Quora Is Raising At A $400M Valuation, With D’Angelo Putting In His Own Money. It’s really beautiful outside. Like so beautiful that if San Francisco is like this more often it will become really expensive to live here. Also, Quora is raising money according to the multiple people in the past week who have told me that Quora is raising money. From what I’ve heard, the startup wants to raise between $30 to $50 million in its Series B, at a $400 million valuation — while we couldn’t confirm whether the amount was pre or post, it strangely enough seems modest in light of the billion dollar rounds being thrown about willy nilly.
While there is some prominent investor interest (and a lead, who I’m still digging on), co-founder Adam D’Angelo will also be investing his own money — Up to $20 million according to one source. “Very few realize how ambitious the opportunity is,” power user and TC Contributor Semil Shah tells me, “They are the ultimate outliers, a totally weird product that is still in beta and not really fit for generic metrics. CareerBuilder Aproveita Grande Momento do Mercado Brasileiro de TI e Compra Portal CEVIU. O site gigante de recrutamento e busca de empregos CareerBuilder pretende dominar a América do Sul, e parece que o seu maior passo acaba de ser dado ao comprar a empresa mineira CEVIU, um portal focado na empregabilidade de profissionais da área de informática. De acordo com a Anna Heim do The Next Web, a empresa americana já atua em 20 países e já marca presença em 50 mercados no mundo todo, além disso pretende expandir para outros mercados da América do Sul.
A compra foi uma grande jogada estratégica, já que nos últimos três anos o CEVIU apresentou uma taxa anual de crescimento de 158%. Além disso foi a passagem mais curta para ingressar na sexta maior economia. Os valores da aquisição não foram divulgados. “O Brasil é uma das economias emergentes de crescimento mais rápido e uma grande incursão para o resto da América do Sul,” disse Matt Ferguson, CEO do CareerBuilder. Inloco: diretório nacional de advogados feito no interior do Mato Grosso. Gosto de gente que inova em áreas tradicionais, especialmente quando moram em alguma cidade menor. São dois motivos que reforçam a apresentação e o pedido do Wesley Ferreira, de Araputanga (Mato Grosso).
Segue. “Tenho a alegria de informar que o que era apenas uma ideia saiu do papel. Há quase 2 semanas, publiquei a primeira versão final do projeto, que está em fase de finalização para inicio da divulgação através do Google AdWords. Já tenho publico alvo definido, metas de mercado e todas as informações necessárias para monetizar a ideia. Entretanto, ainda preciso de colaboradores, em especial na área de desenvolvimento de templates Joomla e aplicações com Seblod. Wesley é bacharel em Direito, apaixonado pela web. É uma importante ferramenta de integração e colaboração, capaz de promover serviços, localizar profissionais e ampliar a rede de colaboradores não só de advogados autônomos como de escritórios de advocacia.
Google+ VCs Invested $5.8B In 758 Deals In Q1 2012, Total Dollars And Deals Both Down From Last Quarter. Venture capitalists invested $5.8 billion in 758 deals in the first quarter of 2012, according to a MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). The report shows that after a strong fourth quarter 2011, VC investment activity for the quarter fell 19 percent in terms of dollars and 15 percent in the number of deals compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 when $7.1 billion was invested in 889 deals. While the Life Sciences (biotechnology and medical device industries combined) and Clean Technology sectors saw decreases in both dollars and number of deals in the first quarter, there were double-digit percentage increases in dollars invested in the Consumer Products and Services, and Telecommunications industries. Additionally, investments into companies in the Later stage of development experienced an increase, rising 11 percent and accounting for 40 percent of total dollars invested during the first quarter of 2012.
Deals By Stage: Chill. Chill connects you to videos from the people you care about. Professional athletes, celebrities, artists, musicians, filmmakers and YouTube professionals are using Chill to reach a generation that expresses themselves through the sharing of media. By creating a social experience committed solely to video, Chill is enriching the fabric that connects us – by seamlessly delivering what we laugh, cry or wonder about through the taste of the people you trust. Chill makes it simple, fast and enjoyable to watch the video you care about most. Chill is a single destination for any video that can be found across the Web. Recent Milestones Screenshots Above: HomeUploaded: 1/17/12 Videos Above: Tour. Firebase Aims To Reinvent Real-Time App Infrastructure, And It Already Has 4,000 Sign-Ups. Firebase is one of those startups with an almost crazily big vision — it wants to simplify the development of powerful, real-time apps, to the point where, as co-founder James Tamplin put it, it’s “jettisoning the whole notion of a server even existing.”
The company, which was part of the summer 2011 class at Y Combinator, unveiled its service last week. In the first 24 hours, it saw a big wave of interest from developers. Tamplin says 35,000 unique visitors came to the site, and 16,000 of them tried out the Firebase tutorial. There are now 4,000 developers who have signed up for early access and are waiting for beta invites. Firebase is actually a pivot from the company’s first product Envolve, a platform for adding real-time chat to any website. Tamplin says that as last summer’s YC Demo Day approached, the team began to realize that even though Envolve was doing well, it wasn’t going to be “a massive business.” Firebase is a scalable real-time backend. Evernote Raising $50 Million To $100 Million At A $1 Billion+ Valuation.
