Venture Funding News

This blog features news about startups receiving funding and VC firms.

January 25, 2012

Joyent Completes $85 Million Funding

Telefonica Digital, the growth arm of global telecom leader Telefonica, is also participating as a strategic investor. Cloud-based services are a key focus area for Telefonica's new Digital unit, and Joyent's technology expertise in this area will help Telefonica enhance its product offering.

Existing Joyent investors include El Dorado Ventures, Epic Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Intel Capital, and Liberty Global.

"This investment is further proof of our ambition in the area of cloud services and is in line with our strategy of working with leaders like Joyent, which is poised to vastly improve the way computing is carried out worldwide," said Matthew Key, Chairman & CEO, Telefonica Digital. "Joyent's technology fits perfectly with technologies developed in-house and our cloud services model, and enables us to provide more competitive offerings to a broader range of customer segments."

Joyent is a global cloud computing and systems software provider that offers an integrated technology suite designed for enterprises and developers. JoyentCloud.com delivers public cloud services to some of the most innovative companies in the world, including LinkedIn, Gilt Groupe and Kabam.

Skyfire Fuels Up With $8 Million

"Skyfire's Rocket Optimizer product is delivering an average of 60 percent savings for operators on video bandwidth," said Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. "We welcome the participation of Verizon, which is renowned for its network planning sophistication."

Rocket Optimizer 2.0, the latest iteration of Skyfire's powerful carrier-grade network video and data optimization platform, was launched in October 2011. With mobile video demand expected to rise steeply over the next three years, Rocket 2.0 aims to help carriers solve capacity issues linked to the rapid rise of mobile video streaming. The solution offers real-time optimization of mobile video to enable smoother streaming, and can be applied to specific cell towers or backhaul regions as soon as congestion is detected. Rocket Optimizer 2.0 also offers the broadest support for video formats, including the world's first instant MP4 optimization (which comprises more than 50 percent of today's mobile video, including most HTML5 and iOS video). By leveraging cloud computing power, Skyfire's solution is highly cost effective to scale on both 3G and 4G LTE networks.

January 17, 2012

AppDynamics Raises $20 Million

"Cloud computing is a once-in-a-generation IT shift, and AppDynamics is rapidly becoming the management platform for IT teams to manage the operational complexities of cloud-based application architectures," said Jyoti Bansal, Founder and CEO of AppDynamics. "The continued strong interest from top-tier investors is a great validation of our vision, our market opportunity, and our growth story. The application management market has multiple billion dollars of annual IT spending and AppDynamics is well poised to become the leading solution in the market. The support and expertise of Matt and the Kleiner Perkins team will be critical as we continue to expand our business."

AppDynamics is the leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and on-premise application performance management for modern application architectures in both the cloud and the data center. The company delivers solutions for highly distributed and agile environments, helping companies such as Netflix, Priceline, TiVo, ZipRealty, Taleo, and Swisscom monitor, troubleshoot, diagnose, and scale their production applications. Over 60,000 people have downloaded AppDynamics Lite, the company's free Java troubleshooting solution, and the company was recognized as a Gartner APM Innovator.

January 11, 2012

Aria Diagnostics Secures $52.7 Million

Additionally, Aria's laboratory facility in San Jose, has received initial Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA) certification. Administered under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), CLIA establishes quality standards for all laboratory testing to ensure the accuracy, reliability and timeliness of patient test results.

"As our name implies, Aria is positioned to be a standout performer as we seek to improve the way in which cfDNA can be analyzed to identify the risk of genetic disorders in the fetus," said Ken Song M.D., CEO of Aria Diagnostics. "We are encouraged by the interest in our company and strong financial support we have received, and the initial CLIA certification brings us one step closer to delivering a simple, objective blood test that will benefit pregnant women and their healthcare providers."

Aria Diagnostics, Inc., is a molecular diagnostics company committed to providing safe, highly accurate and affordable prenatal tests for maternal and fetal health. Led by an experienced team, Aria is using its proprietary technology to perform a directed analysis of cell-free DNA in blood. Aria s simple blood test equips pregnant women and their healthcare providers with reliable information to make decisions regarding their health, without creating unnecessary stress or anxiety.

Bridgewave Scores $10.3 Million

The round was led by Intel Capital and Morgan Creek Capital Management, with full participation from existing investors Core Capital Partners and Cipio Partners.

"This investment will allow us to ramp up production of our carrier-grade wireless backhaul products as we go into 2012," said Amir Makleff, BridgeWave president and CEO. "As mobile operators and carriers continue to see a substantial increase in traffic due to data-hungry mobile devices, they will turn to systems like ours to meet their network needs."

December 28, 2011

SOASTA Raises $12 Million

SOASTA's CloudTest Platform is the world's largest platform for testing the performance of web and mobile applications at scale. Since introducing the first cloud-based performance testing platform in 2008, the company has continued to innovate and transform the performance testing market by delivering unprecedented testing speed, scale and affordability through its products and services. The company recently expanded its award-winning CloudTest Platform with functional test automation to deliver the first platform that both software developers and non-programmers can use to build and execute complex functional tests.

"SOASTA created the Cloud Testing category in 2008, introduced the first global test cloud in 2010 and we continue to lead the field in terms of innovation and customers," said Tom Lounibos, SOASTA CEO. "With major business increasingly conducted across the web and mobile Internet, the performance and reliability of consumer-facing websites and mobile applications matters today more than ever to companies. With this new round of funding we will continue to provide industry leading testing solutions, ensuring that our customers can adequately test their applications and deliver the highest possible quality and performance to their consumers."

BlueSprig Rounds Up $10 Million

BlueSprig is led by serial entrepreneur and CEO Jason Johnson, managing partner at Founders Den, co-founder of Rethink Books, former vice president of marketing for Global IP Solutions (acquired by Google) and previous co-founder and CEO of InterQuest Communications (acquired by Darwin Networks).

BlueSprig is also releasing full versions of its system utility tools, JetBoost and JetClean, which were launched in beta earlier this year. JetBoost ensures top PC performance by automatically prioritizing and ending processes as well as providing three boost modes -- game, work and custom -- to best meet the demands of user activities. JetClean optimizes and protects PCs by removing registry errors, deleting junk files, removing invalid shortcuts, cleaning activity traces such as cookies, surfing history, auto-fill passwords and traces of other programs to protect users' privacy, and much more. Both apps are available for Windows-based PCs.

December 2, 2011

Rumble Secures $15 Million Series A

Rumble is planning to develop free-to-play games that are instantly accessible and playable across a variety of devices and social networks, all while offering the deep engagement of console games. In addition to creating its own games, Rumble will offer the world's leading independent developers a publishing platform that empowers them to focus on what they do best -- making great games.

"Every early stage company with big ambitions needs great investors and we feel blessed to have added two world class organizations to the Rumble family," said Greg Richardson, CEO of Rumble. "We have a shared belief that the future of games is in creating experiences as engaging and entertaining as the most beloved console franchises, delivered to fit the digital lifestyle of today's consumers."

Rumble, formed earlier this year, has already built one of the most experienced teams in the gaming industry. Richardson, previously CEO of Bioware/Pandemic, vice president and general manager of EA Partners and formerly of Elevation Partners, brings more than 15 years of gaming expertise to the company. The executive team, which includes Mark Spenner, David O'Connor and John Yoo, has a combined 70+ years of experience from gaming giants such as Electronic Arts, BioWare, Activision and Zynga.

November 11, 2011

Virident Closes $21 Million Series C

This funding announcement is coupled with the Company's announcement of its next generation flagship product today, Virident FlashMAX, the industry's first SCM storage device that delivers enterprise-class reliability with built-in flash-aware RAID and data-access speeds an order of magnitude faster than hard disk-drive storage systems and other flash-based storage solutions.

"Virident's FlashMAX SCM flash storage solution is a game-changing technology," said Kumar Ganapathy, CEO and cofounder, Virident Systems. "Until now, there hasn't been a flash storage solution that has proven to deliver predictable high performance over time and across diverse workloads. Virident has changed that, and we believe our technological breakthrough, combined with this strategic alignment with data center leaders, positions us to fundamentally impact IT."

To date, Virident has raised $50 million in equity funding. The additional funds will be utilized for market expansion and product innovation as Virident continues to set new standards for sustained, predictable high performance across a wide range of workloads and maximum storage capacity utilization over years of use.

