StartUp Beat
February 06, 2012
February 03, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Ticket aggregator TiqIQ closes a $1.7 million Series A round, launches consumer-facing site
February 02, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: DNA Response gets $3 million for ecommerce platform for direct response companies
February 01, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Rumgr lands $500K for its Craigslist-competitor marketplace
January 31, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: StormWind lands $4 million for its online learning platform
January 30, 2012
Tealium’s enterprise tag management solution reduces the burden of online marketing and ecommerce
A Q&A with Tealium co-founder Ali Behnam. The San Diego, California–based company was founded in 2008.
SUB: Please describe what Tealium is, and the value proposition you offer to the enterprise.
Behnam: Tealium is a provider of tag management solutions for the enterprise. Over the last decade, as online marketing has matured, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of web page tags that digital marketing vendors—web analytics providers, affiliate marketing companies, etc.—require customers to embed on their web sites. Over time, these tags have grown out of control. The average enterprise web site today has 30-to-40 different vendor tags on their web properties. Deploying and managing these tags have become a huge burden both for marketing and IT. Tealium provides marketers with a simple way to add, modify and edit these tags on their own through an easy-to-use web interface. No longer do they have to rely on overburdened IT departments to implement their online campaigns. The benefits are huge across the organization: reduced IT costs, increased marketing agility and performance, improved site speed, and better privacy protection.
SUB: What are your target markets?
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Glooko gets $3.5 million for iPhone app for diabetes monitoring
January 28, 2012
The Week in Technology Funding, January 28, 2012…
This week’s list of Angel, Seed and Series A funding announcements:
Polar Mobile – $6 million
BuzzDoes – $750K
Fantasy Shopper – $3.3 million
Mykonos – $4 million
OneSchool – $750K
Endorse – $4.25 million
955 Dreams – $3.25 million
drchrono – $2.8 million
Shoply – Undisclosed
Olery – $1 millionJanuary 27, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Shoply launches and raises Seed funding for its ecommerce sales and promotion platform
January 26, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Personal finance platform HelloWallet says hello to $12 million in Series B funding
January 25, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions: Skyfire lands $8 million in new funding for mobile video optimization
January 24, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Mobile app for college students OneSchool lands $750K in funding
January 23, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Polar Mobile gets $6 million for apps publishing platform
January 20, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: On a slow day in funding news, digital smart grid builder Varentec gets $7.7 million in Series A
January 19, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: AppAddictive lands $1.2 million for social media page builder and ad platform; Adzuna gets funding for its jobs search engine
January 18, 2012
SOPA must be defeated
Dear StartUp Beat Readers,
While the site is technically not "blacked out", StartUp Beat joins the chorus of thousand of other web sites protesting SOPA and PIPA legislation by conducting an editorial black out and not posting any new stories today. Instead, we're linking to a very insightful article by Mashable's Lance Ulanoff about the possible consequences of SOPA:
SOPA Will Take Us Back to the Dark Ages
...and a "take action page" from Google:
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
SOPA would negatively affect countless web sites, and indeed permanently alter what we have come to know (in most countries) as a free and relatively open Internet. For small sites like StartUp Beat in particular, it could be devastating....
...StartUp Beat will be back with new stories tomorrow, but in the mean time, consider what legislation like SOPA could mean for all of us.
Thank You,
Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
January 17, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: CliqSearch lands Angel funding for its ‘Social Knowledge Engine’; SendGrid gets $21 million in new funding for email deliverability platform
January 16, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Brainient gets $1.8 million for video ad platform; Sarah Lacy’s PandoDaily launches with $2.5 million to challenge TechCrunch
January 13, 2012
The Week In Technology Funding, January 13, 2012...
