Coupons.com raises $30 Million from Greylock Partners

Coupons.com, the Mountain View, Calif. – based provider of digital coupons, has recently announced the end of a new funding round which has brought the company the amount of $30 million. This funding round has been led by Greylock Partners.

This new round of funding, which comes in addition to the recently raised $200 million from institutional investors, is going to bring the amounts of money needed by the company in order to transform this multi-billion dollar coupon industry into something different from what their opponents such as Groupon.com have to offer, meaning to extend the variety of products put at the disposal of their clients from the print publications to the digital environment. This comes as a reaction to the decline of the print publications which naturally generated the need of publishing coupons online instead of distributing them through newspapers.

Steven Boal, the CEO of the company, has stated the following: “As the coupon book in the newspaper gets thinner, it’s because it’s slowly moving to Coupons.com.”

After this deal, the partners at Greylock will be given permission to act as an important adviser. The company announces that it is going to use Greylock’s expertise in order to find market-transforming couponing solutions, such as mobile- and social-based products and services. The company also intends to use Greylock’s expertise in order to expand Coupons.com at an international level and for point-of-sale integration.

Steven Boal also declared the following: “We are very excited to work with Reid Hoffman and James Slavet and the entire Greylock team. Greylock’s expertise and relationships will prove invaluable as we continue connecting brands with consumers via money-saving offers at every touch-point across the digital landscape—including web, social and mobile—and along the consumer’s entire path to purchase.”

The amount invested by Greylock Partners is that of $30 million, half of which have already been invested by this moment. Reid Hoffman, one of the partners at Greylock Partners, has stated the following: “We’re very pleased with our investment in Coupons.com and are excited about working with the team as they continue to build a substantial, market-defining company. Coupons.com is almost single handedly transforming the multi-billion dollar coupon industry by ushering the newspaper-dominated business to digital. The market opportunity the company faces is immense, and we look forward to contributing in any way to their continued success, particularly in the context of social and mobile solutions.”

At the moment, the company is hiring aggressively. Since June to the present moment, the staff at Coupons.com has increased from 288 employees to 450 employees, amount which is expected by the end of the year, which actually means that we are talking about a growth of over 50 percent in a period of only six months.

Also, in order to attract more clients, the company decided to lower the barriers to entry for companies to offer coupons, which means that smaller businesses will also be considered. The company has also managed to attract the attention of those potential clients which are more interested about the means of advertising on the online environment rather than on the print one. Also, the switch from print to digital will also reduce the costs of the campaigns, allowing a new sort of companies to use the services offered by Coupons.com.

Power Assure raises $13.5 Million for Energy Management Solutions

Power Assure, the Santa Clara, Calif. – based data center power-saving software company, has recently announced the end of its series B funding round which has brought the firm the amount of $13.5 million. This funding round has been led by the strategic partner, ABB, along with the previous investors from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Good Engines, and Point Judith Capital.

Tarak Mehta, the Head of Low Voltage Products division at ABB, stated the following: “The data center market continues to grow at 8 to 12 percent per year. However it is becoming constrained by the availability of power, especially in high density areas where space is a limitation. Power Assure’s server optimization and energy management platform strongly positions the company with a market-leading offering to free up power so customers have additional processing capability. We are looking forward to deepening our strategic relationship with Power Assure through this investment.”

This new amount of money comes after the accomplishments of numerous milestones by the company during the last six months. For instance, NASA has standardized on the company across all of its data centers. Also, Power Assure gas sent its EM/4 energy management software etc. Numerous other measures have been taken in order to reach the imposed milestones, but, after their accomplishment, the company has been acknowledged as a Garten Cool Vendor in DCIM tools, Red Herring North America Top 100 company, Data Center Change and Innovation award winner and GigaOm structure 50 companies.

The company manages large scale data centers which it combines with powering multiple computers on one physical server, managing to decrease the costs and offer astonishing solutions. Power Assure offers software which can track and analyze enterprise- and government-size data such as to give the opportunity to managers to make better decisions regarding their way of running the servers and optimizing the usage in order to save power and to free up server space.

Brad Wurts, the president and CEO of power Assure, has stated the following: “We are very pleased to have secured a new funding round led by our strategic partner ABB with reinvestments from our existing top-tier backers. Earlier this year we integrated our EM/4 software with ABB’s automation and control software and devices. This agreement deepens our partnership and brings Power Assure global reach and a well-established network of sales and support professionals with access to our target markets in the data center. This partnership and new financing will help us rapidly scale our business.”

The money raised in this new funding round is intended to be used in order to grow the marketing and the sales teams as for the company to manage to become the leader in the field of data center infrastructure and energy management solutions. Also, the leaders of the company intend to use some of this amount of money in order to increase the engineering as to allow the company to develop faster and better. As a result of this new funding round, Andrew Tang, one of the managing directors at ABB Technology Ventures is going to join company’s board of directors. The company had managed to raise $28.75 up to this moment, in addition to which Power Assure has also gained $5 million from a marching-fund grant offered by the US Department of Energy.

ClearSide raises $11 Million to expand its Sales Communication Service

ClearSide, the San Francisco, Calif. – based startup which provides sales communication tools, has recently announced the end of its series A of funding which has brought the company the amount of $11 million. This funding round has been led by Greylock Partners, which has also just been the leader of the Tumblr’s massive $85 million funding round, and which has previously invested in companies such as Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn and Constant Contract. The current investor, Felicis Ventures, has also participated to this funding round.

The company provides solutions for salespeople so as for them to find it easily to share presentations and related content such as PDFs and videos with their clients in order to be more efficient and to create a stronger connection.

Al Lieb, the CEO and Evite co-founder of the company has stated the following: “We’re bringing new kinds of functionality to sales representatives. After talking with thousands of sales teams, we came up with better tools to help reps with pitching.”

The company specialises in providing sales professionals with a browser-based dashboard which allows them to upload all type of documents such as PowerPoint presentations, Word docs, and videos in all formats, PDFs, interactive web pages, Flash files and many more. The moment when the files are uploaded, the sales persons can decide to show them to clients or other persons they are working with via a branded URL which can be plugged into any browser and allow the user instant access to the information. Moreover, in order to be more efficient in their work, ClearSide has also developed an analytics system which allows them to track down the ways in which customers have interacted with one or another shared document.

Lieb has also declared the following: “Salespeople want to be able to give a less-than-a-minute presentation if need be. Our service makes giving a presentation faster and easier than it is through something like WebEx or GoToMeeting.”

At the moment, ClearSide already has “hundreds” of customers who are benefiting from the advantages put to their disposal by the company, among which there are also notable companies such as Rackspace, Expedia and Dow Jones which are using it for their sales department.

John Lilly, from Greylock Partners, has stated the following: “ClearSlide replaces the awful, cumbersome tools with something that’s radically simpler, and they’ve built an incredibly rapidly growing customer base.”

The money raised in this funding round is intended to be used for the expansion of the company, as the founders are considering doubling the size of the company’s team. At the moment, ClearSide gas 30 employees, but Lieb declared that the firm is “expanding across the board” and is planning to have 70 employees by the end of the year.

There are already some other important names which activate in the same field, such as WebEx and GoToMeeting, which provide sales teams numerous communication tools.

CareCloud raises $20.1 Million for Medical Professionals Cloud

CareCloud, the Miami-based cloud provider for healthcare business, recently announced the end of a funding round which has brought the company the amount of $20.1 million. This funding round has been led by the Silicon Valley-based Intel Capital along with the Norwest Venture Partners.

Albert Santalo, the CEO and founder of the company, has stated the following: “They must believe in us if they’re willing to spend money on frequent cross-country flights for meetings.”

The company specialises in providing cloud-based practice management tools for all the healthcare providers. This means that CareCloud creates applications which are used by medical professionals in their business. These applications also include a community collaboration and communication platform which guarantees a secure share of the patient’s information. There is also an application which provides medical practice management systems for billing and scheduling, just as there is a revenue cycle management application. It will not be long until the company will also provide electronic medical records. The money received in this round of funding is intended to be used in order to develop the technologies which are to serve the needs of the healthcare providers.

