Tapvalue Raises $2.2 Million For Its Advertising Technology For Offline Retailers

French startup Tapvalue raised $2.2 million (€1.6 million) to boost its international growth and keep iterating on the product. Tapvalue is an innovative cross-device tracking and advertising platform, but with a twist — it is specifically targeted towards offline retailers. In other words, the startup is bringing modern advertising technologies to brick and mortar store owners.

“Our technology lets you know everything about your users’ paths,” co-founder and CEO Frédéric Valette told me in a phone interview. “We are able to bring together online and offline data to show you the right ad on the right device at the right time and place.”

Behind Tapvalue, the company is building three different key graphs. First, it identifies the user without relying on cookies. Then, the service will remember all the devices that you use — a single client often uses a laptop, a smartphone and a tablet. The service will store all this information. Finally, the company keeps track of your location and habits.

In other words, Tapvalue collects profile, device and location data. But what do you do with all this data? Retailers can then target and retarget existing and potential clients with ads to make them come back to their stores — Tapvalue can even handle the ad serving part.

When it comes to offline data, the company works with existing companies. Many solutions can already help you keep track of your clients. If a store doesn’t have an existing in-store solution, Tapvalue will equip its clients with devices to achieve just that. Once again, Tapvalue’s key strength is that it combines offline and online data.

“We are an advertising technology provider for now,” Valette said. “We started looking for clients around six months ago. We built a sales team as these sales can take a long time. And we now have around ten clients.”

Founded in 2012, the three co-founders have worked in advertising since 2000. They first created the leading affiliate network in France with CibleClick. The team of 15 recently opened an office in London and will open another one in Germany in the coming months. It competes with Tapad and other more traditional cross-device advertising platforms.

Today’s round comes from an undisclosed VC firm and multiple business angels. Public funds also participated. Pascal Mercier handled the fundraising effort.

The most interesting part of this company is that brick and mortar retailers are still a big untapped market when it comes to advertising technology. Their sales numbers are multiple times higher than their online competitors. If Tapvalue can convince these retailers to adopt a modern ad-tech solution, it will generate a healthy revenue stream for the startup.

View the original article here

Sources: Dropbox Acqui-Hiring Social Reading App Readmill For $8 Million

With fresh capital in its coffers, Dropbox appears to be on somewhat of an acquisition spree, albeit a quiet one. Following the cloud storage company’s recent purchase of workplace chat solution Zulip, TechCrunch has learned from sources that it’s in talks to acqui-hire Berlin-based Readmill, the social and shareable reading platform.

According to what we’re hearing, the deal value is around $8 million, made up of mostly stock but with a small amount of upfront cash for the startup’s founders who will be moving to Dropbox in San Francisco. What will happen to Readmill is unclear — I pinged co-founder and CEO Henrik Berggren for comment late yesterday but have yet to hear back so all of this is unconfirmed. However, considering this is a talent acquisition, it’s likely the service will be shuttered or possibly kept going with minimal support in the near term. The acquisition also points to a trend of consolidation and a number of exits coming out of the Berlin tech scene.

Founded in late 2010 by Henrik Berggren and David Kjelkerud, Readmill launched as a social layer for eBooks, making it easy to highlight extracts that can be shared with friends and peers, turning the book into a “social object”. It offers a very elegant reading app for Android and iPhone, as well as a tablet version for iPad. The app also employs a Twitter-like follow model where users can follow books, other users and, crucially, authors.

The company first broke cover at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in September 2011, taking part in onstage office hours with YC Combinator’s Paul Graham. At the time the company hadn’t launched yet, and Graham repeatedly told them they should launch now. “Why wait?” he said. Readmill then began offering a limited number of invites, and at the same time announced seed funding from London’s Passion Capital, and Index Ventures to the tune of €280,000.

In 2012, the company raised an undisclosed series A round led by Wellington Partners, with participation by existing investors Index Ventures and Passion Capital. I also understand that Atlantic Ventures (Christophe Maire’s angel vehicle), Peter Read, and Souncloud founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss are also investors.

Investors we contacted declined to comment.

View the original article here

Ex-Spotify Engineers Raise $2.2 Million For Lookback, A Mobile App Screen Recorder For User Testing

A team of ex-Spotify engineers has raised $2.2 million in seed funding for Lookback, a platform allowing developers to record onscreen activity within mobile apps – and even record the user’s face and voice, so they can explain what they’re doing when they encounter a bug or some other problem. The round was led by European investor Lakestar, and saw participation from Index Ventures and other angels, including Ilya Sukhar, co-founder of Parse.

The idea for Lookback actually began at Spotify, when Lookback co-founders Jonatan Littke, previously the lead web developer, and Joachim Bengtsson, the lead iOS developer, were talking to one of Spotify’s user experience designers, who was frustrated about her inability to access what are known as “pure” user experiences.

“Pure,” meaning those experiences where the user is not in some sort of test lab setting or is being told what to do, but is rather using the application on their own in an unbiased way. (That’s also the way I prefer to test startups’ apps, for what it’s worth. It really helps to identify the UX and UI issues, when you’re not given a tutorial – a crutch that many companies too heavily rely on today in order to get their new users up to speed.)

After identifying the problem, Bengtsson ended up creating a software solution that would allow a mobile developer to capture the screen, and the end user behind the screen using the front-facing camera, and the two left Spotify to work at Lookback full time. Littke’s brother, Carl, also a web developer, soon joined the team, as well, and a public beta was launched last September.

Until now, Lookback’s plug-in (an SDK) has been available for installation in pre-release apps, like those distributed on services like TestFlight, where it can be used to help collect bug reports. End users are prompted to activate the service by shaking their device to make a record button appear. After pressing record, everything on the screen is recorded. Meanwhile, the front-facing camera is also activated, so the user can talk about what they’re doing and what’s going wrong. (Here’s a demo).

Today, the company is releasing a new SDK that can be integrated into existing apps in the App Store, not just test versions. An opt-in experience, the updated plug-in allows any user to become a UX tester, who can report on bugs and leave comments about the UI and UX issues they encounter. Likely, many developers would like to offer some sort of solution like this, so they can redirect users to help the company collect data about the problems they see instead of having them angrily post App Store reviews.

