paidContent » foundation capital

Pocket (formerly Read It Later) raises $5m in second funding round

Laura Hazard Owen — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:00:37 +0000

Pocket , the company for saving online content formerly known as Read It Later, has raised $5 million in a Series B funding round and will use the money to expand its platform.

The funding round was led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Baseline Ventures and Google Ventures.

Read It Later relaunched as Pocket in April and made its app completely free. The company says it has nearly six million users, up from about 4.5 million in April, saving a million pieces of content a day. It is integrated into over 350 third-party apps, including Flipboard and Twitter. Thirty percent of the content saved to Pocket is saved from news and reader apps.

TubeMogul Raises $10 Million For Online Video Analytics

Joseph Tartakoff — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 23:51:42 +0000

TubeMogul, which provides online video analytics and other video tools to publishers and advertisers, has raised $10 million in its latest funding round. TubeMogul says its analytics services, which show metrics like stream quality, audience geography, and referring sites, are used by video platform Brightcove, along with “most of the top video sharing and social networking sites.” TubeMogul also has as a seven-month-old ad platform that to date has been used to run more than 200 campaigns.

Some of the new cash will be used to expand the ad platform, and Silicon Alley Insider quotes CEO Brett Wilson as saying that the company is “undergoing a shift” to focus on it. Revenue, according to a report in TechCrunch, will be $10 million this year, up from $2.6 million a year ago.

The new funding round, which brings TubeMogul’s total backing to $15 million, was led by Foundation Capital; existing backers Trinity Ventures and Knight’s Bridge Capital partners also participated. The company had last raised cash in March 2009, when it raised $3 million.

Some more details in the release.

MobileIron Raises $16 Million To Manage Smartphones In The Enterprise

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:07:39 +0000

Mountain View, Calif.-based MobileIron has raised $16 million in a third round of funding to help develop a platform that manages everything from iPads to smartphones in the enterprise.

The round was led by Foundation Capital, reports peHUB. Also participating was its existing investors Storm Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Big Basin Ventures.

The company said it will use the money to support MobileIron

Online Video Monetization Firm FreeWheel Gets $16.8 Million From Disney’s Steamboat, Others

Joseph Tartakoff — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:15:02 +0000

FreeWheel has added $16.8 million in strategic funding from several top investors. The online video monetization startup says its fourth round of funding is coming from Walt Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, as well as existing backers Turner Broadcasting System, Battery Ventures and Foundation Capital (It’s the first time that FreeWheel has publicly disclosed that Turner is an investor).

FreeWheel’s platform — which lets publishers control who is selling ads against their syndicated online video content — has been adopted by MLB.com, Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX) and CBS (NYSE: CBS), among others. The company also said today it has landed ESPN’s ESPN.com and ESPN3.com, as well as Discovery Communications’ AnimalPlanet.com and TLC.com as clients.

The new round brings FreeWheel’s total funding to more than $28 million. The startup — which was launched by several former DoubleClick executives two years ago — had raised $12 million in a third round last April.

Job Search Site SimplyHired Gets $4.6 Million Funding

Rafat Ali — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:28:18 +0000

Job search engine SimplyHired, based in Mountain View, CA, has received $4.6 million in a new round of funding, led by IDG Ventures and Foundation Capital. This bring the total money into the company to $22.3 million; previous investors include Fox Interactive Media (NYSE: NWS), that invested $3.5 million in the company in 2006. Since then, FIM launched its own classifieds on MySpace, but went with rival service Oodle to power it. SimplyHired touts that it has been operating cash flow positive for the past four quarters with revenue growth for 16 consecutive quarters. The money will be used to hire and increase headcount from 50 to 80 in 2009 (it has to say that being in the job market), and for international expansion. Besides its own site, the company has focused on powering and distributing job sites for others such as LinkedIn, The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO), CNNMoney, BusinessWeek and Plaxo, among others. Release.

Photo-Based Ad Network Pixazza Raises $5.75 Million In First Round; Backing from Google

Rory Maher — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:10:12 +0000

Startup Pixazza has raised $5.75 million in a first round that includes investors August Capital, CMEA Ventures, Foundation Capital and most interestingly, from Google (NSDQ: GOOG), according to peHub. Angel investors include Ron Conway, former *eBay* COO Maynard Webb, and Facebook CFO Gideon Yu. Founded in 2008, Pixazza has a newish twist on commerce: it distributes images to publishers that include products people can purchase by clicking on the product within the image then purchasing it at the product’s website.

