FUND RAISING: WEEKLY ROUND-UP week ending 14th March 2010

 

 

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Last Week’s Fund Raisings

1. Autoquake has raised £6 million

2. Chomp.com has raised £2 million

  • Details: iPhone apps review site Chomp.com has raised £2 million in funding. Launched just 8 weeks ago, Chomp has 300,000 users and 1.5 million reviews.
  • Investors:  BlueRun Ventures, SV Angel partners Ron Conway and David Lee and former SV Angel, now CEO of DailyBooth, Brian Pokorny.
  • Location: USA, San Francisco, CA
  • Category: Apps, Reviews

3. DataXu Secures $11 Million in Series B Funding

  • Details: DataXu, provider of the leading real-time bidding platform for online display advertisers, today announced it has closed $11 million in Series B funding. The proceeds will be used to fund new product development, sales and marketing, and international expansion. John Jarve, Managing Director of Menlo Ventures, will join DataXu‘s board of directors.
  • Investors:  Led by Menlo Ventures. Atlas Venture and Flybridge Capital Partners, who provided DataXu‘s Series A funding in April 2009, also participated in the round.
  • Contacts: Mike Baker, President and CEO of DataXu: John Jarve, Managing Director of Menlo Ventures.
  • Location: USA, Boston, MA
  • Category: Advertising
  • Link: Press Release

4. DoubleVerify Raises $10 Million in Series B Funding

  • Details : Online advertising verification company DoubleVerify has closed a $10 million series B financing round
  • Investors:  Led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). The round included participation from existing DoubleVerify investors. DoubleVerify had previously closed a $3.5 million Series A financing in May 2009 led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from First Round Capital, Genacast Ventures and private investors.
  • Contacts: Oren Netzer, Co-Founder and CEO of DoubleVerify: David Bell, a DoubleVerify board member: Dennis Phelps, General Partner of IVP: David Blumberg, Managing Partner, Blumberg Capital
  • Location: USA, New York, NY
  • Category: Advertising
  • Link: Company Announcement

5. FirstRain raises $7.3 million

  • Details: FirstRain, a business that offers a research engine that intelligently filters information and trends from the web about companies, the markets they operate in, and the business trends impacting their market, has raised $7,296,727 of a $8,815,242 equity round.
  • Contact: Penny Herscher, President and CEO
  • Location: USA, San Mateo, CA
  • Category: Research, Search
  • Link: Regulatory Filing

6. LivingSocial Raises $25 Million

  • Details: LivingSocial, the social commerce business behind LivingSocial Deals and Facebook applications Visual Bookshelf and Pick Your Five, has completed a $25 million Series B round of venture funding. With this round of funding, LivingSocial Deals is launching in four additional cities: Chicago, Denver, Raleigh Durham and San Diego, making the program live in 13 markets across the USA
  • Investors:  Led by U.S. Venture Partners, with Grotech Ventures and Steve Case’s Revolution, LLC participating
  • Contact: Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO of LivingSocial
  • Location: USA, Washington D.C.
  • Category: Ecommerce
  • Link: Company announcement

Competitor news on Fusion DigiNet: Groupon has raised a Series B financing round of $30 million, 2nd December 2009.

7. Plancast has raised $800,000

  • Details : Worldly Developments, the consumer internet startup behind Plancast has raised $800,000. The founders are Mark Hendrickson (who previously worked at TechCrunch) and Jay Marcyes.
  • Investors:  SoftTechVC, True Ventures, Founders Fund Angel, and Zelkova Ventures. As well as individual angels, Aydin Senkut, Saul Klein, David Cohen, Joshua Schachter, Dave McClure, Dan Martell, Ron Bouganim, and Paige Craig.
  • Location: USA, San Francisco, CA
  • Category: Social Network
  • Link: TechCrunch