Santalo also declared the following: “This industry is one that tends to lag behind the general tech industry. We believe a big part of what we have to do is continue innovating. To do this we will increase our geographic footprint and expand our sales and marketing teams.”

At the moment, the company has 85 employees, but Santalo announced that he intends to have more than 100 by the end of this year. The company has been launched in 2010 and, by this moment, its accounts exceed the amount of $500 million which have been received under management for physicians and healthcare providers.

Santalo stated the following: “The cloud is the place where all of the people in healthcare are playing a roll. We use it to connect all of the different players. Healthcare at is core is a social industry, but there’s wasn’t a good infrastructure to connect everyone.”

Concerning the shut down of Google Health, Santalo believes that it is related to the fact that the platform did not strive to be social. Related to this, he declared the following: “It’s difficult to build a consumer-side platform and swim upstream. The platform has to be built by the people providing the care. Also, it’s hard for a company like Google or Microsoft to be so many things. Healthcare requires a company that doesn’t care about anything else that’s going on.”

During the last year, CareCloud has received numerous awards, including the one offered by IBM’s SmartCamp Silicon Valley and the IBM’s SmartCamp World Finals. It was at this moment that the company managed to connect with its actual funders.

Concerning the funding, Santalo stated the following: “The funding environment is interesting now. You read that investment dollars are flowing, but only the best companies and entrepreneurs are the ones getting funding these days.”

FirstFuel Software raises $2.4 Million for Remote Building Energy Analysis

FirstFuel Software, the Waltham, Mass. – based provider of analytics software that tracks energy usage in commercial buildings, has recently announced the end of its series A of funding which has brought the company an amount of $2.4 million. This funding round has been led by Battery Ventures and Nth Power, with participation from individual investors. The money raised in this round of funding is intended to be used to accelerate the rhythm of development of the Rapid Building Assessment platform, which gives very precise information about the energy performance of commercial buildings.

The company specialises in tracking the energy usage in buildings without having to use energy-tracking devices such as smart thermostats and plugs, but by using information from utilities, which it afterwards combines with weather data, determining the temperature near the building, as to create a profile of the energy use for each building.

One of the spokesmen at FirstFuel stated the following: “The software analyzes available utility and weather data to create profiles of how the building uses energy, and makes the efficiency recommendations off of that. Plus, they do deep analytics on the whole building’s energy consumption, which provides them a view of end-uses, such as: lights, heating, cooling, plug loads and data centers.”

The recommendations FirstFuel makes can refer to retrofitting the building with more insulation or better lighting systems. The interesting thing is that the company makes all of these recommendations without sending a person to the building. The entire process of analysis is done through internet.

This means that the company does not necessarily function as a consultant, but that its interest is that of selling licenses to the utility companies which are interested in removing some strain on the power grid. One of the most relevant examples is that of the usage of air conditioning in a building. By retrofitting commercial buildings with better insulation systems and windows, the energy consumption of a building can be reduced from air conditioning units at peak load times, during those moments of the day when it is very hot and everybody is using the air conditioning unit.

Swapnil Shah, the co-founder and CEO of FirstFuel Software stated the following: “Utilities have had difficulty engaging their commercial customers and realizing energy efficiency savings on a large scale. The FirstFuel platform applies deep analytics to consumption data, delivering highly insightful profiles of energy-use at a speed and cost that enables scalable delivery across a large portfolio. We look forward to working with utilities to help them engage their commercial customers and achieve energy efficiency goals.”

Jason Matlof, the partner from Battery Ventures, declared the following: “FirstFuel Software has a profound opportunity to help the utility industry maximize their energy efficiency goals across commercial building portfolios. We look forward to supporting the company’s growth and are excited by FirstFuel’s vision of establishing the de facto information platform for large scale energy efficiency in commercial buildings.”

Lookout Mobile Security raises $40 Million for Phone Security

Lookout Mobile Security, the San Francisco-based mobile security software developer, has recently announced the end of a new funding round which has brought the company the amount of $40 million for its smarphone security system. This new funding round has been led by Andreessen Horowitz, the venture fund which is co-led by Marc Andreessen, one of the investors at Silicon Valley. Current investors have also participated in this funding round, which means that the funding round also reunites the names of Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners and Index Ventures.

This amount of money may seem incredible for a company which produces mobile software, such as Lookout Mobile Security, but, if we are taking into consideration the fact that mobile phones, especially Androids, are a growing market, we can understand why these investors decided to put so much in a single project. As a matter of fact, it is becoming obvious that the tendency is that of transforming mobile phones into computer platforms, meaning that it will become more and more important to find the suitable solutions in order to protect them from all sorts of threats.

At the moment, Lookout already provides protection software for more than 12 million smarphone and tablet users. Their software protects these devices from malware, spyware and identity theft attempts. Moreover, this software also provides backing up systems for personal data. It also provides information on the location of a stolen or lost phone. The Lookout application is powered by the Lookout’s cloud-based Mobile Threat Network. This cloud specializes in analyzing global threats. In the case of a threat being found, the system automatically blocks it by a system of over-the-air updates to smarphones. This actually means that this application provided by Lookup is efficient in detecting and dealing with a threat in just a matter of minutes.

As John Hering, the chief executive and co-founder of Lookout Mobile Security said, the company intends to use the money raised in this new funding round in order to create new products, but also in order to expand at a global level, which automatically means that in order to hire new personnel as well. After the end of this new funding round, Jeff Jordan from Andreessen Horowitz is going to join the company’s board.

The business is expected to grow fast. Gartner considers that the mobile phone shipments are to reach the value of a billion in 2015, far outpacing PC shipments. However, as the incidence of malware is rapidly increasing when it comes to phones as well, it is only normal for the company to expect to have a rapid growth. At the moment, the persons who use the Lookout’s services are on 400 mobile networks in 170 countries. This means that their audience is incredibly large. Up to the date, Lookout has managed to raise the total amount of $76.5 million.

Arcsoft raises $20 Million for Mobile and Cloud Applications

Arcsoft, the Fremont, California based multimedia software maker, has recently announced the end of a new funding round which has brought the company the amount of $20 million. This money is going to be used in order to create mobile and cloud-based browser applications and to invest in core technologies.

This funding round has been led by Intel Capital, the Intel’s global investment arm, and by Tudor Ventures, the venture capital unit of Tudor Investment Corp. Michael Deng, the CEO at Arcsoft, declared the following: “We’ve been in talks with Intel and Tudor about possible investments for two years. Finally, we’ve made this happen so we can develop next-generation imaging and multimedia solutions.”

The company is known on the market for its software which has been bundled with new desktop and laptops computer manufacturers such as HP and Dell. As well, the company is known for expanding its software to phones, digital cameras, scanners and printers. Among their mobile hardware partners, we can name Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola. Nonetheless, Deng refuses to announce which are the specific devices from those original equipment manufacturers which work with Arcsoft’s technologies.

Michael Deng, the CEO at Arcsoft, declared after the announcement of the end of this funding round: “We want to be more aggressive in areas like imaging, video, gestures, facial-recognition and 3D. Our codecs and software greatly improve many devices being used today, and we can do more.”

For the moment, the company does not provide any consumer-facing mobile applications, but the money raised in this new round of funding will help it produce iOS and Android applications. Deng stated the following concerning this: “We’ve been focused on the OEMs for a long time, but we see this as an area worth dedicating resources toward.”

PhotoStudio, Print Creations, Panorama Maker, total Media Theater and DVD Slideshow are just some of the most popular PC software titles developed by Arcsoft. For the moment, the company intends to launch new applications, similar to these ones, but for the cloud. Deng also stated that the company would have more announcements related to this software in the months to come.

Arcsfot is a company which has been founded in 1994 and which is privately owned. The company has over 800 employees and it has lastly received funding in the amount of $10 million from Panasonic and Seiko Epson in 2001. This great distance between the two rounds of funding indicate the fact that the company has the ability of standing without outside investments for so long.