Cloud note and storage app Evernote is raising a massive fifth round of funding of between $50 to $100 million at a valuation that tops $1 billion, according to multiple sources close to the company. Contrary to what Business Insider is reporting, the round has not yet closed; While the final details of which investors will participate are still being finalized, there’s strong interest in the Valley and beyond. Investor Meritech is believed to be in the lead, having already dropped a term sheet according to one source. The financing is expected to go through and it could all close in the next couple of weeks. But things are still tentative: There’s a small chance the round could be scrapped or that the numbers could be different, as there are no documents signed, no money in the back, the board hasn’t yet approved any deal.
Evernote doesn’t necessarily need the money, but may be eying a strong push in China and other international markets. Amazon Appstore’s Revenue Per User Beats Out iOS, Google Play, Says Game Developer TinyCo. TinyCo, a mobile gaming startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz, is yet another major game developer that has come forward to show that revenue per user on Amazon’s appstore is tracking much higher than it is on Google Play.
The company, which has top #25 grossing games on both iOS and Android, looked at its title Tiny Village, a prehistoric-themed simulation game that’s available on all three stores from Google, Apple and Amazon, and found that when you break it out by platform, Amazon’s store monetizes 80 percent better per user than iTunes. If you break out the tablet market, Amazon Kindles monetize 43 percent better per user than iPads do. So Amazon is doing even better than Apple is, according to their numbers. This is not to rag on Google Play though. TinyCo’s numbers are actually not that bad when looking at Google’s store. Update: Some readers are complaining that I am pointing to an isolated case of a single developer, which of course isn’t representative of an entire market.
YC-Backed Siasto Draws Nearer To The Holy Grail Of Project Management Software. In the quest for the Holy Grail of project management software — a product that just feels natural and easy to use — Siasto has made it further than most. If this were The Last Crusade, it’d be somewhere inside the temple, crossing the bridge of faith to reach the chalice. Siasto might seem a little too familiar at first, as it uses the same concepts as you’ve seen in competing products like Basecamp. You create projects, you add tasks to them, you upload documents, you invite other users, and so on.
What’s special is the how the Y Combinator-backed company has organized the interface, and how it’s busy tying in with Google. Here’s a quick walk-through of what it’s doing. First, you sign in using your Google identity — the right third-party ID service such for work-related software, considering the popularity of Docs, spreadsheets, and Google Apps for Business. Second, Siasto manages to mostly get rid of navigation bars in favor of sticking the main information in tiles on the homepage.
Struq Secures $8.5 million From Reed Elsevier, Pentech, Allen & Co. The problem with internet advertising – and there are many – is that while there are plenty of users who interact with ads, the hard part is working out which users are actually the most valuable to advertisers. While the advertising industry normally sends one brand message and blasts it out across all channels, Struq, an advertising platform startup, works out which users show behavioral patterns that make them statistically more likely to purchase.
But instead of showing them the one brand message it shows video or display ads most likely to chime with that user. To that end it’s attracted the attention of major backers today, with a significant $8.5 million funding round from Reed Elsevier Ventures, Pentech Ventures and Allen & Company LLC. The company has certainly garnered attention. It’s already working with 200 of the world’s leading retailers across 19 markets (including Adidas, Hilton Hotels and Levis). WPP Makes Big Leap Into E-Commerce, Leads On $10 Million mySupermarket Investment. The media and advertising giant WPP is taking a big step into e-commerce and how it can use it to leverage its other digital investments: today it has announced that it is investing $7 million into the grocery comparison shopping site mySupermarket, part of a $10 million round that also includes participation from existing investors Greylock and Pitango.
WPP says that it plans to use the investment to help extend its digital portfolio, and specifically help in the marketing and other services that it offers to is customers in packaged goods — the FMCG segment is one of the most important in WPP’s client base. The deal will see WPP become a minority shareholder in Dolphin Software, the company that makes mySupermarket. The investment announced today takes the total amount invested in mySupermarket up to $23.4 million. mySupermarket says that it trawls about 30,000 special offers every week and lets customers cut their bill by up to 20 percent. BranchOut Hits 25 Million Users, Nabs $25M In Series C Funding. BranchOut is officially going for the big time. The company, which makes a professional social network that runs on top of Facebook, is announcing today it has closed on $25 million in new funding, bringing its total venture capital investment to $49 million. This latest batch of money, which serves as BranchOut’s Series C round, was led by the Mayfield Fund with the participation of previous investors Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures.