For example, a Paris Hilton pic with a click to be able to see which shoes she’s wearing, and where to buy them. It uses contextual technology and tags in a page where the picture is placed to determine what products to recommend, automatically (similar to Google Adsense and hence the Google connection). It then splits its commission from the sale with its publishing partners. Pixazza is headed by former Netscape execs Bob Lisbonne and James Everingham.

Online Textbook Rental Service Chegg.com Gets $25 Million Third Round

Tameka Kee — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:03:22 +0000

Chegg.com, an online rental service for textbooks, has picked up $25 million in a third round of funding. Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers and Foundation Capital led the round, along with participation from existing investors Gabriel Venture Partners and Primera Capital. The Santa Clara-based startup was founded in 2005, and rolled out a version of its service under the Textbookflix brand (a play on Netflix) in mid-2007, but that site is now defunct. Instead, students go directly to Chegg.com to rent textbooks for “65 to 85 percent” cheaper than they cost in the bookstore. They can also sell their old books to the service.

Chegg.com raised $2.2 million in funding from Gabriel Venture Partners and angel investor Mike Maples back in January 2007 (per VentureBeat), but the amounts of any interim rounds have thus far been undisclosed. The startup says students from over 4,000 universities have used its service, and while there are currently a few similar sites (CampusBookRentals.com and BookRenter.com, for example), it’s a business model that could pick up dramatically given the economy. The company said it will use the new cash to build out its catalog, improve customer service and to try to maintain its stake as a leader in the space. Release.

Conviva Raises $20 Million Second Round For Live Internet Video

Joseph Weisenthal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:25:47 +0000

Conviva, a startup promising a superior way for companies to distribute live internet video, has raised a big $20 million second round led by UV Partners, along with past backers New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Foundation Capital. The San Mateo, CA-based company, previously known as Rinera, raised $9 million early last year, for a total raise of $29 million. The company’s technology is a bit of a mystery, compounded by the fact that it’s raised so much money before having a product to sell. The announcement says the company is building a “virtual living room,” though CEO Carlos Ramón didn’t care to clarify what that meant in an interview with NewTeeVee. Sans any details about itself, the company is mainly speaking up about the weaknesses of current technology. Release.

Media Intelligence Firm Biz360 Raises $10 Million

Joseph Weisenthal — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:35:00 +0000

Biz360, a market and media intelligence firm specializing in the web, has raised $10 million Foundation Capital, along with past backers Granite Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. According to peHUB, the Burlingame, CA-based firm has raised nearly $50 million. The company offers a familiar service that allows companies to monitor what’s being said about them online. It’s Social Media Insights product specifically looks at what’s being said on blogs. Biz360 has been around for several years, and in that time others, like Umbria and Buzzmetrics, have sold out to larger media monitoring firms. Release.

Personal Assistant Rearden Commerce Raises $100 Million For Expansion To Mobile

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:55:00 +0000

Rearden Commerce, which has been focused on creating a Web-based personal assistant that lets you manage calendars and make travel arrangements online, said today it has raised $100 million in venture capital from high-profile investors JPMorgan Chase & Co., American Express, Oak Investment Partners and Foundation Capital. The Foster City, Calif.-based company said the funding will be used for expanding services and development plans due to the popularity of its services. It said part of its growth includes moving into the consumer space, however, VentureBeat is reporting that means that Rearden will enter the mobile space, with what is being characterized as a “major offensive,” to be announced at the end of this month. Release.

Other details VentureBeat reported include that Rearden is likely to make a big mobile advertising play, claiming it can offer advertisers detailed information about where people are and other details about them. The company expects to add 200 employees for a total of 500 by the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how well Rearden manages this transition. It reminds me of Facebook’s Beacon service. Although Rearden doesn’t say it’s going to share a person’s preferences with others — like Beacon — it will be interesting to see how people feel about their “personal assistant” leaking information about their whereabouts to advertisers.