Magisto raises $5.5 Million to Automate Video Editing

Magisto, the cloud video editing, has recently announced the end of a series B of funding which has brought the company an amount of $5.5 million. The money raised in this second round of funding are intended to be used in order to automate the painstaking editing process for the masses. This funding round has been led by Hong Kong investor Li Ka-shing’s Horizon Ventures, with the participation of Magma Venture Partners. As a matter of fact, Magma Venture Partners is the company which has previously funded Magisto, with terms which remain undisclosed.

Oren Boiman, the CEO at Magisto, stated the following: “Video editing is not just challenging — for 99 percent of people, it’s a barrier. We’re the first company to make automated video editing into an easy-to-use service. We think of Li Ka-shing’s investment as more than just venture capital. It opens doors and positions us in such a way that we could be integrated into other services.”

The services provided by Magisto are free for the moment and they are intended to automate the video editing process for the ones which have not a lot of experience in this field. This means that anybody who uses this service can submit video clips to Magisto and let the service do the cutting of the video material which generates an interesting final result. In order to do this, the services provided by Magisto scan the video clips for noteworthy action and afterwards it packages those interesting scenes with tricks such as transitions and split-screens. After the moment when the user inserts a title and a soundtrack for the video clip, the work is done and can be shared.

Oren Boiman also declared the following: “You don’t want to share a video; you want to share an event. We turn your video into something that isn’t boring.”

For the moment, the team at Magisto has only developed a service which can edit any type of video which is under two minutes. The team, as Boiman said, may be considering offering a premium version for longer clips, but this one would require a type of payment. Moreover, this premium version would also have other advantages such as the removal of the Magisto’s branding, and the allowance to download the video in order for the user to be able to share it only if he or she chooses so.

At the moment, the service is being used by 20.000 users in its closed beta that started in April. Boiman believes in the success of this idea as it will allow users to create a sort of library of personal events which, despite the fact that will not be widely shared, will cause users to come back to the site in order to access their clips quite often.

Cloud video editing seems to be one of the hottest topics this year, as there are also other companies such as WeVideo and DEMO which have recently launched and generated lots of disputes.

Pinterest raised $10 Million in Series A of Funding over a $40 Million Valuation

Pinterest, the San Francisco based company, has recently announced the end of the first round of funding which has brought the company an amount of $10 million based on a valuation of $40 million. The company functions as a social catalog which allows users to load and share the things they love and to develop a community where they can also discover the things their friends and taste-makers love and share as well. All the digital information you consider to be important to you and to the rest of the world can be uploaded on this platform in order to also be discovered by the rest of the world.

Business Insider has initially reported the fact that this funding round has left from the basis of a $75+ million valuation, but, afterwards, the news has been amended, announcing that the real value of the valuation has been that of $40 million. This round of funding is considered to be “massive” by all the investors based in Silicon Valley, which have been surprised by the amount of the investment as well. There are also rumors according to which the company has previously managed to raise the amount of $10 million in a first round of funding which took place during the spring and which has been led by Bessemer. The same source who declared this for Business Insider also announced the fact that the company is now focusing upon raising the same amount of money in a series B of funding based on a valuation which is of about $125 million, as one of the sources announces, or even of $200 million, as another source has reported. However, Business Insider draws the attention upon the fact that listening to these rumors is not going to help in any way as it is ridiculous from the point of view of the company to search for funds for a second round of investment at this moment.

It continues to remain a mystery for everybody why the company would look for raising money so close to their series A of funding. However, it seems that founders Ben Silbermann and Paul Sciarra are really doing it. Their decision may be motivated by the fact that the site is experiencing an impressive growth based especially on the positive effects of the world of mouth from high-profile techies. Everybody seems to be interested in this company and everybody wants to have and share the personal information on the Pinterest profile.

Despite this growing success, it seems that there have been several investors who have passed entirely on both of the funding rounds due to their concerns related to the fact that the “virtual pinboard” is not a mass market play. Before starting this social sharing site, Pintest has been responsible for the incredible redesign of Myspace.

Yalies Ben Silbermann, one of the founders of Pinterest, has previously worked as the Product specialist at Google, while Paul sciarro, the other founder of the site, has previously built social applications at Cold Brew and Evan sharp, once of the product designers at Facebook.

SOS Online Backup raises $3 Million for Cloud Storage Channels

SOS Online Backup, the leading provider and pioneer of cloud computing technology in the area of data protection, based in El Segundo, California, has recently announced the end of the first round of funding of $3 million. This funding round has been led by Splashpond Investors.

The money raised in the round A of funding is going to be used in order to create a new cloud-based service and products. At the moment, the company has more than 500.000 subscribers for its services.

Ken Shaw, the founder and CEO of the company, said that SOS Online Backup currently partners with 600 to 700 MSPs along with a few hundreds other reseller partners, from one-man fixit shops to Yahoo in order to bring its cloud storage technology to customers.

The company has been founded in Australia, but it has opened an office in the US in 2006. At the moment, the company is signing up about 50 partners a month. It is known that 90 percent of the company’s business comes from North America.

The company provides a “white label” cloud storage solution which the channel partners can afterwards offer to customers by using the brand of the reseller.

In this cloud storage the company includes a full set of tools and systems for its channel partners. These set of tools includes built-in marketing and sales support and technical training. The company also provides the software which the resellers may need in order to turn a server into an on-premises backup device which can be used for local data protection.

Moreover, the company will provide gross margins to partners in between 50 or 60 percent, announced Shaw. He also declared the following: “Our program has been successful because we provide such a high margin. Backup has been a pain for resellers. Now they can make 50-percent margins on it.”

With the amount raised in this founding round, the company raised a total amount of $10 million up to the date.

Aurora Algae raises $22 Million for Biochemical Energy

Aurora Algae, the developer of biofuels and biochemicals which come from algae, has recently announced the end of another round of funding which has brought the company an amount of $22 million. The company is part of a small set of biologically-produced chemical companies which receive funds and which are focusing on producing diverse and multiple types of biochemical products which are used in order to replace other sources of energy. One of their products is the feed stock and transportation fuel. Lately, these companies have registered a large number of successful exits. Some of the companies which have successfully completed the files which allow them to go public and to make their own debuts during the previous year are Solazyme, Amyris and KiOR. Despite the fact that the interest of investors in the biofuel sector as a whole has registered a decrease during the previous year, one can notice that the companies which had the advantage of producing a large diversity of biochemical products registered record gains in venture capital, according to a report made by Lux Research.

Greg Bafalis, the Chief Executive at Aurora Algae, stated the following regarding this new funding round: “You’re starting to see a realization that we came to a year ago, if you’re growing a base commodity you should go after the highest-value markets and not just biofuels. Biofuels will eventually come, but they shouldn’t be your focus now.”

Because investors have been less interested in the biofuels field of activity as a whole during the previous year, disregarding the start-ups in this field of activity, and preferring to invest a larger amount of money in a smaller set of companies which already had an influence on the market, we can notice that, at the moment, most of the biofuel companies on the market already started to mature or, even more, some of them managed to finish their third or fourth round of funding and to go public.

Related to this subject, Greg Bafalis added the following: “I think you’re starting to see a little bit of a shakeout for the companies that are a little more advanced in their processes. We’re starting with the low-hanging fruit, the easy stuff to start off with that has high value.”

The company produces chemicals which afterwards transforms into “nutriceuticals” which are the equivalents of feed stock and protein-rich biomass products. In order to achieve this, Aurora Algae cultivates a type of algae which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and which create a petrochemical product when they are processed which is similar to the palm oil the company converts in order to produce a number of other products.

The funds raised in this funding round are going to be used in order to start the construction of the first facility which will help producing commercial-grade biochemicals. At the moment, the company is running some trial runs at a demonstration plant located in Australia which are supposed to be completed by the end of the year. Up to the moment, the company has managed to raise $72 million in venture capital.

Woozworld raises $6 Million for Mobile Tween Application

Woozworld, the Montreal based company, has announced the end of newest funding round, which has brought the company an amount of $6 million. This funding round has been led by Telesystem and iNovia Capital, but also from some anonymous angel investors. As a result of this funding round, Bernard Gershon, the former General Manager and Senior Vice President of Disney, has joined the company’s board of advisors. Woozworld is a massive multiplayer user-generated social game for tweens (children aged between 9 and 14). The chief executive of the company, Eric Brassard, declared that the goal of the company is that of turning Woozworld into the safest destination of tweens.

