeHumor, worked as chief product officer at Boxee and serves as a director for both Skillshare and Svpply. According to AllThingsD, Mr. Klein linked up with Svpply in the spring of 2010 when he "connected with Ben Pieratt, a Boston-based designer who started Svpply in late 2009."

eBay's blog post suggests that the move to purchase Svpply is largely an acqui-hire:

With Svpply.com, eBay gains access to technology talent to further improve the shopping and selling experience for its customers. Svpply.com assets – including a talented team of six designers and developers – are well-suited to help eBay advance more personalized experiences and merchandising options on eBay.com.

Based in New York (see the office, above), the Svpply.com employees will work on merchandising, non-search discovery and browsing.

eBay has been aggressively ramping up its presence in New York as of late. Back in November, the online auction platform acquired NYC-based Hunch, a personalized recommendation engine. Then in April, eBay snapped up a massive 350,000 square foot office in the Flatiron. Guess they needed a few more devs to fill up those desks.

Svpply insists in a blog post that the site's not going anywhere anytime soon. "Svpply is not going away," it reads. "We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day—allowing our loyal fans to explore beautiful products and stores, all of them hand selected by the community."

Greg Leppert, Svpply's third cofounder, said the Svpply team would work on both eBay and the Svpply site. "We'll continue to build Svpply and our community and apply what we learn to eBay," he told Betabeat by email. Mr. Leppert also said that Svpply will not be rolled into eBay, but that both sites will remain distinct from each other.

"We’re excited to join the eBay and Hunch teams in the new state-of-the-art technology development center in New York City!" Svpply added in a blog post. Shake them pom-poms, y'all.

Additional reporting contributed by Nitasha Tiku.

Mr. Klein sans cabin.

The last time we checked in on Vimeo cofounder Zach Klein, the self-described "proselytizer of country living" was adding listings to his upstate New York real estate blog and tending to his Cabin Porn tumblr. The New York native--who also cofounded Svpply and BustedTees, is a partner in Founder Collective, and has invested in Kickstarter--still has East Coast ties in the form of a dreamy cabin called Beaver Brook that he built using a salvaged barn frame.

But yesterday, Mr. Klein finally revealed what he's been up to since moving to San Francisco last fall: an online community and app for kids called DIY. It's a zeitgeisty idea that taps into both the Maker movement and the fact that children find themselves immersed in technology at a younger age. (Yes, a rugrat who grew up playing with iPads will soon make you feel obsolete.)

Through an online portal and iOS app, DIY lets kids create portfolios of the stuff they make through a public web page. Friends and family members can encourage their work through stickers and parents can monitor their activity from a dashboard. "We’ve all seen how kids can be like little MacGyvers," the company writes in an introductory blogpost. "They’re able to take anything apart, recycle what you’ve thrown away – or if they’re Caine, build their own cardboard arcade. This is play, but it’s also creativity and it’s a valuable skill." Starting 'em early on the innovation agenda, we see.

Mr. Klein, who acts as DIY's CEO, said he met cofounders Isaiah Saxon, Andrew Sliwinski, Daren Rabinovitch at  Tim O'Reilly's Foo Camp over the past couple of years. "We became friends and I visited them in CA often, and then I moved out to SF last November to form the company together," he told Betabeat by email.

Mr. Saxon, who founded Encyclopedia Pictura and advises Open Source Ecology, will be the company's CCO. Mr. Sliwinski, who co-founded the hackerspace OmniCorp Detroit, is DIY's CTO. Their offices are located in the Mission, a block away from Dolores Park.

When it comes to fostering the Maker impulse, Mr. Klein said existing social platforms don't cut it. "Inside communities, we look for cues how to behave," he told Betabeat. "Facebook and Twitter don't promote creativity, so new members wouldn't know that it's valuable. At DIY it's clear that creativity is what we celebrate, so our kids know that to make is to be a good citizen of our community. We hope it's more fulfilling to share creative work on DIY."

Mr. Klein has no children himself, but pointed out that every Friday, DIY hosts a "Maker Club" in its office where neighborhood kids swing by, make projects with the founders, and use the app. "Plus, my inner child is very much alive. See Beaver Brook," he said, directing us to the aforementioned rustic cabin.

