Ad.ly raises $5 million

May 12, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Ad.ly an advertising platform on Twitter where people get paid for tweeting about products and services from brands has raised $5 million.

According to TechCrunch, the round was led by GRP Partners with Greycroft Partners and Matt Coffin (the founder of LowerMyBills) participating.

Arnie Gullov-Singh, previously EVP of product, technology and operations at News Corp’s Fox Audience Network, is appointed as CEO and founder Sean Rad will become President.

Location: USA, Los Angeles, California

Ref: F231109-428

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Swipely raises $7.5 million

May 11, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Swipely, an online service that gives users an easy way to turn their purchases into conversations, has completed a $7.5 million Series A round of financing.

On Swipely, every purchase is a “swipe.” Users can rate their swipes and add comments or photos. Many swipes are geo-located automatically to specific store locations. Swipely also supports product details by integrating catalogs and menus from more than 250,000 retail and restaurant locations, allowing users to start conversations around specific outfits, meals, songs, movies, gadgets and millions of other products.

The round was led by Index Ventures, with Greylock Partners and previous investor First Round Capital also participating. Danny Rimer of Index Ventures will join Swipely’s board of directors, and Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners will serve as an observer on Swipely’s board.

Swipely will use the funding to continue to grow the team and explore other benefits for consumers and businesses, including new ways for users to shop, share and save, and new tools to help businesses attract, understand and reward customers.

Other Swipely investors include Lowercase Capital led by Chris Sacca, former head of special initiatives for Google; Keith Rabois, EVP of Slide, and former PayPal and LinkedIn executive; SV Angel led by Ron Conway, legendary investor; Anton Commissaris, previously SVP of revenue and business development at Mint.com and now director at Intuit; Lee Hower, venture capitalist and angel investor; Charles Moldow, former Tellme executive; and Emil Michael, White House Fellow and former Tellme executive. Davis is also a significant investor in the company.

To date, Swipely has raised $8.5 million in funding.
Location: USA, Providence, Rhode Island

Ref: F231109-427

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Woozworld raises $3 million

May 11, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Woozworld, a virtual world for tweens (ages 9-14) with over 350,000 members and one million user-generated virtual spaces, has raised $3 million Series A financing round.

With this new funding, Woozworld will be spinning off from virtual world developer Tribal Nova Inc., which incubated and launched Woozworld in December, 2009, to become a standalone entity.

iNovia Capital and ID Capital, a division of Telesystem Group, led the funding. Chris Arsenault of iNovia Capital and Daniel Cyr of ID Capital will be joining its Board of Directors.

Location: Canada, Montreal

Ref: F231109-426

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Dice Holdings acquires online and career events business WorldwideWorker

May 11, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Dice Holdings, a provider of specialised career websites for professional communities, has acquired WorldwideWorker, the online and career events recruiter for engineers and professionals in the energy industry worldwide.

“The acquisition of WorldwideWorker delivers on two important parts of our growth strategy: international growth and new vertical expansion,” said Scot Melland, Chairman, President & CEO of Dice Holdings, Inc. “WorldwideWorker is a well-regarded player in the highly-attractive energy sector. The global nature of the energy business allows us to leverage both our cross-border recruiting expertise and our international infrastructure.”

Based in Dubai, WorldwideWorker is widely known for its extensive international resume database and its recruitment events held at industry-leading conferences. More than 400,000 energy professionals have registered with WorldwideWorker and two-thirds of those are based in Asia, Africa or the Middle East.  Nearly half of WorldwideWorker’s candidates have at least ten years experience.  

“Our common goal is to help hiring managers and recruiters find the best possible talent most efficiently. Speed-to-hire is critical in the energy industry,” said Frederik Rengers, CEO of WorldwideWorker.  “Pairing the experienced Dice team with our extensive energy-industry knowledge will drive the growth of WorldwideWorker and deliver significant value to our customers.”

The purchase price consists of initial consideration of $6 million in cash.  Additional consideration to a maximum of $3 million in cash is payable upon the achievement of certain operating and financial goals over the next two years.

Ref: F231109-425

Posted in B2B Services, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Energy & Environmental Services, Internet Media, ~Middle East & Africa, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

HelloWallet raises $3.6 million in Series A funding

May 7, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Personal finance website HelloWallet has secured $3.6 million in Series A funding, led by Grotech Ventures along with an investment by Jean and Steve Case.

HelloWallet helps users track and proactively manage their personal finances by looking forward to proactively uncover savings opportunities and potential threats for its members. Unlike many financial management sites, HelloWallet does not allow banks to advertise or promote products, so its trusted recommendations are not influenced by any business interests.

“This round of funding reaffirms the value and potential of our service and will allow us to accelerate the accessibility of HelloWallet across a broad spectrum of the US population,” says Matt Fellowes, CEO and Founder of HelloWallet.

Location: USA, Washington,
Ref: F231109-424

Other Grotech investment deals reported on Fusion DigiNet

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Criteo secures $7M investment From Bessemer Venture Partners

May 7, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Criteo, a company that offes display ad retargeting to eRetailers that are frustrated with spending vast amounts of money to acquire traffic only to have visitors leave their site without making a purchase, has raised $7 million in a Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), bringing Criteo’s total funding to $24 million.