Eric Brassard, the company’s President and CEO, declared: “Since Woozworld first launched, our main objective has been to make it the number-one safe destination, where tweens can creatively feed their imagination and innate desire to behave like young adults. The new funds will allow us to enhance Woozworld’s already highly successful formula both online and, moving forward, on the mobile.”

The company announces that the money gathered in this funding round is going to be used in order to expand Woozworld to mobile platforms and in order to boost its online marketing strategy. During the last 18 months, the users of the site have registered more than 7 million avatars and have built more than 14 million virtual spaces, which indicate the fact that there is a great demand for the product. Tweens access the Woozworld site in order to have the opportunity of creating their own worlds to develop virtual businesses such as restaurants or games. Based on this product, the company attracts more than 15 million unique visitors a month, which come from 180 countries. The company also has 76 million page views per month and data shows that the user base has increased three times during the previous six months. Data also indicates the fact that active users are spending an average of more than 70 minutes per day on the site.

Francois-Charles Sirois, the President of Telesystem, one of the funding ventures, stated the following: “We’ve been extremely pleased to see the progress that Woozworld has made in the last year. Woozworld is already considered a success but we believe with Woozworld’s phenomenal growth and their upcoming features, technology and offerings, Woozworld will surely become the leader in the tween virtual world industry.”

The company intends to use all its forces in order to maintain Woozworld a safe gaming environment for children, which parents can trust. The firm provides interactive games which allow members to play and also learn from the experience. All information to be given to the site is protected and the entire policy of the company is strictly following the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Parents are encouraged to let their children play on Woozworld as this will keep them in a safe and educational environment. They will learn the principles of business and will be able to use their knowledge of the world in order to generate a virtual world which they will lead.

Shocking Technologies raises $15.2 Million in Series C of Funding

Shocking Technologies, the company based in San Jose, California, has recently announced the end of the third round of funding which has brought the company an amount of $15.2 million which is going to be used in order to make electric-shock-proof electronic circuit boards. This funding round has reunited investors from Littelfuse, Arch Ventures, ATA Ventures, Balch Hill Capital, Skylake Incuvest, Vista Ventures and some private investors. The company is going to use the money in order to build additional manufacturing capacity as for it to be able to meet the demand on the market.

The company specializes in using nanotechnologies in order to protect electronic products from those accidental sparks which can lead to the destruction of gadgets such as iPhones or laptops. Shocking Technologies already has a history in providing elements which are intended to protect the world’s circuit boards and almost everything there is in the electronic market, such as the electrostatic discharge (ESD) that allegedly brought down the Hindenburg blimp in 1937.

In order to protect against discharges, the company embeds a plastic coating that it calls XStatic in an electronic circuit board or chip package. Discharges are caused by the sparks who occur when a strong electric field creates an ionized conductive channel in the air. Even though that electric shock can only hardly be felt by the human body, they can cause real damages to the electronic equipment you are using. The traditional ESD protection systems include providing surge suppressors in the electrical outlets and inside the electronic equipment which is being used. But this system only provides protection for 3 percent of the cases. When it comes to smaller devices, it is even more difficult to provide protection due to the fact that they provide only limited space and due to the device’s physics. These elements force the producers to choose between elements such as reliability, signal integrity and functionality. But the developers at Shocking Technologies state that they can provide solutions which guarantee 100 percent protection by reducing the number of components which can be found in an electronic device.

The XStatic material functions as an insulator when it comes to normal circuit operations, but turns conductive in those moments when the voltage grows beyond a predefined threshold. After the moment when the voltage drops, the material goes back to function as an insulator. The result is that all the chips to be found on the board are protected from ESD voltage which is likely to cause damage. Also, the fact that the material is covered in copper foils help to protect the boards and the chips.

The company was founded in 2006 by Lex Kosowsky and Robert Fleming. By now, Shocking Technologies has more than 100 patents and lots of pending applications for patents. In the previous funding rounds, the company has raised $32.2 million from investors such as Littlefuse, Arch Venture Partners, ATA Ventures, Skylake Incuvest, Vista Ventures, Balch Hill Capital, and some angels. Rivals include On Semiconductor, California Micro Devices, NXP, Cooper Bussman and Tyco Electronics.

CloudOn raises $7.7 Million in Series A of Funding for Mobile Productivity Applications

CloudOn, the company based in Palo Alto, California, has recently arrived at the end of the discussions for the first round of funding which brought the company an amount of $7.7 million, announced the SEC. The company specializes in providing access to the productivity and collaboration tools needed by customers for the devices they are using. The company has been formally known as AppToU, a company which provided high-quality solutions for all type of mobile devices.

According to the marketing materials released by the company, CloudOn is “creating a mobile, enterprise, cloud-based workspace” in order to find solutions as to help workers increase their productivity and collaborations. This probably means that the company is now developing applications which can be used on smart phones and tablets which are going to be destined to the business and enterprise market.

The company is not yet largely known on the markets. Beside its modest website and its Facebook and Twitter accounts, which only provide little information about the activity of the firm, one cannot easily know more about the activity of the company and its future projects. There are still lots to do in the marketing field for the company to be able to become successful, but we are hoping that part of the amount raised in venture capital is going to be used in order to develop these aspects as well.

The company’s CEO’s name is Milind Gadekar, an entrepreneur who has previously worked for Cisco. While at Cisco, he has been one of the marketing directors for a period of five years. One of the other members of the team at CloudOn is Meir Morgenstern, who is the company’s co-founder and vice president. Meir Morgenstern has previously been the system architecture manager at Cisco for five years. Shuki Binyamin is also a part of the team at CloudOn, where he works as the CTO, also being one of the co-founders of the company. Previously, Shuki Binyamin has led a video and design consulting company for a period of almost five years.

As far as we could find out, the money raised in this series A funding round come from Rembrandt Venture Partners and Foundation Capital. During the days when the company was known as AppToU, it has also managed to raise an amount of $1.8 million in equity and debt funding. Foundation Capital also contributed in that funding round which took place in the month of October 2010.

Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, starts Venture Capital Fund

The Associated Press has recently announced that Michael Arrington, the founder of the very popular tech blog, TechCrunch, has taken the decision of starting a venture capital firm. This venture capital fund will have an initial capital of $20 million, money which the founder intends to use in order to support other entrepreneurs start-up businesses such as TechCrunch, meaning blogs which cover the same type of subjects as the ones we are used to see on TechCruch.

The venture capital firm will receive funds from investors such as the tech company AOL Inc., company which has purchased TechCrunch last year for an amount which has remained undisclosed to the public, and from some important venture capital firms, among which we can name Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.

At the moment, the new venture capital firm is going to be leaded by Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, and Patrick Gallagher, one of the partners at VantagePoint Capital Partners.

The media reports released up to this moment mention that Michael Arrington will no longer be an editor at TechCrunch, but the fact is that his involvement in the further evolution of the site continues to remain unknown for the public. This happens despite the fact that numerous requests have been sent to AOL since Friday in order to find the answer to this question, none of which have been answered.

Druva raises $12 Million in Series B of Funding for Smart phones and Tablets

Druva, the company based in Mountain View, California, recently announced the end of the round B of funding, which has brought the company an amount of $12 million. The company specializes in designing data protection systems, consolidation and application recovery challenges software. This funding round has been led by Nexus Venture Partners along with Sequoia Capital. According to the funding deal, Jishnu Bhattacharjee, from Nexus Venture Partners, is going to join the board of directors at Druva. The money raised in this second funding round is going to be used in order to provide support for smart phones and tablets and to expand sales in the North American, European and Asian Pacific markets.

Druva is a company which has been founded in 2007 by a team of industry veterans. The company is intended to provide fast and simple solutions of storage and backup for its providers. The company soon became profitable, having over 750 customers across 26 countries since 2008. The company specializes in providing solutions both for individuals and for companies against property theft from any type of electronic device, such as laptops, tablets and smart phones. They have solutions for any type of network, be it LAN, WAN or VNP. By this time, the company has already provided backup solutions for customers such as NASA, Xerox, Siemens, Schlumberger, PWC and others. At the moment, the company has two head-quarters, one in the US, in the Mountain View, and on in India, in Pune. Also, the company has 4 offices across the US, India, and the United Kingdom.

