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Real-Time Analytics Startup Chartbeat Raises $3 Million

Joseph Tartakoff — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:40:39 +0000

Chartbeat, an analytics startup that provides subscribers with a snapshot of how people are interacting with their sites — in real time — has raised $3 million in a first round of funding. The company, which was incubated at NYC-based tech investor Betaworks and launched in April 2009, pitches its service as an alternative to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Analytics, saying that while “Google Analytics can tell you how many people loaded a page in a given time period, ChartBeat can tell you how many people kept the page open and are on it right now, and whether they are actively interacting with it.”

Chartbeat says it has 2,500 paying customers, including Gawker Media, the Chicago Tribune and DailyKos. The new funding round was led by Index Ventures. Other investors include O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Freestyle Capital, Lowercase Capital and Jason Calacanis.

Foursquare Raises $20 Million In New Round (Finally)

Joseph Tartakoff — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:00:45 +0000

Foursquare, the extremely hot mobile check-in service, has finally raised a new round of funding. Since at least March, venture capital firms (and large internet companies) have been courting Foursquare, which has been growing very rapidly; at one point, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) was said to have offered as much as $100 million for the startup.

Foursquare ultimately went with a consortium of venture capital firms, which are investing $20 million in the company. They include existing backers Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, as well as new investor Andreessen Horowitz.

Foursquare says its “main priority” for the new cash will be to build a “world-class engineering organization.” The company, which was founded just over a year ago by Dennis Crowley, who also started and then sold mobile social networking service Dodgeball to Google (NSDQ: GOOG), had raised $1.35 million in a round last fall and currently has 27 employees.

In a blog post, Andreessen Horowitz, which had previously withdrawn a funding offer because it said the funding process was “playing out too much in public” explains its reasoning for backing the company, calling Foursquare’s service “a killer product” that is “growing faster than Twitter did at this stage.”

The VC firm also calls the market opportunity “gigantic” because of the growing adoption of smartphones, saying the service “will capture a huge portion of (the market) because it’s incredibly fun and addicting.”

It’s not alone in the mobile check-in market, however; Booyah recently raised $20 million for its own MyTown check-in app, and a third player, Gowalla, raised $8.4 million in a funding round in late December.

Online Travel Organizer TripIt Raises $7 Million

Joseph Tartakoff — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:50:50 +0000

TripIt, which offers a series of online tools that travelers can use to organize their travel plans, has raised $7 million in a funding round. With TripIt, users e-mail in their itineraries and then have TripIt organize them into a single “master travel itinerary” that they can easily share and access. A ‘Pro’ version — which costs $69 a year — also alerts travelers to any delays or changes, as well as to alternate flights they can take.

The company launched a partnership with discount travel site Hotwire last fall, so that travelers who used that service to book tickets could automatically add their plans to their TripIt itinerary.

TripIt isn’t saying how many users it has, although it does tell GigaOm that visitors planned 230,000 trips on its site in January, up from 70,000 during the same month the year before.

With the new cash, TripIt will have raised just over $13.1 million since its start three-and-a-half years ago. The new money comes from Azure Capital Partners and O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures. TripIt says in a blog post that it will use the cash to accelerate the development of new products.

AMEE Gets $5.5 Million For Greenhouse Gas Monitoring

Ingrid Lunden — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:45:53 +0000

An example of how some straight tech investment is making the shift into green technology: AMEE, which has built an engine to calculate greenhouse gas emissions, has raised $5.5 million from investors that include Amadeus Capital Partners and existing investors O

Web Device Maker Chumby Industries Raises $12.5 Million Second Round

Joseph Weisenthal — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:37:00 +0000

Chumby Industries, the developer of a gadget to access the web, has raised a $12.5 million second round led by JK&B Capital, with participation from previous backers Avalon Ventures, Masthead Venture Partners and O

Openads Scores £7.9 Million For Open-Source Ad Platform

Robert Andrews — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000

London-based Openads, an open-source ad server, has managed to raise a $15.5 million (£7.9 million) second round of funding, with the aim of stepping up product development and hiring more staff. (Rafat adds: We use the software to serve ads currently, but are moving away to a commercial software)

Its eponymous Openads product lets website operators insert image, movie, Flash, popup and other ads, target campaigns and monitor their performance. It can also plug in ad networks like Google’s (NSDQ: GOOG), it’s used by over 30,000 web publishers in over 100 countries.

So how can Openads command such a hefty investment for a product it’s giving away? It’s not the first to try to make money from open-source – Red Hat (Linux), Automattic (WordPress) and Acquia (Drupal) have all set about offering premium options on top of essentially free software. Today, Openads launches a hosted version that removes the need for users to run the software on their own servers there’s not yet any mention of that being a commercial offering ~~but that appears the most likely monetisation avenue~~. Update: The hosted option will also remain free.

The round is led by Accel Partners, with investment from existing backers Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. Openads’ $5 million first round in June was led by Index with contributions from everyone else except Accel, which Openads CEO James Bilefield said shared his belief in the open-source model.

Openads Gets $15.5 Million Funding For Open-Source Ad Platform

Robert Andrews — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Its eponymous Openads product lets website operators insert image, movie, Flash, popup and other ads, target campaigns and monitor their performance. It can also plug in ad-networks like Google’s (NSDQ: GOOG), it’s used by over 30,000 web publishers in over 100 countries.

So how can Openads command such a hefty investment for a product it’s giving away? It’s not the first to try to make money from open-source – Red Hat (Linux), Automattic (WordPress) and Acquia have all set about offering premium options on top of essentially free software. Today, Openads launches a hosted version that removes the need for users to run the software on their own servers. There’s not yet any mention of that being a commercial offering ~~but that appears the most likely monetisation avenue~~. Update: The hosted option will also remain free.

Acquia Raises $7 Million First Round For Commercialization Of Drupal Publishing Platform

Joseph Weisenthal — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:50:00 +0000

Acquia, the commercial developer of open source publishing platform Drupal, has raised a $7 million first round led by North Bridge Venture Partners; also participating were Sigma Partners and O