However, Lookback already has a number of competitors that allow for onscreen recording of user sessions, including those TechCrunch has covered in the past, like Y Combinator-backed Watchsend or UserVOD (now Appsee), for example. There are also established services like UserTesting and Usabilla, which offer panels of users, so developers can watch them interact with their software.

But Lookback is interesting not only because it’s also recording the end user interacting on their own, but also because of the video quality.

“What we’ve been able to do is record in super high quality,” explains Littke. “We’re recording close to 60 frames per second. And what we’ve seen is a lot of the others are recording at 1 or 2 frames per second,” he adds.

The recordings are then stored on Lookback’s servers and organized in a dashboard-like interface, where developers can filter the results to see just those related to a particular section of an app, or those recorded from a specific app version or device, and more.

Today, the iOS-only solution is available for free, though the plan is to charge on a subscription basis (pricing TBD) in the future.

Lookback is now being used by 4,000 total companies, including Spotify, King.com, Yammer and Venmo, as well as other large firms, like banks and airlines. Combined, they’ve recorded 15,000 user experiences to date.

The new funding will allow the Stockholm-based team of three to hire additional engineers, as well as designers, product managers, and UX researchers. We’re told the goal is to build a distributed team, with the intention of adding 10 to 15 more employees give or take over the course of the year ahead.

The updated SDK, called “Lookback Safe,” is live on Lookback’s website here.

View the original article here

Sigfox Raises $20.6 Million To Create A Global Cellular Network For Connected Objects

French startup Sigfox raised a Series B round of $20.6 million (€15 million) from IDInvest and BPIFrance. Existing investors (Elaia Partners, Partech Ventures, Ixo and Intel Capital) also participated. As a reminder, Sigfox wants to create an alternative cellular network specifically dedicated to connected objects.

Compared to traditional cellular networks, this network can cover a larger area and is very energy-efficient. Previously, the startup had raised $2.8 million (€2 million) and $13.7 million (€10 million).

The company wants to create a global network that uses the same protocol everywhere. This network can be used, for instance, to monitor parking spots, communicate if your bus is approaching and more. And if you develop smart parking spot devices, you only need to support one network. Finally, it will cost you the same to take advantage of this network in every country.

Sigfox already has a well-established network in France, and is working with local partners in Spain, Russia and the U.K. For example, in Spain, the company works with Abertis, a leading company when it comes to telecom infrastructure. By adding a layer to existing networks, Sigfox will be able to keep its costs down.

The funding will be used to expand the team, and in particular the support, sales and marketing teams. At the same time, the company plans to keep investing in research & development.

In short, the company’s two key advantages are that it’s creating a standardized and low-energy network. However, it has yet to prove that it can replace more traditional cellular networks.

View the original article here

Tapvalue Raises $2.2 Million For Its Advertising Technology For Offline Retailers

French startup Tapvalue raised $2.2 million (€1.6 million) to boost its international growth and keep iterating on the product. Tapvalue is an innovative cross-device tracking and advertising platform, but with a twist — it is specifically targeted towards offline retailers. In other words, the startup is bringing modern advertising technologies to brick and mortar store owners.

“Our technology lets you know everything about your users’ paths,” co-founder and CEO Frédéric Valette told me in a phone interview. “We are able to bring together online and offline data to show you the right ad on the right device at the right time and place.”

Behind Tapvalue, the company is building three different key graphs. First, it identifies the user without relying on cookies. Then, the service will remember all the devices that you use — a single client often uses a laptop, a smartphone and a tablet. The service will store all this information. Finally, the company keeps track of your location and habits.

In other words, Tapvalue collects profile, device and location data. But what do you do with all this data? Retailers can then target and retarget existing and potential clients with ads to make them come back to their stores — Tapvalue can even handle the ad serving part.

When it comes to offline data, the company works with existing companies. Many solutions can already help you keep track of your clients. If a store doesn’t have an existing in-store solution, Tapvalue will equip its clients with devices to achieve just that. Once again, Tapvalue’s key strength is that it combines offline and online data.

“We are an advertising technology provider for now,” Valette said. “We started looking for clients around six months ago. We built a sales team as these sales can take a long time. And we now have around ten clients.”

Founded in 2012, the three co-founders have worked in advertising since 2000. They first created the leading affiliate network in France with CibleClick. The team of 15 recently opened an office in London and will open another one in Germany in the coming months. It competes with Tapad and other more traditional cross-device advertising platforms.

Today’s round comes from an undisclosed VC firm and multiple business angels. Public funds also participated. Pascal Mercier handled the fundraising effort.

The most interesting part of this company is that brick and mortar retailers are still a big untapped market when it comes to advertising technology. Their sales numbers are multiple times higher than their online competitors. If Tapvalue can convince these retailers to adopt a modern ad-tech solution, it will generate a healthy revenue stream for the startup.

View the original article here

Ex-Spotify Engineers Raise $2.2 Million For Lookback, A Mobile App Screen Recorder For User Testing

A team of ex-Spotify engineers has raised $2.2 million in seed funding for Lookback, a platform allowing developers to record onscreen activity within mobile apps – and even record the user’s face and voice, so they can explain what they’re doing when they encounter a bug or some other problem. The round was led by European investor Lakestar, and saw participation from Index Ventures and other angels, including Ilya Sukhar, co-founder of Parse.

The idea for Lookback actually began at Spotify, when Lookback co-founders Jonatan Littke, previously the lead web developer, and Joachim Bengtsson, the lead iOS developer, were talking to one of Spotify’s user experience designers, who was frustrated about her inability to access what are known as “pure” user experiences.

“Pure,” meaning those experiences where the user is not in some sort of test lab setting or is being told what to do, but is rather using the application on their own in an unbiased way. (That’s also the way I prefer to test startups’ apps, for what it’s worth. It really helps to identify the UX and UI issues, when you’re not given a tutorial – a crutch that many companies too heavily rely on today in order to get their new users up to speed.)

