Awesome Inventory Management Startup Stitch Labs Nabs $1M From True Ventures. Small business inventory management startup Stitch Labs is announcing a $1 million seed investment this morning led by True Ventures.
In the same space as Bizelo and Ordoro, Stitch Labs allows design-focused small businesses to organize their CRM, product orders and inventory with custom tailored features like Etsy and Shopify integration. Stitch founder Brandon Levey started the company when he, as the owner of a small design and manufacturing firm, couldn’t find a satisfactory SasS to manage his own business. He wanted a product that went beyond accounting software, and could pull its weight as an inventory management platform across multiple sales channels.
BuzzSparks - Hi Tech Trends and Industry Timeline. Top 10 Trends of 2011 raised 60% of all invested money. CrunchBase: Social, Mobile And Deals Categories Led 2011 Private Tech Investments. Convertible Notes: Why would an early-stage investor prefer a convertible note structure to straight equity (e.g. a priced/valued preferred stock financing) Venture Capitalists, Startups Hope to Hit Sin City Jackpot. Facebook IPO is the talk of Silicon Valley - Therese Poletti's Tech Tales. By Therese Poletti, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The impending initial public offering of Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is the talk of Silicon Valley.
Some even believe that the deal — which even with reports of a scaled-back valuation of below $100 billion — would be one of the largest tech IPOs to date and could rival the 1995 offering of Netscape in importance. “This is clearly the most important moment in the Valley’s history since the Netscape IPO,” said Stephen Diamond, associate professor of law at Santa Clara University. “The Netscape IPO put the Valley on the map in a different sort of way.
5 Magic Slide Fundraising Deck. Mint.com Pre-Launch Pitch Deck. Accel And SV Angel Back Endorse With $4.25 Million To Close The Loop Between Shoppers And Brands. Brands and businesses can track their reputations online and connect with consumers through social media.
But what about in the real world? One of the biggest prizes in Startupland will go to whoever can figure out how to connect real-world shopping to brands and businesses. Steve Carpenter is going after that prize with his latest startup, Endorse. A lot of effort is going into trying to close the redemption loop from online offer to physical purchase in real-world stores. Data analytics firm Mu Sigma raises $108 million. December 28, 2011|By Wailin Wong | Tribune reporter Mu Sigma, a Northbrook-based firm that helps companies analyze massive amounts of data, said Wednesday it raised $108 million in fresh capital.
Private equity firm General Atlantic, which is headquartered in Greenwich, Conn., was the lead investor. Mu Sigma receives $108 million funding. Correlation Ventures Raises $165M For Data-Focused Investment Approach - Venture Capital Dispatch. Data Storage Company Nexenta Scores $21 Million In Series C Funding. Data storage solutions provider Nexenta this morning announced that it has secured $21 million in Series C funding in a round led by new investor Menlo Ventures and joined by Sierra Ventures and Razor’s Edge Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners and TransLink Capital.
Nexenta claims its open source storage software solutions help enterprises avoid vendor lock-in and enjoy unified storage management at a fraction of the cost of legacy systems. Nexenta has operations around the world in the United States (Mountain View, California), Russia, and India. Its customers include the U.S. Army and Korea Telecom. API Management Service Apigee Acquires Mobile Data Platform Usergrid. Apigee, a provider of API management products and services, which we’ve referred to in the past as a “Google Analytics for APIs” has acquired the mobile cloud platform Usergrid.
For those unfamiliar, Usergrid helps to make mobile app development easier by providing the APIs needed to manage data, users and events. The company provides these kind of core APIs for the backend so mobile developers can speed their time to market. With the acquisition, Apigee says it will enable enterprises and developers a “full universe” of APIs, including enterprise APIs, public APIs, and now, thanks to Usergrid, mobile APIs.
According to Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor, Usergrid reduces the cost of developing mobile apps by up to 80%, something which complements his company’s goals. “We’re focused on accelerating growth and innovation in the burgeoning ‘app economy’ with a full range of solutions not only for managing and using APIs, but also with best-in-class APIs such as Usergrid,” he says of the move. Digital Payments Innovator Jumio Raises $25.5 Million. Kicking off the new year with a fresh wad of cash: according to an SEC filing, mobile and online payments startup Jumio has raised $25.5 million in funding on top of the $6.5 million it raised from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin – and others – back in March 2011.
Jumio confirmed the financing round but declined to provide more details (which investors participated and what they plan to use the additional capital for) at this time. The startup’s twist on helping e-merchants process card payments digitally is to leverage webcams (and smartphone cameras) to read credit cards rather than making people enter their details or swiping their cards.
AmEx Puts $125M In And Partners With Chinese Mobile Payments Company Lianlian To License Serve. American Express is making a significant move in the expansion of its digital wallet, Serve to international markets today.
The credit card company is announcing the first global partnership for Serve with Lianlian Group, of of China’s leading mobile payments providers. Additionally, AmEx has also made an equity investment of $125 million in LianLian Pay. For background, Serve integrates a variety of payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card. Citi Backs Gift Card Exchange Plastic Jungle.
Plastic Jungle, which operates an online gift card marketplace, has received a strategic investment from Citi Ventures, Citigroup’s investment arm.
The size of the capital injection was not disclosed. The startup has previously raised over $23 million in financing from Jafco Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and First Round Capital, among others. Plastic Jungle allows people to sell unredeemed gift cards for up to 92 percent of the gift card value, or purchase gift cards at a significant discount. Mobile Payments Company BilltoMobile Launches One-Click Checkout For The Mobile Web. Mobile payments company BilltoMobile, which now has relationships with all four major carriers in the U.S.
(Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile), is today launching one-click processing for mobile web transactions. Previously, users had to enter in their mobile number manually, sometimes a zip code, then wait for a verification code that was sent to their phone through an SMS text.