Online Travel White Labeler EZRez Raises $15M
EzRez was founded in 2002 in Honolulu, Hawaii where it built a white label system for regional airlines, wholesalers, rental car companies, hotels, activity providers and more. Today the company raised $15M led by Canaan Partners with Azure Capital Partners and existing investors.
Content Personalization Widget Maker Minekey Raises First $3M
Sunnyvale, CA-based Minekey has raised $3M in Series A funding for their personalized news recommendation widget. The funding round was led by NEA IndoUS Ventures, which had previously invested $600K in a seed round.
Stealth Mode TuneUp Media Raises VC Funding To Help You Manage Your Music Files
Gabe Adiv, who previously worked the biz dev levers at Gracenote, has a new startup in stealth mode called TuneUp Media, that he claims has raised VC funding. What problem will the startup address? Our digital music lives are too complex the company finds and needs a better system.
Associated Content Raises $10M For Crowd-sourced News
NYC-based Associated Content has raised $10M in a 2nd round from Canaan Partners. The company is slightly controversial because of the backing of Google sales exec Tim Armstrong who invested in the company's first $5.4M round and is back in at this round along with Softbank.
Streetline Funded For Smart Cities Tech
Streetline has completed pilot projects and studies for Los Angeles and San Francisco. The LA project has learned that despite two-hour time limits, the average driver stays parked for four hours. In San Francisco, Streetline learned that only 5.4% of parking violations in San Francisco receive tickets. Streetline has raised $250K+ so far from individual investors including Internet pioneer Gordon Bell and it is planning a Series A round. They indicate on job postings that they have raised venture capital so that round may be closed but the company has not responded to confirm.
DecisionView Announces $7 Million in Series C Investment
DecisionView, Inc., the leading provider of business performance optimization applications for the Life Sciences industry, today announced the close of a $7 million Series C round of funding led by new investor, firstVentury, as well as existing investors Partech International and Granite Ventures.
Accoona Files for IPO
Internet company Accoona Corp. filed Friday for an initial public offering of its common stock. The Jersey City, N.J.-based company said it expects to use proceeds from the offering for research and development, business expansion and general corporate purposes. Accoona may also use a portion of the proceeds to acquire or invest in complementary companies and technologies.
SEM Firm iCrossing Buys Web Builder Proxicom
Arizona-based SEM giant iCrossing has acquired Proxicom for an un-disclosed amount from Gores Technology. The deal was financed by a funding round last week by iCrossing where it raised $62M from Goldman Sachs and some VC firms.
Compete Ups Ante With $10M In Funding
Today Compete has raised another round of funding at $10M in Series III funding from return backers Charles River Ventures, idealab, Split Rock Partners and William Blair Capital Partners. Compete has raised $43M since 2000.
Disney Acquires Club Penguin For Up To $700 million
Club Penguin, a social network/virtual world that has been on the market for some time, was acquired by The Walt Disney Company and announced today. An earlier deal with Sony fell apart over valuation and Club Penguin's policy of donating a substantial portion of profits to charity. The company, which launched in October 2005, has 700,000 current paid subscribers and 12 million activated users, primarily in the U.S. and Canada.
Discovery Acquires TreeHugger.com For $10million
Discovery Communications has announced the acquisition of TreeHugger.com for what is believed to be $10 million. TreeHugger.com started as an environmentally focused blog in 2004 and grew to include forums, green guides and other related features. The site sits in the Top 20 blogs worldwide according to Technorati and is said to have 1.4 million unique visitors a month. Alexa ranks the site at 5,395.
PayScale Gets $10.3M in Series C Round of Funding
PayScale is an online service that lets you know how you compare to others that do the same job as you. It's just raised another $1.5 million in a Series C round of funding, led by SAP Ventures. This closes the round at $10.3 million. Previous investors include Allen & Co., Corporate Executive Board, Trinity Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, Fluke Venture Partners and Buerk Dale Victor.