After identifying the problem, Bengtsson ended up creating a software solution that would allow a mobile developer to capture the screen, and the end user behind the screen using the front-facing camera, and the two left Spotify to work at Lookback full time. Littke’s brother, Carl, also a web developer, soon joined the team, as well, and a public beta was launched last September.

Until now, Lookback’s plug-in (an SDK) has been available for installation in pre-release apps, like those distributed on services like TestFlight, where it can be used to help collect bug reports. End users are prompted to activate the service by shaking their device to make a record button appear. After pressing record, everything on the screen is recorded. Meanwhile, the front-facing camera is also activated, so the user can talk about what they’re doing and what’s going wrong. (Here’s a demo).

Today, the company is releasing a new SDK that can be integrated into existing apps in the App Store, not just test versions. An opt-in experience, the updated plug-in allows any user to become a UX tester, who can report on bugs and leave comments about the UI and UX issues they encounter. Likely, many developers would like to offer some sort of solution like this, so they can redirect users to help the company collect data about the problems they see instead of having them angrily post App Store reviews.

However, Lookback already has a number of competitors that allow for onscreen recording of user sessions, including those TechCrunch has covered in the past, like Y Combinator-backed Watchsend or UserVOD (now Appsee), for example. There are also established services like UserTesting and Usabilla, which offer panels of users, so developers can watch them interact with their software.

But Lookback is interesting not only because it’s also recording the end user interacting on their own, but also because of the video quality.

“What we’ve been able to do is record in super high quality,” explains Littke. “We’re recording close to 60 frames per second. And what we’ve seen is a lot of the others are recording at 1 or 2 frames per second,” he adds.

The recordings are then stored on Lookback’s servers and organized in a dashboard-like interface, where developers can filter the results to see just those related to a particular section of an app, or those recorded from a specific app version or device, and more.

Today, the iOS-only solution is available for free, though the plan is to charge on a subscription basis (pricing TBD) in the future.

Lookback is now being used by 4,000 total companies, including Spotify, King.com, Yammer and Venmo, as well as other large firms, like banks and airlines. Combined, they’ve recorded 15,000 user experiences to date.

The new funding will allow the Stockholm-based team of three to hire additional engineers, as well as designers, product managers, and UX researchers. We’re told the goal is to build a distributed team, with the intention of adding 10 to 15 more employees give or take over the course of the year ahead.

The updated SDK, called “Lookback Safe,” is live on Lookback’s website here.

View the original article here

Sources: Dropbox Acqui-Hiring Social Reading App Readmill For $8 Million

With fresh capital in its coffers, Dropbox appears to be on somewhat of an acquisition spree, albeit a quiet one. Following the cloud storage company’s recent purchase of workplace chat solution Zulip, TechCrunch has learned from sources that it’s in talks to acqui-hire Berlin-based Readmill, the social and shareable reading platform.

According to what we’re hearing, the deal value is around $8 million, made up of mostly stock but with a small amount of upfront cash for the startup’s founders who will be moving to Dropbox in San Francisco. What will happen to Readmill is unclear — I pinged co-founder and CEO Henrik Berggren for comment late yesterday but have yet to hear back so all of this is unconfirmed. However, considering this is a talent acquisition, it’s likely the service will be shuttered or possibly kept going with minimal support in the near term. The acquisition also points to a trend of consolidation and a number of exits coming out of the Berlin tech scene.

Founded in late 2010 by Henrik Berggren and David Kjelkerud, Readmill launched as a social layer for eBooks, making it easy to highlight extracts that can be shared with friends and peers, turning the book into a “social object”. It offers a very elegant reading app for Android and iPhone, as well as a tablet version for iPad. The app also employs a Twitter-like follow model where users can follow books, other users and, crucially, authors.

The company first broke cover at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in September 2011, taking part in onstage office hours with YC Combinator’s Paul Graham. At the time the company hadn’t launched yet, and Graham repeatedly told them they should launch now. “Why wait?” he said. Readmill then began offering a limited number of invites, and at the same time announced seed funding from London’s Passion Capital, and Index Ventures to the tune of €280,000.

In 2012, the company raised an undisclosed series A round led by Wellington Partners, with participation by existing investors Index Ventures and Passion Capital. I also understand that Atlantic Ventures (Christophe Maire’s angel vehicle), Peter Read, and Souncloud founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss are also investors.

Investors we contacted declined to comment.

View the original article here

Sigfox Raises $20.6 Million To Create A Global Cellular Network For Connected Objects

French startup Sigfox raised a Series B round of $20.6 million (€15 million) from IDInvest and BPIFrance. Existing investors (Elaia Partners, Partech Ventures, Ixo and Intel Capital) also participated. As a reminder, Sigfox wants to create an alternative cellular network specifically dedicated to connected objects.

Compared to traditional cellular networks, this network can cover a larger area and is very energy-efficient. Previously, the startup had raised $2.8 million (€2 million) and $13.7 million (€10 million).

The company wants to create a global network that uses the same protocol everywhere. This network can be used, for instance, to monitor parking spots, communicate if your bus is approaching and more. And if you develop smart parking spot devices, you only need to support one network. Finally, it will cost you the same to take advantage of this network in every country.

Sigfox already has a well-established network in France, and is working with local partners in Spain, Russia and the U.K. For example, in Spain, the company works with Abertis, a leading company when it comes to telecom infrastructure. By adding a layer to existing networks, Sigfox will be able to keep its costs down.

The funding will be used to expand the team, and in particular the support, sales and marketing teams. At the same time, the company plans to keep investing in research & development.

In short, the company’s two key advantages are that it’s creating a standardized and low-energy network. However, it has yet to prove that it can replace more traditional cellular networks.

View the original article here

Pet Sitting Marketplace Rover Raises $12 Million Series C

Rover, the Seattle-based online community that connects dog owners with in-home sitters, is today announcing $12 million in Series C funding, in a round led by new investor Menlo Ventures. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Foundry Group, and Petco (yes, the retailer) also participated. The company has raised nearly $25 million to date.

The new funding also sees Menlo’s Sunil Raman and Venky Ganesan, who have invested in companies like oDesk and Rev, joining Rover’s board.

