Yelp Closes 5-Star IPO Day With $1.47 Billion Valuation. For Yelp, this has been a very good day.
The restaurant review site was received exceptionally well by Wall Street during its first day as a publicly traded company, closing at a price of $24.58 per share, up a full 63 percent from its $15 IPO price. Yelp shares traded at strong prices all day, hitting a high of $26 per share and never falling below its $22 opening price. It’s a warmer reception than we’ve seen with some other recent web IPOs: Shares of Zynga, for example, dipped below the IPO price within the first minutes of its stock market debut back in December.
The fact that Zynga was solidly profitable at the time of its IPO while Yelp is still operating in the red just goes to show how unpredictable the stock market can really be, and how many things are at play when the market is determining a company’s value. Of course, today is just the first step in Yelp’s new life as a publicly traded company — it’ll be interesting to see how things shake out in the weeks and months ahead. Facebook Introduces Real-Time Analytics for Pages. Facebook plans to roll out analytics that will for the first time give Page administrators visibility about real-time activity on the site.
The addition to Pages Insights is expected to roll out over the next few weeks, a rep from the company says. The analytics will be available to all Page administrators globally. Yelp Shares Pop Over 60 Percent In Early Trading; Valued At $1.3 Billion. Wow.
Reviews site Yelp just saw a huge pop in early trading of its stock on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. Yelp opened at $22 per share, after pricing at $15 last night. Shares, which are listed under the symbol ‘YELP’, are trading up 60 percent from last night’s pricing, putting Yelp’s valuation at over $1.3 billion. UPDATE: Yelp’s stock closed at $24.52, up over 60 percent from the initial pricing. Yelp offered 7.15 million shares, aiming to raise about $107.25 million. Enterprise Identity Management Platform ForgeRock Raises $7 Million From Accel. ForgeRock, the open source vendor behind the I³ Open Identity middleware platform, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from Accel Partners.
ForgeRock offers one unified platform approach to solve enterprise companies’ secure Identity management challenges. Hot Background Location App Highlight Gets Funding, Gets Ready For SXSW. A new generation of location apps is here, just in time for the world’s best event for using them: the South By Southwest music, film and tech extravaganza starting next week in Austin, Texas.
Ahead of it, my favorite of the bunch, Highlight, is announcing that it’s pushing out a new version for the event, and bringing in funding. But before I get into the news, what’s special about Highlight, and competitors like Glancee? Instead of asking you to check in, they simply run in the background, sending notifications to you when interesting people are physically near. For SXSW, these apps can help you sort out the most relevant folks from the crowd. Armed With New Funding & A Global Mission, ResearchGate Adds PayPal Co-founder To Board. At the 2010 TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, Benchmark Capital Partner Matt Cohler took to the stage to talk about the state of the venture capital industry.
In so doing, Cohler said that he thought too many investors were becoming focused on risk mitigation, which can often deter investors from going after companies that may be building something really big, trying to change the world — but will be slower to monetize and offer the requisite immediate ROI. He then mentioned that he had recently led an investment in a company called ResearchGate, because when he asked the company’s founder, Ijad Madisch, what would constitute success in his mind, Madish replied, simply, “winning the Nobel Prize.” “That sounds like aspiration and ambition to me,” Cohler said. Atomico Makes First Brazilian Investments. (peHUB) February 29, 2012 – Atomico, the international venture capital firm founded by Niklas Zennström, also known as a co-founder Skype, today announced its first two investments in Brazil, following recent investments in other Latin American countries.
It has invested US$8.7M in Connect Parts, the leading online retailer of motorcar parts that recently changed its name from Dakota Parts, and US$2.9M in Bebê Store, the online retailer selling products for young children and mothers. Atomico invests in technology companies around the world, mostly in the internet area, and has made more than 50 investments on four continents. It looks for companies that have remarkable growth prospects and outstanding management teams. The firm is headquartered in London, but has offices in São Paulo and Beijing.