Vringo Raises $12M in Series B Funding
Vringo, the video ringtone provider, has closed on a $12 million Series B round of venture capital funding. The round was led by Warburg Pincus, a global equity firm. The funding will be used to take Vringo around the world, as it expands markets in the US, Europe and Asia.
Curse Raises $5M in Series A for MMOG Network
Curse, the gaming portal, has received $5 million in a Series A round of funding. The round was led by a French venture capital firm AGF Private Equity, and some angel investors participated as well. The MMOG company already raised about $800,000 in funding from angel investors prior to this Series A round.
Action Engine Raises $20 Million
Mobile applications developer Action Engine has raised $20 million in new round led by Baker Capital. Previous investors Northwest Venture Associates and The Spangler Group also participated in the round. The company develops mobile device software that allows media companies and mobile operators to provide music, video and other content on mobiles.
Alibaba confirms IPO
China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba has submitted its first initial public offering (IPO) application to the listing committee of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and may become the largest high-tech share on the Hong Kong bourse. Alibaba's Chairman Jack Ma confirmed the news in the company's annual meeting over the weekend. Tao Ran, a company spokesman, said there was no timetable for the market listing and also declined to disclose any details of the IPO.
Scribd Competitor Gets Angel Funding
Docstoc, the online document exchange community, has reportedly raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding, and may prove to be a Scribd competitor. The site is still in private beta. With Docstoc, you can share any document type, from Word, to PDF and Illustrator.
Boo-box Gets $300K for Contextual Ads Service
Boo-box, the contextual marketing company, has raised $300,000 in a round of seed funding, led by Monashees Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. The funds will be used for product development and expansion of the Brazil-based company.
Big Hedge Fund Investment in Zazzle
Silicon valley based Zazzle will be closing a second round of financing in the $30 million range, at a $300+ million pre-money valuation. The round is expected to be led by an as-yet-unnamed hedge fund.
Reid Hoffman invests in Care.com
The company which has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Matrix Partners, is also the latest investment by Reid Hoffman, godfather of Web 2.0 start-ups, and also co-founder of LinkedIn. Care.com, a Waltham, MA.-based outfit that connects families to 'qualified care givers with a national network of trusted providers.'
NowPublic Gets $10.6 Million For Crowd Sourced News
'Crowd sourced' news network NowPublic.com has closed a $10.6 milion series A round of financing led by Rho Ventures with seed investors Brightspark and the Working Opportunity Fund participating. Crowd sourcing is part of the widely expanding 'citizen journalism' category, which encompasses all the new ways non-professionals can participate in the news reporting process.
BuddyTV Gets $2.8M for Fan Site
BuddyTV, the online television informational community, has raised about $2.8 million in a Series A round of funding, with Gemstar-TV Guide International leading the round. The site lets you create a profile listing your favorite shows and actors.
CoolIris Gets $1M of its $3M Series A Round
CoolIris, the link preview service, has secured about $1 million of a $3.05 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers. Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, has also taken a seat on CoolIris' board.
3Jam Nabs $4M in Series B Funding
3Jam, the text messaging service, has raised $4 million in a Series B round of funding. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, and return investors New Enterprise Associates and NetService Ventures also participated.
MediaWhiz Buys AuctionAds
Performance marketing company MediaWhiz has snatched up eBay affiliate marketing service AuctionAds, which launched back in March. The price was not disclosed. AuctionAds is an advertising widget that serves contextually relevant eBay auctions based on tags supplied by the publisher.
Wikia Acquires Grub from Looksmart
As part of their ongoing quest to create an open, people-powered search platform, Wikia has acquired Grub, a ditributed web crawling technology, from Looksmart, Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales announced this morning during his keynote address at the at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon.
Microsoft Acquires Advertising Exchange Platform AdECN
Microsoft announced today that it had agreed to acquire AdECN, an advertising exchange platform company based near Santa Barbara. AdECN offers a real-time, auction-based, neutral exchange for online display advertising that works in a similar way to stock exchanges. A member of the AdECN exchange buys on the exchange for its advertisers and sells on the exchange for its publishers.