This week’s list of Angel, Seed and Series A funding announcements:
Thumbtack – $4.5 million
Tealium – $1.1 million
Cinemacraft – $900K
Kwaga – $1.55 million
AppTap – $4 million
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: On a slow day, fast-growing Fab.com makes big news with its FashionStake buy
January 12, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Creator of email analysis tool WriteThat.name gets $1.55 million in Series A; App recommendations service AppTap secures $4 million
January 11, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions: GetGlue closes a $12 million new funding round; Cinemacraft gets additional Series A funds from 500 Startups
January 10, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Socialware raises new funding for its enterprise social media application; task hiring service TaskRabbit buys SkillSlate
January 09, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Local services marketplace Thumbtack gets $4.5 million in Series A; viral content aggregator BuzzFeed rakes in $15.5 million in new funding
January 06, 2012
The Week In Technology Funding, January 6, 2012…
This week’s list of Angel, Seed and Series A funding announcements (the first of the year!):
Trapit – $6.2 million
Piazza – $6 million
Coursekit – $5 million
GrabCad – $4 million
Aisle50 – $2.6 million
Seismic Games – $2 million
IFTTT – $1.5 million
RJ Metrics – $1.2 million
Spool – $1 million
Nimble – $1 million
LockerDome – $750K
NumberFire – $650K
Buyosphere – $325K
Blippar – Undisclosed
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: TrapIt gets $6.2 million to bring AI to web browsing; Piazza gets $6 million to enhance the college class experience
Today’s technology funding and acquisitions news roundup…
Since the launch of Apple’s Siri virtual assistant, AI apps have garnered a lot of attention…and funding. That list now includes Trapit, an AI-based personalized search and web organizing tool, which announced today that it has raised $6.2 million in Series A funding. Both Siri and Trapit originated from the same AI collaboration between DARPA and SRI. The project was originally known as CALO—“Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes”—and looks like it could be the next step in the evolution of search and web browsing.
January 05, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: ‘Groupon for groceries’ gets $2.6 million; Moontoast gets $6 million to monetize social media channels
Today’s technology funding and acquisitions news roundup…
Early-stage funding announcements today were led by ‘Groupon for groceries’ daily deals site Aisle50, which has closed a $2.6 million funding round. It’s the latest niche entry in the daily deals business, but it may be one of the more useful of the bunch everybody need to shop for groceries (unless you’re wealthy or can convince someone to do it for you) everyone’s life. The company was founded in June of last year.
January 04, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: IFTTT lands $1.5 million in Seed funding for its web tools interface
Today’s technology funding and acquisitions news roundup…
Today’s funding announcements are all about companies that help the end user make the web work better (or more personally) for them. A good illustration of this is IFTTT, a startup that helps users pull together various web services and social media functions into one sharing and saving interface. The company announced today that it has raised a $1.5 million Seed round. The name stands for “if this then that”…and I love the URL for its “About” page: http://ifttt.com/wtf.
January 03, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: RJ Metrics gets $1.2 million from a group that includes a customer; Blippar raises Seed money for its augmented marketing technology
Today’s technology funding and acquisitions roundup…
And we’re off and running in 2012 in technology funding and acquisitions! Philadelphia-based BI software provider RJ Metrics has raised $1.2 million in Seed funding. It’s particularly notable because the investors include at least one customer (check out the story on TechCrunch). The company was founded in 2009.
Mobile image recognition and augmented reality platform Blippar also closed a Seed round, amount not disclosed. Qualcomm Ventures led the round for the UK-based startup, which was founded in 2010. The Blippar platform is intended mainly for enhanced mobile advertising (at least for now). Pretty cool technology.
January 02, 2012
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Coursekit kicks off the new year with $5 million in funding to make the classroom more social
December 30, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Italian startup Cibando gets Seed funding for restaurant-finding app
December 29, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Stealth social media startup Fund.me quietly raises $2.7 million in Series A funding
December 28, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Mobile local search firm Call Genie expands its mobile advertising offering with VoodooVox buy
December 23, 2011
The week in tech startups, December 23, 2011: A big chunk of change for gaming startup Razer; a number of acquisitions to close out the year; and one of the best new company names ever
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor,
This week included some notable acquisitions and at least one giant funding round. Gaming hardware and accessories startup Razer raked in a whopping $50 million for the new year. Other notable funding announcements included Appconomy’s $10 million Series A, and Eventasaurus’s Angel round—notable because the company has perhaps the best name of any new startup this year.
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Stealthy mobile calendaring startup UpTo raises Seed funding for upcoming launch
December 22, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Cloudability raises $1.1 million in Seed financing for its cloud management platform
December 21, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Document backup and sharing service SurDoc closes a $4 million funding round at launch
December 20, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Gaming accessories maker Razer scores $50 million in first round funding
December 19, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Business software and service provider recommendations engine BestVendor gets $3 million in Series A funding
December 16, 2011
The week in tech startups, December 16, 2011: Robots!, no holiday slowdown for funding and acquisitions, and a great way to keep those health-related New Year’s resolutions
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor,
So, the flow of funding and acquisitions announcements this week killed my (unoriginal) theory that the holidays would result in a slowdown of F&A activity in the tech sector. Startups and later-stage companies representing a wide swath of technology categories geared up for the new year with new funding rounds, including cloud-based presentation software make Prezi’s $14 million Series B, ‘service’ network TaskRabbit’s $17.8 million Series B, and online merchant lender Kabbage’s $12 million round. See below for a full list of this week’s Seed and Series A announcements.