DIY has funding, although Mr. Klein wouldn't specify the amount. (Fellow Vimeo cofounder Jakob Lodwick, recently raised $1 million to $2 million for Elepath Studios without an actual idea for a product. A strategy that reminds Forbes of "Seinfeld.")

Mr. Klein is also hoping his community-building experience at DIY will pay off. "I feel Vimeo is one of the most successful communities on the Internet--It's prolific, creative, loving and diverse--and I'm looking back to my experience there to make DIY," he said. "I learned to embrace a personality (so many services are bankrupt of human touch!); to treat members with dignity (everyone is capable of great things!); to give members tools to distinguish themselves; and to clearly define good and bad behavior."

The startup is not short on lofty goals. "Our ambition is for DIY to be the first app and online community in every kid’s life," says DIY. It also looks like they're hiring.

IAC is seeking new investors to buy up a 25 percent stake in Vimeo, the video-sharing platform best known for being prettier than YouTube, as PandoDaily's new ace of the East Erin Griffith reported last night. While Ms. Griffith misspelled co-founder Jake Lodwick's name and at one point identified IAC as IAB, we're taking this story seriously. Is IAC, the owner of a wide range of successful (Match.com/OKCupid) to dubious (The Daily Beast) to very dubious (Ask.com, still identified as AskJeeves in SEC filings), really trying to sell half its hippest property just as Vimeo launches a major redesign?

According to PandoDaily, IAC wants to keep a 50 percent non-controlling stake in the company, while selling 25 percent to new investors in order to raise $50 million and distributing 25 percent to its management team (which seems high). A look at IAC's annual and quarterly reports shows that Vimeo is still growing, although we don't know by how much, despite competitor's YouTube's slow encroachment on its turf. The revenues for IAC's "media and other" category last quarter is up 8 percent year over year, from $66.7 million in Q4 2010 to $72.4 million in Q4 of 2011, which IAC said reflected growth at Vimeo, CollegeHumor, Shoebuy, Pronto, the multimedia studio Electus and Ricky Van Veen's web TV studio experiment, Notional.

Regarding spinouts, on its most recent earnings call, IAC CEO Greg Blatt Chairman Barry Diller said:

"As far as the future, I think that depending upon what happens with this company, company is this IAC company, having gone through these multiple spin-offs over these last years, is right now, at very good size with very good prospects. And I think we are going to keep these configurations for a period of time depending upon what happens and grow things and all sorts of other issues pertains. But I don’t certainly contemplate it."

But Vimeo also had increased operating expenses in 2011, IAC reports, and the company took a hit on "promotional expenditures related to Vimeo's 2010 video festival." As much as Mr. Diller reportedly loves Vimeo, it's an expensive little darling. It may be that IAC realized the division needs greater resources in order to keep up with YouTube's evolution toward higher definition video and a less-hideous interface.

IAC declined to comment on "speculation." Betabeat has reached out to sources and will continue looking into the story and its implications for Laptop Tag.

(via Mr. Klein's Twitter)

As Betabeat informed you back in September, cherubic serial entrepreneur Zach Klein, who also doubles as an investor through Founder Collective, recently traded his New York digs for the Valley, dashing the dreams of a “Zach Klein, upstate woodsman” profile that New York media outlets have been salivating over ever since Mr. Klein tumbled pictures of the outdoorsy estate he dubbed "Beaver Brook" a year-and-a-half ago.

But the California air doesn't seem to have dampened the consummate multi-tasker's upstate dreaming. This morning, the Buffalo native tweeted, "I added a few more properties to my Upstate NY real estate blog, mostly affordable farmhouses and cabins," along with a link to his Upsate Homes tumblr.

Mr. Klein, whose Twitter bio reads, "Working on the Internet now so I can live in the woods later," demurred Betabeat's interview request. But he was thoughtful enough to answer a question about whether he was getting into the real estate game, tweeting, "No, I don't sell properties. Just tracking affordable and interesting real estate for friends." Fielding other queries on Twitter as to whether he had added broker to his already lengthy resume, Mr. Klein clarified again, "Nope, just a proselytizer of country living."