Nexus Venture Partners specializes in this field of funding, having more than $320 million as a budget for funding and over 30 companies activating in the fields of technology, internet, media, consumer business services and rural sectors which have received funding from them up to this moment. One of the sources at Nexus Venture Partners declared about this funding deal: “With wide adoption of on-premise and cloud-based solutions, the fast-growing company is racking up an impressive list of reference customers.” The venture capital firm has also recently funded Bigshoebazzar.com, sustaining the company in its attempt of supplying its chain of infrastructure in some cities.

This is the second round of funding for the company, which has managed to raise funds in a previous round before. The first round of funding has been led by Sequoia Capital and Indian Angel Network. That funding round has brought the company an amount of $5 million in the month of March, 2010.

Double Verify raises $33 Million for Advertising Monitoring System

Double Verify Ltd., the start-up offering solutions for online advertising monitoring, has recently announced the end of the series B of funding, which has brought the company an amount of $33 million. This second funding round has been led by JMI Equity among with the previous investors from Blumberg Capital, Genacast Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners and one of the venture capital sections of Comcast Communications Corporation. Up to this moment, the company has managed to raise an amount of $46.5 million, which actually gives the firm a value of $200 million.

From this moment on, JMI Equity is going to dictate the direction towards which the company is headed. Moreover, JMI Equity has lots of experience when it comes to the digital advertising world. The company has also been behind the sale of DoubleClick to Google Inc. for an amount of $3.1 billion in 2007, meaning two years after the moment when JMI has acquired the company from its founders for an amount of $1.1 billion.

Gil Wasserman, the SVP engineering from Double Verify has declared in an interview to Globes: “The current financing round was quite quick, because JMI is very familiar with the online advertising world. JMI wants to make a profit, and its track record shows that they know how to do it – how to take a company like ours, invest in it, and bring it to the next level.” To the question regarding the doubt whether we will see a sale of Double Verify in two years from now, Wasserman replied the following: “We want to further develop the DoubleClick model. It might be through a sale or an IPO. We’re in an industry that allows us to keep both options open.”

The company has been founded by Oren Netzer, the actual CEO, and by Alex Liverant, the actual CTO, in 2008. The last three years have brought the firm quite a powerful growth, as, according to IVC, the company registered revenue of $10 million in 2010. This has helped the company register a growth in personnel from 8 to 80 persons working in Israel and other 80 sales and service staff, working in the US.

Wasserman declared that the company intends to use the money gained in this funding round in order to hire 100 more persons in the year to come: “We’re considering acquisitions in order to achieve rapid growth, rather than to do everything in house. We’re seeking companies that will bring us into new complementary fields where we want to develop.”

As the firm also wants to enter the European market, they have recently opened an office in London. The company offers solutions to advertisers in order to check whether their online ads are actually meeting the established targets. Wasserman declares: “In the print media, it is easy to open the newspaper and wee whether the ads were put in and exactly where. But on the Internet, because it is in real time and on huge scales, it is really hard to monitor. Once they were blind and didn’t know exactly what was happening with their ads, when we came along and opened their eyes.”

Zeebo raises $17 Million in series B of Funding for Education Platform

Zeebo, a game producing company, whose purpose has been that of “helping the next billion play, learn and connect”, has recently announced the end of the second round of funding, which has brought the company $17 million. This amount of money comes from a private equity firm, SEC filing.

The company intends to use this amount of money in order to sustain the evolution and spreading of a new gaming console which can be used for educational purposes. Despite the fact that education and entertainment are not exactly industries that seem to get along just fine, as there are more and more statistics which point out to the fact that the poor performance of students in schools are related to the incredibly high amount of time spent by the young persons in front of digital devices, which include computers and video games, the company managed to develop a product which combines the need for education with the desire of students to play. It is proven that students also need to play, so, as long as we keep them playing something which is interesting and educational, and as long as they don’t just play, but they also study, this means that the product developed by Zeebo is near to the perfect solution for mixing the two elements.

The Zeebo system, which is a 3G connected digital entertainment/education platform, comes along with a console which can be plugged into the TV to wireless stream digital content, but which can also be used in order to browse the Internet, to check mails and to play games without being forced to buy DVDs or cartridges. This system, which the company has been producing since its launch in 2009 has been really successful on the market, but it looks like that, at the moment, the firm is looking to change the trajectory a little, as Zeebo has announced that it’s realigning its business operations to deemphasize gaming. This means that the former Zeebo system is going to be taken off the shelves and that operations in Mexico and Brazil are going to shut down. In order to replace this old product, which no longer corresponds to the company’s intentions, Zeebo is now focusing on ways of creating “interactive education” in India. It is said that the team working there is developing a next generation platform which is to be released in 2012 and which is to focus mainly on achieving education by the means of entertainment.

The original idea was that of producing cheap consoles which could be afforded by poor families in developing markets such as Russia, India, China, Mexico and Brazil. In June 2009, this product has been released on the Brazilian market, at the price of 499 Brazilian Reals, the equivalent of $312. The price has quickly managed to drop down to the value of 399 Brazilian Reals, and afterwards to the one of 299 Brazilian Reals, the equivalent of 170 US Dollars. The system has also been released on the Mexican market in November 2009, for the price of 2.499 Pesos, but soon dropped to the one of 2.249 pesos, the equivalent of 184 US Dollars. We do not know yet the price the new console is going to have.

Zeebo has previously raised $8 million in the series A funding which has been led by Qualcomm Ventures. The company was co-founded by the President and CEO, Mike Yuen, and by Reinaldo Normand. Yuen has previously been senior director of games and services at Qualcomm.

Voxy raises $2.8 Million for Language Learning Application

Voxy, the company based in Roseland, New Jersey, has recently announced the end of the first round of funding for the company, which has brought them an infusion of capital of $2.8 million. The company specializes in developing software solutions for learning languages in an easy and fun way. This first funding round has been led by Seavest Inc., along with ff Venture and Contour Ventures. This means that Seavest, Inc. and at Contour Ventures are going to join Voxy’s investor base and to join off the Asset Management and several other new and existing angel investors.

This money is intended to be used for the expansion of the product designed by Voxy and the company in itself. The firm intends to use this amount of funding in order to finance the release of a new line of products which are going to make the process of learning foreign languages a lot easier. They are mainly referring to the release of new lectures on learning languages which are going to be held and supported by modern devices such as iPhones and web platforms. If we are to think about it that way, the results of the company are already significant, as Voxy already finds itself on the top 10 products specially designed for iPhones which can be found in the education segment.

The company’s site also announces the fact that this new funding round has brought the company the resources in order to launch the learning language application for iPhones in Brazil as well. This means that a new application has been designed; that of learning English for Portuguese speakers. There are lots of advantages to this new learning technique, the most important of which being that the application is totally free. Moreover, as the language lessons are specially designed by a nation, this makes it easier and more fun for the local speakers to learn the foreign language. For the moment, the company declares that the reception they have had on their product from their Brazilian users has been incredibly positive. It has been noticed that, in 48 hours since the launch, the “Aprenda Inglês” application became the number one education application across the country, reaching the 5th place on the overall top of free applications released in Brazil.

The release of this new free application in Brazil has also been covered by the Brazilian media, which actually points out to the importance of the product on the Brazilian market and on the effects this release has had upon the users of the product.

The money raised for funding is also being used for the expansion of the company’s staff which has been widely expanding over the last few months. By these means, the company intends to increase the popularity of the product and to improve the quality of the language learning application in order to reach more users quicker and to keep them as satisfied as possible.

AliveCor raises $3 Million for iPhone/Android Heart Monitors

AliveCor has recently managed to raise $3 million in venture capital for the new service they have developed. The company succeeded in creating an application which functions as a low-budget electrocardiogram (ECG) which is compatible with lots of mobile devices, such as iPhones, iPads and Android devices. This series A funding round has been led by Burrill & Company, with the participation of Qualcomm Ventures and of the Oklahoma Life Science Fund.