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Ebay’s StubHub snaps up events listings and promo site Zvents
December 15, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: BlueSprig secures $10 million for advanced security for mobile devices
December 14, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: ‘Service Networking’ site TaskRabbit gets a $17.8 million funding infusion
December 13, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: MixRank raises $1.5 million from an impressive group for its ad intelligence platform
December 12, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Curated ecommerce site for Moms Ecomom raises $4 million in Series A funding
December 09, 2011
The week in tech startups, December 9, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
Things have slowed down a bit in technology funding and acquisitions, presumably because of the holiday season, but this week still featured several notable, mostly later-stage deals. There were, however, also some early-stage funding announcements of note, highlighted by online health community HealthTap’s $11.5 million in Series A that included Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors (see below for the full list). Notable acquisitions this week included gaming startup Red Robot Labs picking up UK-based games studio Supermono and Lattice Semiconductor’s acquisition of custom mobile device solutions provider SiliconBlue.
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, December 9, 2011…" »
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Games startup Red Robot Labs uses recently raised capital to snap up Supermono
December 08, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Social network for K-12 education Edmodo completes a $15 million new funding round
December 07, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: TouchType, maker of SwiftKey, lands $2.4 million in Series A to speed up mobile users’ typing
December 06, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Private sales club MarkaVIP raises $5 million Series A round for further expansion in the Middle East
December 05, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Mobile payments platform mFoundry gets $18 million in new funding led by MasterCard
December 02, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Brand marketing platform Promoboxx lands $565K in seed funding
December 01, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: ‘Social health platform’ HealthRally closes $400K seed funding round for crowdfunding approach to healthy living
November 30, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: NewsCred secures $4 million in Series A funding for a new approach to the newswire
November 29, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Writers marketplace Scripted.com lands $700K in seed funding
November 28, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: SNS+ gets $12.5 million for its social games platform
November 25, 2011
The week in tech startups, November 25, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor,
It’s official—the holiday season has started, and with it the stream of new funding announcements has begun to slow. This week included seed and Series A announcements from a small, but interesting, group. They included $800K in Angel funding for New Orleans-based group decision-making startup VoteIt and medication search engine Diagnosia’s undisclosed seed round.
StartUp Beat this week featured Q&As with online shopping reviews site Trustpilot and data interoperability platform Flow, a Featured Startup Pitch from Proformative—a social networking tool specifically for corporate executives, and a Thanksgiving Day guest column from Charlie Born of Plimus about how startups are using the cloud and best practices for getting the most out of cloud-based tools.
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, November 25, 2011…" »
November 23, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: VoteIt gets $800K in angel funding for group decisions platform
November 22, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Microsoft makes a pre-holiday purchase with its acquisition of video search firm VideoSurf
November 21, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Veenome secures $500K for its object and brand recognition service for online video
November 19, 2011
The week in tech startups, November 19, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor,
Recent pessimism about the market for tech IPOs may have been quieted this week with Angie’s List’s successful debut in the public markets and Yelp’s filing. And don’t forget about Groupon, which has traded at a healthy clip after significant questions about its business model in the lead-up to its recent IPO. The week also saw a significant number of seed and Series A funding announcements—defying in many respects pundits who have recently sounded an alarm about a dearth of early-stage funding in technology. There are numerous perspectives to the funding issue, but suffice it to say that the tech startup sector continues to shine brightly in the midst of a painfully long global economic downturn.
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, November 19, 2011…" »
November 18, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Customer engagement startup UserVoice lands $1 million in Series A funding
November 17, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Spotzot raises $2.2 million for its deals and coupons platform for websites and apps
November 16, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: ServiceMesh gets $15 million for its enterprise cloud platform
November 15, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: New social travel entrant Trippy launches with $1.75 million in funding
November 14, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Social media marketing and analytics startup Salorix lands $3.5 million in Series A funding
November 11, 2011
The week in technology startups, November 11, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
This week was highlighted by a slew of early-stage funding announcements in the range of 500K to several million dollars (see a full list below). On the acquisitions front, Google made waves with its acquisition of two companies clearly aimed at bolstering its Google+ offering and competing with Facebook in social media—in-site search company Apture and social contacts organizer Katango.