Pivot Medical Raises $32 Million

"Pivot Medical was founded to deliver new technologies that dramatically advance the field of minimally invasive hip restoration, and we are meeting this commitment with a comprehensive line of innovative, highly differentiated products that will enable physicians to successfully treat their hip pain patients while preserving the delicate and complex hip anatomy," said Jack Giroux, president and chief executive officer of Pivot Medical. "We are gratified to have the confidence and support of two additional top-tier investors as we expand our reach in the United States and Europe."

November 3, 2011

Coraid Lands $50 Million

"In the era of big data, virtualization and cloud computing, the $30 billion data storage industry is ripe for disruption. Coraid has cracked the code on delivering unmatched price-performance and simplicity, and they've proven this value with more than 1,500 customers," said Jim McLean, partner at Crosslink Capital. "More importantly, Coraid has developed a uniquely elastic and automated storage architecture that can replace multiple tiers of legacy storage. We'e extremely pleased to join the team."

Coraid EtherDrive storage arrays harness the power of massively parallel Ethernet and the scale-out CorOS operating system to deliver faster performance than Fibre Channel, at about one-fifth the cost. EtherDrive storage arrays can be deployed in less than 60 seconds and present themselves to servers as direct-attached storage. Coraid recently announced the acquisition of cloud orchestration software vendor Yunteq to enable policy-based automation of storage, networks, and security for public and private clouds.

Kaggle Secures $15 Million

"Kaggle is working on one of the most exciting opportunities in big data analytics that I've seen in the last twenty years," said Vinod Khosla, founder and partner, Khosla Ventures. "Kaggle's platform has the potential to change the way we tackle data analysis problems. Organizations can pose their toughest challenges to thousands of the world's most talented data scientists who compete for the best answers. This is a fundamental shift in how we've traditionally looked at the multi-billion dollar market for data analytics. Add competition among the best scientists, their egos on a leaderboard, and large challenging problems, and you've got the perfect mix for stellar innovation. "

October 27, 2011

RelayRides Raises $13 Million

The GM Ventures investment comes on the heels of the automaker's recent announcement of an exclusive partnership with RelayRides that is launching in early 2012. Through an innovative technology integration, RelayRides will leverage OnStar-enabled GM vehicles to allow RelayRides borrowers to unlock reserved cars with their mobile phones. For vehicles not equipped with OnStar, RelayRides can install a small device to provide borrowers with convenient access to the car. All eligible OnStar vehicles are "RelayRides ready," with no hardware installation needed.

The new investment, as well as the GM partnership, will fuel RelayRides' aggressive expansion beyond the San Francisco and Boston regions into other U.S. markets.

"The RelayRides/GM partnership gives us an unprecedented opportunity to grow the RelayRides marketplace, and this funding will help us realize a goal of introducing carsharing to a whole new group of drivers," said RelayRides Chief Executive Officer Andre Haddad. "Whether it's by helping a car owner make a few bucks renting out their vehicle or by giving the budget-conscious motorist an affordable driving alternative, the partnership allows us to bring the benefits of the RelayRides community to millions of new users in the U.S."

RelayRides is the world's first peer-to-peer carsharing marketplace. RelayRides connects people who need a car with vehicle owners whose rides would otherwise be sitting idle. Owners earn on average $250 per month. The company backs its service with a $1 million insurance policy and features proprietary, best-in-class technology for a convenient, secure and smooth exchange.

4INFO Rakes In $14 Million

4INFO also announced that AdHaven will spin out as a separate division focused solely on mobile advertising technology and sales, with a new Web site at http://www.adhaven.com . This division will continue development of the AdHaven Mobile Audience Platform, data and channel partnerships, and the AdHaven Audience Network. With the most advanced targeting and data capabilities available in the mobile industry, AdHaven is the first platform to bridge the gap between offline, online, and mobile. AdHaven is also the only platform that can serve 360-degree mobile advertising campaigns across the mobile Web, rich media, mobile video, applications, tablets, and SMS.

The newly-formed AdHaven division will also be responsible for continued integration with a growing list of platform partners seeking to bridge the identification gap between online and mobile, including consumer data partners, publishers, app developers, inventory exchanges, demand side platforms (DSPs), supply side platforms (SSPs), trading desks, real-time-bidding (RTB), and other inventory and ad-sources.

"It is time for the mobile advertising industry to catch up with the targeting and data capabilities that media buyers demand from online advertising," said Zaw Thet, CEO of 4INFO. "This is the future of mobile, what we call mobile 2.0, because it forces everyone to rethink mobile advertising. With AdHaven, we bring the first real audience targeting to the mobile ecosystem through proprietary partnerships with leading publishers, ad-sources, inventory providers, and online and offline data providers. This makes advanced audience and behavioral targeting and analytics in mobile as easy as it is on the Web."

October 18, 2011

Dropbox Secures $250 Million Series B

The financing was led by Index Ventures and includes participation from new investors Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greylock Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, RIT Capital Partners, and Valiant Capital Partners. Early investors Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Hadi and Ali Partovi also participated. Dropbox has received a total of $257.2 million in funding.

"Our goal has always been to build a service that hundreds of millions of people would love and trust. We're inspired by the consumers and businesses who depend on Dropbox, and we will continue to make sure that the world's devices, services, and apps work together seamlessly," said Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. "We're thrilled to have such world-class investors joining forces with us."

Box.Net Closes $81 Million Investment

Box is one of the fastest-growing enterprise applications of all time, with 7 million individuals and 100,000 businesses using its service to share and manage content in the cloud, and 250,000 new users joining each month. The company has experienced tremendous traction in the enterprise, with adoption in 77 percent of the Fortune 500, and large deployments with companies including AAA, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, and McAfee, as well as an 18,000-seat deal with Procter & Gamble. Box has also rapidly scaled its team from 125 to nearly 300 employees in 2011 to date, including key senior hires from companies such as Cisco, EMC, Microsoft, NetSuite, and Oracle.

"Businesses of all sizes are moving their information and collaboration to the cloud, and with this new capital we'll support their transition by continuing to aggressively out-innovate legacy players like Microsoft," said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box. "We're redefining how enterprises share and manage content on Box, while also building a powerful, open ecosystem of partners and developers to help our customers get more value and flexibility from their information than ever before possible."

In November, Box plans to launch (the Box Innovation Network), a major initiative designed to support and grow an ecosystem of next-generation enterprise applications that bring new value to enterprise information. The program will drive innovation in what has been a historically slow moving market by providing funding, consulting and other resources to developers that are passionate about transforming the way people work. Today, Box integrates with 120 applications, including leading cloud solutions including Salesforce, SAP StreamWork, Google Apps and NetSuite. Box will also use the new capital to expand its international presence, and to further build out its infrastructure in the U.S., opening a third data center in 2012.

September 27, 2011

Simpirica Spine Closes $22 Million Round

Simpirica Spine was founded in 2006 to develop minimally invasive, flexion-restricting stabilization devices for the spine. Flexion (forward bending) of the lumbar spine can lead to pain or instability for more than 400,000 patients per year worldwide. Outside the U.S., the LimiFlex Spinal Stabilization System is typically used in conjunction with a surgical decompression for the treatment of lumbar spinal stenosis, with or without degenerative spondylolisthesis. The LimiFlex device provides spinal stabilization for patients who could benefit from additional stabilization in flexion. The LimiFlex Spinal Stabilization System is CE marked for use in Europe but still limited to investigational use in the U.S.

"The closing of this round validates the venture community's continued confidence in Simpirica Spine's team and its ability to fulfill the promise of flexion-restricting stabilization to improve clinical outcomes for patients and surgeons around the globe," said Austin Noll, president and CEO, Simpirica Spine. "

Yammer Raises $17 Million

Yammer has grown at a rapid pace. It has been adopted by over 100,000 businesses in 160 countries in less than three years, including employees at more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500. Major corporations such as 7-11, Ford, Southern Company, Shell and SuperValu have deployed Yammer this year, proof that enterprise social networking is entering the mainstream.

The company said it is expanding rapidly internationally to meet global demand for its product, and the additional funding will be used to scale operations across its offices in San Francisco, London and Melbourne. The company is actively hiring employees in sales, engineering and customer support.