Sometimes referred to, along with newer competitors like DogVacay, as an “Airbnb for dogs,” Rover’s online marketplace matches dog owners with local sitters, who are verified and reviewed. The platform additionally provides dog owners with access to other pet services, beyond in-home, overnight boarding, including things like pet and sitter insurance, vet consults, dog walking, in-home daycare services, and more.

On mobile, dog owners can stay in touch with their sitter through a messaging app that lets them chat, and share photos, among other things.

The company says that, today, 92% of the U.S. population lives within a short drive a Rover sitter thanks to its presence in every major U.S. city (as well as the promotional assistance provided by investor Petco, which promotes the service both online and in its stores.) There are now over 25,000 Rover sitters and services available across the U.S., and one million total Rover community members. However, Rover.com won’t disclose how many dog owners have used the service, nor how many bookings per month the site sees, on average.

Some top sitters on the platform now report six-figure incomes, the company claims, and new sitters today are earning, on average, 50 times more in their first 90 days than those who joined 18 months ago. In addition, Rover says it ended 2013 with an 800% year-over-year growth rate, from a revenue perspective.

“Rover is a great example of the sharing economy at its best,” said Sunil Raman of Menlo Ventures, known for other “sharing economy” marketplaces, like Uber and Poshmark, in a statement.  “It turns out that there are a lot of pet owners in this country, and Rover allows families to quickly coordinate overnight pet care. After getting to know Aaron and his team, we were certain this was a passionate group chasing a huge market opportunity,” he says.

In terms of the competitive landscape, Rover and DogVacay are top…err…dogs, here, but Rover is the older and larger of the two, with its 25,000 sitters/services to DogVacay’s 10,000+. However, DogVacay has the more modern mobile platform, having been first to launch a fully-featured app not just for communication, but also finding, booking and paying sitters, too.

That being said, Rover CEO Aaron Easterly has said before that DogVacay is not the company’s largest competitor, it’s the friends, family and neighbors dog owners today turn to, instead of using an online service. Many potential customers don’t know that other options in between full boarding and help from friends, even exist.

The company says it will use the new investment to increase its full-time staff (expected to double in the next 12 months), invest in technology (including its mobile application), grow its customer base and expand its products and services.

In case you’re wondering, Rover, DogVacay and others in this space promote themselves to dog owners (even though sitters may provide cat care), because dog owners simply spend more on theirs pets. After all, as long as someone cleans the litter, and feeds them, cats don’t really miss you when you’re gone. (They sure are cute when you open a can of tuna, though. Oh, and they do better in memes.)

View the original article here

Pet Sitting Marketplace Rover Raises $12 Million Series C

Rover, the Seattle-based online community that connects dog owners with in-home sitters, is today announcing $12 million in Series C funding, in a round led by new investor Menlo Ventures. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Foundry Group, and Petco (yes, the retailer) also participated. The company has raised nearly $25 million to date.

The new funding also sees Menlo’s Sunil Raman and Venky Ganesan, who have invested in companies like oDesk and Rev, joining Rover’s board.

Sometimes referred to, along with newer competitors like DogVacay, as an “Airbnb for dogs,” Rover’s online marketplace matches dog owners with local sitters, who are verified and reviewed. The platform additionally provides dog owners with access to other pet services, beyond in-home, overnight boarding, including things like pet and sitter insurance, vet consults, dog walking, in-home daycare services, and more.

On mobile, dog owners can stay in touch with their sitter through a messaging app that lets them chat, and share photos, among other things.

The company says that, today, 92% of the U.S. population lives within a short drive a Rover sitter thanks to its presence in every major U.S. city (as well as the promotional assistance provided by investor Petco, which promotes the service both online and in its stores.) There are now over 25,000 Rover sitters and services available across the U.S., and one million total Rover community members. However, Rover.com won’t disclose how many dog owners have used the service, nor how many bookings per month the site sees, on average.

Some top sitters on the platform now report six-figure incomes, the company claims, and new sitters today are earning, on average, 50 times more in their first 90 days than those who joined 18 months ago. In addition, Rover says it ended 2013 with an 800% year-over-year growth rate, from a revenue perspective.

“Rover is a great example of the sharing economy at its best,” said Sunil Raman of Menlo Ventures, known for other “sharing economy” marketplaces, like Uber and Poshmark, in a statement.  “It turns out that there are a lot of pet owners in this country, and Rover allows families to quickly coordinate overnight pet care. After getting to know Aaron and his team, we were certain this was a passionate group chasing a huge market opportunity,” he says.

In terms of the competitive landscape, Rover and DogVacay are top…err…dogs, here, but Rover is the older and larger of the two, with its 25,000 sitters/services to DogVacay’s 10,000+. However, DogVacay has the more modern mobile platform, having been first to launch a fully-featured app not just for communication, but also finding, booking and paying sitters, too.

That being said, Rover CEO Aaron Easterly has said before that DogVacay is not the company’s largest competitor, it’s the friends, family and neighbors dog owners today turn to, instead of using an online service. Many potential customers don’t know that other options in between full boarding and help from friends, even exist.

The company says it will use the new investment to increase its full-time staff (expected to double in the next 12 months), invest in technology (including its mobile application), grow its customer base and expand its products and services.

In case you’re wondering, Rover, DogVacay and others in this space promote themselves to dog owners (even though sitters may provide cat care), because dog owners simply spend more on theirs pets. After all, as long as someone cleans the litter, and feeds them, cats don’t really miss you when you’re gone. (They sure are cute when you open a can of tuna, though. Oh, and they do better in memes.)

View the original article here

Responsive Website Builder Webflow Raises $1.5 Million From Khosla, Tim Draper & Others

Webflow, the Y Combinator-backed startup aimed at making it easier for creative professionals to visually design and host their own responsive websites, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. The round, which comes at a time when the company has grown its user base from 10,000 last summer to now nearly 100,000, includes participation from Khosla Ventures, Draper Assoicates, various angels, and, of course, Y Combinator.

The Mountain View-based company was founded by brothers Vlad and Sergie Magdalin, formerly of Intuit, along with CTO Bryant Chou. It was something Vlad had been thinking about for years, before finally executing – he even used the name “webflow” to describe the idea in his senior thesis on the subject.