It seems Mr. Klein has already converted some city folks into "Beaver Brookies" and is at work on a four-season bunkhouse built on a salvaged barn frame. But if that's not aspirational enough for you, check out, the free Cabin Porn tumblr Mr. Klein co-edits--"inspiration for your quiet place somewhere." Could come in handy during a weekend with the family. Once the turkey consumption gives way to a discussion about What, Exactly, You're Doing With Your Future, its helps to picture a safe place.

Not true, says ADstruc's John Laramie. "We raised $1.1m on September 27th 2010, which means we would have had to burn $90,000 a month for a team that was just four people as of a month ago to be officially out of money," he said in an email. "ADstruc isn't even close to spending that much money on a monthly basis. We couldn't be more pleased with how and where we have invested our money and the great results we continue to see." However, Mr. Laramie had promised Betabeat a present. We never got said present. Also, when we asked if this meant ADstruc was not raising a round, Mr. Laramie stopped responding. The company is now up to six people and hiring for three positions.

VISITING DIGNITARIES. ZocDoc had a secret birthday party today for its four-year anniversary, to which press were not invited. The guest speaker was Tom Daschle, the former U.S. senator from South Dakota and Senate Majority Leader who co-authored a book on universal health care and is now working for global law firm DLA Piper.

WOOD CABIN FOR SALE. Angel-faced technohipster Zach Klein of CollegeHumor/Vimeo/Svpply broke up with his girlfriend, Courtney Lewis of Hard Candy Shell, and is moving to California, stomping out the last faint possibility of the "Zach Klein, upstate woodsman" story that every New York media outlet has been frothing to do. So. What happens to the cabin?

BLIND BETS. Two startups which have had extensive Betabeat coverage have raised money, Betabeat has heard. The first, a hardware startup, we heard secondhand. The second, which is not a hardware startup, was extended an offer to join 500Startups. A startup Betabeat has never written about (but we should have) will most likely be bought by Dropbox in the very near future. (Can you tell we're bursting to spill? But we pinky-swore to be patient upon promise of greater rewards. When the time comes we will write articles, glorious articles.)

Skillshare CEO Mike Karnjanaprakorn with Skillshare friend, investor and office mate Zach Klein.

New York-based peer-to-peer education start-up Skillshare, whose co-founder and CEO Mike Karnjanaprakorn recently typed up an article on how to launch a start-up for just $5,000, raised just enough money for its product team and a little wiggle room back in January. But this week the start-up announced two major feature releases and a $3.1 million funding raise from Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. "We're at the point where we're not asking, 'will this work,'" Mr. Karnjanaprakorn said. "But, 'how can we grow this.'"

When the Skillshare team realized they had a winning formula--a platform where anyone with a skill to share can propose to teach a class which then becomes available when a minimum number of students sign up--and when they noticed competitors starting to move in, they decided it was time to staff up and start grabbing land. Zach Klein, a longtime adviser and current officemate, "basically led our round" the first time, Mr. Karnjanaprakorn said, but the CEO stuck with investors he knew: Union Square Ventures's Albert Wenger and Spark Capital's Mo Koyfman, which is how Skillshare was able to close its round fairly quickly.

"We didn't choose investors in a couple days," Mr. Karnjanaprakorn said. "This is a relationship we've developed over years. We knew all of them and when Mo gave us a call and wanted Spark to get involved, he mentioned on the phone that he's been waiting to make this call for years. For us it was a very easy decision."

Skillshare decides which cities to move into according to popular vote; Boston is "on deck" next, he said. Skillshare plans to use the new funds to hire developers and community ambassadors so it can launch in more cities and for marketing to get the word out. Mr. Karnjanaprakorn isn't sure what kind of marketing he wants to do, but Mr. Klein's open offer of $1,000 in $20 Skillshare scholarships was a huge hit and although it wasn't an official Skillshare promotion, he'd like to do more like it, he said.

Skillshare is also considering partnerships that could bring more students in, maybe powering classes at places like General Assembly, for example. "No partnerships yet but it's definitely in the pipeline," he said. "It's on my to-do list. I've been thinking a lot about accreditations ... but I don't think you'll see it this year."