Continue reading "The week in technology startups, November 11, 2011…" »
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: It’s the end of a big week for Google, with acquisitions of in-site search company Apture and social media contacts organizer Katango
November 10, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Kontagent lands $12 million for its social media analytics platform
November 09, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: PunchTab gets $4.4 million to power instant loyalty programs for bloggers and businesses
November 08, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Facebook picks up HTML5 mobile apps platform Strobe
November 07, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Mobile apps builder Urban Airship lands $15.1 million in additional funding
November 04, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: In non-Groupon IPO news, wine and gourmet foods sales site Lot18 raises $30 million in new funding
November 03, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Mobile shopping app ShopSavvy closes $7 million funding round led by Facebook co-founder
November 02, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Traffix lands $7 million for more efficient 4G mobile networks
November 01, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: The interactive ad sector heats up with Yahoo’s acquisition of Interclick and Adknowledge’s AdParlor buy
October 31, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Codeacademy gets $2.5 million in Series A for its online learning platform
October 29, 2011
This week in tech startups, 10/29/11…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor,
This was a news week dominated by global economic news and of the worldwide growth of the Occupy movement. But while things continue to look dour on the economic front, the tech sector saw another vigorous week of funding and acquisitions announcements, mixed with negative news about Groupon’s pending IPO and serious layoffs at fellow deals site BuyWithMe. The sector increasing looks like a bad deal (sorry, I had to go there).
Speaking of Groupon, StartUp Beat this week featured a guest column about the decline of the daily deals juggernaut by David Galvan, president of online appointment platform Schedulicity. We also featured Q&As with social games startup Crowdpark, restaurant technology provider Ordr.in, and a Featured Startup Pitch from Internet security startup KnowBe4.
October 28, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Datahug’s enterprise relationship management platform embraced by investors with $1.5 million in funding
October 27, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Hyperink gets $1.2 million from some big names for its disruptive digital book publishing platform
October 26, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Zaarly gets $14 million and Meg Whitman
October 25, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Subtext closes a $3 million seed round for its social reading ebooks app
October 24, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Direct deals mobile ad marketplace Chartboost lands $2 million in funding
October 22, 2011
The week in tech startups, October 22, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It was a week that saw some big funding announcements in the tech sector, some news about Q3 funding trends that could be positive or negative depending on your perspective, and the continued growth of the cult of Siri (see the Siri song on YouTube). The funding highlight of the week was no doubt Dropbox’s $250 million funding round, just because of its sheer size. The personal cloud storage startup has now raised a total of $257.2 million in outside funding. Also notable was CouponCabin.com’s $54 million round. The coupon site was founded in 2003, and claims to have generated $500 million in online retail sales for merchants in that time.
StartUp Beat this week featured Q&As with web infrastructure platform NGINX, database platform DataStax, advanced language translation site MyGengo, and online identity management service Vizibility.
Seed and Series A funding announcements this past week:
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, October 22, 2011…" »
October 21, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Coupon site CouponCabin.com secures $54 million in new funding
October 20, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions Roundup: Zoove gets $5 million in new funding for vanity mobile numbers
October 19, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: OwnLocal gets new funding to help local newspapers generate online revenue
October 18, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Dropbox lands $250 million (yes, $250 million) in funding for personal cloud storage service
October 17, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: ‘Experiences’ sale site SideTour gets $1.5 million in new funding
October 14, 2011
The week in tech startups—October 14, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It was another week of compelling tech startup news that ends with long lines at Apple Stores for the iPhone 4S debut and with Microsoft closing its purchase of Skype. There were also rumblings on various technology blogs and news sites that venture funds that focus on early-stage startups are struggling to raise funds. But the Seed and Series A funding announcements continued to flow—here’s the roundup:
Wave Accounting – $5 million
MovableInk – $1.3 million
DuckDuckGo – Unspecified
Crashlytics – $1 million
Udemy – $3 million
LocalResponse – $5 million
Stickery – $500K
Kiwi Create – $2 million
NGINX – $3 million
Spree – $1.5 million
StartUp Beat this week featured Q&As with mobile polling app Floop, Wi-Fi cloud-based video monitoring service Dropcam, and ride-sharing service Zimride, along with a Featured Startup Pitch 0from new car shopping site Web2Carz.