8. SeaWell Networks Secures $7 Million in Series A Funding

9. Todacell secures additional $1 million funding from existing investor

  • Details: Todacell, the mobile display ad network for optimizing publisher ad performance, has raised an additional $1 million round of funding. Monies from this round of funding have been earmarked for sales and marketing, with five new sales offices opening in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London and Bombay.
  • Investors:  Raised from existing investor AfterDox. Previously Todacell has secured $2 million from AfterDox and others, including $350,000 seed funding from the Fore Group.
  • Location: Israel, Tel Aviv
  • Category: Advertising, Mobile
  • Link: Company Announcement

10. TripIt receives $7M third round of funding

  • Details: TripIt, the trip management company, has closed a third round of funding, receiving $7 million from a group of investors. These funds will be used to accelerate TripIt‘s cloud-based web service to reach more business travellers, as well as new services for mobile and enterprise collaboration at global companies.
  • Investors:  Led by Azure Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. TripIt has now received $13.1M in total investment, including $1M when it launched in 2007, $5.1M in 2008, and $7M in this third round of funding, which was oversubscribed by interested investors.
  • Location: USA, San Francisco, CA
  • Category: Travel
  • Link: Press Release

Fund Raising News

  1. Berlin: Team Europe Ventures starts €6 million investment fund for Internet start-ups, Reported on Fusion DigiNet on 10th March 2010.
  2. Battery Ventures Closes $750M Fund
  • Details: Battery Ventures, a multi-stage investment firm focused on technology and innovation worldwide, today announced that is has closed its ninth fund, BV IX, at its $750M target. BV IX Will focus on Technology-Related Investments from Seed to Growth Equity and Buyouts. The firm invests worldwide, with the majority of its investments in North America, Israel and India.
  • Location: Battery Ventures invests out of offices in Waltham, MA, Menlo Park, CA and Herzliya, Israel. 
  • Link: Press Release

HootSuite Acquires Android Developer Swift App

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:  F231109-354
 
Acquirer:  HootSuite Media
ACQ Web:  http://hootsuite.com
Other Web Links: Twitter
Location:  Canada, Vancouver
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  HootSuite helps organizations use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels. Using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.
Category:  Apps, Social Network
Contact:  Ryan Holmes, CEO 
 
Vendor:  Swift App
Vendor Web:  http://www.swift-app.com
Other Web Links: Twitter
Location:  USA, New York, NY
Region:  North America
Description:  A company focused on developing social media applications for Google’s open mobile platform, Android.
Category: Apps
Contact:  Sebastian Delmont, Developer

Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  HootSuite Media, Inc. have acquired Swift App, Inc. a company specializing in Android™ App development, notably their flagship product “Swift App,” a Twitter client for Android. The acquisition means quicker development for the growing Android market and is a show of support for the emerging mobile platform. The acquisition sees Swift App developer Sebastian Delmont joining HootSuite as a mobile adviser.
 
Links: 

Evri acquires Twine.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:  F231109-353
 
Acquirer:  Evri
ACQ Web:  http://www.evri.com
Other Web Links: Twitter
Location:  USA, Seattle, WA
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  Search and discovery engine that filters the real-time web for news and conversations that matter and distills them into intelligent information streams. Evri is funded by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital.
Category:  Search
Contact:  Will Hunsinger, CEO
 
Vendor:  Radar Networks including it’s flagship property, Twine.com
Vendor Web:  http://www.twine.com
Location:  USA, San Francisco, CA
Region:  North America
Description:  Online service for intelligently finding, organizing and sharing information with the people you trust. Radar Networks is backed by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, Fuse Capital, and DFJ, as well as leading angel investors
Category: Search
Contact:  Nova Spivack, CEO
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  Evri has acquired Radar Networks including it’s flagship property, Twine.com. Radar Networks CEO Nova Spivack said in his blog entry about the acquisition “I am positive about the future for Twine and Evri. I really do believe that Vulcan Capital and Evri have the vision, and the deep pockets, necessary to execute on the long-term vision of the Semantic Web and the work we have done so far at Twine”. Mr. Spivack will continue to be affiliated with Evri in an advisory capacity and the Radar Networks team will consolidate to Evri’s San Francisco offices.
 