Quer aprender inglês e melhorar seu pitch? A startup Colingo pode ser sua aliada. Compartilho aqui uma resenha do Renê Fernandes, que completou 5 anos trabalhando oficialmente (informalmente desde 2005) no Centro de Empreendedorismo e Novos Negócios da FGV (FGVcenn) e já publicou alguns posts no Startupi.
Ele conta e analisa o caso de um empreendedor norte-americano que veio fazer negócios no Brasil com a sua startup Colingo, que atua de forma inovadora na questão “pratique inglês com americanos nativos”. Confira e inspire-se. Wireless Memory Card Maker Eye-Fi Raises $20M Series D, Led By NTT DOCOMO. Eye-Fi, the maker of those nifty, wireless memory cards that automatically sync digital camera photos to your devices, as well as to cloud services like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and YouTube, is today announcing it has raised $20 million in Series D funding.
The round was led by NTT DOCOMO, the largest mobile operator in Japan, something which hints at the company’s plans towards further international expansion through carrier relationships. Also participating in the new round were existing investors Shasta Ventures, Opus Capital and TransLink Capital. In addition, Eye-Fi announced an expansion to its executive team, which sees former Skype and eBay exec Michele Don Durbin joining as Eye-Fi’s VP of Marketing.
Self-Improvement Marketplace Betterfly Raises $1.5M, Gets A New CEO. Looks like it’s self-improvement time for Betterfly, a startup that, as the name suggests, allows users to “better themselves” by signing up for classes and private sessions on everything from belly dancing to web design.
The company just announced that it has raised a $1.5 million Series A from previous investor Lightbank, the Chicago firm created by Groupon co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky. Betterfly is also naming Todd Sullivan as the company’s new CEO — founder and former CEO Joshua Schwadron will remain as chairman of the board, and the startup says he will still be “active in day to day operations.” Enterprise Social Networking Platform Yammer Raises $85M From DFJ Growth, Khosla, And Others. Enterprise social network and communications platform Yammer has finally closed that big round we and PandoDaily heard about earlier this year.
The company has raised $85 million in new funding, bringing the total investment in Yammer to a whopping $142 million. DFJ growth and Social+Capital Partnership (who led Yammer’s last round) led this round. Other investors joining the round include Meritech, Khosla Ventures, Capricorn (the investment arm of Jeff Skoll), as well as existing investor Charles River Ventures, Founders Fund, USVP, Emergence Capital Partners. Founder and CEO David Sacks tells us that the company had over $30 million of insider investment in the round. Cloud-Based File Syncing Platform SugarSync Raises $15M To Add Another Data Center To The Mix. SugarSync, an application that syncs your data across desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, and even televisions, has raised $15 million in series D financing led by new investor Coral Group with participation from existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Sigma Partners, Hatteras Venture Partners and Hercules.
This brings SugarSync’s total funding to $50 million. Yuval Almog of Coral Group has also joined SugarSync’s Board of Directors. While companies like DropBox have gained much of the media’s attention, SugarSync has quietly been plugging along, offering its own take on the cloud, file storage and syncing market. Currently, the platform is offered on a variety of mobile platforms including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian (Windows Phone 7 is coming soon), and features a two-way sync solution for mobile devices. AffinityLive Debuts To Help Businesses Manage Operations In The Cloud.
Oracle and SAP have been offering ERP (enterprise resource planning) software for sometime now to help businesses manage operations, including billing, time sheets and more. But small businesses can’t afford some of these legacy solutions and are looking for a simpler, easy to use product in the cloud. Enter AffinityLive, a SaaS that essentially helps businesses manage all of their work and data in the cloud. As founder Geoff McQueen tells me, many small businesses are using tools like Excel to manage data. Intel Capital Launches $100M Connected Car Fund To Invest In Automotive Technologies. After launching the Ultrabook Fund to invest in tablet technologies, Intel Capital, the investment arm of chip giant Intel Corporation, has created a $100 million fund to invest in technology innovation in the automotive industry.