The application allows users to monitor their hearts by the means of a card-sized wireless device which manages to turn the mobile device into a low-cost heart monitor which has similar features with those which are being used by patients at home or by physicians and other health care providers in hospitals or other types of clinics. Unfortunately, the application has not yet been approved for sale in the US by the FDA, but, the moment this approval will be received, the application will start making a difference when it comes to the medical community. As well, it is not yet sure which is the price interested persons will have to pay for the product, but an earlier coverage by the Wall Street Journal indicated an amount of a $100 price point.

The service is quite simple to use, as you only have to attach the mobile device to the AliveCor iCard with a piece of Velcro or by slipping the device into a wireless case, both of these instruments have electrodes, after which you have to either hold the device in your hand or to approach it against your chest in order for it to display the records of your heart rate. This means that there is no need for you to configure your phone in a particular way, you only have to launch the application and it will start working. Moreover, you don’t even have to connect the electrodes directly to your skin, as their work will be effective if you only connect them through your shirt.

This device is revolutionary as it allows you to monitor your heart and download the results on your computer into a PDF file which can be sent to your doctor in order to see the indications that he or she suggests. This device will also come in handy for those persons who are looking to train themselves in order to relax by leading their heart rate down, case in which the device will function as a biofeedback instrument.

Steven Burrill, the CEO at Burrill & Company, stated the following: “The rapid rise of smartphones and tablets combined with the power of social media networks has forever changed the way we connect and engage, and it is transforming how we manage our personal health and wellness. AliveCor’s innovative use of smartphone technologies has created a high-performance electrocardiogram recorder at a disruptive price that enables consumers to monitor their heart health anywhere at any time and provides physicians with a more comprehensive assessment of their patients.”

AliveCor intends to use the money gained in this funding round in order to run additional clinical studies at the University of Oklahoma, in order to pursue the regulatory approvals and in order to prepare the device for its commercial launch.

Birchbox raises $10.5 Million in Series A Funding

Birchbox, a start-up company functioning as a makeup discovery retail platform has recently announced the fact that it has managed to raise an amount of $10.5 million in the series A of funding. This first funding round has been led by Accel Partners, with the participation of First Round Capital, Harrison Metal, Forerunner Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Sam Lessin, Consigliere, Gary Vaynerchuck, Dave Morin, Stanford University Endowment and Andy Dunn.

The company, which is similar to other firms such as BeachMint, Blissmobox, Foodzie and Babbaco, has developed a subscription box of the month model which allows members to receive makeup and beauty products. This means that each and every month there are members who receive a box of premium samples of cosmetics from retailers such as Kiehl’s, Laura Mercier, Smashbox, Nars and Cargo which are sent to their homes.

But these are not the only advantages this site provides to its members as the company also delivers members pertinent tips and tutorials about the featured samples on the company’s site. Moreover, when a customer is persuaded that he or she wants to purchase a full-size product, he or she then also gains discount point for future purchases as long as they also provide a list of new members which are afterwards invited to join the club. The idea behind this type of promotional discounts is that of making client discover and appreciate new brands and new products which are available at a smaller price if bought on the site.

The element which makes Birchbox special is that the company sends a promotional package of products each month to all of its clients. Moreover, these promotional samples are chosen based on the preferences of each of the customers, by taking into consideration the profile filled in by the client at the moment of the opening of the account.

The company has been founded by Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, both graduates of the Harvard Business School. Birchbox has been launched about one year ago at, by this moment, it already has a base of subscribers of about 45,000 persons, all of which are paying a subscription of $10 per month or of $110 per year. Moreover, the analysis of the most recent data shows that the company increases the number of subscribers by 50 percent every month since eleven months ago.

Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, from Accel Partners, declared the following: “The team has forged partnerships with some of the world’s leading cosmetic brands to give consumers a fun, monthly beauty sampling experience. We believe Birchbox has many opportunities for continued growth, and we look forward to aiding their success.”

There are numerous retailers who are interested in the “box of the month” type of promotion due to the fact that there are numerous women who want to try the products before purchasing them. The company is going to be even more successful than it is due to this fact and to the one regarding the fact that this type of promotion allows women to discover new products they might be interested in.

Zerto raises $15 Million in Series B of Funding for Disaster Recovery for Cloud Systems

Zerto Inc., the Israeli based developer of the software called Disaster recovery, has recently announced the end of the second round of funding which has brought the company an amount of $15 million. The funding round has been led by US Venture Partners and joined by current investors Greylock Partners and Battery Ventures. The first round of funding has brought the company $7 million.

The company has been founded by Ziv Kedem, the CEO of the company, and his brother, Oded Kedem, the CTO of the company. They have previously worked for the disaster recovery company Kashya, which has been sold in 2006 to EMC Corporation. The director of Zerto, Erez Ofer, has also been involved in the deal with Kashya.

In a recent interview, the CEO of the company, Ziv Kedem, stated the following: “Disaster recovery is something you only want when you really need it.” The company has also produced the Zerto Virtual Replication solution, which is “the industry’s first hypervisor-based replication solution for large enterprises.” This solution comes in handy for large companies in the situations in which they have to protect mission-critical applications as this is a hypervisor-based solution which allows replication to happen within the virtual infrastructure of the data centre instead of the physical storage arrays. It is important to know that the solutions developed by the company are designed for VMware Inc. cloud computing environments.

The solutions offered by Zerto are different from those of Kashya. The later designed a disaster recovery solution which replicated the date existing on the hardware system onto another, which caused companies to continue working in a case of disaster system. On the other hand, Zerto provided solutions which operate at the virtualization level. Kedem stated the following: “The IT market has changed since the acquisition of Kashya. Today, IT departments are based on much more on virtualization.”

This means that the solutions provided by Zerto are based both of technology and business functionality. The company also provides solutions which target service providers and data centres, meaning that they can also provide data replication services to third parties from remote server farms.

Jacques Benkoski, Ph.D., Venture Partner at USVP, stated the following: “With many companies seeking to move their critical applications to virtualized and cloud-based environments, the lack of adequate BC/DR solutions has been a major impediment. We are pleased to be able to invest in an experienced team and a solution that enables the next major wave of virtualization and cloud adoption by Fortune 500 companies.”

For the moment, the company activates in Israeli and in the United States. The firm announced the beginning of sales for this new service developed. The company has, for the moment, 30 employees which activate both in Israeli and in the US.

Quickmobile raises $2.3 Million from Angel Investors for the Development of event Applications

QuickMobile, the US company which specializes in developing mobile solution in order to provide the necessary applications for meetings and events industries, has recently announced the end of a first round of funding which has brought the company a total of $2.3 million. The money has been obtained from different angel investors, both as equity and as debt.

Over the years, QuickMobile has become known on the market due to the mobile solutions the company has developed for major tech and film events such as Dreamforce 2010, Tribeca Film Festival or Sundance Film Festival.

The company focuses on providing elaborated applications based on the needs of the client. Some of the features which can be implemented by QuickMobile in its mobile applications and sites refer to media tools, social media tools, real-time content updating, rich media, personal scheduling and others, so that to suit the desires of each of its particular clients. The company believes that each application has to have an individual touch which will make it more appealing and which will generate the satisfaction of the clients.

Up to this moment, QuickMobile has developed Android, BlackBerry and iPhone applications for its clients including support for collaboration app Salesforce Chatter. For Sundance, they have also created an iPhone application. When it comes to Tribecam they have created both an iPhone application and a HTML5 mobile website which have all had a complete festival guide and extra content.

Patrick Payne, the CEO of QuickMobile, stated the following: “As evidenced by our growth, both conference organizers and meeting attendees are looking for more efficient tools and environmentally friendly solutions to their static event program guides. Our apps are much more than simple replacements for the paperbound agenda, providing an unprecedented level of interactivity, connectivity and engagement while also dramatically reducing paper and printing.”

The company intends to provide a suitable solution for each of those companies which organize events and conferences because this market is gigantic and only a personal and custom made application can make you stand up from the crowd. The company announces that 205 million people attend 1.8 million meetings every year only in the US. They have also added that it is only about 10% of the companies which organize these events that offer an interactive, attracting mobile app. Based on these figures, Payne expects that the pace of growth of his company will be that of 500 percent.