Twitter Gets Their Venture Round
Twitter has raised a round of financing, led by Union Square Ventures. The size of the round has not been disclosed (yet), but additional investors include Charles River Ventures, Marc Andreessen, Dick Costolo, Ron Conway, and Naval Ravikant. The service, which has around 300,000 users, has grown rapidly in recent months. Pownce, Kyte and others are competitors.
Family-friendly social networking start-up lands VC, will hire 4
CircleBuilder, a family-friendly church-oriented social networking site, has raised $800,000 from Great Lakes Angels and other venture capital organizations. CEO and co-founder Howard Brown currently runs the start-up from his Franklin home, having relocated to the area from Silicon Valley to be closer to family.
Business.com Sells for $350 Million
Business.com has closed another chapter in its long journey from a $7.5 million million domain name bought on a hope and a prayer, selling to RH Donnelley for $350 million (WSJ reporting up to $360 million). RH Donnelley beat out Dow Jones and the New York Times during the bidding.
Going.com Lands $5 million
Event based social network Going.com has taken an additional $5 million in funding, in a round led by the sites original investors General Catalyst Partners and Highland Capital Partners.
Grockit Raises Cash, Prepares 'Massive Multiplayer Online Learning' Product.
When we last wrote about San Francisco based Grockit , in late 2006, they were unfunded. Their business idea of holding low-cost GMAT prep courses over Webex was just getting off the ground. Now they are funded - $2.7 million total ($2.3 million from Benchmark, $400k from angel investors Mark Pincus, Rob Lord, Reid Hoffman Thomas Ryan and others) in a Series A round was closed last month. And they are changing their model completely.
Respectance Gets $1.5 Million
Respectance, which is unique among social networks since it's dedicated to remembering those who have died, has taken $1.5 million in a series A funding in a round led by Solid Ventures and Big Bang Ventures. The site also launches officially today, and says it has taken funding at a 'pre-user' stage.
GuildCafe Raises Funding for MMORPG Network
GuildCafe has raised an undisclosed amount of venture capital funding from IDG Ventures Boston. The service that enables groups to build websites for gamers to find friends and new game content launched late last year, and has done well to create a hub for people that are heavily involved with MMORPGs like World of Warecraft, Guild Wars and Lord of the Rings Online. Users can connect with each other through their gaming avatars and form groups (guilds) that can move between virtual worlds together.
AOL Gets Its Ad Network
We hear that AOL will announce the acquisition of New York-based Tacoda this morning, a behavior targeting advertising company that was founded in 2001. The deal size, which we haven't had confirmed, is likely far smaller than Microsoft's $6 billion for aQuantive , Yahoo's $680 million for RightMedia , or Google's $3.1 billion for DoubleClick . The price might be low enough that it isn't being disclosed at all.
UGO Acquired By Hearst, Should Be Announced Today
We got a tip earlier this evening that Hearst acquired New-York based UGO and will announce the deal tomorrow. It sounds like Forbes got a tip as well, and a better one: they're saying the price should be around $100 million. UGO is a popular new media site that was founded in 1997 and, according to Forbes, is generating around $30 million/year in revenue.
Nokia acquires Twango
Nokia and Twango today announced that Nokia has acquired substantially all assets of Twango (www.twango.com). Twango provides a comprehensive media sharing solution for organizing and sharing photos, videos and other personal media. By acquiring Twango, Nokia will be able to offer people an easy way to share multimedia content through their desktop and mobile devices.
HP Acquires Opsware For $1.6 billion
HP has acquired IT Automation company Opsware for $1.6 billion. Whilst any acquisition of this size is interesting in itself, the back story to Opsware is even more so; Opsware was originally LoudCloud, a Web 1.0 company that took $350 million in funding during the Web 1.0 boom.
Cfares Raises $4.5M & Offers New Comparison Tools
Cfares, the airfare search tool, has announced a round $4.5 million of venture capital and has appointed a few new members to its team. The round was led by Claremont Creek Ventures, with previous investor Garage Technology Ventures partnering as well.