September 16, 2011

Softbank Invests $200 Million in InMobi

Softbank joins existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures in helping InMobi become a global leader in the mobile advertising industry. The $200 million investment, one of the largest to date in the mobile internet space , will help the company create value across the mobile ecosystem globally through world-class advertising, mobile payments using SmartPay!", and HTML5 rich media production and distribution using the recently acquired Sprout!" platform.

Naveen Tewari, Founder & CEO of InMobi, said: "The size of the investment and quality of investor validate the enormous potential in mobile today and strengthen our role in helping the industry evolve. We have already established ourselves as a leader in mobile advertising on every continent. This is just the beginning. With a global leader like Softbank behind us, we are now well positioned to fully capitalize on the opportunity before us through substantially increased product innovation, deeper market penetration, and acquisitions across the mobile ad value chain."

"I am delighted at this opportunity to partner with InMobi, one the world's largest mobile ad networks", said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of Softbank. "I hope the partnership with InMobi, a fast-growing startup with significant mobile expertise and an outstanding technology platform; will further accelerate the pace of development in the mobile Internet space globally. We believe this partnership will help Softbank become the No. 1 Internet company in Asia and I look forward to working with the InMobi team."

This partnership will provide Softbank and InMobi with opportunities to further explore global scale collaboration in the fast growing mobile ad market. It is also expected to generate further synergies between InMobi and Softbank, given the significant number of prominent Asian Internet companies in Softbank's investment portfolio.

John Doerr, Managing Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said: "InMobi is a rapidly growing company in one of the most explosive technology sectors. InMobi delivers extraordinary value to publishers and advertisers globally. They are a leader in the mobile advertising revolution."

Red Robot Labs Nabs $8.5 Million Series A

Last month at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle, Red Robot Labs unveiled its inaugural location-based, massive multiplayer online mobile game, Life Is Crime, in which players collaborate and compete to commit virtual crimes at real locations. Over the PAX weekend the Convention Center location was the scene of more than 20,000 crimes, over 1,000 hospitalized criminals, $1M in contraband trafficked, and $35M robbed, stolen and laundered.

"We recognized the enormous opportunity presented by location gameplay on mobile devices -- location games are very sticky. We've developed a significant game and platform strategy that appeals to both core gamers and casual audiences seeking a high quality social gaming experience built around their daily routines," said Mike Ouye, CEO and Co-Founder of Red Robot Labs.

The company was founded in January 2011.

August 31, 2011

RootMusic Raises $16 Million

Since its launch less than a year and a half ago, BandPage has grown to over 30 million monthly active users, making it the #1 music app on Facebook and the 6th largest overall app according to AppData. BandPage has established itself as the primary platform for music on Facebook in the same way Zynga has for games. With monthly users up nearly 10x from January 2011, BandPage is the solution for bands and artists across all genres to connect directly with their fans on Facebook. Artists such as Rihanna, Katy Perry, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, and Kanye West as well as 250,000 bands around the world use BandPage to support and build their businesses online.

According to Founder and CEO J Sider, "Every person at RootMusic is dedicated to the artist, fan and innovative technology. We work every day to continually improve the BandPage platform. We speak directly to artists, labels, and management companies and are always open for their feedback -- this product is for them and we're just getting started."

Druva Closes $12 Million Round

Druva, founded in 2007, has amassed more than 750 customers and protects more than 300,000 endpoints worldwide. Its InSync product is an industry-first application that delivers near-instantaneous automated backups of laptop computers - with ten times the speed of competitive offerings - while enabling simple one-click restores of any file or backup volume from a Web browser or iPhone/iPad/Android device. The product offers unobtrusive backups over any network - LAN, WAN or VPN - and is WAN-optimized for the mobile user.

August 5, 2011

Lending Club Gets $25 Million Investment

"We have a long history of helping develop large online networks," said Fred Wilson, managing partner, Union Square Ventures. "We believe Lending Club will surpass the largest US banks in the next decade both in size and performance because it leverages the power of the network to grow faster, get smarter and become increasingly more efficient over time."

"We are thrilled to welcome Union Square Ventures as an equity partner," said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. "While we did not need additional funding, we could not pass up the opportunity to work closely with the USV team and their network of companies. USV will be instrumental in continuing to accelerate Lending Club's growth and in leveraging our technology platform and network effect to simultaneously reduce the cost of credit to borrowers and enhance investors' returns."

Lending Club brings together investors and creditworthy borrowers, utilizing technology to reduce the cost and complexity of traditional lending in order to provide borrowers with better rates and investors with better returns. Focusing on prime and super-prime quality borrowers enables Lending Club's investment platform to generate over a 9.5 percent Net Annualized Return, while offering consumers an APR well below traditional alternatives for similar borrowers.

Lending Club recently surpassed $325 million in total loan originations and is now issuing over $20 million in prime consumer loans each month.

July 26, 2011

Airbnb Secures $112 Million Series B

“Over the past three years, we’ve built a community marketplace for unique properties and brought it into the mainstream and into almost every country on the planet,” said Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. “Today is a watershed moment – both for Airbnb as a company and for our community – that will enable us to touch new markets and expand our vision to make the world’s most interesting and inspiring places accessible to our users.”

Airbnb has experienced explosive growth over the past year, doubling the benchmark of 1 million nights booked in just four months. The company now has over 2 million nights booked, receives over 30 million page views per month and has seen the number of Airbnb Social Connections triple to 54 million since launching the feature in May. As the company poises itself to meet the growing demand in international markets like Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Brazil, this investment will help position Airbnb as the leader in the broader vacation rental market in 2012.

Founded in August 2008 and based in San Francisco, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique spaces around the world online or from an iPhone. Airbnb is the easiest way for people to showcase their distinctive spaces to an audience of millions whether the available space is a castle for a night, a sailboat for a week, or an apartment for a month. Airbnb makes the process of listing or booking a space effortless and efficient. With listings in more than 16,000 cities and 186 countries, Airbnb offers the widest variety of unique spaces for everyone, at any price point around the globe.

July 22, 2011

Tango Raises $24 Million

Tango has seen explosive growth since its launch on September 30, 2010, adding one million new people to the service every two weeks. Eighteen million people in 190 countries currently use Tango to make free mobile video calls wherever they are.

As one of the first investors in Skype, we see the enormous opportunity in front of Tango,  said Timothy Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Mobile is the new frontier and Tango simply has the best technology and product to allow people to make free video calls on their smartphones, tablets, and now the PC. We were so impressed with their team, technology, and aggressive product roadmap. Mobile video calling is the big trend of the year and we re excited to see where Tango will take it. 

Tango is the leading mobile video communications company that enables you to connect with friends and stay closer to family in a way that is fun, easy, spontaneous, and fits the occasion. Tango's free service offers the highest-quality video calls for iPhones, 70+ Android phones and tablets, and works over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Tango has tens of millions of connected users in 190 countries, and delivers millions of minutes of voice and video calls a day, of which 80% are video.

Tango was founded in September 2009.

July 11, 2011

Tapjoy Closes $30 Million Series D

Over the past year, Tapjoy has experienced rapid growth and expansion as mobile application developers, advertisers and consumers embrace its technology and the Tapjoy model for the discovery, distribution and monetization of mobile applications. This additional funding will enable the company to continue to accelerate its innovative product technology roadmap, expand its direct advertiser relationships, broaden its services, and aggressively pursue new opportunities.

"We are delighted to receive such outstanding support from our existing top-tier investors and to have attracted J.P. Morgan Asset Management to support our growing momentum. It is a strong vote of confidence in our technology, our people and the Tapjoy model," said Mihir Shah, president and CEO of Tapjoy. "Our products deliver value to all parties within the mobile ecosystem by promoting the right mobile application to the right consumer at the right time. We enable developers to create innovative content that is able to get discovered, while also allowing advertisers to engage with the largest targeted mobile audience across Android, iOS, WP7 and HTML5 apps."

The company's turnkey in-app advertising platform helps developers acquire cost-effective, high-value new users, drive engagement within their applications, and create incremental income by providing an ad-funded payment method. The Tapjoy network spans over 9,000 applications and 200 million global consumers on iOS, Android and emerging mobile platforms, delivering more than 1.5 million advertising completions per day to application developers and advertisers.

