Wave Accounting Raises $12M from Social+Capital Partnership, Charles River Ventures & OMERS Ventures. Wave Accounting, which makes 100 percent free accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses, has raised $12 million in a Series B round of financing from the Social+Capital Partnership (s23p), along with existing investors Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures. With the funding, Wave plans to continue aggressively increasing headcount, in engineering as well as sales and business development. Wave was founded in July 2009 and launched its software in November 2010, introducing a cloud-based solution for small businesses that didn’t have accounting expertise.
The app offers double-entry accounting, invoicing, expense tracking and financial dashboards, which provides data to small business owners who might have previously been reliant on spreadsheets to track payments. The product is completely free, with Wave making money off of advertising and offers that are made to users on the web. Altogether, Wave Accounting has raised a total of $18.5 million. Personal Takes Its Secure Vault For All Of Your Private, Digital Data Mobile With iOS App. Startup Personal, which aims to give consumers control over their digital data, is debuting an iPhone app today, adding to the company’s existing web and Android apps.
Personal is a free web and mobile service that helps you take control of all the digital information about yourself and your life, decide who gets access to it, and use it for your benefit. This information ranges from your passwords, your kids allergies, emergency contacts, credit card info, and more. Basically, any information you may not want to store in email but want to be able to share with your loved ones or friends.
With Personal you can store various information in ‘data vaults’ where you can selectively share certain vaults with people. Using the iPhone app, Personal users can access all of their ‘Gems,” including logins and passwords, grant temporary access to their Wi-Fi info to guests at home or the office so they can quickly log on, give users access to loyalty programs and more. Social Ad Startup Adaptly Raises $10.5M From Valhalla And Time Warner. Adaptly, a startup that manages ad campaigns across multiple social networks, just announced that it has raised $10.5 million in a Series B round of funding.
At the same time, it’s launching a new product called Evergreen to help advertisers promote their social network content. The round was led by Valhalla Partners, with participation from Time Warner Investments and Vivi Nevo — all three are investing in Adaptly for the first time. The company previously raised a $2.7 million round from First Round Capital, Charles River Ventures, Lerer Ventures, and others. Adaptly says all of its previous backers invested in the new round. Among other things, the money will be used to fuel international expansion, says CEO and co-founder Nikhil Sethi. One of the more “forward-thinking” features, Sethi says, is the fact that Adaptly is pushing advertisers to promote content that’s actually good.
RichRelevance Raises $20M From Crosslink, Greylock To Help Manage Personalization For Retailers. Exclusive: RichRelevance, a company that powers personalized shopping experience for online retailers, has raised $20 million in funding led by Crosslink Capital with Greylock Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Tugboat Ventures participating.
This brings the startup’s total funding to $50 million. RichRelevance aims to take consumer shopping data and help retailers leverage this information into a more personalized experience. As e-commerce heats up, and big data strategies enter the market, more retailers want to provide customized online shopping for consumers to drive sales. The company was co-founded by Sundeep Ahuja Tyler Kohn, Michael DeCoursey and Dave Selinger, who helped architect Amazon.com’s recommendation technology. Selinger tells us that in his additional experience at Overstock.com as Vice President of Software Development and Data Mining, he saw how challenging it was for retailers to use data to give consumers a better experience.
Customer Loyalty And Rewards Platform For Local Businesses Belly Raises $10M From Andreessen Horowitz. Chicago-based Belly, a startup that is a fast-growing contender in the local business customer loyalty and rewards space, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Andreessen Horowitz. The company also announced that Andreessen Horowitz partner Jeff Jordan, former chairman and CEO of OpenTable and former president of PayPal, will join the Board. This latest round of funding adds to a seven-figure round raised by the startup from Lightbank, the venture firm founded by Groupon co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell. Belly wants to reinvent customer loyalty rewards through gamification, digital check-ins and a iPad setup for businesses. But the startup has a slightly different take on how to achieve this. Belly offers a quick-setup, plug-and-play rewards platform to merchants.
Part of this is an in-store iPad (which Belly supplies) that is used to validate paying customers right at the point of sale, and serves as a check-in point. Ustream, Booyah Co-founders Team Up On Stealth Startup With $1.5M From Greylock, Kevin Rose & More. Back in November, Ustream Co-founder and longtime CEO John Ham stepped down from the company he had helped found four and a half years earlier. His co-founder, Brad Hunstable, took the reins in his place. Ham continues to serve as chairman of Ustream’s board of directors and as an advisor to the company, but as Jason reported, his stepping down in November was an acknowledgement of the Entrepreneurial Call. At the time, Ham was tight-lipped about the particulars of his new venture, which remains true today, as the startup is in double-secret stealth mode. However, Ham is ready to reveal a few more details, including his partner. The Ustream co-founder has teamed up with Keith Lee, the co-founder of venture-backed, location-based mobile app developer Booyah — the makers of popular iOS apps including My Town.