Funding and Acquisitions: SaaS marketing firm Demandforce buys social marketing company Flowtown
October 13, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Lemon.com gets $10 million to launch cloud receipt storage and spending management service
October 12, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Online learning site Udemy gets $3 million in Series A funding
October 11, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Mooter Media lands $15 million for ‘commercializing’ social photography
October 10, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Open source ecommerce platform Spree closes $1.5 million funding round
October 07, 2011
The week in startups, October 7, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It was a week where all other tech news was overshadowed by the passing of one of the pioneers of technology and a true Silicon Valley legend. RIP Steve Jobs.
Seed and Series A funding this week:
mobeam – $4.9 million
Cloudbot – Undisclosed
Keek – $5.5 million
ReportGrid – $750K
GetApp.com – $1.1 million
Enterproid – $11 million
HiGear – $1.3 million
Funding and Acquisitions: HiGear lands $1.3 million for luxury/exotic car sharing
October 06, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: GetApp.com gets $1.1 million for its business applications marketplace
October 05, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Keek gets $5.5 million in new funding for video status updates
October 04, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Cloud social media management tool Cloudbot secures new funding from Lightbank
October 03, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Light-based mobile communications startup mobeam lands $4.9 million in Series A funding
October 01, 2011
The week in tech startups, October 1, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It was a week that included rumors that Facebook was going to begin charging members because “it was even on the news,” and controversy between two of the largest tech blogs that included accusations of pay-for-play. But even as VentureBeat and TechCrunch feuded, the technology sector continued to produce a dynamic stream of acquisitions and new funding. They included TechMediaNetwork’s $33 million, Tumblr’s $85 million in additional funding, Blekko’s $30 million round, and real-time parking tracker Parking In Motion’s Series A. Acquisitions for the week were highlighted by Seamless picking up MenuPages and claiming to now have the “most comprehensive restaurant listings across 50+ cities,” and Salesforce’s $50 million acquisition of Assistly.
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, October 1, 2011…" »
September 30, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Pantheon raises seed funding to launch cloud-based website building and maintenance service
September 29, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Workplace incentives platform Achievers closes a $24.5 million funding round
September 28, 2011
StartUp Beat Flashback: Assistly—which just announced its acquisition by Salesforce.com for $50 million
Originally ran on October 14, 2010
Featured Startup Pitch: Assistly wants to make customer support more social
Editor’s Note: Once in a while, StartUp Beat re-runs Featured Startup Pitches from the past based on relevant news or to revisit a cool startup that has continued to build momentum. Today we’re re-running one from almost a year ago from Assistly founder and CEO Alec Bard. Assistly announced last Wednesday that it had been acquired by Salesforce.com for approximately $50 million. Check out the business and the strategy that successfully led to the company’s acquisition...
Company: Assistly
Website: www.assistly.com
Headquarters: San Francisco
Year Founded: 2009
Founder: Alec Bard, CEO
Investors: True Ventures and Social Leverage
Employees: 10
Company Description: Assistly is an elegant, web-based platform that makes customer support in a social marketing culture smarter, easier, and more affordable.
By Alec Bard, CEO
What Is Assistly?
Assistly is a hosted customer support platform that organizes and manages all of your customer conversations into a system that makes customer support efficient, fast, and effective. Assistly delivers the most current and relevant information about your customer requests to the right people in your organization and gives your teams intuitive and powerful tools to WOW your customers.
Funding and Acquisitions: Parking In Motion lands Series A funding to make finding parking less infuriating
September 27, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Human translation site myGengo lands $5.25 million in Series A funding
September 26, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Online tech publisher TechMediaNetwork lands $33 million in new funding
September 23, 2011
The week in tech startups, September 23, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
Internet giants dominated tech news this week. Of course, Facebook’s announcements at F8 were the big headlines late in the week. Will the new Facebook be something unprecedented, or will they become the next AOL (the adjective “walled garden” has come up quite a bit over the last day or so). Google was in the news for perhaps a less positive reason—as the subject of an inquiry by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust. It included Chairman Eric Schmidt’s appearance in front of the committee, where he was grilled by Senators that in large part seemed to demonstrate a glancing understanding about how the Interwebs work. Perhaps more alarming for Google, though, were the accusations leveled against the company by Yelp and Nextag, among others, that Google rigs its search results. It’s complicated—stay tuned on this one. Finally, HP made waves by giving the boot to Leo Apotheker and hiring former eBay head and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman as CEO. Good luck, Meg—and you thought running for governor was frustrating.