Links 

Online photo editor Picnik Acquired by Google

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:  F231109-352
 
Acquirer:  Google
ACQ Web:  http://www.google.com
Location:  USA, California
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, video sharing
Category:  Search
Contact 1:  Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman & CEO
Contact 2:  Brian Axe, Product Management Director  
 
Vendor:  Picnik
Vendor Web:  http://www.picnik.com
Other Web Links: Blog
Location:  USA, Seattle, WA
Region:  North America
Description:  Picnik gives users the power to edit digital photos in their browser, without having to purchase or download complicated software.
Category: Photography
Contact 1:  Jonathan Sposato, CEO
Contact 2:  Darrin Massena, Co-Founder, CTO
Contact 3:  Mike Harrington, Co-Founder, COO
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  Google has acquired Picnik. Google says in it’s blog that they are not announcing any significant changes to Picnik, though they will be working  on integration and new features. They also say that they will continue supporting all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks.
 
Links: 

Other recent Google acquisitions

ngmoco acquires iPhone game-maker Freeverse (also raises $25M)

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 & FUND RAISING
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-350
 
Acquirer:  ngmoco
ACQ Web:  http://www.ngmoco.com
Other Web Links: Twitter 
Location:  USA, San Francisco, CA
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  ngmoco creates and publishes games for the iPhone.
Category:  Games
Contact 1:  Neil Young, CEO, Founder
Contact 2:  Bob Stevenson, Founder
Contact 3:  Alan Yu, Founder
Contact 4: Joe Keene, Founder
 
Vendor:  Freeverse
Vendor Web:  http://www.freeverse.com
Other Web Links: Twitter
Location:  USA, New York, NY
Region:  North America
Description:  Freeverse develops and publishes seamless software, with a particular concentration on the Mac and iPhone platforms. The Freeverse portfolio includes Skee-Ball, Moto Chaser, Flick Fishing, SlotZ Racer, Flick Bowling and NBA Hotshot.
Category: Games
Contact 1:  Ian Lynch Smith, President
Contact 2:  Colin Lynch Smith, Vice President
Contact 3:  Dino de Cespedes, Chief Financial Officer

Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  ngmoco, the  iPhone and iPod touch game developer and publisher, has acquired game-maker Freeverse. ngmoco also announced Series C funding of nearly $25 million. Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Maples Investments and Norwest Venture Partners.
 
Link: Press Release

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

Google has acquired DocVerse

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:  F231109-349
 
Acquirer:  Google
ACQ Web:  http://www.google.com
Location:  USA, California
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, video sharing
Category:  Search
Contact:  Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman & CEO
 
Vendor:  DocVerse
Vendor Web:  http://docverse.com
Location:  USA, San Francisco, CA
Region:  North America
Description:  Real time sharing and simultaneous group-editing of Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word documents
Category: Technology
Contact 1:  Shan Sinha, co-founder , CEO, Photograph
Contact 2:  Alex DeNeui, co-founder, CTO, Photograph
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed. $25 million.according to the WSJ
 
Details:  Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has acquired DocVerse. From the DocVerse blog, “We fundamentally believe that Google is one of the best positioned companies to truly disrupt the world of productivity software.  We’re looking forward to the opportunity to scale our vision at Google.  Our first step will be to combine DocVerse with Google Apps to create a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps”.
 