Here are the names of some companies for which QuickMobile has designed individualised mobile applications: Accenture, Cisco, Dell, Disney, World Economic Forum, Global Business Travel Association, Google, Hilton Worldwide, Intel, Microsoft, PhocusWright and SAP.

The company stated that this amount of money is going to be used in order to sustain the development of new products and in order to allow the company to expand at an international level.

Ignition Partners Leads $10 Million Series B Funding Round for Apprenda

Based in Clifton Park, New York, Apprenda is an innovator which has developed a Platform as a Service or PaaS which can be deployed anywhere for the .NET industry. The company announced on August 8, 2011, that it has secured $10 million in a series B funding round that was led by Ignition Partners. Other investors who participated in this funding round include the company’s existing investors, NEA and High Peaks Venture Partners.

Apprenda’s mission is to provide an in depth database for IT service providers. The company has accomplished this by creating a PaaS which can be deployed anywhere and allows IT providers to be able to provide customers with the data they need with fewer costs. One of the biggest selling points of the PaaS that Apprenda offers customers is that it can be set up as a private portal for those companies which can provide private data to certain employees or customers.

Some of the features that Apprenda’s PaaS offers customers is multi-tenancy. This means that the platform has two tiers of tenancy which allows companies to manage the online tenants with zero effort. Furthermore, the Apprenda platform also allows guest tenants to be able to use a finer grained version and can give or deny access to certain data.

Though the effortless multi-tenancy can be a great plus for customers, there are many more great features that include high availability and load distribution, subscription entitlements, and more.

Some of the other benefits that Apprenda offers include the ease of which an IT provider can create new apps, increase the infrastructure up to over ten times, standardize application architecture and increase its agility, and more.

As part of the agreement with Ignition Partners leading the funding round, the firm’s managing partner, Frank Artale, will be joining the company’s board of directors. According to Mr. Artale, Apprenda has developed a versatile product which has grown its customer base three fold. Furthermore, the company has a scalable business model which can allow it to enter in an ever changing market and be very profitable. Mr. Artale further added that what lies in the success in Apprenda is that the company has a product that helps business meet many unmet needs with their IT systems. Mr. Artale completed by stating that he and his team at Ignition Partners are very excited to be on board.

Ignition Partners is a premier venture capital firm which is dedicated to find the finest entrepreneurs seize the opportunity to make it big and disrupt the markets. Ignition Partners typically seeks out and invests in budding entrepreneurs who are potential leaders in the communications, internet, software, business services, and consumer services industries. Some other companies in Ignition’s portfolio include Airband, Modiv Media, Earth Class Mail, SeaMobile, FiREapps, HyperQuality, and others.

The National Institutes of Health Award a $2 Million Grant to Firefly Bioworks, INC

Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Firefly Bioworks, a leading manufacturer of universal multiplex assays has announced on Friday, August 5, 2011, that it has been awarded a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Health to further the company’s research, development, and manufacturing of diagnostic RNA profiling in the treatment of cancer. The grant is phase II in a funding project that the National Institutes of Health has been involved in together with the National Cancer Institute for the development of micro RNA profiling.

The mission of Firefly Bioworks is to develop instruments and universal multiplex assays to treat many genetic based diseases or genetic mutant diseases, such as cancer and related diseases. The company plans to fully unlock the diagnostic power that is in the existing technology in cancer diagnostic procedures in clinical settings.

Firefly has a unique technology which was born in the laboratory of Professor Doyle at MIT. The technology basically works by using barcoded micro-gels that are rapidly synthesized by using a revolutionary mixture of micro fluids and photolithography. This allows for biological encoding and diagnostic testing in one swath, thus streamlining the entire diagnostic process allowing for a quicker way of finding out what the proper treatment would be in a given case.

According Prof. Patrick Doyle, his team is very excited with the results that the phase I of the research and development of the technology, which he himself pioneered in his laboratory at MIT.

Adding to what Prof. Doyle stated, the company’s cofounder, Dr. Daniel Pregibon, upon the exciting results of phase I, the mission now is to use those positive results to put the new diagnostic system to work. Dr. Pregibon further looks forward to continue the research together with the academic team led by Prof. Doyle at MIT and ensure a reliable diagnostic detection system that can promise early detection of even the fastest of metastatic cancers.

Firefly’s CEO, David Marini further added that both him and the team at Firefly are extremely grateful of the small business development that the National Cancer Society has in place to fund groundbreaking research in this much needed field of medicine. Cancer is one disease that kills a good majority of Americans and one of the many reasons why cancer is such a lethal disease is because it is detected too late in most cases.

Firefly Bioworks is dedicated to create more effective assays in the field of early cancer diagnostics to help in the fight against cancer.

Multinational Team of Investors Invest $3.6 Million in Series B Funding Round for Tantaline

Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Tantaline is a company which has grown to become a wold leader in the manufacturing of non-corrosive materials. The company announced on August 5, 2011, that it has received $3.6 million in a series B funding round by an international team of investors. The leading investors in the funding round include the US-based private equity firm, Berwind Private Equity, Danish investment firm, Vaekstfonden, and CC Holdings, which is another Danish company. Other investors who participated in this funding round were undisclosed to the public.

Proceeds from this funding round will go to continue and further the expansion of Tantaline and its line of products. Tantaline produces a wide variety of non-corrosive materials developed from tantalum-based alloys which are used in high heat and acidic environments. Founded in 2007, Tantaline was created to develop the finest tantalum-based alloys that can be used in a wide variety of different industries, which include pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, chemical, and mining.

The primary metals that are used in the alloys that Tantaline develops are tantalum and titanium. Other metals that are included in the alloys include other non-corrosive metals that can hold up in highly abrasive environments. The alloys produced by Tantaline are 11 to 23 on the Rockwell C Scale, 56 to 62 on the Rockwell A Scale, and 92 to 100 on the Rockwell B Scale.

Some of the products that Tantaline generates from these alloys include turbines, pumps, laboratory reactors, tube fittings, and more. According to the CEO of Tantaline, Peter Lock, this new funding round will allow the company to continue to grow and to penetrate both US and European markets. The products that Tantaline develops have been disrupting the corrosion prevention industry. There are many different industries which deal with highly corrosive media and the alloy which Tantaline products are made from meet the unmet needs of many companies which use corrosive materials, thus cutting replacement costs.

Berwind Private Equity is a private equity firm which is based in the United States and is a multi-generational company, who’s sole purpose is to identify and execute investment opportunities for the Berwind Family. Other companies in Berwind’s portfolio include MacDougalls, Boston Color Graphics, Coolerado, and others.

There is no information disclosed to the public about the two Danish investors who led the investment round.

CrossLink Capital Invests $6 Million in Funding Round for Music and Voice Lessons Provider, TakeLessons

Based in San Diego, California, TakeLessons has been revolutionizing the music and voice education industry and taking it into the 21st Century by becoming one of the largest online music and voice lesson providers. The company was founded with the vision of uniting music and voice teachers with music and voice students.

The company announced on August 3, 2011, that it has raised $6 million venture funding round that was led by CrossLink Capital. Other investors who participated in this funding round include SofTech VC plus several prominent angels who did not disclose their names.

The primary vision of TakeLessons was to fulfill the need of aspiring musicians and singers to get the lessons they need to make it big on stage at the opera house or in the orchestra. The ongoing search for musicians and teachers has been a problem that has plagued aspiring musicians for many years. This has also been a personal issue for the company’s founder, Steven Cox, who is also the company’s CEO. TakeLessons uses the internet as its primary portal to connect musicians with teachers in over 2,800 cities across America. Mr. Cox decided to found the company in 2006 with the idea of using the internet to unite musicians with the right instructors for them. According to Mr. Cox, the company was founded through his personal experience. Being an avid musician himself, Mr. Cox thought that it would be a great way to connect musicians nationwide with music teachers, however, not just any music teacher. Music teachers who want to be on the TakeLessons network need to be certified as a TakeLessons teacher to ensure that musicians using the portal to find the right teacher will find the right teacher that can accommodate their musical needs.