Google Acquires Image America for Aerial Imaging Tech
Google's acquisition spree continued today with the announcement that they've purchased Image America, a company that builds 'high resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery'. The Clayton, MO-based company provided high resolution black and white imagery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and supplied imagery to Google Maps and Google Earth.
hi5 Takes $20 Million Funding
San Francisco-based social network hi5 has taken $20 million in funding in a round led by Mohr Davidow Ventures. The site reports 30 million members and 200 million pageviews/day, making it one of the largest players. So why the lack of hype?
FaceBook's First Acquisition: Parakey
Their first acquisition: Facebook has bought Parakey, the yet-to-launch 'web operating system' created by Firefox co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. The price isn't being disclosed, but Facebook should be issuing a press release this afternoon.
Loopt Calls Down $2.25M of a $12M Series B Round of Funding
Loopt, the service that lets you geo-locate friends with mobile phones, has called down $2.25 million of a $12 million Series B round of financing. This means that while Loopt has raised $12 million, its requested access to $2.25 of this larger amount, possibly to increase its working capital costs.
EU Commission endorses €120 million aid for German R&D project THESEUS
The European Commission has authorised, under EC Treaty State aid rules aid worth €120 million that Germany intends to grant to start THESEUS, a research project for developing and testing new search technologies for the next generation Internet. THESEUS would involve both large companies and SMEs. The Commission found the aid to be in line with the criteria laid down in its Framework for Research and Development and Innovation (R&D&I, see IP/06/1600 and MEMO/06/441 ).
GreenDimes Raises Cash
Most people hate junk mail -- how many are willing to pay to stop it? Palo Alto-based startup GreenDimes is betting a lot will, and according to PEHub has raised a whopping $20.5 million in a first round of funding, led by Tudor Investment Corporation.
Recipezaar Acquired by Scripps
PaidContent is reporting that Scripps has acquired recipes portal Recipezaar. John Cook notes the price at ~$25 million. Started in 1999 as CookPoint, Recipezaar reported 2.3 million pageviews in June 2007.
$15 Million For Shopping Search TheFind
Mountain View based shopping search site TheFind has raised another $15 million in a third round of venture capital, bringing their total capital raised to $26 million. Bain Capital Ventures led the round.
Redfin Takes $12 Million Series C Financing Amid Realtor War
Seattle-based Redfin, a real estate website that allows users to bypass most of the fees associated with using real estate brokers, has closed a $12 million Series C round of financing. This is on top of the approximately $8 million they raised in their previous two rounds. The round was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Previous investors Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, BEV Capital and The Hillman Company also participated
TVtrip's Multimedia Hotel Directory Gets $4.8 Million
A month after launch, TVtrip has secured another round of financing from Benchmark's European Branch, Balderton, and Partech, which will be announced tomorrow. Along with the financing they've also expanded their directory of hotel videos and added some more travel executives to their board.
Jupitermedia Corporation buys Mediabistro.com
Laurel Touby turned her popular cocktail parties into a high-traffic Web site for job-seeking media and creative professionals. Yesterday, she sold Mediabistro.com, the company that sprang from those mixers, for $23 million. The Jupitermedia Corporation, an Internet research company that also sells photos and art, agreed to pay $20 million in cash and an additional $3 million over two years for the company, which is based in New York City.
Google to Buy Web Security Company for $625M
Google on Monday acquired e-mail security company Postini for $625 million, a move intended to attract more large businesses to Google Apps. More than 1,000 small businesses and universities currently use Google Apps, but 'there has been a significant amount of interest from large businesses,' Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google Enterprise, said in a Monday teleconference.
Jamendo Gets Cash for Creative Commons Music
Online music has been one of the most tumultuous categories online. Ever since Napster launched in the late 90's, the music industry has been scrambling for a new model. DRM was once thought the industry's saving grace, but consumer frustrations and movements from big players like Apple have reversed the trend. Some are even streaming it for free. They just closed their series A round of funding from Mangrove Capital Partners today for an undisclosed sum.