June 30, 2011

Square Rounds Up $100 Million

Square launched in early 2010 as an innovative way for individuals and businesses to accept payments on their mobile devices using an elegant and easy-to-use card reader and application. The company has seen widespread adoption since its launch and helped hundreds of thousands of businesses across the country to grow with its free hardware.

"Square has a great product with extensibility which we believe has the potential to have a lasting impact on how people make payments," said Mary Meeker, Partner at KPCB. "Square's product is fast, easy and fun for both consumers and vendors; a small business can be up and running within minutes."

“Square is eager to continue our momentum and we are proud to have the support and expertise of KPCB among our team of investors and advisors,” said Jack Dorsey, Square CEO. “Our goal is to empower everyone to accept payments anywhere, and we are on course to accelerate our growth in a meaningful way.”

Square currently offers three products; the Square reader, register and card case. The Square reader takes only minutes to set up and enables anyone to accept payments anytime and anywhere on their iPhone, iPad and Android phones. The Square register for iPad serves as a full point of sale system for businesses to accept payments, track inventory, and share menu and location information. The Square card case is the neighborhood way to pay that enables individuals to open a tab at their favorite local merchants, store digital receipts, and browse nearby directory and menu listings.

June 23, 2011

Touchstone Scores $12 Million Series A

Touchstone Semiconductor was the only semiconductor company in Silicon Valley to receive Series A funding in the year 2010. The investment is being used for research and development, marketing, and sales for Touchstone s growing family of high-performance analog integrated circuits.

"We are proud to be the only semiconductor company in the Silicon Valley to receive Series A funding last year. Our investors recognized that the highly fragmented $40 billion analog market offers a tremendous opportunity for sustained growth," said Brett Fox, president and CEO of Touchstone Semiconductor. "We believe the combination of our extremely talented and committed team, industry expertise and proven business strategy will enable us to build a highly profitable company."

Touchstone Semiconductor creates high-performance analog IC solutions that solve critical problems for electronics companies. Touchstone's second-source products are pin-compatible, specification identical solutions, offering customers a long-awaited alternative source for hard to get sole-sourced products. Touchstone's proprietary products provide unique combinations of features and performance that cannot be found from any other supplier. Founded in 2010, Touchstone is headquartered in Milpitas, CA.

June 19, 2011

Lumosity Raises $32.5 Million

Lumosity's online brain exercises have grown in popularity across a broad base of users. In the last four years over 14 million people have joined Lumosity, with 8 million joining in the last year alone. The company has paying subscribers from over 180 countries, and revenues have grown 25% quarter-over-quarter since its launch in 2007.

Created by neuroscientists from Stanford University, Lumosity offers personalized training programs customized to the needs of each user. Several peer-reviewed science publications have found Lumosity to be effective in improving core cognitive abilities such as working memory, visual attention and fluid intelligence. Long-term use of the site by all age groups and nationalities has led to the largest and most comprehensive database of human cognition ever compiled, which Lumosity uses to further improve its training programs. Lumosity currently has research collaborations underway with over 25 academic institutions, including all of the top five neuroscience programs in the United States.

"As a company, we're energized by the success stories of our customers and how Lumosity has helped them achieve their goals," said Kunal Sarkar, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lumosity. "We hear from professionals who advance their careers more quickly, students who can now pay attention well enough to succeed in school, or others who simply report being more sharp and confident in everyday life. These are the outcomes that motivate us each day, and the additional capital will allow us to broaden our R&D efforts and help create a better user experience across our web and mobile offerings."

June 11, 2011

Coupons.com Clips $200 Million

"This investment will help fuel our growth, as we continue to revolutionize the multi-billion dollar coupons industry that, for decades, has relied predominately on newspapers for distribution," said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com Incorporated. "As newspaper readership continues to decline and more consumers are looking online for savings, digital coupons are gaining significant momentum, transforming an industry and offering consumers innovative options to save on the more than half a trillion dollars spent on grocery items alone in the U.S. every year."

Coupons.com intends to hire an additional 100 employees in 2011 to grow its nearly 300 person staff by more than a third in just six months. The company expects the growth to come across the organization but primarily in its engineering, sales and client marketing departments.

The company also plans to expand internationally.

Infineta Systems Attracts $15 Million

"Both emerging and established companies are adopting new technologies at a brisk pace to keep up with data growth, while seeking ways to expedite data collection, analysis, and distribution to generate more revenue, gain competitive advantage, and shorten time to market," said Raj Kanaya, co-founder and CEO of Infineta Systems. "We are pleased to receive this investment and validation from Rembrandt Venture Partners, along with our existing investors, who clearly recognize this rapidly growing market opportunity. We look forward to helping our customers manage their Hyper-scale WAN workflows more efficiently and cost-effectively using our groundbreaking product offering."

May 17, 2011

ShoeDazzle Slips On $40 Million

ShoeDazzle delivers personalized monthly shoe, handbag and jewelry selections to members by its team of top celebrity stylists. The company, which was founded by Brian Lee, Robert Shapiro, MJ Eng, and Kim Kardashian, who serves as the site's Chief Fashion Stylist, was launched in March 2009 and now boasts nearly one million Facebook fans.

The $40 million in funding, which brings ShoeDazzle's total investment to date to $60 million, will allow the company to further advance its innovative, industry-leading model and provide existing and prospective members with greater high fashion choices while continuing to deliver the high touch service and affordability customers have grown accustomed to receiving. The latest round of funding will permit the company to expand its market share with new categories and continue to dominate the category it pioneered with new product launches both within and outside the US.

"Andreessen Horowitz seeks out investments in market leaders," said Brian Lee, Founder of ShoeDazzle. "This significant investment is a strong endorsement of our business model, strategy and management team and gives us the capital to continue to grow and innovate in the social shopping arena."

The Andreessen Horowitz-led investment represents ShoeDazzle s largest round of financing. ShoeDazzle had two previous venture-based rounds. Polaris Venture Partners was its initial investor in November 2009 with $7 million, with Lightspeed Venture Partners leading a $13 million round in April 2010. Both firms participated in the latest round.

Demandbase Secures $10 Million

The round of funding was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, a leading venture firm with a 50 year track record of investing in technology based startups, and included participation by existing investors Sigma Partners, Altos Ventures, and Adobe Systems. The funds will support the rapid adoption of the technology by large enterprises and partners, and further expansion of the data network globally.

May 25, 2011

Hara Raises $45 Million

The funding will allow Hara to accelerate global expansion and product innovation, to meet growing demand from Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies for solutions to help optimize energy and resource use while minimizing environmental impact.

Hara is adding new strategic investors as it advances its growth plans across industries including manufacturing, utilities and oil and gas. These investors include -- through Energy Technology Ventures -- world-renowned advanced technology, services and finance company GE; ConocoPhillips, the third-largest integrated energy company in the U.S.; NRG Energy, owner and operator of one of the largest power generation portfolios in the nation; and ITV, the venture capital arm of leading Japanese trading group ITOCHU which has also entered into a strategic partnership with Hara to serve clients in Japan. The funding supports Hara's global focus as an industry leader and is a testament to the adoption, comprehensiveness and scalability of the Hara Environmental and Energy Management (Hara EEM) solution.

Jobvite Million Gets $15 Million

Jobvite provides social recruiting technologies on a subscription basis that work across social networks. The company's enterprise solutions are proven to perform at the scale and with the reliability required by world-class companies. Jobvite's social recruiting solutions lead the market in their proven ability to drive referral hires. Jobvite enables jobs to be shared across social networks, on websites and via email not just by recruiters and hiring managers but by every employee of its client companies.

"The widespread adoption of social media is changing how people find jobs," said Dan Finnigan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jobvite. "We are leading the way to provide the new technologies companies need to find and engage quality employees where they socialize. This investment will allow us to accelerate the reshaping of the multi-billion dollar online recruitment market."

May 17, 2011

ShoeDazzle Slips On $40 Million

ShoeDazzle delivers personalized monthly shoe, handbag and jewelry selections to members by its team of top celebrity stylists. The company, which was founded by Brian Lee, Robert Shapiro, MJ Eng, and Kim Kardashian, who serves as the site's Chief Fashion Stylist, was launched in March 2009 and now boasts nearly one million Facebook fans.