Initially, the co-founders had market tested a service that required designers to learn a new templating language, (which they didn’t like), before making the shift to the current product, which doesn’t require its users to know how to code.

Today, Webflow lets designers build responsive websites using a drag-and-drop website builder with an intuitive interface in order to customize their site with common web elements, like sliders, maps, buttons, divs, videos, social widgets, and more. On the backend, Webflow generates W3C-compliant HTML5 and CSS3 code. There aren’t many competitors for a service like this, beyond to some extent, Bootstrap, Foundation or Adobe’s Edge Reflow – but those require more a more advanced skill set to use.

Since the company’s launch last summer, the service has grown its user base around 30% month-over-month, reports Vlad. Revenue has also climbed, and is 10 times higher per month than at launch. And, as noted above, Webflow is approaching 100,000 users, many of whom are now paying for its product.

Though the company still offers a free plan for personal use, its paid plans offer more features, and range from $14/month to $70/month depending on how many websites are being designed, how many pages they have, the number of backups you need, and more.

Vlad also notes that, though in the beginning Weblow worked well for freelancers, the company has made good progress in getting agencies on board, too. Currently, over 50 agencies use the service – something that was made possible by the upgraded features, plus support for multiple pages and multiple user accounts.

“The organization leader can invite other team members who could share both pre-built sites and templates across the team, which was a huge productivity boost for agencies,” Vlad explains. Plus, Webflow is now around 50 times faster than it was at launch, he notes. “Back in August, if you had a big site, when you started you would literally have to go and grab a coffee…and you’d come back and your Webflow site would still be loading. Today, it’s instant, no matter the size of the site,” says Vlad.

With the additional funding, the company is growing its team, and focusing on product. (The company would be profitable except it just hired two more employees, preferring to invest in growing the business for now). Now a team of six total, the company is working on other features, including a new editor that would allow the business owner to make simple changes (new text, swapping photos, e.g.) to the site on their own, without having to get their creative team involved.

Also in the works is support for dynamic sites, like shops or blogs. To date, Webflow has been very much focused on static websites, but support for blogging has been in demand, says Vlad.

“WordPress and other CMS’s don’t currently let you work with truly dynamic data…they let you work with posts,” he says. “So if you run a custom business, or want to build something like a store, you’re really trying to cram your dynamic content into a blogging platform. We’re hoping to build a platform that lets designers and developers create any sort of content.”

The company will announce more on this front this summer, with a launch planned for the fall.

Correction: Draper Associates’ Joel Yarmon invested, not Tim Draper, as previously reported.

View the original article here

Drifty, Makers Of The Ionic Mobile Framework, Raise $1 Million

Drifty, a participant in the TechStars Cloud 2013 incubator, and makers of a suite of tools for mobile developers building apps and websites, most notably, the Ionic framework, has closed on a million in seed funding, the company is announcing. The funding comes from Arthur Ventures, and will help the company grow its team and continue development on the Ionic framework.

The startup was founded in 2012 by Ben Sperry (CEO) and Max Lynch (CTO), childhood friends who have been working together since high school, building various online projects. Before starting Drifty, both worked at other startups developing mobile MMORPG games.

The two decided to start Drifty to help developers build mobile apps and responsive websites, Sperry says. Today its two products Codiqa and Jetstrap offer simple drag-and-drop prototyping to over 250,000 developers around the world, he adds, and the company has grown revenue by 10x, while bootstrapping its way to profitability in 2013.

But as they worked on building their first two tools, the team realized there was also a big opportunity in cross-platform mobile development, in terms of introducing tools that would allow developers to take better advantage of web technologies.

Ionic, launched late last year, intended to fill that gap, with its open source HTML5 mobile app framework that lets developers build native-feeling apps using web technologies, like HTML, CSS and AngularJS.

Explains Sperry, Ionic is similar in some ways to something like Sencha Touch, but is licensed differently. “It’s completely, 100% open-sourced. It’s MIT-licensed, which means anyone can use it, commercial or personal – it doesn’t matter to us,” he says. Sencha’s framework has a more proprietary license, Sperry adds. “We don’t think that’s the right way to offer a framework, which is why we made ours free.”

The product promises better performance, clean and simple design, and is modeled off of native mobile development SDKs to make it easier for mobile developers who have built for iOS or Android in the past, the website explains. After the coding is complete, developers using Ionic push the app through PhoneGap for deployment. As noted, Ionic competes with other mobile UI frameworks, including jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, and others.

These days, over 200 apps are being created with Ionic every day, says Sperry, and traffic is nearly doubling month-over-month. The project is also now one of the top 260 on GitHub, and has seen thousands of mobile apps based on Ionic built to date, typically those from smaller companies or developers doing client work for others.

With the additional funding, the founders plan to now focus solely on developing Ionic further, with plans to improve gestures and animations, plus roll out mobile services in 2014 that would make using Ionic a viable alternative to native app development. Areas of focus include things like analytics, notifications, and testing service. These would help the company generate revenue from its free platform.

The Madison, Wisconsin-area startup is currently a team of nine, and is looking to double its team going forward, mainly by hiring developers.

* Note: Sencha immediately responded, commenting that “Sencha doesn’t license Sencha Touch using permissive open source, but it is in fact open source – and the commercial version is free.” 

View the original article here

Responsive Website Builder Webflow Raises $1.5 Million From Khosla, Tim Draper & Others

Webflow, the Y Combinator-backed startup aimed at making it easier for creative professionals to visually design and host their own responsive websites, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. The round, which comes at a time when the company has grown its user base from 10,000 last summer to now nearly 100,000, includes participation from Khosla Ventures, Draper Assoicates, various angels, and, of course, Y Combinator.

The Mountain View-based company was founded by brothers Vlad and Sergie Magdalin, formerly of Intuit, along with CTO Bryant Chou. It was something Vlad had been thinking about for years, before finally executing – he even used the name “webflow” to describe the idea in his senior thesis on the subject.

Initially, the co-founders had market tested a service that required designers to learn a new templating language, (which they didn’t like), before making the shift to the current product, which doesn’t require its users to know how to code.