ValueClick Acquires Comparison Shopping Operator MeziMedia For Up To $352million
ValueClick has acquired MeziMedia for up to $352 million, in a deal consisting of $100million in upfront in cash, with an additional sum of up to $252 million to be paid depending on MeziMedia's revenue and earnings performance through to 2009.
Answers.com has purchased Dictionary.com
Question and answer reference site Answers.com has acquired Dictionary.com's parent company, Lexico Publishing, for $100 million in cash. Lexico can really serve all your lexical needs because it also owns Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. The deal is expected to close later this fall.
Connectbeam Lands $3.5million Series A
Social networking for the enterprise startup Connectbeam has closed a $3.5million Series A round lead by Gabriel Ventures and Startup Capital Ventures. Connectbeam social software for business provides a corporate focused product that includes support for social bookmarking, social networking, live profiles, project spaces and intranet search integration.
Healthline Get's $21 Million and Some New Friends
Healthline has dipped it's hand into a $21 million series B financing led by GE/NBC Universal's Peacock Equity Fund, a joint venture between GE Commercial Finance's Media, Communications & Entertainment business and NBC Universal. This is on top of their $14 million round last January. The round also includes smaller investments from Aetna Ventures, LLC, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, U.S. News and World Report, and previous investors VantagePoint Venture Partners and Reed Elsevier Ventures.
Clickable Gets Funding for Centralized Ad Management Tools
Clickable is an online solution for advertisers and marketing agencies, to offer a centralized service for ad analytics and campaign modification. With Clickable, advertisers can manage their ad campaigns across the major ad networks, including Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter, among others. Clickable will give you metrics regarding your search marketing performance across all of these networks, and extend the options of self-managing your ads, from buying to pausing keywords within your campaign. The company just took first round of financing from Union Square Ventures.
Brad Greenspan Acquires Partnership Stake in Chinese Video-Sharing Sites
Brad Greenspan, proclaimed MySpace founder, has announced that his company, BroadWebAsia, has acquired Partnership stakes in Mofile and Hubotv, two quickly growing online video sites in China. With a combined 48 million unique visitors per month, it's not difficult to see why Greenspan is interested in the two companies.
AdJug Gets Millions for New Ad Marketplace
With the monster acquisitions of aQuantive and DoubleClick, who wouldn't want to be in the ad game? The latest contender is UK-based AdJug, which is announcing a 'multi-million dollar investment' today from Balderton Capital (previously Benchmark Capital Europe). The company provides an ad marketplace that will initially focus on the UK market, with expansion into Europe. Unlike Adsense, they say, they let advertisers choose where on the page their ads appear.
Wonga Raises $6M For Small Loan Service
Wonga , the UK-based small lending site, has announced its first round of investment for $6 million, led by Balderton Capital (formerly Benchmark Capital Europe). Also participating in this round is Betfair and Setanta, and the Accelerator Group, which specializes in early stage technology funding. The site is currently in closed beta.
Alleskar Acquires German Twitter Clone Dukudu
Allesklar, the German media company, has acquired the German micro-blogging community, dukudu. The Twitter clone had been posted on eBay last week, with the highest bid going to allesklar for €43,000.
Lijit raises $3.3M for intimate blog search
Lijit, a provider of a more extensive search service for blogs, has said it raised a $3.3M second round of funding. Lijit, of Louisville, Colorado, doesn't limit readers to searching blog posts. It also provides them results from the host blogger's own accounts at Flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and any other place online they store information. Blogging is a cult-like sport, and this is one more way for readers to find out more about their favorite scribes.
Google To Acquire GrandCentral
Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we've learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price.
Revision3 Raises $8 million From Greylock
Online video site Revision3 has raised an $8 million second round of financing, according to a source close to the deal, bringing the total capital raised to $9 million. Our understanding is that Greylock led the round. Greylock was also the primary investor in Revision3's $1 million first round of financing. News startup Digg, which shares founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson with Revision3, also raised money twice from Greylock.