The $40 million in funding, which brings ShoeDazzle's total investment to date to $60 million, will allow the company to further advance its innovative, industry-leading model and provide existing and prospective members with greater high fashion choices while continuing to deliver the high touch service and affordability customers have grown accustomed to receiving. The latest round of funding will permit the company to expand its market share with new categories and continue to dominate the category it pioneered with new product launches both within and outside the US.

"Andreessen Horowitz seeks out investments in market leaders," said Brian Lee, Founder of ShoeDazzle. "This significant investment is a strong endorsement of our business model, strategy and management team and gives us the capital to continue to grow and innovate in the social shopping arena."

The Andreessen Horowitz-led investment represents ShoeDazzle s largest round of financing. ShoeDazzle had two previous venture-based rounds. Polaris Venture Partners was its initial investor in November 2009 with $7 million, with Lightspeed Venture Partners leading a $13 million round in April 2010. Both firms participated in the latest round.

Demandbase Secures $10 Million

The round of funding was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, a leading venture firm with a 50 year track record of investing in technology based startups, and included participation by existing investors Sigma Partners, Altos Ventures, and Adobe Systems. The funds will support the rapid adoption of the technology by large enterprises and partners, and further expansion of the data network globally.

May 11, 2011

JiWire Raises $20 Million Series C

The funding round was led by Trident Capital based in Palo Alto, California. Existing investors Comcast Interactive Capital, DFJ Frontier, Norwest Venture Partners and Panorama Capital also participated in the financing. With the current funding, total capital raised to date is $45 million.

The new capital will be used to aggressively extend JiWire's leadership position in location-based advertising. The areas of growth include broadening its investment in new ad technology and products, pursuing additional M&A opportunities, such as its recent acquisition of NearbyNow, and further expanding internationally, having already entered the U.K. market last year.

"We're delighted that Trident Capital has heartily endorsed our leadership position and momentum in location based media," said David Courtney, JiWire's chief executive officer. "We are in a period of phenomenal growth, leveraging location to transform the advertising market. We have our sights set on enhancing our proprietary data technology, expanding our unique and extensive distribution network and providing revolutionary ad products for our growing client base of leading advertisers to locationize their brands."

Disqus Rounds Up $10 Million

The company says it has grown more than 500% over the past 12 months with traffic, users and communities. Disqus is close to receiving 500 million unique visitors per month. There are 750,000 websites using Disqus to power their comments area with about 35 million participating in discussions.

Disqus was founded in 2007 and has 16 employees.

May 3, 2011

Peel Opens Up $16.7 Million Financing

"Peel is at the forefront of a profound shift in how people watch television and we are proud to be a part of the Peel team," said Ravi Mhatre of Lightspeed Venture Partners. "Peel is the 21st century way to interface with TV. It enables discovery, control and sharing of living room entertainment in a very slick and simple way. It will revolutionize how entertainment is consumed in the living room."

Founded in 2009, Santa Clara-based Peel previously raised its Series A investment with Redpoint Ventures, known for its successful endeavors in consumer entertainment and interactive media including Netflix and TiVo. Satish Dharmaraj from Redpoint led the Series A round. Michael Dearing from Harrison Metal led Peel's Seed round, along with Mitch Kapor from Kapor Capital and Steve Anderson from Baseline Ventures. Several of these Seed investors, along with Redpoint Ventures participated with Lightspeed in the Series B round.

Peel eliminates the need for complicated TV listings, multiple remotes and the hassle of switching component inputs. The Peel "fruit" seamlessly controls the entire entertainment system including your TV, cable box, Blu-ray player, AV receiver, Apple TV, Roku and more. Peel has a free app for Apple iPhone and iTouch users.

April 14, 2011

VideoSurf Raises $16 Million

"Our technology allows consumers to easily discover what to watch on any device from the infinite amount of videos available," said Lior Delgo, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of VideoSurf. "This funding gives us the resources to scale the company as we continue to hire the best talent and invest in our technology."

VideoSurf's patent has been awarded for its proprietary technology that analyzes all frames within a video to visually identify prominent objects at a speed not previously possible. This analysis occurs 10 times faster than the speed of video playback and enables VideoSurf to know more about the video content. "The online video market is growing exponentially and now can be accessed on TV as well as mobile devices," said Eitan Bek, a Partner at Pitango Venture Capital. "We have great faith in Lior and his team and see big potential for VideoSurf."

VideoSurf reaches over 20 million unique users per month. The company was founded in 2006 by a team of proven entrepreneurs and leading experts in search, computer vision and fast computation, who came together to develop advanced solutions for video discovery.

Sugar Inc. Gets Sweet With $15 Million

Sugar intends to use the funds for brand extensions, acquisitions, and international growth in pursuit of its goal of becoming the world's largest media company focusing exclusively on women's lifestyle. This round brings Sugar's total funding to $46 million.

Sugar is the online leader in original content, social media, and commerce targeting trendsetting women, with a global audience of more than 20 million. The company has two business segments focusing on original content and commerce with a portfolio of brands including PopSugar.com, ShopStyle.com, PopSugarCity.com, and Fashionologie.com. Sugar has 190 employees and operations in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia.

"On the eve of our five-year anniversary, Lisa and I are proud of the success and rapid growth we have demonstrated to date," said Brian Sugar, founder and CEO of Sugar. "In the last year we achieved significant milestones, including growing our audience to over 20 million unique visitors per month, driving over $250 million in commerce to our partners, and reaching profitability for the full year. We are excited with the opportunities ahead of us as we continue to pioneer the combination of content and commerce."

March 17, 2011

Jawbone Secures $49 Million

The funding, which brings total investment to date in Jawbone close to $100 million, will allow Jawbone to expand and innovate on its portfolio of premium mobile products and services which are available today in over 20 countries worldwide. Jawbone is one of the largest venture capital- backed consumer electronics companies in the world.

“We believe the future of consumer tech is about unlocking the full potential of the mobile lifestyle,” said Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman. “We all carry photos, movies, music, email, games and apps in our pocket every single day. Now that mobile is our new hub, our vision is to create ways for people to get the most out of those experiences.”

The company is the creator of the award-winning and best-selling premium ICON Bluetooth headset; the inventor of NoiseAssassin technology, the world's first and only military-grade noise- eliminating technology; JAMBOX, the first intelligent wireless speaker and speakerphone; as well as THOUGHTS, a free mobile service that allows users to utilize their voice in a new way.

March 9, 2011

Credit Sesame Raises $6.15 Million

Credit Sesame is the only free online service that helps consumers monitor their debt and credit information as well as the lending market, all in one place. The service helps consumers optimize their entire credit and loan portfolios, including mortgages, consumer loans, and credit card debt. In just minutes, Credit Sesame provides a complete picture of a consumer's credit and debt and regularly sorts through thousands upon thousands of loans, mortgages and refinancing options to find personalized offers that help consumers save money. Launched in public beta in November 2010, Credit Sesame already is helping consumers better manage nearly half a billion dollars in loans.

"Credit Sesame fills the gap between high-end wealth managers and low end credit counseling by serving the vast majority of Americans who want to make smart credit and loan decisions, save money on their mortgages and loans, and reach their financial goals in an objective and scientific way," said Adrian Nazari, founder and CEO of Credit Sesame. "This new round of funding will allow us to expand our services and extend our reach to millions of people who can greatly benefit from our free service. With so much conflicting credit, debt and mortgage information on the web, average consumers don't have the right tools to understand where they stand financially and how they can improve their situation. Credit Sesame changes all of that, for free."

March 1, 2011

Box.Net Packs Up $48 Million

The financing includes $38 million in equity from the new and existing investors, along with a $10 million commitment from Hercules TGC.

Box finished 2010 with over 5 million users and 3.4X business revenue growth, driven by adoption of its cloud content management platform by enterprise customers like DreamWorks, Cisco and Dell. 60,000 companies, including 73% of the Fortune 500, use Box to share, access and collaborate on business content online, as well as from iPads, iPhones and Android devices. The company began the year by unveiling an all-new version of its service, bringing enhanced collaboration and real-time capabilities to users, along with a dramatically simplified user interface.

"With this new capital and our current momentum, Box is positioned to redefine an industry, much as Salesforce.com has done for CRM and NetSuite for ERP," said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO, Box. "We want to bring Box's cloud content management to businesses of all sizes, all over the world; we'll aggressively outperform legacy software solutions on cost, flexibility, user experience, and speed of innovation, while pushing on our freemium business model to make it incredibly easy for individuals and companies alike to adopt Box."