Today, Webflow lets designers build responsive websites using a drag-and-drop website builder with an intuitive interface in order to customize their site with common web elements, like sliders, maps, buttons, divs, videos, social widgets, and more. On the backend, Webflow generates W3C-compliant HTML5 and CSS3 code. There aren’t many competitors for a service like this, beyond to some extent, Bootstrap, Foundation or Adobe’s Edge Reflow – but those require more a more advanced skill set to use.

Since the company’s launch last summer, the service has grown its user base around 30% month-over-month, reports Vlad. Revenue has also climbed, and is 10 times higher per month than at launch. And, as noted above, Webflow is approaching 100,000 users, many of whom are now paying for its product.

Though the company still offers a free plan for personal use, its paid plans offer more features, and range from $14/month to $70/month depending on how many websites are being designed, how many pages they have, the number of backups you need, and more.

Vlad also notes that, though in the beginning Weblow worked well for freelancers, the company has made good progress in getting agencies on board, too. Currently, over 50 agencies use the service – something that was made possible by the upgraded features, plus support for multiple pages and multiple user accounts.

“The organization leader can invite other team members who could share both pre-built sites and templates across the team, which was a huge productivity boost for agencies,” Vlad explains. Plus, Webflow is now around 50 times faster than it was at launch, he notes. “Back in August, if you had a big site, when you started you would literally have to go and grab a coffee…and you’d come back and your Webflow site would still be loading. Today, it’s instant, no matter the size of the site,” says Vlad.

With the additional funding, the company is growing its team, and focusing on product. (The company would be profitable except it just hired two more employees, preferring to invest in growing the business for now). Now a team of six total, the company is working on other features, including a new editor that would allow the business owner to make simple changes (new text, swapping photos, e.g.) to the site on their own, without having to get their creative team involved.

Also in the works is support for dynamic sites, like shops or blogs. To date, Webflow has been very much focused on static websites, but support for blogging has been in demand, says Vlad.

“WordPress and other CMS’s don’t currently let you work with truly dynamic data…they let you work with posts,” he says. “So if you run a custom business, or want to build something like a store, you’re really trying to cram your dynamic content into a blogging platform. We’re hoping to build a platform that lets designers and developers create any sort of content.”

The company will announce more on this front this summer, with a launch planned for the fall.

Correction: Draper Associates’ Joel Yarmon invested, not Tim Draper, as previously reported.

View the original article here

Tipbit Scores $4 Million Series A For Its Productivity-Focused Email App

Tipbit, yet another startup attempting to reimagine how email should work on mobile devices, is announcing $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Ignition Partners. Alongside the new funding, the company also introduced an updated version of its mobile email application, which includes integrations with a number of cloud services like Evernote, Dropbox, Salesforce and more.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Gordon Mangione, who previously spent several years at Microsoft (Exchange and SQL Server), XenSource and most recently, Citrix, Tipbit’s application is focused on surfacing data and other related information within your inbox. When TechCrunch spoke to Mangione last summer, he referred to Tipbit’s ability to index data, including the name of the person, the topic, and the keywords in the email, among other things, as a form of “gravitational search.”

More simply put, that means Tipbit can perform specific tasks within the inbox that would have typically required users to launch other applications – like looking up social profile info from LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, for example, finding, viewing or sharing files from Dropbox, accessing Google from an email to search for content related to that message, and swiping to quickly perform other tasks, like accessing your calendar, files, or contacts.

This idea of making the email app more powerful on mobile, where navigating between apps can be a cumbersome experience, when compared with the desktop, is an idea several other email startups are also tackling, including, as of yesterday, CloudMagic, as well as soon-to-launch Acompli.

With the updated version of the Tipbit application, there’s now a new contextual, instant search function, the ability to filter searches by subject, date, sender, read/unread status and other attributes, and an added ability to filter the calendar based on source to connect people with meetings, the company says.

Bellevue-based Tipbit declined to offer any user or growth numbers at this point, as the app is still early. Meanwhile, the funding will be used to expand the company’s team of developers, UI designers and project managers, we’re told.

The app is currently available for the iPhone. An Android version is in the works.

View the original article here

Pet Sitting Marketplace Rover Raises $12 Million Series C

Rover, the Seattle-based online community that connects dog owners with in-home sitters, is today announcing $12 million in Series C funding, in a round led by new investor Menlo Ventures. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Foundry Group, and Petco (yes, the retailer) also participated. The company has raised nearly $25 million to date.

The new funding also sees Menlo’s Sunil Raman and Venky Ganesan, who have invested in companies like oDesk and Rev, joining Rover’s board.

Sometimes referred to, along with newer competitors like DogVacay, as an “Airbnb for dogs,” Rover’s online marketplace matches dog owners with local sitters, who are verified and reviewed. The platform additionally provides dog owners with access to other pet services, beyond in-home, overnight boarding, including things like pet and sitter insurance, vet consults, dog walking, in-home daycare services, and more.

On mobile, dog owners can stay in touch with their sitter through a messaging app that lets them chat, and share photos, among other things.

The company says that, today, 92% of the U.S. population lives within a short drive a Rover sitter thanks to its presence in every major U.S. city (as well as the promotional assistance provided by investor Petco, which promotes the service both online and in its stores.) There are now over 25,000 Rover sitters and services available across the U.S., and one million total Rover community members. However, Rover.com won’t disclose how many dog owners have used the service, nor how many bookings per month the site sees, on average.

Some top sitters on the platform now report six-figure incomes, the company claims, and new sitters today are earning, on average, 50 times more in their first 90 days than those who joined 18 months ago. In addition, Rover says it ended 2013 with an 800% year-over-year growth rate, from a revenue perspective.

“Rover is a great example of the sharing economy at its best,” said Sunil Raman of Menlo Ventures, known for other “sharing economy” marketplaces, like Uber and Poshmark, in a statement.  “It turns out that there are a lot of pet owners in this country, and Rover allows families to quickly coordinate overnight pet care. After getting to know Aaron and his team, we were certain this was a passionate group chasing a huge market opportunity,” he says.

In terms of the competitive landscape, Rover and DogVacay are top…err…dogs, here, but Rover is the older and larger of the two, with its 25,000 sitters/services to DogVacay’s 10,000+. However, DogVacay has the more modern mobile platform, having been first to launch a fully-featured app not just for communication, but also finding, booking and paying sitters, too.