But tech startups also made a collective splash. If nothing else, the sheer number of funding and acquisitions announcements on a weekly basis continues to be impressive. Highlights included Lookout Mobile Security’s $40 million and JustFabulous’s $33 million Series A.
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, September 23, 2011…" »
Funding and Acquisitions: Mintigo gets $9 million in Series B for enhanced customer acquisition tools
September 22, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Henry Blodgett’s Business Insider gets $7 million
September 21, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Dropcam gets $5.8 million in Series A funding for intelligent streaming in the cloud
September 20, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: GrubHub raises some money ($50 million), and spends some by picking up Campusfood and Allmenus
September 19, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Google continues its buying streak with acquisition of German daily deals firm
September 16, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Enterprise mobile app provider MeLLmo raises $30 million in new funding
September 15, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Mobile ad network InMobi lands an InCredible $200 million in new funding
September 14, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Walmart extends its WalmartLabs effort with acquisition of mobile ad firm OneRiot
September 13, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Apsalar raises $5 million in initial funding for mobile apps analytics
September 12, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Car sharing service Getaround gets CrunchFund’s first investment, raises a total of $3.4 million
September 09, 2011
The week in startups, September 9, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It’s the day after President Obama’s big jobs speech, and if anyone needed encouragement on the prospects for the U.S. economy, they need not look any further than the tech startup sector. If the flood of funding and acquisitions announcements is any indication, there is no trace of further slowdown in tech. And you know what they say, “what’s good for tech is good for America” (I have no idea if anyone has ever said it, but we all know it’s true).
The most significant news of the week was Google’s acquisition of restaurant review guide Zagat. Once again, Google makes an unexpected, bold and innovative move (reference its YouTube acquisition for the best example of this). Google is a strong player in local for sure. Look out Yelp and other local reviews sites. GE made GreenTech news this week, investing $22 million in energy efficient building maker Project Frog. Other notable funding announcements included an eye-popping $200 million for vehicle transaction data publisher TrueCar and an additional $20 million for medical office innovator One Medical Group.
Continue reading "The week in startups, September 9, 2011…" »
Funding and Acquisitions: Twitter gets a new big chunk of funding, according to reports
September 08, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Google makes another ground-breaking buy, picks up restaurant review guide Zagat
September 07, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Startup Lanyrd raises $1.4 million to build a social media directory
September 06, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Dynamic infrastructure solutions firm Morphlabs secures $5 million in new funding for rollouts in Asia and North America
September 05, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: One Medical Group gets $20 million in new funding for doctors’ offices for the 21st century
September 02, 2011
The week in tech startups, September 2, 2011...
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It was a week that began with the east coast of the U.S. picking up and drying out from Hurricane Irene, and it ended with the dour economic news that zero net jobs were added to the economy last quarter. But the tech startup sector continued to churn out new funding and acquisitions news, albeit at a slower pace than previous weeks (chalk that up to a busy news cycle, Irene and the winding down of summer). IBM was particularly active, with two acquisitions in two days. On Wednesday big blue announced that it had picked up intelligence and investigation management software firm i2, and followed it up with the acquisition of risk management analytics company Algorithmics for a whopping $387 million. It may not be that sexy, and it may have different owners and a different form than the past, but IBM continues to be relevant.
Continue reading "The week in tech startups, September 2, 2011..." »
Funding and Acquisitions: Enterprise cloud scheduling service ShiftPlanning gets seed funding
September 01, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Another day, another acquisition for IBM—a day after buying i2, the computer stalwart snaps up risk management analytics firm Algorithmics for $387 million
August 31, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: European social media platform Ebuzzing gets $25 million and a new name
August 30, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: E La Carte lands $4 million for bringing tablets to the restaurant industry
August 29, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Tapit raises seed round for near field mobile advertising
August 26, 2011
The week in startups, August 26, 2011…
By Brian Kovalesky, StartUp Beat Editor
On a week where natural disasters, an unnaturally bad economy, an almost unthinkable retirement (to some, at least) and a run on HP touchpads dominated the headlines, there was still some significant news in the tech startup world.