The Human Touch That May Loosen Google's Grip
Engines like Hakia, Accoona and Powerset are trying to grab market share by writing a more sophisticated algorithm. A growing number of entrepreneurs are placing their bets, however, on a hybrid system that puts humans back into the search equation. They are grouped under a newly coined rubric, ' social search,' and it is becoming a crowded field. Newcomers like Squidoo, Sproose and NosyJoe offer search results based on submissions or votes by users. Bessed also relies on users to suggest the best Web pages for a topic, but then has editors refine them. ChaCha gives customers the opportunity to have an online chat with a human being who can provide search assistance.
Daylife Raises $8M in Second Round Funding
Daylife, the online news aggregator site, has raised $8 million in a second round of funding. Investors include Arts Alliance Digital Ventures and Balderton Capital. Existing investor New York Times Co. returned for further investment in this round.
Yahoo Acquires Rivals for $100 million
Yahoo has acquired college sports site Rivals.com, says the Associated Press in a story that may have been accidentally published early. The price is not being disclosed, although the rumor is that the deal was closed for around $100 million. Rumors of talks first surfaced in April.
Prosper raises $20M to assert lead in person-to-person loans
San Francisco's Prospser, which appears to have gained a leadership position in person-to-person lending, has raised $20 million in its third round of financing. Prosper is one of three upstarts in the person-to-person lending market, where borrowers request loans and have ordinary people bid to finance them.
DailyStrength Raises $5 Million+
DailyStrength, a social networking site which connects people with various health problems, has closed its first round of financing, estimated between $5-7 million. They plan to use the money to extend their staff, find more partners and develop more features - personalized news and widgets are supposedly on the way.
Nimbuzz Raises $10M in Funding
Nimbuzz, the interactive mobile company, has raised $10 million in a round of funding, led by Mangrove Capital Partners, MIH Group and Mangrove Capital Partners, MIH Group and Holtzbrinck Ventures.
Google Acquires Zenter - Web Office Suite Now 99% Complete
Today Google announced it has acquired the assets of Zenter, 'a company that provides software for creating online slide presentations.' This technology will be added to Tonic Systems, a technology for presentation creation and document conversion. Tonic Systems was acquired in April by Google.
Is MySpace Worth $12 billion?
It sure as hell might be. We've gotten independent confirmation of rumors circulating yesterday that discussions between Fox and Yahoo, where Yahoo would effectively buy MySpace for 25% of the stock in the combined entity, have occured. Whether Yahoo can stomach that kind of transaction right now is another matter, of course. And Fox may have less interest (or more) now that Semel has stepped down. We're hearing that the change in leadership makes no real difference to either side right now, and that the probability of such a merger deal remains 'low'.
Trivop Closes Large Round of Funding from Angel Investors
Trivop, the video guide for hotels around the world, hs closed a large round of early-stage funding from angel investors, for an undisclosed amount. See our initial coverage here. The round was led by Morten Lund, one of Skype's initial investors; Steve and Jean-Emile Rosenblum, founders of Pixmania; Oliver Jung; Lukasz Gadowski, founder of Spreadshirt; Loic Le Meur, honorary Chairman of Six Apart, and Aydin Senkut.
MyStrands Gets $25million Series B
Music discovery platform MyStrands has closed a Series B round of $25 million led by Antonio Asensio, CEO of Grupo Zeta, Spain's third largest media group, along with existing investors Debaeque and Sequal. MyStrands delivers a product that although sharing similarities to Last.fm, also extends to the desktop with the inclusion of locally stored music in its recommendation equation.
Quintura Gets Series A From Mangrove Capital Partners
Visual-based search engine Quintura has taken Series A funding of 'several million dollars' from Mangrove Capital Partners, an original seed investor in the company. The capital will be used to scale the Quintura affiliate model for site search and build a semantic web index using Quintura's 'neural networking techniques'.
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