Ham said that he first met Lee when forging a partnership between Ustream and Booyah, which he said ended up being one of Ustream’s most successful partnerships to date. Gumroad Gets $7 Million Series A From Kleiner Perkins For Indie E-Payment Platform. Gumroad, the startup that lets individuals receive e-payments through a simple URL link, has received $7 million in new funding led by Silicon Valley venture capital stalwart Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers. The round, which serves as Gumroad’s Series A, brings the startup’s total outside investment to just over $8 million — Gumroad closed on $1.1 million in seed funding back in February, and all those investors also pitched into this round. Kleiner Perkins partner and former Twitter VP of engineering Mike Abbott headed up the funding and will join Gumroad’s board of directors.
Gumroad founder and CEO Sahil Lavingia tells me the new funding will be put toward hiring more people to bulk up its current staff of three. “I just really want to build a sustainable company that scales, and I think Kleiner Perkins and Mike [Abbott] just want to help me do that. He really believes in the larger vision.” Small Beginnings, Big Idea Disruption Brings Challenges. Rabixo: o melhor amigo do homem que entrega meias e cuecas por assinatura. Lançamos o site Rabixo , que oferece um serviço de assinatura de meias, cuecas, e tudo aquilo que um homem precisa e tem preguiça de sair para comprar.
Rabixo é o nome do mascote do site, um cachorro que tem a tarefa de trazer para os homens seus itens de necessidade básica (meias, cuecas, camisetas lisas, giletes e até preservativos), de quanto em quanto tempo desejarem, em planos mensais, trimestrais e semestrais. A missão do Rabixo, o melhor amigo dos homens, é simplificar a vida deles, poupando-os de terem que lembrar de comprar os produtos do kit, da preguiça de sair para fazer isso, de pagar estacionamento, pegar trânsito. etc. e assim economizando seu tempo e dinheiro. Nos inspiramos no site americano Manpacks.com e funciona assim: o cliente entra no site, monta um kit com suas meias e cuecas, etc. e escolhe de quanto em quanto tempo quer receber seu kit (mensalmente, trimestralmente, etc.).
Google+ Gamification Startup SessionM Raises $20M Led by Charles River Ventures. SessionM, a startup led by Quattro Wireless co-founder Lars Albright, just announced that it has raised $20 million in a Series B round of funding. The round was led by Charles River Ventures, with participation from past investors Highland Capital Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. CRV partner Jon Auerbach is joining the SessionM board.
The company declined to comment on the valuation, but apparently VentureWire is reporting that the round values SessionM at $100 million. Quattro, of course, was acquired by Apple and became the basis of the company’s iAd program. When SessionM launched in March, Albright told me his goal was to improve engagement and retention in mobile apps, by adding a lightweight game layer. In the funding press release Albright says that SessionM is increasing app usage by nearly 2x and seeing ad clickthrough rates that are 20x the industry average. Online Invitations And Stationery Startup Paperless Post Raises $6.3M From Tim Draper, SV Angel And More. Design-friendly online invitations and stationery startup Paperless Post has raised $6 million in funding from RRE Ventures, SV Angel, Tim Draper and others.
This brings the startup’s total funding to $12 million. Previous investors include Ram Shiram and Mousse Partners. The startup is sort of like the anti-Evite, aiming to allow consumers to create sleek, design-focused, personalized invitations that deliver the same quality as paper stationery. Users can send out invitations for any occasion and monitor as guests receive and reply to their invitations. The New York company was launched in 2009 by brother and sister team James and Alexa Hirschfeld. The startup offers specialized invitations for specific types of parties (i.e. birthdays, weddings, bridal showers), as well as greetings for occasions (sympathy, birthday, congratulations). And she says that the new funding will also be used to move the platform entirely to HTML5. Rede social corporativa amplia colaboração entre funcionários e incentiva a inovação.
Com o objetivo de complementar sistemas de comunicação corporativa tradicionais, como emails e intranets, médias e grandes empresas têm buscado novas alternativas para tornar a comunicação interna mais eficiente e incentivar a integração entre seus colaboradores. Entre as soluções encontradas, estão as redes sociais corporativas, como o SocialBase, que facilitam a colaboração, a socialização e ajudam a expor conhecimentos e disseminar informações com rapidez. O SocialBase , criado pela empresa catarinense que leva esse mesmo nome, possui todos os recursos de uma rede social comum, como o Facebook e o Twitter: perfil, grupos, feed de notícias em formato timeline (linha do tempo), chat, grupos temáticos, páginas, opções para curtir e compartilhar conteúdo, entre outros.
Essas funcionalidades são adaptadas para a colaboração corporativa, que pode incluir clientes, fornecedores e parceiros. Entre as principais vantagens do SocialBase está o incentivo à inovação. Sobre o SocialBase Google+ RewardLoop Raises $1M For QR Code-Enabled Loyalty Programs. RewardLoop, a startup offering a nifty new approach to customer reward programs, has raised $1 million in Series A funding. To get started with RewardLoop, businesses need to install an adapter that connects to their point-of-sale system (namely, the technology that handles the checkout and payment process).