The biggest news of the week was arguably two new IPO filings: from online video platform Brightcove and social commerce platform Bazaarvoice (watch the spelling). According to the filings, Brightcove hopes to raise up to $50 million, while Bazaarvoice is aiming for a whopping $86 million. Who knows if this is a good sign for a faltering economy, but these filings certainly suggest some overall confidence in the health of the public markets in light of the recent turbulence.
Funding and Acquisitions: Austin-based social commerce platform Bazaarvoice files for IPO
August 25, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: CouchSurfing raises $7.6 million, becomes a for-profit company
August 24, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Brightcove taking its video platform to public markets, files $50 million IPO
August 23, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Online ad measurement startup Moat secures $1.5 million in new funding
August 22, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Skype picks up GroupMe for $85 million to better compete in group messaging
August 19, 2011
The week in tech startups, August 19th 2011…
By Brian Kov
alesky, StartUp Beat Editor
It was a week that saw harrowing ups-and-downs in global markets, and talk of economic doom-and-gloom. But it was generally business-as-usual for technology startups. The theme of the week was acquisitions, led by Google’s Motorola buy…and then HP’s massive $10 billion acquisition of software firm Autonomy. But some smaller names got into the act as well, proving that (at least some) nimble tech startups may have a brighter outlook on the economy than Wall St. and the punditry.
Perhaps the most notable buy was Chegg’s acquisition of homework help site Student of Fortune (which gets this month’s “Best Name” award). But startups Evernote and HubSpot also opened up their wallets to bolster their product lines. Finally, daily deals startups continued to make news in their quest to compete with Groupon with deals site BuyWithMe’s acquisition of Scoop St. (what’s with the names of these daily deals sites?). In funding news this week, highlights included Chinese luxury brands shopping site Xiu.com’s $100 million round, and cloud-based video licensing platform Thought Equity Motion’s $25 million..it’s a tough sector to play in, but having an additional $25 million helps.
If you haven’t already, check out Jim Anderson’s guest column here on StartUp Beat about Spotify and the freemium business model for music. And check out this week’s StartUp Beat Q&As with with the CEOs of decision making and comparison engine FindTheBest, the ‘Priceline for pet service providers’—Pet It Forward, and SMB ecommerce platform BigCommerce.
Check back on Monday for a new week of featured startups and startup news!
Funding and Acquisitions: Textbook etailer Chegg expands its portfolio with homework help site buy
August 18, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: GoodData lands a $15 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz and existing investors for cloud-based BI
August 17, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Kabbage raises $17 million in Series B funding for its online merchant lending service
August 16, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Daily deals consolidation continues with BuyWithMe’s purchase of Scoop St.
August 15, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Google acquires Motorola Mobility; mobile heats up even more
August 12, 2011
Q&A with TribeHR co-founder and CEO Joseph Fung about making HR a manageable proposition for small businesses and the company's $1M funding round
TribeHR is an SaaS application that enables social human resources management for small-and-medium sized businesses. The Waterloo, Ontario–based company was founded in 2009 and closed a $1 million funding round in late July.
SUB: Please briefly describe what TribeHR is, and the value proposition you offer small-and-medium sized businesses.
Fung: TribeHR is the first truly social human resources management software for small and medium business. The SaaS-based solution is designed to engage employees and managers in the HR process, minimize stress and automate a number of internal procedures that save time and money.
SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?
Funding and Acquisitions: Go Try It On brings in $3 million to help people be more stylish
August 11, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Voxy raises $2.8 million for its innovative language-learning platform
August 10, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Movieclips.com gets $7 million for a new approach to aggregating and viewing movies online
August 09, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: New investments in Groupalia and Bloomspot show that the daily deals sector is still red-hot
August 08, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Professional cloud-based management software firm BigTime closes $2 million Series A
August 05, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Kinvey completes a $2 million funding round to improve the mobile development process
August 04, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Rentcycle collects $1.4 million in funding from an impressive list of investors
August 03, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Among a slew of acquisition and funding announcements, Facebook leads the way with group messaging and digital book (?) startup acquisitions
August 02, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Google buys Offers mapping startup Dealmap
August 01, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: E-commerce management startup BigCommerce lands $15 million in funding
July 29, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Yext nails down an additional $10 million to help businesses manage their local listings
July 28, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Hearsay Social gets $18 million for social media management for brands with franchises or distributed locations
July 27, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Mobile marketing startup Phizzle lands $3 million in Series A funding
July 26, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: LegalZoom closes a $66 million funding round; could an IPO be in the cards?