“As a global investor, we have been actively monitoring the technology landscape in Europe and following Criteo for a long time. Their breakthrough retargeting technology, ability to execute and world class management team are very impressive,” said Byron Deeter, partner at Bessemer, who also joins Criteo’s board of directors with the announcement. “We believe Criteo is in a unique position to play a major role in reshaping the rapidly evolving online advertising landscape.”

“Adding proven investors that understand our market and can support our hyper growth, gives us a strong competitive advantage as we build momentum in the U.S. market,” said JB Rudelle, CEO and founder of Criteo. “Bessemer has a history of identifying revolutionary companies. Furthermore, from the very start of our discussions, they have been extremely proactive to bring value to our business.”

Location: Criteo’s corporate headquarters were recently relocated from from Paris, France to Palo Alto, CA, USA
Sectors: eRetail, Internet
Ref: F231109-423

Other Bessemer Venture Partner deals reported on Fusion DigiNet:

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Groupon acquires mob.ly

May 7, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Online local deal discounter Groupon, who closed funding in April at a huge $1.2 billion valuation, has acquired mob.ly, a mobile-development firm led by former Yahoo! Senior Director of Product Management Mihir Shah and Yishai Lerner, former Director of Engineering at Carrier IQ. Mob.ly launched Goodrec, the mobile recommendation service, in September 2008. They have built mobile applications for several leading brands, such as OpenTable and Yahoo!

Details of the deal were not disclosed. The announcement said that the core of Groupon’s mobile team comes through the acquisition.

Location: USA, San Francisco, CA
Sectors: Internet
Ref: F231109-422

Related articles:

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GfK invests in research for digital media – SirValUse Consulting and nurago

May 7, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

GfK Group is further expanding its digital strategy With an investment in SirValUse Con-sulting, the user experience consultancy and nurago suppliers of technology for digital brand, media and usability research worldwide,

SirValUse Consulting was founded in May 2000 and specialises in the area of user experience and usability. SirValUse investigates and optimizes the user friendliness, utility value and design of websites, software, consumer electronics, mobile applications, mobile devices and industrial manufacturing technology.

GfK saus it now has a share of 40% in SirValUse Consulting and nurago, effective as of May 4. Together, SirValUse Consulting and nurago employ around 120 members of staff in Hamburg, Hanover, Berlin, Munich, London and Beijing. In 2009, the total sales of the two companies amounted to approximately EUR 6.5 million. Clients include numerous international companies from the service, retail and industrial sectors, including Google, Deutsche Telekom, OTTO, eBay, LG and Samsung.

Announcing the deal Wilhelm R. Wessels, Member of the Management Board of GfK SE, said “The clear strategic direction of GfK in the area of digital media is further cemented through our cooperation with nurago and SirValUse. We are working on new joint projects in order to link our comprehensive data on consumer behavior even more strongly with findings from online research.”

Location: Germany, Nuremberg
Ref: F231109-421

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UBM Global Trade acquires selected Centradex assets

May 6, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

UBM Global Trade today announced the acquisition of selected Centradex assets to complement its PIERS global trade information services.

PIERS, the business intelligence service for import and export waterborne and intermodal trade data will leverage the Centradex technologies to further develop product offerings for its clients.  Centradex’s three main products, Prospects, Trade Stats and Dashboard will be integrated.

“Centradex is a logical fit to our PIERS business due to their technology expertise, industry knowledge and advanced data analytics,” says John Day, Chief Executive Officer of UBM Global Trade.  “Centradex also represents the investment that UBM continues to make in the organization to propel the company to new levels of unprecedented growth.”

PIERS has recently introduced a number of technology upgrades including PIERS TI 3.0, a new version of iPIERS, the company’s flagship product and the PIERS Enterprise System.  According to Gavin Carter, Executive Vice President of PIERS and CIO of UBM Global Trade, “the acquisition of Centradex directly strengthens our Software as a Service (SaaS) strategy which we continue to develop and refine.  Clients are demanding greater capabilities to do more with their trade data and Centradex provides an immediate platform for our clients to begin extracting more value out of their current and future services.”

Locations: USA, Newark, NJ
Sectors: Market Data
Ref: F231109-419

Related articles:

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Newsy raises $2 million

May 5, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Newsy, a division of Media Convergence Group, has raised its second round of funding of $2 million. Newsy is a multisource video news service that analyzes the world’s news coverage – highlighting the key differences in reporting. Newsy operates Newsy.com – its mobile offerings include an iPad app, as well as apps for Android-based smart phones and Intel Atom-powered netbooks.

The funding, raised from angel investors, “will allows us to build revenue, distribution and marketing partnerships; grow our news operations; and deliver a remarkable product for our viewers and our customers,” said Newsy President Jim Spencer.

Locations: USA, Columbia, MO
Sectors: Internet
Ref: F231109-418

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