February 24, 2011

Transphorm Completes $20 Million Series C

Inefficient electric power conversion results in hundreds of terawatts of lost energy across the electrical grid, equivalent to 318 coal-fired power plants and costing the U.S. economy $40 billion a year. Leveraging breakthroughs in modern materials and a world-class team, Transphorm's ultra-efficient and cost-competitive power modules eliminate up to 90 percent of all electric conversion losses. From HVACs to hybrids, from servers to solar panels, Transphorm enables significant energy savings across the grid.

"We founded Transphorm to re-imagine what enhanced efficiency in the generation and use of electrical energy can do for our economy," said Umesh Mishra, CEO of Transphorm. "Why put up with needless energy waste in every electrical system and device, when we can quickly and cost-effectively design products that are inherently energy efficient? Transphorm's next-generation power modules cut waste, increase efficiency, reduce system size and simplify overall product design."

"Solving the enormous problem of power waste will create immediate, long-term shared value for Transphorm's customers and investors," said Randy Komisar, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "It was imperative for our firm to get behind Transphorm because it is the first company with a viable, commercial-scale solution to energy losses associated with high-voltage power conversion."

Transphorm delivers custom-designed power modules that are easy to embed in virtually any electrical system, from consumer electronics products, to industrial motor drives, to inverters for solar panels and electric vehicles, and sells these modules to power equipment manufacturers. The company will unveil its first product at the upcoming APEC conference, taking place in Fort Worth, TX from Mar. 6 -10, 2011.

February 14, 2011

Cooliris Raises $9.6 Million

"With over 35 million downloads of our iconic Cooliris 3D Wall, we've established a good beachhead in media browsing, and now with our newest release of LiveShare we are transforming the group media sharing experience," commented Soujanya Bhumkar, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. "The Cooliris team, which includes our investing partners, is poised to deliver the next-generation communication service for content discovery."

"With the market for multi-touch devices exploding, consumers are now expecting rich and immersive experiences in applications beyond games. Cooliris is positioned to leverage its immersive media platform with LiveShare to enable awesome media sharing across devices and the web," said Frank Gibeau, Cooliris Board member and President, EA Games Label, Electronic Arts Inc.

January 11, 2011

Turn Lands $20 Million Round

All of Turn's previous investors, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, Shasta Ventures and Focus Ventures, took their full pro rata shares in the round. "We've been impressed by the tremendous growth of the company, driven in large by its innovation and scalable infrastructure,  said John Avirett, Principal at Greenspring Associates. "It's clear that Turn represents the future of media and data management with its unprecedented technology and advanced understanding of digital marketing."

Delivering thousands of campaigns annually and analyzing billions of impressions daily, the Turn Media Platform offers a highly scalable, automated and interoperable solution for privacy compliant data-driven digital advertising. From its centralized self service platform and through Turn's optimization algorithms and real-time analytics, marketers automate media buying and audience targeting across many inventory sources to achieve campaign performance, delivery, and custom audiences at scale.

"Our ability to innovate has led to our significant increase in the breadth and depth of our strategic client relationships and more than doubling our revenues year-over-year," said Bill Demas, President and CEO at Turn. "With this additional capital, we will invest in three areas: building a highly scalable global infrastructure, continuing to develop disruptive technologies and growing our business internationally."

January 5, 2011

Bleacher Report Completes $10 Million Series C

The funding round caps an auspicious 12 months for Bleacher Report during which the site welcomed more than 10 million new monthly users (from 6 million in Dec. 2009).

"This investment is an important next step in the evolution of Bleacher Report's innovative publishing model and is crucial to achieving our goal of becoming the next great sports content experience across all digital media," said CEO Brian Grey. "We are proud that the team at Crosslink and our other investors led by Hillsven Capital share that vision and are empowering us to continue to pursue it."

Bleacher Report had raised $7.3 million through the close of its last round in June 2009.

December 28, 2010

Soladigm Secures $30 Million in Funds

“Soladigm is on a mission to bring high-quality Dynamic Glass to the market at affordable prices to drive widespread market adoption and reduce energy consumption in buildings while improving the wellbeing of occupants. The ingenuity, hard work, and dedication of Soladigm’s employees have enabled us to make significant advancements in our technology in a short time,” said Dr. Rao Mulpuri, CEO of Soladigm.

Last month, GE selected Soladigm as one of 12 business partners for investment and commercial partnerships through its ecomagination Challenge, a $200 million challenge for entrepreneurs, innovators and students to share their best ideas on how to build the next-generation power grid.

December 16, 2010

Twitter Receives $200 Million Investment

Twitter has become one of the fastest growing Internet companies in the world. Over the past 12 months, Twitter users sent an astonishing 25 billion Tweets according to the company and has added more than 100 million new registered accounts. In that time, the number of employees has grown from 130 people to more than 350 today.

According to Bloomberg, the $200 million investment values the company at around $3.7 billion. Twitter was founded in 2007.

Mike McCue and David Rosenblatt are also joining Twitter's Board of Directors.

Other investors in Twitter include T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Insight Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.

December 13, 2010

Waze Rounds Up $25 Million

The company plans to use the funds to expand its headquarters in Silicon Valley and relocate to a larger office. It also plans to increase hiring to scale and improve its service.

Waze says it has over 2.2 million users. The company also has offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.

December 1, 2010

Yammer Raises $25 Million

Yammer has experienced dramatic growth since launching in September 2008. The company now has more than 1.5 million verified corporate users, including employees at more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500.

The new funding will help the company capitalize on this momentum by rapidly scaling its operations. Yammer plans to triple the size of its engineering team and significantly grow its sales organization. In addition, with Yammer now in use in 136 countries, the company will open offices in Europe and Australia in response to global demand.

"Yammer has defined -- and is the fastest-growing company in -- the category of Enterprise Social Networking," said Yammer CEO David Sacks. "This financing recognizes our leadership and positions us to accelerate the execution of our ambitious product roadmap and global expansion plans."

Racktivity Racks Up $8 Million

Racktivity also announced the opening of its U.S. headquarters in Redwood City.

While establishing and expanding its sales presence in the U.S. and Europe, Racktivity plans to deliver its Rack Controller power distribution unit (PDU), integrated with the company's comprehensive energy and uptime management software platform, to the U.S. market during the first quarter of 2011. Racktivity's integrated solutions are intended to substantially improve uptime and reduce energy consumption, costs and carbon emissions of data centers.

"Racktivity's management team has a well-established track record of innovating, building and growing successful companies. We believe the team's compelling vision for the next-generation power distribution framework brings new levels of energy savings and uptime improvements to data centers," said Nicolas El Baze, a general partner at Partech International, a leading venture capital firm that has been investing in IT innovators in the U.S. and Europe for more than two decades.

"We are delighted to be partnering with a top global venture firm like Partech," said Marco DeMiroz, president and CEO of Racktivity. "We focus on the physical layer of the cloud, combining advanced PDUs with an open and extensible software platform to reduce energy consumption and improve uptime by measuring and managing their power use -- while seamlessly integrating with data center applications."

November 30, 2010

Abiquo Closes $10 Million Series B

Abiquo is the leading provider of Cloud management software that enables Enterprises and Service Providers to extend the capabilities of virtualized environments and to create and manage private, public and hybrid Clouds. Abiquo's unique approach combines autonomous Virtual Enterprises with Global Infrastructure Management and extensive Business Policy to fully empower users and increase agility, significantly improve utilization and reduce cost, while strictly adhering to the governance, compliance and security needs of the organization.

"We are delighted that Balderton Capital has provided such powerful shareholder support, alongside our existing investors Nauta Capital and Eurecan, the venture arm of Caja Navarra," said Pete Malcolm, Abiquo's CEO. "We look forward to drawing upon Bernard Liautaud's unsurpassed expertise in building a global software business as we consolidate Abiquo's position as the leading software company in the growing Cloud management market."

Payvment Rounds Up $6 Million

Following Payvment's initial year of explosive growth, the new funding will position the company for its next phase of development. In its first year, Payvment has signed up more than 40,000 global retailers to use its social commerce platform, recognized by eCommerce Awards for Excellence 2010 with the eCommerce Site Innovation Award. Payvment currently offers more than 750,000 searchable products and is adding hundreds of retail storefronts and thousands of products to Facebook per day.