July 25, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: AirBnb closes a massive $112 million Series B funding round for its short-term home rental marketplace
July 22, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Fanning and Eisner-backed Diversion lands funding from Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures, among others
July 20, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Zillow flies high in first day of public trading
July 19, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Social in-game advertising platform startup SupersonicAds lands $4.3 million
July 18, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Real estate site Move snaps up social profile tool SocialBios
July 15, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Zillow ratchets up IPO pricing to $16 to $18 per share; will trade under the symbol ‘Z’
July 14, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Mobile apps support startup Crittercism lands $1.2 million from Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures, among other big names
July 13, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Localmind tracks down $600K for it’s mobile, location-based Q&A platform
July 12, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Cloud-based website security startup CloudFlare lands $20 million in new funding
July 11, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Local.com snaps up parent company of daily deals startup Screamin’ Daily Deals
July 08, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Mobile marketing startup Kickanotch lands $500K in seed money
July 07, 2011
Featured Startup Pitch: BurstPoint Networks—transforming the scope and reach of enterprise video
Company: BurstPoint Networks
Website: www.burstpoint.com
Founder: Tom Racca, president and CEO
Headquarters: Westborough, Mass.
Year Founded: 2010
Employees: Fewer than 50
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): “BurstPoint, a provider of video communications solutions, helps customers leverage video to communicate with constituents anytime, anywhere.”
By Tom Racca, president and CEO, BurstPoint Networks
Product Overview
Most organizations today have not yet leveraged video to its fullest potential and still do not realize the benefits of doing so. However, with the video and telepresence industries growing exponentially, the opportunities for companies to utilize this technology are virtually limitless. Cost and complexity are two major misperceptions of enterprise video that attribute to its lack of adoption, and we have made it our mission to prove these notions false.
BurstPoint’s flagship product, the BurstPoint Video Communication Platform (VCP), is an end-to-end video content management and distribution system that allows organizations to easily and effectively take advantage of the power of video by combining the elements to create and capture, edit and publish, distribute and deliver, and consume high-definition live and stored video content into a single, integrated platform. The BurstPoint VCP is designed to support small deployments and to cost effectively scale as needed, allowing companies to reach 10 people or tens of thousands with concurrent video streams.
Funding and Acquisitions: Carrier billing startup Zong gets snapped up by eBay for $240 million
July 06, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: App Annie closes a Series A funding round to expand its mobile apps analytics and marketing intelligence offerings
July 05, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: LightSquared raises $265 million for net-neutral wireless broadband network
July 04, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: SHAPE Services acquires mobile app developer CrispApp
July 01, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: New £1 million European startup accelerator launches
June 30, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Cloud startups Graymatics and Gizmox get strategic investments from Citrix
June 29, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Twitter founder’s mobile payments startup Square closes a whopping $100 million funding round; valuation now at $1 billion
June 28, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Social media analytics and tracking continues to heat up as intelligence startup Viralheat raises $4.25 million
June 27, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: NFC startup VIVOtech lands $24 million to enable mobile payments
June 24, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Cloud-based single login id platform OneLogin secures $1.5 million in funding
June 23, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Encore secures $15 million Series A funding for online education
June 22, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: Glympse secures $7.5 million in new funding for selective location sharing
June 21, 2011
Funding and Acquisitions: BestVendor, a reviews site for business vendors, gets $600K in seed funding
June 20, 2011
Featured Startup Pitch: Red Foundry—A team with deep technology experience brings a powerful and cost-effective mobile apps development platform to market
Company: Red Foundry
Website: www.redfoundry.com
Founders: Jim Heising, CEO, and Ron Franczyk, Chief Software Architect, Andrew Newman, CTO
Headquarters: Chicago
Year Founded: 2009
Employees: 14
Investors: I2A Fund and OCA Ventures
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): “Red Foundry is a complete solution for building and managing mobile apps, combining limitless creativity with business agility.”
By Jim Heising, co-founder and CEO
Product Overview: Red Foundry is a complete solution for building and managing mobile apps. Our unified platform enables everything from stunning content-based mobile apps to powerful enterprise solutions, while reducing the mobile app development cycle from months to days. We currently support mobile app development on iOS, including iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and this summer we will release our Android solution for Android phones and tablets.