The main thing is focusing on building the product and building the community, he said. To that end, Skillshare launched two features to make the site more social: a review system for teachers and a social graph so users can follow each other and see what classes their friends are in, which will also power Skillshare's yet-to-be-released recommendation engine. "We want people to start creating their own learning circles," he said. "The idea is you get to start going to classes with your friends."

Partnerships, video classes, accreditation, even setting up physical schools--these are all on Skillshare's roadmap, which is maybe a five-year plan, Mr. Karnjanaprakorn said. "I'm also a firm believer in keeping our team really focused," he said. "I've seen people fall into the trap of getting excited by new shiny ideas. The idea we have right now is a very good one and it's really exciting ... I just want to keep our team really focused on building that. This is going to take a few years to get right.

"Like the guys at Foursquare said in the early days, we're building the business that builds our business," he said. "Is the best way to phrase it."

Les savvy fav.

On his Tumblr today, former Vimeo co-founder Zach Klein took a break from his summer project building what looks like an off-the-grid cabin in the woods to announce a scholarship opportunity Peter Thiel would be proud of. To promote the value of peer-to-peer education, as opposed to that no good very bad institutionalized kind of book learning, Mr. Klein is offering $1,000 (total, not per person, sorry). Until the funds run out--or August 19th, whichever comes first--anyone who signs up for a class at Skillshare, where Mr. Klein notes he led the seed investment round through Founder's Collective, can be reimbursed up to $20 worth of the ticket price. All you have to do is email your receipt to skillsharescholarship@gmail.com.

"I’m certain that this investment will eventually pay dividends back to me in the form of a wider community of teachers and students for me to learn with and from," writes Mr. Klein. Oh yeah, and that $20? He'll be sending it to you via Venmo, which happens to be another Founder Collective investment. Haven't downloaded the app yet? Well now you have a reason to!

Mr. Klein was in the middle of teaching agraduate-level class on entrepreneurial design at the School of Visual Arts when The Observer spoke to him today via Skype.

His students are tasked with building a minimum viable product by the end of the semester—that project, plus a conversation with Kickstarter's Fred Benenson, inspired Mr. Klein to issue an open plea to the internet: Send us your neglected domains!

"We started talking about this phenomenon and how many people we admire probably have domains like this too," Mr. Klein said. "We think this is probably common. Domains represent ideas, that first manic seedling of an idea before it's thought through. We thought it'd be fun to collect them and try to get my class to build them out just so that these ideas could exist."

He first had his students bring in their old domains—like thankthemessenger.com, volunteered by designer Allison Shaw. "It was initially a way to anonymously send, like, 'don't quit your day job' messages to people," she said. She's since turned it into a home for her portfolio and resume.

Mr. Klein has already received a few dozen donations in response to his request—"Stop cruel treatment of unused domains"—including ideas from Groupon CEO Andrew Mason and Ashton Kutcher, which could not be revealed, as Mr. Mason and Mr. Kutcher will be presenting their ideas to the class.

"My supposition is that a lot of these domains are actually great features for existing companies," Mr. Klein said. "Others are just amusing to think that they could exist in real life." Other ideas probably won't go online, he admitted, but will act as a starting point and maybe iterate into something more useful.

Compulsive register-ers: Give that dead domain new life. First of all, Panera is not going to buy that.co from you. Second, it's for learning! What did it cost you, anyway—$8?

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries

In September 2009, he signed on as head of product at Boxee, the set-top box bringing Internet to the televisions of impassioned early adopters.

At the time, The Observer wrote:

[Klein] was ready to let go of his "ego," he said, which was holding him back from joining a company that already had a great, original idea. He could do just as well improving it, he said.

 

Now Klein plans to leave Boxee to found a new company, writes Nick Saint at Business Insider, probably sometime next month.

Klein also recently invested in his first restaurant, Fedora, which opened last week in the West Village.

The news does not come at a good time for Boxee, which had a good showing at the Consumer Electronics Show but then immediately botched a firmware update. Boxee also continues to disappoint on promises to bring content from Netflix and VUDU to its set-top box.