Link: DocVerse Blog
  
Related Fusion DigiNet articles

MedCAREERS GROUP has signed an LOI to acquire physician staffing industry website StaffMD

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:  F231109-348
 
Acquirer:  MedCAREERS GROUP
ACQ Web:  http://www.medcareersgroup.com
Location:  USA, Atlanta, GA
Region:  North America
Description:  Online pacement site devoted exclusively to the healthcare industry.
Category:  Recruitment
Contact 1:  R. Bryan Crutchfield, Chairman and CEO
Contact 2:  C. John Dean, Chief Financial Officer
 
Vendor:  StaffMD
Vendor Web:  http://www.physicianwork.com 
Location:  USA, Homosassa, FL
Region:  North America
Description:  StaffMD operates primarily under the name www.physicianwork.com, but it has other operating assets as well.  StaffMD was founded ten years ago by Jeffrey Sisk. StaffMD has most of the major physician staffing companies as clients who use www.physicianwork.com to advertise their job listings.
Category: Recruitment
Contact:  Jeffrey Sisk, CEO, Founder
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  MedCAREERS GROUP, Inc. has signed a letter of intent to acquire StaffMD an online job posting website in the physician staffing industry.  StaffMD operates primarily under the name www.physicianwork.com, but it has other operating assets as well.  StaffMD was founded ten years ago by Jeffrey Sisk and he will remain with the Company after the closing of the pending acquisition. The transaction is subject to due diligence and execution of definitive documentation which the parties expect to be finalized within 60 days. 
 
Link: Press Release

Atex is buying the 80% stake in Kaango owned by MediaNews and Hearst Corp.

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:  F231109-347
 
Acquirer:  Atex
ACQ Web:  http://www.atex.com
Location:  UK, Reading
Region:  Europe
Description:  Atex is a supplier of software systems and services  to the media industry. Atex was founded in Massachusetts in 1973.
Category:  Advertising
Contact 1:  David Montgomery, Atex Head of Global Product Development
Contact 2:  Douglas Drane, founder
Contact 3:  Charles Ying, founder
Contact 4: Richard Ying, founder
 
Vendor:  Hearst Corporation and MediaNews Group
Business Sold: Kaango
ACQ Web: http://www.kaango.com
Location:  USA, Greenwood Village, CO
Region:  North America
Description:  Kaango, which launched its first affiliate site in 2006 and currently serves more than 200 publishers in the U.S., provides a technologically advanced Web-based software platform to syndicate and publish its media partners’ print and online classified ads.
Category: Advertising
Contact 1:  Michael Kranitz, the  founder and former CEO of Kaango
Contact 2:  Joe Conti, COO
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed (Hearst Corporation and MediaNews Group paid $20 million for 80 percent of Kaango in November 2007)
 
Details:  Atex is buying the 80% stake in Kaango owned by MediaNews and Hearst Corp. Both companies will retain a minority stake in Kaango. Michael Kranitz, the  founder and former CEO of Kaango, will continue to work with Atex. Kaango’s product development team will remain based in Denver, CO as part of Atex’s global development resources. Joe Conti will act as Kaango’s COO and he will continue to manage the day-to-day operations in Denver.
 
Link: Company Announcement

Playdom acquires Facebook developer Offbeat Creations

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:  F231109-346
 
Acquirer:  Playdom
ACQ Web:  http://www.playdom.com
Location:  USA, Mountain View, CA
Region:  North America
Description:  Playdom‘s lineup of games includes Sorority Life, Mobsters 2, Lil Farm Life, Tiki Farm, Tiki Resort, Wild Ones and Poker Palace.
Category:  Computer Games
Contact:  John Pleasants, CEO 
 
Vendor:  Offbeat Creations
Vendor Web:  http://offbeat-creations.com 
Location:  USA, Bellevu, WA
Region:  North America
Description:  Developer and publisher of entertainment software on social media platforms. Super Farkle, the newest version of the hugely popular dice game has over one million monthly active users.
Category: Computer Games
Contact 1:  Chia Chin Lee, founder
Contact 2:  Robert Reichner, founder
Contact 3:  Tom Fakes, founder
  
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  Playdom, a  social gaming company,  acquired Facebook developer Offbeat Creations, a  developer and publisher of entertainment software on social media platforms.
 
Link: Press Release