That being said, Rover CEO Aaron Easterly has said before that DogVacay is not the company’s largest competitor, it’s the friends, family and neighbors dog owners today turn to, instead of using an online service. Many potential customers don’t know that other options in between full boarding and help from friends, even exist.

The company says it will use the new investment to increase its full-time staff (expected to double in the next 12 months), invest in technology (including its mobile application), grow its customer base and expand its products and services.

In case you’re wondering, Rover, DogVacay and others in this space promote themselves to dog owners (even though sitters may provide cat care), because dog owners simply spend more on theirs pets. After all, as long as someone cleans the litter, and feeds them, cats don’t really miss you when you’re gone. (They sure are cute when you open a can of tuna, though. Oh, and they do better in memes.)

View the original article here

Tipbit Scores $4 Million Series A For Its Productivity-Focused Email App

Tipbit, yet another startup attempting to reimagine how email should work on mobile devices, is announcing $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Ignition Partners. Alongside the new funding, the company also introduced an updated version of its mobile email application, which includes integrations with a number of cloud services like Evernote, Dropbox, Salesforce and more.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Gordon Mangione, who previously spent several years at Microsoft (Exchange and SQL Server), XenSource and most recently, Citrix, Tipbit’s application is focused on surfacing data and other related information within your inbox. When TechCrunch spoke to Mangione last summer, he referred to Tipbit’s ability to index data, including the name of the person, the topic, and the keywords in the email, among other things, as a form of “gravitational search.”

More simply put, that means Tipbit can perform specific tasks within the inbox that would have typically required users to launch other applications – like looking up social profile info from LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, for example, finding, viewing or sharing files from Dropbox, accessing Google from an email to search for content related to that message, and swiping to quickly perform other tasks, like accessing your calendar, files, or contacts.

This idea of making the email app more powerful on mobile, where navigating between apps can be a cumbersome experience, when compared with the desktop, is an idea several other email startups are also tackling, including, as of yesterday, CloudMagic, as well as soon-to-launch Acompli.

With the updated version of the Tipbit application, there’s now a new contextual, instant search function, the ability to filter searches by subject, date, sender, read/unread status and other attributes, and an added ability to filter the calendar based on source to connect people with meetings, the company says.

Bellevue-based Tipbit declined to offer any user or growth numbers at this point, as the app is still early. Meanwhile, the funding will be used to expand the company’s team of developers, UI designers and project managers, we’re told.

The app is currently available for the iPhone. An Android version is in the works.

View the original article here

Responsive Website Builder Webflow Raises $1.5 Million From Khosla, Tim Draper & Others

Webflow, the Y Combinator-backed startup aimed at making it easier for creative professionals to visually design and host their own responsive websites, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. The round, which comes at a time when the company has grown its user base from 10,000 last summer to now nearly 100,000, includes participation from Khosla Ventures, Draper Assoicates, various angels, and, of course, Y Combinator.

The Mountain View-based company was founded by brothers Vlad and Sergie Magdalin, formerly of Intuit, along with CTO Bryant Chou. It was something Vlad had been thinking about for years, before finally executing – he even used the name “webflow” to describe the idea in his senior thesis on the subject.

Initially, the co-founders had market tested a service that required designers to learn a new templating language, (which they didn’t like), before making the shift to the current product, which doesn’t require its users to know how to code.

Today, Webflow lets designers build responsive websites using a drag-and-drop website builder with an intuitive interface in order to customize their site with common web elements, like sliders, maps, buttons, divs, videos, social widgets, and more. On the backend, Webflow generates W3C-compliant HTML5 and CSS3 code. There aren’t many competitors for a service like this, beyond to some extent, Bootstrap, Foundation or Adobe’s Edge Reflow – but those require more a more advanced skill set to use.

Since the company’s launch last summer, the service has grown its user base around 30% month-over-month, reports Vlad. Revenue has also climbed, and is 10 times higher per month than at launch. And, as noted above, Webflow is approaching 100,000 users, many of whom are now paying for its product.

Though the company still offers a free plan for personal use, its paid plans offer more features, and range from $14/month to $70/month depending on how many websites are being designed, how many pages they have, the number of backups you need, and more.

Vlad also notes that, though in the beginning Weblow worked well for freelancers, the company has made good progress in getting agencies on board, too. Currently, over 50 agencies use the service – something that was made possible by the upgraded features, plus support for multiple pages and multiple user accounts.

“The organization leader can invite other team members who could share both pre-built sites and templates across the team, which was a huge productivity boost for agencies,” Vlad explains. Plus, Webflow is now around 50 times faster than it was at launch, he notes. “Back in August, if you had a big site, when you started you would literally have to go and grab a coffee…and you’d come back and your Webflow site would still be loading. Today, it’s instant, no matter the size of the site,” says Vlad.

With the additional funding, the company is growing its team, and focusing on product. (The company would be profitable except it just hired two more employees, preferring to invest in growing the business for now). Now a team of six total, the company is working on other features, including a new editor that would allow the business owner to make simple changes (new text, swapping photos, e.g.) to the site on their own, without having to get their creative team involved.

Also in the works is support for dynamic sites, like shops or blogs. To date, Webflow has been very much focused on static websites, but support for blogging has been in demand, says Vlad.

“WordPress and other CMS’s don’t currently let you work with truly dynamic data…they let you work with posts,” he says. “So if you run a custom business, or want to build something like a store, you’re really trying to cram your dynamic content into a blogging platform. We’re hoping to build a platform that lets designers and developers create any sort of content.”

The company will announce more on this front this summer, with a launch planned for the fall.

Correction: Draper Associates’ Joel Yarmon invested, not Tim Draper, as previously reported.

View the original article here

Pet Sitting Marketplace Rover Raises $12 Million Series C

Rover, the Seattle-based online community that connects dog owners with in-home sitters, is today announcing $12 million in Series C funding, in a round led by new investor Menlo Ventures. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Foundry Group, and Petco (yes, the retailer) also participated. The company has raised nearly $25 million to date.