Tim Chang of Mayfield will join BranchOut’s board of directors. The money will be used mainly for hiring more employees to add to BranchOut’s current full-time staff of 45, founder and CEO Rick Marini said in an interview, which you can watch in full in the video embedded above. Big Funding Following Big Growth At less than two years old, BranchOut certainly seems to be on a fast track when it comes to funding. Going Big, Exit Strategy-Wise. Oi fecha venda de parte do iG para a Ongoing. SÃO PAULO - Depois de quase seis meses de negociações a Oi fechou a venda de parte do iG.
O negócio, feito com o grupo português Ongoing - que edita os jornais Brasil Econômico, O Dia, Marca e Meia Hora - envolve apenas uma das três unidades da empresa de internet: a área de conteúdo e publicidade. O valor do negócio não foi revelado. No ano passado, a estimativa era que o valor poderia ser de R$ 150 milhões. A Oi manterá o controle das unidades de acesso e serviços digitais. Quatro empresas disputavam o iG: o Yahoo; o grupo de mídia RBS; o grupo Ongoing, e o fundo de investimento brasileiro Infinity.
"Iniciamos a partir de hoje um processo de transição para separar a Unidade de negócio Conteúdo/Publicidade das demais Unidades que permanecem no Grupo Oi, que deverá ser concluído em poucas semanas. (Gustavo Brigatto | Valor) Web Dev Education Startup Treehouse Raises $4.75M From Chamath And Greylock. Web design and development community Treehouse has just secured $4.75 million in funding from Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social+Capital partnership and the Greylock Discovery fund. The financing comes in addition to a $600K star studded seed round the company raised back in October 2011. In the same hot edustartup space as Lynda, Codecademy and Udacity, the platform uses example videos, online quizzes and badges to teach people how to develop websites, web apps, iPhone apps and launch startups.
Treehouse films its video lessons at its expanded film studio in Orlando, Florida and its primary offices are based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in November of 2011, Treehouse co-founder Ryan Carson tells me that the 34 person startup is currently operating at a $3 million revenue run rate and is “growing fast.” “Our biggest challenge is hiring teachers,” he explains, “As they have to be knowledgeable, great on camera and good at writing.” May the best online code-learning startup win! Internet Ad Revenue Reaches $31B In 2011, Mobile Up 149 Percent (IAB Report) Internet ad revenue revenue grew 22 percent in 2011, to $31 billion, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. That’s an all-time high.The final three months were also the all-time best quarter at $9 billion, an increase of 20 percent from the same quarter in 2010.
Search remains the biggest piece of the pie, with $14.8 billion in revenue, up from $11.7 billion in 2010. Not surprisingly, however, as a percentage, mobile is the fastest-growing sector, more than doubling from $0.6 billion 2010 (the first year that the report tracked mobile numbers) to $1.6 billion 2011. Display advertising grew 35 percent to $11.1 billion overall, with video in particular accounting for $1.8 billion. PricewaterhouseCoopers prepared the report for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and representatives ffromrm both organizations are discussing their findings on a conference call right now.
It’s not all about growth. CloudFlare Is In Talks to Raise Funding At Near A $1 Billion Valuation. TransferWise Raises $1.3M From Index, Others For The Next Disruption In Money Transfer: Crowdsourcing. Online Education Startup Coursera Lands $16M From Kleiner & NEA, Adds John Doerr To Its Board. Open Source Private Cloud Software Startup Eucalyptus Raises $30M From IVP, Benchmark To Take On VMware. Backed With $1.5M, CircleUp Aims To Be The AngelList For Consumer And Retail Startups. Uber Experiments With Lower-Priced Taxis In Chicago Through Newly Launched Labs Group, ‘Garage’ Skybox Imaging Raises $70M To Launch Two High-Res Imaging Microsatellites.
Shasta Ventures, Founders Fund Put $4.5 Million In The Uber For Carwashes, Cherry. Threadflip Gets $1.6M From Baseline, First Round, Dave Morin And Others To Virtualize The Clothing Swap. FMI prevê expansão de 3% para PIB do Brasil em 2012. 72% dos internautas brasileiros acessam o Facebook diariamente. Blur Group Raises $2M To Disrupt How Marketers Pick Creatives For Campaigns. Pebble Smart Watch Raises Over $3m On Kickstarter After Asking For Only $100k. Path Announces $30M+ Round Of Funding.
Mobile Gaming Startup Funzio Is Raising $50M At A $350M Valuation. Twitter Acquires Social Analytics Startup Hotspots.io. TheComplete.me Launches Social Dating Site, Matches With $1.22M From Industry Leaders. Chartbeat Raises $9.5M, Launches Engagement-Focused Redesign. Estimize Takes Stock Gamification One Step Further With Challenges. O Império Continua Crescendo: 21 Diamonds é novo clone da Rocket Internet. 1M Users Strong, Schoology Grabs $6M To Take On Blackboard, Moodle. Mobile Messaging Consolidates: Myriad Group Buys Synchronica For $38M.
Style For Hire Wants To Bring Personal Stylists To The Masses.