Called the Intel Capital Connected Car Fund, the new venture vehicle will be targeted primarily at investing in technologies that will deliver in-vehicle infotainment, mobile connectivity, driver assistance systems and other car-focused applications. This also includes new in-vehicle applications and development tools, speech recognition, gesture recognition and eye tracking optimized for the connected car. The fund plans to invest over the next four to five years, and will be looking at funding startups across the technology spectrum including hardware, software and services companies. Google Ventures And Others Put $5M In Enterprise Mobile Security Company Duo. Enterprise mobile security company Duo Security has raised $5 million from Google Ventures, True Ventures, and Resonant Venture Partners. This brings the startup’s total funding to $6 million. Duo Security essentially provides a two-factor authentication service to companies who want to protect employee phones, with not just one but two secure log-ins.
The company says that deploying two-factor authentication has traditionally been expensive and time-consuming with hardware requirements and other protocols. Duo Security lowers this barrier and expedites deployment with self-service enrollment. It’s Official: Apple Sends Out Invites For March 7th iPad 3 Event… In San Francisco. ClassPager Lets Teachers Quiz and Remind Students Via SMS. Why ban phones from the classroom when you can harness them? Bootstrapped startup ClassPager today launches its Twilio-powered SMS system that lets teachers and professors efficiently send their students quizzes and reminders, and receive answers and feedback.
ClassPager can re-engage bored or shy students, and show teachers who’s falling behind. The 30-second set up provides a classroom code students can text to participate, so teachers and students don’t actually have each other’s phone numbers. That means better grades with no prank calls and no inappropriate advances. Let’s say a teacher wants to check if students understood an in-class math lesson. Teachers can also send homework questions, remind students of quizzes or supplies to bring, or ask them to vote on a class decision. ClassPager is free for students, and since it works over SMS, even feature phones can use it. Raythattha was formally a teaching assistant at CalTech. Lackluster education is a huge problem. ASO (App Store Optimization) Is The New SEO, And Here’s A Tool To Do It. What’s the hardest thing about building a successful mobile app?
If you answered “building a mobile app,” you’re wrong. Vocus Buys Email Marketing Company iContact For $169 Million. Big M&A news in the email marketing world. Tello Raises $2.7M From True Ventures To Give Businesses Consumer Feedback On The Fly. EmployInsight Grabs $1M For Its Employee Measurement Platform (And NYSE As Its First Client) Ginger Software Raises $6.3M For Its ESL Writing Tools; Adds Former Facebook Exec As CEO. Textbook Rental Site BookRenter Spawns Rafter, A Course Materials Management Network For Colleges. College textbook rental startup BookRenter is announcing an interesting new venture today, pivoting slightly from the singular focus on rentals to a broader market.
Brayola Wants To Help Women Find The Perfect Bra. For many women, finding the right bra is a challenge. Enter Israeli startup Brayola, a new site that aims to make it easier for women to find their next favorite bra. Brayola helps women find their perfect bra size and discover new bras that match the style she likes. Founder Orit Hashay explains that online stores fail to consider how important bras are to women, and that finding a bra is a highly personal experience. Poppin Seals $6M Series A From Shasta and First Round To Beautify Your Bland Office. Fugly offices kill morale and make every task a chore. But Poppin knows a happy employee is a productive one, and wants to keep yours that way with its online store full of colorful office supplies.
Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, And Obvious Put $4.5M In Sleek Social, Mobile Gifting Platform Karma. Gnzo Is Instagram For Video And A Flashy Multi-Video Viewer In One. ZenCash Syncs With Invoicing Apps, Helps You Actually Get Paid. Social Email Contact Manager Xobni Raises $10 Million From ‘Commercial’ Partner. OpenX Acquires Supply Side Platform LiftDNA. mBlox Launches New Cloud-Based Mobile Marketing Platform: Engage.