Christian Taylor, founder and chief executive officer of Payvment, said, "This round of funding further solidifies Payvment's position as the leading social commerce platform on Facebook."

Over the next few months, Payvment will be hiring top talent in engineering, online community support, marketing, product integration, retail coordination and other areas. To accommodate the increase in headcount, the company will be cutting the ribbon on a new headquarters in Palo Alto, CA in the first quarter of 2011.

November 15, 2010

Twilio Raises $12 Million Series B

Twilio is the first company to offer telecommunications as a cloud-based pay-as-you-go service, providing simple tools for software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls and text messages. Twilio's developer community includes over 20,000 customers, who have built a variety of applications, including web-integrated call centers, notification systems, survey tools, group messaging, workflow automation, office collaboration and more.

"The future of communications is being built by a new breed of innovators - including Twilio s developer community, and notable products Google Voice and Skype," said Jeff Lawson, CEO and Co-Founder of Twilio. "With their history of investments in this space, Bessemer is the perfect partner to help Twilio continue shaking up the world of communications. "

Twilio powers highly reliable, scalable communications applications for larger companies including Salesforce, Ebay, and Media Temple, and provided the scalable infrastructure for a variety of applications for the Democratic National Committee in last week s national election.

November 11, 2010

Talend Acquires Sopera, Closes $34 Million Round

The combination of Talend and Sopera creates a global leader in open source middleware solutions, and uniquely positions it to take advantage of the synergies that exist between data management and application integration projects. IT organizations can now leverage a unified global middleware platform that costs far less than proprietary technologies, delivers greater functionality and is easier to deploy and manage. The unified platform will be optimized to seamlessly integrate on-premise data and applications with cloud-based deployments.

With the acquisition, Sopera is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Talend and will become Talend's application integration division. Talend will retain Sopera employees and capitalize on their know-how, while investing to accelerate the global expansion of the newly formed division.

"The acquisition of Sopera is a critical step as we continue to evolve and grow our offerings and expand our market coverage; the new financing round, led by one of the largest and most successful technology investment firms in the world, is a major validation of our strategy," said Bertrand Diard, CEO and co-founder of Talend. "In just four years, Talend has emerged as the undisputed leader in open source data management, democratizing this market. We are now poised to expand the leadership, innovation and value we deliver to our customers in adjacent markets. Our new offerings will enable us to expand into and democratize the application integration market, currently served primarily by traditional proprietary solutions from vendors such as TIBCO, Software AG and Progress Software."

November 2, 2010

Vindicia Scores $20 Million Series E

Vindicia will use this latest round of capital to further expand its sales, services and marketing teams and the success it has already established for its clients and market leaders across the software, gaming, dating and digital media/content industries including Symantec, Intuit, Activision/Blizzard Entertainment, Atari/Cryptic, Fuel Industries, TransUnion Interactive and Encyclopædia Britannica. The company is also in its fifth year of compliance with the critical PCI security standard and SAS 70 auditing standard.

"This additional funding is a testament to the market changing dynamics of online billing software, " said Gene Hoffman, Chairman and CEO of Vindicia. "Our ability to help clients collect otherwise lost revenue, to the tune of $45 million over the past year alone, highlights the business value we bring to our clients. This investment and the expertise that FTV brings to the board will accelerate our market penetration across these diverse digital markets."

October 20, 2010

Evernote Secures $20 Million Series C

Evernote has grown to more than 4.7 million users worldwide in less than two and a half years by allowing individuals to easily save and find their ideas, things they see and things they like. The award-winning service gives its users the choice of thirteen different desktop, mobile and browser options for capturing their memories. From meeting notes to shopping lists to webpages to wine labels, everything a person wishes to remember can be saved in Evernote.

"This is an amazing time in Evernote's short history. We're building great products, growing faster than ever and are solidly on the path to profitability. Having Roelof Botha and the Sequoia Capital team on our side will help Evernote capitalize on this momentum," said Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote. "Our growing revenue and strong financial footing coming into this round allow us to put this money towards an ambitious growth plan. Evernote users can expect more of everything they love, all while we explore new markets and new opportunities."

Causes.com Receives $9 Million

The site was founded in 2007 by former Facebook President Sean Parker and has raised $16 million to date.

Investors in Causes.com's latest round include venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates and Founders Fund Management LLC, Silicon Valley angel investor Ron Conway and Salesforce.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff.

Causes.com will also be selling gift cards at supermarkets to allow people to donate to their favorite charities.

October 9, 2010

Stealth Company PROFERI Raises $6.3 Million

"We're building a new kind of end-to-end system for developing and running analytical applications," said PROFERI Founder and CEO Christian Gheorghe. "To have Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and Dave Duffield on board for the long haul is an incredible privilege."

Currently in stealth, PROFERI is developing its next-generation applications in partnership with multiple Fortune 1000 companies.

Viewdle Rounds Up $10 Million

Viewdle has developed the only commercially available technology capable of real-time, cross-platform visual analysis at the point of capture. Viewdle's patented facial recognition system automatically identifies faces in videos and photos across mobile phones, computers and in the cloud. The technology has been independently benchmarked as the fastest and most efficient available. It is the result of more than fifteen years of research and three years of commercial productization.

"Viewdle is the only company that enables the identification of faces on any device. This new investment allows us to roll out exciting new consumer applications on our platform. With the world's largest independent visual analysis research team, we will also continue to invest in technology innovation," said Viewdle co-Founder and CEO Laurent Gil.

The company was founded in 2007.

September 30, 2010

Ongo Receives $12 Million From Publishers

Ongo Inc. will introduce the Ongo service before the end of the year.

"We are building Ongo to reflect the many ways consumers prefer to read, organize and share digital news," said Alex Kazim, Ongo Inc.'s founder and chief executive officer. "We're gratified three such influential media companies recognize the value of what Ongo is creating, and we look forward to opening our doors soon."

Ongo is an independent company based in Cupertino.

Retail Solutions Secures $15.2 Million

Investor Growth Capital is the growth-stage venture capital arm of Investor AB, the largest publicly traded investment holding company in Northern Europe with investment activities in North America, Europe and Asia. All existing investors, Venrock, Bessemer Venture Partners, Red Rock Ventures and SAP Ventures, also participated in the round. The company will use the financing to accelerate international growth and look for acquisition opportunities to further consolidate its market leadership.

"Retail Solutions has grown very fast in the last few years and has become the uncontested leader in the Retail Execution Management and downstream data spaces," said Jonathan Golovin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Retail Solutions. "Many of our customers are now extending their early implementations to international, corporate-level roll-outs. This new round will help us accelerate international growth and provide our customers the assurance that Retail Solutions will be a global, long-term, strategic partner to them. We selected Investor Growth Capital in order to leverage their long-established global platform and deep relationship network in Europe and Asia. "

Retail Solutions provides a unique Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform transforming downstream data, such as point-of-sale and inventory data by store, by day and by SKU into value-added visibility and actionable insights to help CPG companies transform the way they work with retailers. Today, more than 350 CPG companies, including 20 of the top 25 global CPG companies, use Retail Solutions to support their Retail Execution Management projects across more than 30 international retailers.

September 17, 2010

Intel Capital Funds Four Companies

"A culture of investment is essential to keeping the U.S. on the leading edge of technology innovation and stimulating economic activity," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president. "The investments in Adaptive Computing, Ciranova, Joyent and Nexant are the latest examples of Intel Capital's commitment to advance the next technological breakthroughs by supporting innovation across a variety of sectors from chip design to cleantech to the cloud."

Details on the new investments follow:

Adaptive Computing (Provo, Utah) provides intelligent automation software for high- performance computing (HPC), data center and cloud environments. Adaptive Computing's solutions, powered by Moab, deliver intelligent governance that allows customers to optimally consolidate and virtualize resources, allocate and manage applications, improve service levels, and reduce operational costs. Adaptive Computing products manage the world s largest computing installations and are the preferred intelligent automation solutions for the leading global cloud, HPC and data center vendors. Intel Capital's investment will be used to expand Adaptive Computing's global cloud computing business.