Mr. Cox further added that the ability to connect the right teacher with the right musician regardless of age or level is crucial for aspiring musicians to be successful.

The site works by not only connecting the music teacher with the musician but also allows the musician to pay the musician through the site, allowing the teacher and student to work together while the company takes care of all the administrative functions.

According to Eric Chin, partner at CrossLink Capital, as soon as his firm has heard about TakeLessons, he though that the company could go far and take the lead in the music education industry. Upon doing the research, Mr. Chin further concluded that the business model that TakeLessons offers can revolutionize the entire music industry and beyond, thus that was a great opportunity for the firm to invest in.

The type of music lessons that TakeLessons currently offers include drum, voice and singing, piano, guitar, and saxophone. The company plans to grow and offer more variety to its roster of music lessons.

CrossLink Capital is a prominent venture capital firm that is independent of stage preference and invest in all stages of a company’s life ranging from seed to series C and beyond. The firm currently has funds in both venture capital and growth equity that collectively equal up to $2 billion and also has hedge funds together with hybrid cross funds. This unique system has provided CrossLink a successful investment strategy for over 20 years. Other companies in CrossLink’s portfolio include Pandora, Ecast, Think 3, SilkRoad Technology, IronKey, Hi5, and others.

Kimbia raises $4 Million in Series B of Funding

The Texas based fundraising and event registration platform, Kimbia, Inc., recently announced the successful end of the series B of funding which brought the firm capital in the amount of $4 million. The funding round has been led by S3 Ventures. The money raised in venture capital is intended to be used in order to expand the industry adoption of its Web-based fundraising and event management software.

Kimbia provides an innovative platform which is designed in order to suit the needs of the next generation of online fundraisers, event organizers and social advocates. The innovation brought by the company in the fundraising field is that it provides donation and registration forms which are entirely customizable by the means of a Web-based control panel and which are deployable at a global scale by the means of fully-secure form widgets – effectively allowing any Web page, blog or mobile device to accept credit card donations and/or registration fees.

Daniel Gillett, the CEO of the company, declared the following: “At Kimbia, we are passionate about partnering with our customers as they emerge into the next generation of online giving and social engagement. Therefore our platform and our people are focused on giving customers the power to create unique campaigns with a transaction engine that is instantly deployable to every corner of the Internet. We are excited to be working with the S3 Ventures team and we are confident these additional resources will allow us to expand client success.”

This second round of funding for Kimbia has been led by S3 Ventures, resulting not only in a $4 million fund, but also in the expansion of the company’s capitalization beyond its earlier investors which have included its CEO, Daniel Gillett, along with other members of leading angel investment groups from Austin and Houston.

Brian R. Smith, the Managing Director at S3 Ventures, stated the following: “Online donations are growing more than 50% year over year and millions of new, Web-savvy donors are looking for easy ways to give to important causes, participate in related events and become advocates raising money on their own. Kimbia has developed the most scalable, customer-friendly yet agile platform in this market. Kimbia’s customers regularly see extraordinary increases in online conversions and first-time gifts which are critical to their long-term success.”

Kimbia is a company based in Austin, Texas, which provides very powerful, but also flexible online fundraising and event management tolls which allow non-profit organizations, along with other types of organizations to have better chances at using the Internet in order to raise funds and to give advocacy. For the moment, Kimbia has over 1,100 customers around the world, number in which a great deal of non-profit organizations, political candidates and event organizers are included.

S3 Ventures reunites a group of entrepreneurs which have major experience in technology and medical ventures. They tend to primarily invest in start-ups or early stage ventures based around the Southwest, but focusing especially on Texas.

Cloud Storage Company CX gets $5 Million in Funding

CX, a cloud storage and SaaS data file management system, has recently managed to raise $5 million in a new round of funding. This funding round has been led by Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, with the participation of Hanna Capital. With this new amount of funding received, the company has managed to raise by the moment a total amount of funding of $10 million. This is a start-up company which has launched at the beginning at the year and has had a great evolution, managing, so far, to also acquire a fellow cloud-based file storage company named FileDen. At the moment, the financial terms of the acquisition report have not been disclosed, but there rumors on the market saying that the deal has been made based in a mixture of stock and cash.

The company produces systems which give customers the opportunity of backing-up, synchronizing, sharing and managing their data inside of the cloud, by using a technology from any device to any device, across numerous types of platforms, including desktops, laptops, netbooks and mobile devices. The advantages offered by CX have to do with the ability of their system of synchronizing all the data in the cloud, the new, changed, offline or deleted files, to all the connected computers and devices. Moreover, the platform has the ability of maintaining a history of all the changes one has made in the system. There are also high-quality features which allow a real time back-up system, but which also allow you to share a single set of synchronized files with a group of people and more.

Brad Robertson, the CEO of CX, announces that the platform also provides a system which sorts through the metadata of files which are being uploaded in order to give users the possibility of viewing and of moving through the files on the basis of the data included in them. CX also provides a freemium model of the system which, based on their storage needs, customers can use after paying as much as $40 per month for additional storage. At the moment, the space which is put for free to the disposal of clients by CX is that of 10 gigabytes.

It is recently that CX also revealed that it has acquired FileDen. The company justified this purchase through a multitude of reasons, but especially due to the fact that the new company brings CX’s combined base to the amount of 3.5 million users. Moreover, the storage platform of FileDen also has the advantage of bringing additional functionality to CX, such as an MP3 Convertor which can be used in order for clients to store their music in the cloud.

This new amount of capital and the new acquisition the company has made should help CX manage to advance on the market and gain back some of the territory which has already been occupied by the more popular cloud storage platforms, such as Dropbox, Box.net and SugarSync.

Interactions Corporation raises $12 Million in Venture Capital

Interactions Corporations, a start-up company based in Boston, has recently raised $12 million in a funding round. The company produces alternative solutions to the traditional IVR systems, which has made it register a quick growth on the innovative technology market. This founding round has been led by Sigma Partners, but North Hill Ventures, Cross Atlantic Partners and Updata Partners have also had a strong participation. The company intends to use the recent funds in order to support the firm’s growing company base, to take the measures in order to expand its presence on the market and to invest in new technology and infrastructure.

Mike Iacobucci, the CEO of the Interactions Company, stated the following: “Our philosophy is to apply our unique technology to create self-service applications for our clients that truly satisfy their customers and in most cases exceed their expectations. We are thrilled with our progress and the market’s reaction to our unique capabilities. The funding will help us continue to provide excellent service to our clients while supporting the growth initiatives of the business.”

The company has the advantage of being one of the first providers of a new breed of voice self-service solutions which is easier to use and more efficient than the traditional IVR systems. The already-known IVR systems that leverage advanced speech recognition technology are still playing an important role on the market and in the customer care delivery field, being used by lots of companies over the world. However, an important part of the IVR customers believe these systems to be cumbersome and difficult to use. Based on this fact, the degree of satisfaction related to the product created by Interactions is a lot higher as the company’s system is a lot easier to use and a lot more exciting than the traditional IVR systems. The systems created by Interactions meet the customer’s and business’ expectations as they provide a qualitative customer service. Interactions Corporation puts to the disposal of its clients break-through self-service applications which are at the basis of providing an outstanding customer experience while driving operational improvements and cost-efficiency. Based on these results, the company managed to gain very important clients over the world.

Collen Mullens, the SVP Customer Care at Asurion, declared: “What made me excited about Interactions is that it genuinely changes the callers’ experience, providing convenient self-service access while enabling our associates to focus on the more complex aspects of customer service. It truly transforms interacting with an IVR from ‘I have to, to I want to.”

The Managing Director at Sigma Partners, the VC firm which led the founding round, Bob Davoli, stated: “Our customers view Interactions less like an IVR and more like a virtual customer service agent. We are excited about Interactions because they are transforming the way customer service is delivered and have the potential to make a profound global impact.”

Interactions Corporations produces high-quality technology which allows companies to interact with their customers in a better way. The technology providing automated voice and other interactive systems provides such a level of understanding that customers are engaged in a productive and natural conversation. The company is headed near Boston, Mass., bu has additional facilities in Indiana and in Texas.