The new funding also sees Menlo’s Sunil Raman and Venky Ganesan, who have invested in companies like oDesk and Rev, joining Rover’s board.

Sometimes referred to, along with newer competitors like DogVacay, as an “Airbnb for dogs,” Rover’s online marketplace matches dog owners with local sitters, who are verified and reviewed. The platform additionally provides dog owners with access to other pet services, beyond in-home, overnight boarding, including things like pet and sitter insurance, vet consults, dog walking, in-home daycare services, and more.

On mobile, dog owners can stay in touch with their sitter through a messaging app that lets them chat, and share photos, among other things.

The company says that, today, 92% of the U.S. population lives within a short drive a Rover sitter thanks to its presence in every major U.S. city (as well as the promotional assistance provided by investor Petco, which promotes the service both online and in its stores.) There are now over 25,000 Rover sitters and services available across the U.S., and one million total Rover community members. However, Rover.com won’t disclose how many dog owners have used the service, nor how many bookings per month the site sees, on average.

Some top sitters on the platform now report six-figure incomes, the company claims, and new sitters today are earning, on average, 50 times more in their first 90 days than those who joined 18 months ago. In addition, Rover says it ended 2013 with an 800% year-over-year growth rate, from a revenue perspective.

“Rover is a great example of the sharing economy at its best,” said Sunil Raman of Menlo Ventures, known for other “sharing economy” marketplaces, like Uber and Poshmark, in a statement.  “It turns out that there are a lot of pet owners in this country, and Rover allows families to quickly coordinate overnight pet care. After getting to know Aaron and his team, we were certain this was a passionate group chasing a huge market opportunity,” he says.

In terms of the competitive landscape, Rover and DogVacay are top…err…dogs, here, but Rover is the older and larger of the two, with its 25,000 sitters/services to DogVacay’s 10,000+. However, DogVacay has the more modern mobile platform, having been first to launch a fully-featured app not just for communication, but also finding, booking and paying sitters, too.

That being said, Rover CEO Aaron Easterly has said before that DogVacay is not the company’s largest competitor, it’s the friends, family and neighbors dog owners today turn to, instead of using an online service. Many potential customers don’t know that other options in between full boarding and help from friends, even exist.

The company says it will use the new investment to increase its full-time staff (expected to double in the next 12 months), invest in technology (including its mobile application), grow its customer base and expand its products and services.

In case you’re wondering, Rover, DogVacay and others in this space promote themselves to dog owners (even though sitters may provide cat care), because dog owners simply spend more on theirs pets. After all, as long as someone cleans the litter, and feeds them, cats don’t really miss you when you’re gone. (They sure are cute when you open a can of tuna, though. Oh, and they do better in memes.)

View the original article here

Tipbit Scores $4 Million Series A For Its Productivity-Focused Email App

Tipbit, yet another startup attempting to reimagine how email should work on mobile devices, is announcing $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Ignition Partners. Alongside the new funding, the company also introduced an updated version of its mobile email application, which includes integrations with a number of cloud services like Evernote, Dropbox, Salesforce and more.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Gordon Mangione, who previously spent several years at Microsoft (Exchange and SQL Server), XenSource and most recently, Citrix, Tipbit’s application is focused on surfacing data and other related information within your inbox. When TechCrunch spoke to Mangione last summer, he referred to Tipbit’s ability to index data, including the name of the person, the topic, and the keywords in the email, among other things, as a form of “gravitational search.”
More simply put, that means Tipbit can perform specific tasks within the inbox that would have typically required users to launch other applications – like looking up social profile info from LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, for example, finding, viewing or sharing files from Dropbox, accessing Google from an email to search for content related to that message, and swiping to quickly perform other tasks, like accessing your calendar, files, or contacts.
This idea of making the email app more powerful on mobile, where navigating between apps can be a cumbersome experience, when compared with the desktop, is an idea several other email startups are also tackling, including, as of yesterday, CloudMagic, as well as soon-to-launch Acompli.
With the updated version of the Tipbit application, there’s now a new contextual, instant search function, the ability to filter searches by subject, date, sender, read/unread status and other attributes, and an added ability to filter the calendar based on source to connect people with meetings, the company says.
Bellevue-based Tipbit declined to offer any user or growth numbers at this point, as the app is still early. Meanwhile, the funding will be used to expand the company’s team of developers, UI designers and project managers, we’re told.
The app is currently available for the iPhone. An Android version is in the works.

View the original article here

Tipbit Scores $4 Million Series A For Its Productivity-Focused Email App

Tipbit, yet another startup attempting to reimagine how email should work on mobile devices, is announcing $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Ignition Partners. Alongside the new funding, the company also introduced an updated version of its mobile email application, which includes integrations with a number of cloud services like Evernote, Dropbox, Salesforce and more.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Gordon Mangione, who previously spent several years at Microsoft (Exchange and SQL Server), XenSource and most recently, Citrix, Tipbit’s application is focused on surfacing data and other related information within your inbox. When TechCrunch spoke to Mangione last summer, he referred to Tipbit’s ability to index data, including the name of the person, the topic, and the keywords in the email, among other things, as a form of “gravitational search.”

More simply put, that means Tipbit can perform specific tasks within the inbox that would have typically required users to launch other applications – like looking up social profile info from LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, for example, finding, viewing or sharing files from Dropbox, accessing Google from an email to search for content related to that message, and swiping to quickly perform other tasks, like accessing your calendar, files, or contacts.

This idea of making the email app more powerful on mobile, where navigating between apps can be a cumbersome experience, when compared with the desktop, is an idea several other email startups are also tackling, including, as of yesterday, CloudMagic, as well as soon-to-launch Acompli.

With the updated version of the Tipbit application, there’s now a new contextual, instant search function, the ability to filter searches by subject, date, sender, read/unread status and other attributes, and an added ability to filter the calendar based on source to connect people with meetings, the company says.

Bellevue-based Tipbit declined to offer any user or growth numbers at this point, as the app is still early. Meanwhile, the funding will be used to expand the company’s team of developers, UI designers and project managers, we’re told.

The app is currently available for the iPhone. An Android version is in the works.

View the original article here