Ciranova's (Santa Clara, Calif.) electronic design software helps engineers implement "mixed analog-digital" integrated circuits in advanced semiconductor processes. The company's products are used by semiconductor companies developing large-scale system-on-chip (SoC) ICs for consumer and communications devices such as mobile internet, broadband access, and high definition multimedia; they enable engineers to quickly integrate premium functions such as WiFi, Bluetooth and WiMAX into their chips. Intel Capital's investment will be used primarily to expand the company's sales and customer support operations.

Since 2004, Joyent, Inc. (Sausalito, Calif.) has provided infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), delivering billions of page views each month for thousands of customers worldwide. Serving a network of service providers and thousands of customers with its Smart Technologies, Joyent is the only company that runs a major public cloud infrastructure, builds the technologies that power that infrastructure, and uses those technologies to enable multiple third-party public, private and hybrid clouds. Intel Capital's investment will enable Joyent to expand international operations and invest in open-source Node.JS and other technologies in the company's core PaaS cloud offering. This is Intel Capital's second investment in the company.

Nexant, Inc. (San Francisco) provides intelligent grid software and clean energy solutions that advance electric power grid and alternative energy technologies and services. Nexant solutions span the entire energy value chain  from production to consumption. The company's energy software and services are used by Fortune 500 companies, utilities, transmission and distribution system operators, chemical and petroleum majors, financial institutions, government agencies and development banks. With the ever-increasing energy consumed in data centers worldwide, Intel Capital's investment will be used to expand Nexant's software and services presence in IT and data center efficiency.

SandForce Closes $25 Million Series D

"We are increasing volume shipments of our Enterprise and Client SSD Processors to leading drive manufacturers around the globe and continue to receive exceptional market acceptance of our DuraClass!" technology in I/O intensive storage applications," said Michael Raam, president and CEO of SandForce. "This new funding will help us bring our next-generation products to market, expand our customer and partner support infrastructure, and accelerate our core technology development that will extend our market leadership."

The patent-pending SandForce DuraClass technology is a set of flash memory management features that enable advanced MLC-based SSDs to deliver world-class reliability, performance, and power efficiency compared to traditional rotating media storage or other SSD solutions. In addition, the SandForce DRAM-less architecture further differentiates the solution from virtually all other controller technologies and enables the industry's smallest form factors for SSD designs.

September 11, 2010

Kno Raises $46 Million

"Kno is gearing up to launch the first digital device that we believe will fundamentally improve the way students learn," said Osman Rashid, CEO and Co-founder of Kno, Inc. "We are thrilled by the support from Andreessen Horowitz, Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital to help us continue to deliver on our product roadmap and ultimately deliver on our vision to bring innovative digital technology to the world of education."

Kno, short for knowledge, is a ground breaking learning platform that blends a unique two- panel, touch-screen tablet, digital textbooks, course materials, note-taking, web access, educational applications, digital media, sharing and more into a powerful and engaging educational experience not available on any other tablet or eReader on the market today.

"We are strong believers in the disruption of untapped markets and education is a prime example of a sector in need of digital innovation," said Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder of Andreessen Horowitz and Kno Board Member. "Kno is poised to lead the market with its digital textbook and learning platform and we are excited to be part of the revolution."

"The Kno will propel education into the 21st century with an all-in-one device and learning platform that gives students access to digital textbooks, course materials, email, video, the web and more, and enhance their learning experience, said Babur Habib, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. "We plan to use the infusion of capital to get the Kno into the hands of students for beta testing this fall and ultimately for the first customer ship later this year."

Livescribe Writes Up $39 Million

"This support from major strategic investors is a great acknowledgment of our success to date and the opportunities ahead," said Jim Marggraff, Livescribe CEO and founder. "With this funding and the contribution of Michael and Rory on the board, Livescribe is well positioned for tremendous growth and continued leadership in the digital management of written and spoken information."

The Series C financing round follows the recent announcement of Livescribe's next-generation smartpen, Echo, as well as a preview of future communication and collaboration tools, marking a significant advancement in paper-based computing and personal and professional information management.

With nearly 500,000 smartpens sold since 2008, Livescribe will use this new round of funding to expand into new markets, advance the company's technology platform in the area of communication and collaboration and enable more seamless integration with existing workflows and applications. This includes software and tools developed by recently acquired Zoomii Learning, Inc., which allows consumers, educators and business professionals to share notes and audio from paper as an interactive Pencast PDF and send via e-mail or integrate directly with online applications and services including Google Docs and Facebook.

August 20, 2010

CloudCrowd Receives $5.1 Million

CloudCrowd uses the Internet to tap into its workforce of more than 35,000 registered workers to complete tasks, helping clients reduce overhead, increase efficiency, and lower costs. Tasks are distributed through a proprietary online platform, providing work and income to CloudCrowd's growing global workforce.

"We're delighted to be joining with DFJ, who from the start embraced our vision for a transformational platform with the ability to reinvent business processes," said CloudCrowd CEO, Alex Edelstein. "This funding is a great vote of confidence in the long term potential of our company. We are the fastest growing on-demand labor provider in our market, and we plan to use this funding to invest even more heavily in ensuring the success of our customers and to further accelerate our growth."

Utilizing a proprietary peer review and worker credibility system designed to ensure the accuracy of finished work, CloudCrowd can complete projects in a fraction of the time required by traditional outsourcing methods. Since launching in 2009, CloudCrowd has already completed more than 1.5 million tasks for its customers and its EditZen service has proofread and edited more than 1 million words.

August 13, 2010

WePay Raises $7.5 Million

The Series B round follows an A round of capital in December of 2009 that included August Capital, PayPal founder Max Levchin, renowned angel investor Ron Conway, YouTube co- founder Steve Chen, and former Intuit CTO and CFO Eric Dunn. WePay has grown dramatically since its April 2010 public launch, with payment volume increasing 80 percent in the month of July.

Founded in 2008 and released in public beta earlier this year, WePay is the first online payment service designed specifically for the collection and management of group finances. WePay is the only service that gives users the ability to establish a unique, FDIC-insured account for each group they want to manage. This approach allows for easier and more flexible management of group finances, which could include common collections efforts such as professional and collegiate clubs and organizations, sports fantasy leagues, fundraisers, baby showers, class reunions, roommates, event tickets and homeowners’ association fees.

“Collecting money from groups of individuals is a hassle that nearly everyone has had to deal with at some point in their lives. We built WePay to make this process more convenient and transparent,” said Bill Clerico, cofounder and CEO, WePay. “After several months of both steady growth and exceptional user engagement, this latest round of financing will allow us to substantially expand our operations and engineering team, dramatically increase marketing efforts and continue to build our user base.”

August 6, 2010

Red Beacon Rounds Up $7 Million

The investment from Mayfield and Venrock will allow Redbeacon to scale up its engineering and marketing teams as the Company prepares for its geographic expansion beyond the pilot San Francisco Bay Area market. It will also be used to support distribution partnerships in which the Redbeacon service is embedded into the websites of partners wishing to offer local services to their own customers.

"We're thrilled to be working with such a world-class group of investors," said CEO and co-founder Ethan Anderson. "Mayfield and Venrock will help Redbeacon create a future where it is as natural to book a house cleaning appointment online as it is to book your own flight reservation.”

July 27, 2010

Jive Software Talks Up $30 Million

The capital will be used to accelerate Jive’s technology innovation and further drive the company’s leadership in the social business market. Ted Schlein, Managing Partner at KPCB, will join Jive's Board of Directors.

“Social Business is the most important enterprise software category in a decade,” said Ted Schlein. “Jive is the clear market leader, with a strong customer base, best-in-class technology and a deep management team. Jive is poised to become the next great enterprise software company.”

“We are honored to welcome KPCB to Jive, and to receive Sequoia’s unwavering commitment,” said Tony Zingale, Jive's CEO. “KPCB and Sequoia are unparalleled at building great companies. We are privileged to have them both on our team.”

Jive helps companies like Charles Schwab, Intel, Nike, and VMware adopt social business to create breakthroughs in competitive advantage, profitability and growth. Jive SBS combines the power of community software, collaboration software, social networking software, and social media monitoring offerings into an integrated social platform. The SBS market is projected to grow in excess of 25 percent per year and will reach nearly $5 billion by 2013.