FUND RAISING: WEEKLY ROUND-UP

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1. Posterous, the blogging platform, has raised $4.4 million in funding

  • Details: Posterous, the blogging platform, has raised $4.4 million in funding . The funds are to be used to expand the team and building “even faster”! Founder and CEO,  Sachin Agarwal, said “Our goal is to become synonymous with “posting” just like Google is synonymous with “search”.”
  • Investors: Redpoint Ventures, Trinity Ventures, SV Angel, Founder Collective, Lowercase Capital, Brian Pokorny, Aydin Senkut, XG Ventures
  • Category: Blog
  • Link: Posterous Blog

2. SmartDate.com raises $2.2 million

3. Arkayne raises $1 million

  • Details: Arkayne, a developer of interactive marketing software that helps businesses improve their online performance and content strategy, has closed its initial round of Angel funding totaling just over $1 million. The seed round was funded by technology entrepreneurs and investors, including the Arizona Technology Investor Forum (ATIF). Arkayne plans to use the infusion of capital, along with revenue from early enterprise customers to fund its growing team of technology, sales and marketing professionals, as well as build out the organization’s infrastructure.
  • Investors: Arizona Technology Technology Investor Forum and others
  • Category: Blog, App
  • Link: Arkayne Blog

4. Perfect Market raises $6 Million

  • Details: Perfect Market, provider of an innovative technology solution that helps publishers create value from their online content, today announced it has raised $6 million of Series C funding. Perfect Market will use the funds to expand its efforts to market and deploy its solution to the broad marketplace of newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters with a web presence and other online publishers.
  • Investors: Led by Tribune Company. Existing investors Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners and Idealab also participated.
  • Location: USA, Altadena, CA
  • Category: Advertising, Technology
  • Link: Company announcement

 5.  Bit.ly raises$1.5 million

6. Reply.com files registration statement with sec for an initial public offering

  • Details: Reply.com has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. Jefferies & Company, Inc. and Piper Jaffray & Co. will act as joint book-running managers for the offering with Needham & Company, LLC and ThinkEquity LLC acting as co-managers. The shares of common stock to be sold in this offering are proposed to be sold by Reply! and certain of Reply!’s stockholders.  The number of shares to be sold in the proposed offering and the offering price have not yet been determined.
  • Financial summary: In the quarter ended December 31, 2009, Reply.com generated over 4.9 million Enhanced Clicks and over 700,000 leads and served over 5,000 advertisers. In the year ended December 31, 2009, Reply.com generated $34.3 million in revenue, $2.5 million of net income, $4.9 million of operating income and $7.3 million of Adjusted EBITDA, compared to $23.3 million in revenue, $3.2 million of net loss, $2.5 million of operating loss and $1.3 million of Adjusted EBITDA in the year ended December 31, 2008, which represents growth in revenue of 47% and growth in Adjusted EBITDA of 452%, respectively.
  • Location: USA, San Ramon, CA
  • Category: Advertsising
  • Link: Form S-1 Registration Statement / Prospectus

HomeAway acquires BedandBreakfast.com

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-345
 
Acquirer:  HomeAway
ACQ Web:  http://www.HomeAway.com
Other Web Links: 
Head Office: USA, Austin, TX
Region:  North America 
Description:  Online vacation rentals, listing almost 430,000 paid vacation rental homes throughout 120 countries. The HomeAway portfolio includes HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; and HomeAway.es in Spain.
Category:  Travel, Rental
Contact:  Brian Sharples, chief executive officer
 
Vendor:  BedandBreakfast.com
Vendor Web:  http://www.BedandBreakfast.com
Location:  USA, Austin, TX
Region:  North America
Description:  Founded in 1995, BedandBreakfast.com is a specialty travel website with detailed information on over 10,000 B&Bs worldwide.  BedandBreakfast.com also owns and operates RezOvation (property management systems).
Category: Travel, Rental
Contact:  Eric Goldreyer, CEO and founder
  
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  HomeAway, Inc. today announced its acquisition of BedandBreakfast.com
 
Link: Press Release

UBM TechWeb acquires Game Advertising Online for upto $8million

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-341
 
Acquirer:  United Business Media
ACQ Web:  http://www.ubm.com
Other Web Links: UBM TechWeb
Location:  USA, New York, NY
Region:  North America
Description 1:  UBM – focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetisation of B2B communities and markets.
Description 2: UBM TechWeb – brands include: global face-to-face events such as Interop, Game Developers Conference (GDC), Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; large-scale online networks such as InformationWeek, Light Reading and Gamasutra; research, training, and certification services, including HDI, Pyramid Research, and InformationWeek Analytics; and market-leading magazines such as InformationWeek and Wall Street & Technology.
Category:  Media owner
Contact:  Tony Uphoff, Chief Executive Officer of UBM TechWeb 
 
Vendor:  Game Advertising Online (GAO)
Vendor Web:  http://www.game-advertising-online.com 
Location:  New Zealand
Region:  Oceana
Description:  Founded in 2006, GAO is a banner advertising agency working for publishers in the online video game industry. Using a self-service, auction-based system, GAO places in-game and banner advertising on leading gaming websites, utilising both cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition business models. GAO provides access to 50 million unique users and delivers over 2 billion advertisement impressions per month through a diverse worldwide network of free-to-play MMORPG (massively multiplayer online game), casual, browser-based and mainstream gaming websites, as well as game community networking sites.
Category: Advertising
 
Aprox. Value:  An initial cash consideration of $1m, with a further performance-related consideration of up to $7m.
 
Details:  United Business Media Limited has acquired Game Advertising Online (GAO) from private ownership on behalf of UBM TechWeb. GAO is expected to generate revenue of approximately $4m in the twelve months to March 2010.
 
Link: Company Announcement

Bloomberg Acquires Clean Energy Data Leader New Energy Finance

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website

ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-265
 
Acquirer:  Bloomberg L.P.
ACQ Web:  http://www.bloomberg.com
Location:  USA, New York, NY
Region:  North America
Description:  Data, news, analytic and trading tools for businesses and financial professionals. BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL®, BLOOMBERG TELEVISION®, BLOOMBERG RADIO®, BLOOMBERG MARKETS®,BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK and BLOOMBERG.COM®
Category:  Trade data, Information
Contact 1:  Peter T. Grauer, chairman
Contact 2:  Beth Mazzeo, head of global data

Vendor:  New Energy Finance
Vendor Web:  http://www.newenergyfinance.com/
Location:  United Kingdom, London
Region:  Europe
Description:  News, data and analysis on renewable energy, carbon markets, energy efficiency, biofuels, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear power. New Energy Finance was founded in 2004 and serves banking, private equity and venture capital investors, asset managers, manufacturers, oil and gas companies, utilities, NGOs, development banks and governments.
Category: Trade data, Information
Contact 1:  Michael Liebreich, chairman and CEO
Contact 2:  Guy Turner, director of carbon market research

Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  Bloomberg Acquires Clean Energy Data Leader New Energy Finance. “New Energy Finance and Bloomberg have complementary expertise and data that will help set new standards, increase market liquidity and provide our customers with incomparable investment tools to establish a global framework for these markets,” said Beth Mazzeo, head of global data at Bloomberg.
 
Link: Press Release