Then, whenever someone makes a purchase, a QR code is printed at the end of their receipt, which they can scan in order to get loyalty points at the store. CEO and co-founder Jeff LaPorte says this offers some significant advantages over the other mobile loyalty programs out there. For one thing, he says most of those programs are based on check-ins, which only tell businesses that someone has visited their store (and really, not even that, since someone could also check-in if they’re nearby). LaPorte also says it’s convenient, since it integrates with 85 percent of existing POS systems and supposedly takes under 30 minutes to install.
And the adapter supports NFC payment systems. Etsy Raises $40M To Fuel International Expansion. Etsy, the popular online marketplace for all things handmade, just announced that it has raised $40 million in a new funding round led by Index Ventures with participation by Burda, Union Square Ventures, Accel Partners. All of the investors in this round also participated in the company’s $20 million Series E round in August 2010. Including today’s round, Etsy has now raised about $92 million. According to Etsy’s CEO Chad Dickerson, the company plans to use this additional funding for two things: “we plan to grow Etsy into an economic force all around the world and we want to provide more products and services to help sellers succeed and build their businesses on the Etsy platform.” In today’s announcement, Dickerson noted that his company has already made some efforts to expand internationally by launching in Germany and France. Last year, about $525 million changed hands among Etsy buyers and seller.
Empreendemia lança chat instantâneo na sua rede social de micro empresas. Para os micros e pequenos empresários, vender na internet é algo novo e que requer muito empenho para alcançar o sucesso esperado. No caso das empresas que vendem serviços, o trabalho é mais delicado, já que os clientes não estão visualizando um produto, mas apenas o detalhamento dos serviços prestados. Para contribuir com as MPEs prestadoras de serviços, a Empreendemia acaba de lançar o serviço de chat online para empresas cadastradas na rede.
O serviço funciona da seguinte forma: todas as vezes que o empreendedor estiver online no portal, ele receberá um alerta de que alguém está visualizando o perfil da sua empresa naquele momento. Dessa forma, ele pode iniciar uma conversa com a pessoa ou esperar que ela entre em contato. Segundo Luiz Piovesana, diretor da Empreendemia, a chance de um potencial cliente tirar dúvidas sobre determinado serviço é bem maior. Karen destaca que é preciso ter clareza e rapidez nas respostas para identificar a necessidade do cliente. Sobre a Empreendemia. Mixpanel Raises $10.25M Led by Andreessen Horowitz, Now Provides Analytics For Viddy And Path.
Y Combinator-backed analytics startup Mixpanel can now add Andreessen Horowitz to an already-impressive list of investors. Mixpanel previously raised $1.75 million from Sequoia Capital, Square COO Keith Rabois, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, and Bebo co-founder Michael Birch. Now Andreessen Horowitz has led a $10.25 million Series A, with participation from Levchin, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, and Yammer CEO David Sacks.
(Co-founder Suhail Doshi says Mixpanel chose Andreessen Horowitz over other firms, including Sequoia, which did not have pro rata in the deal.) Andreessen Horowitz’s Peter Levine is joining the company’s board. “We’ve watched Suhail and his team at Mixpanel transform the company from an innovative startup to one that delivers the most advanced solution we’ve seen for mobile and web analytics,” Levine says in the press release. Doshi has pitched Mixpanel as an affordable, innovative alternative to old-school analytics companies like Omniture. Google Ventures-Backed Location-Sharing Service EchoEcho Raises $750k From Bullpen, PROfounders.
Clone Brasileiro da Manpack Chega ao Mercado e Pretende ser o Melhor Amigo do Homem. Virurl Raises $1.2M To Reward Users For Spreading Viral Content. HelpSaúde recebe aporte do fundo Kaszek Ventures. LegalZoom Files For $120M IPO, Saw $156M In Revenue Last Year. Viewbix Raises $2M to Bring Interactive Videos to SMBs. Facebook launches its own app store. KeKu Promises Cheap, High-Quality Calls To Any Phone Number Worldwide. Leap Motion Raises $12.75 Million, Wants To Change “The Future Of Human/Computer Interaction” Saas For Cows! Farmeron Raises $1.4 Million *Seed* to Ease Farmer’s Lives. Assured Labor, The Mobile Job-Finding Network, Breaks Into Brazil. Kleiner Perkins And Sequoia Fund $6.5M Round For Ad Targeter Drawbridge. Payments And Online ID Verification Company Jumio Nabs Strategic Investment From Citi Ventures. BetterCloud Nabs $2.2M From Angels To Bring Better Management & Security To Google Apps. Coupa Raises $22 Million Series E To Help Companies Track Spending.
Cross-Platform CRM Startup Future Simple Raises $6.8M From Index Ventures, Social+Capital. Simple Rolls Out iPhone App, But Still No Word On Public Launch. Backed By Angels, SiteSimon Launches To Turn Your Browser Into An Intelligent Assistant. Flint: A New Mobile Payment App For Small Businesses Picks Up $3M From Storm, True Ventures.