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

Andreessen Horowitz Raises Massive New $1.5 Billion Fund

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz just announced that it has closed its Fund IV. And it’s a massive $1.5 billion fund for all sorts of investments from seed rounds to late-stage rounds.

Previously, Andreessen Horowitz had raised $300 million in 2009 (Fund I), $650 million in 2010 (Fund II), $200 million in 2011 (Growth fund) and $1.5 billion in 2012 (Fund III).

“We’re going to keep doing the things that we’ve been doing,” partner and COO Scott Kupor told me in a phone interview. “We want to look at everything and be able to invest.”

Among the reasons cited as to why venture capital is an exciting space right now, mobile comes first. Kupor writes that billions of new people will get a smartphone in the coming years, which will greatly increase the Internet population.

At the same time, technology costs have gone down dramatically. For example, Andreessen Horowitz recently led a $37 million round in cloud hosting company DigitalOcean — on this platform, you can run a cheap virtual server for just $5 a month.

Kupor also states that enterprise and SaaS-based applications present a great market opportunity. And finally, healthcare, education, financial services, energy, and government services have yet to be disrupted by young and scrappy newcomers.

“We understand the underlying software ecosystem and how it applies to more and more industries,” Kupor said. But don’t expect investments in biotech. Andreessen Horowitz wants to stay focused on what it does best: software.

When asked about the size of the new fund, Kupor said that this is the amount that the firm was looking for.

“You should size the fund depending on the market opportunity. Given the state of the market, this is the right fund. This is the right amount of money,” he said.

The firm didn’t invest all the money in the previous fund yet. It will set aside money to do follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies, but that’s about it. “We’ve got a little more room left but we’re largely at capacity,” Kupor said.

According to CrunchBase, last year, the firm participated in 97 first rounds and follow-on rounds, including rounds in Pinterest, Jawbone, Fab and Lyft.

In the blog post, Kupor reminds us that limited partners invested $110 billion in 2000. These days, limited partners are “only” investing $16 billion to $18 billion per year into a limited number of VC firms.

“I certainly don’t think that it’s a bubble. The level of money that LPs are committing to the industry is the good level. There is a relatively small number of firms that can achieve high returns, and they understand that. They are trying to rightsize their investments,” he said.

Arguably, the firm may have lured LPs with Marc Andreessen’s innovative Twitter account. He uses this medium to spam write entire blog posts over multiple tweets. And you may have heard as well that Ben Horowitz is exploring a new career as hype man for Nas. How can you say no to these guys?

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

Sprig Raises $10M From Greylock To Bring Healthy, Inexpensive Meals To Your Door

Sprig, a food delivery service that brings healthy, inexpensive meals to San Francisco residents’ doors, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Greylock Partners with Battery Ventures and Accel participating. As part of the funding, Greylock partner Simon Rothman is joining Sprig’s board, and we’re told the investment is the first one from Greylock’s $100 million marketplace initiative announced last year.

The company previously raised $2 million in seed financing from Battery Ventures, Accel, Rothman, Andrew McCollum, Larry Braitman, Haroon Mokhtarzada, Darian Shirazi, MHS Capital, Jim Payne, Dan Martell, Andrew Garvin, and Pascal Levy-Garboua.

Sprig brings locally sourced, sustainable, seasonal meals directly to your home or office, and gives customers a choice of a three different meal choices for delivery. Meals cost $10 each (plus a $2 delivery fee that includes tip and tax) and generally include one entrée selection and a couple of sides. Sprig users make purchases via mobile app, which stores their location and payment information, and food is delivered within about 20 minutes. Our intrepid reporter Ryan Lawler tried Sprig out last year, and gave the service a generally positive review.

Sprig was co-founded by Gagan Biyani, who had been on the founding team of online education startup Udemy, and had also worked as an adviser to Lyft during its expansion into the Los Angeles market. (Disclosure: Once upon a time, Biyani was part of the TechCrunch family as a contributor to MobileCrunch.)

The startup’s executive chef is Nate Keller, who was previously executive chef at Google during its growth from 400 to about 40,000 employees. Other co-founders include Neeraj Berry, who runs ops; product lead Morgan Springer; and engineering lead Matt Kent.

As Rothman explains, “The simplicity of the proposition masks the enormous complexity underneath. It’s really hard to quickly and affordably deliver organic, locally sourced meals prepared by experienced chefs. There are delivery logistics, hybrid online/offline user experience, and food quality? — ?all done in real time. It’s hard. Really hard. It’s a balancing act between price, convenience, and quality. Most businesses are lucky to do one well. Successful companies can do two. Being able to do all three is how you revolutionize an industry. Sprig has started down the path of being a market-defining company.”

The general space Sprig is playing in is relatively large — there’s Munchery and SpoonRocket, which are also both picking up steam. But there is an opportunity beyond San Francisco to offer these meals. For example, a friend of mine in Boston recently had a baby, and I wanted to send her a few, healthy meals. I found one local startup who did this but none of the companies that launched in SF had expanded to Boston. Yet. If startups like Sprig can lock down a local expansion strategy, I think there is huge potential for building a marketplace as large as Uber or Lyft.

The new funding will be used towards the customer experience for customers in San Francisco, expansion to new markets and for hiring.

View the original article here

Real Estate Crowdfunding Startup Realty Mogul Raises $9M

Realty Mogul, a site that allows accredited investors to collectively back real estate projects, is announcing that it has raised a $9 million Series A led by Canaan Partners.

The startup launched a year ago, and in its first year it says 6,000 members invested $14.6 million in real estate projects worth more than $100 million.

Co-founder and CEO Jilliene Helman told me that increasing the number of investments available on the site is one of her main goals for 2014. She added that in some ways, Realty Mogul inverts the traditional benefits of crowdfunding.

“A lot of people, when they talk about crowdfunding, they talk about democratization of access to capital,” Helman said. “We think about it very differently — we think about it as democratization of access to dealflow.”

That democratization only goes so far, at least for now. As mentioned above, you need to be an accredited investor to participate, and to become an accredited investor you need an income of at least $200,000 per year or a net worth of $1 million. Helman said she’s waiting to see how the regulatory framework around crowdfunding shakes out before she considers expanding the investor pool.

As for how Realty Mogul actually works, members browse the site looking at potential investment. If they decide to invest in a property, their money is only committed if the project is fully funded. If it is, they’ll get regular updates on the property and receive whatever cash distributions (such as rent payments) they’re entitled to. Helman noted that Realty Mogul always works with real estate investment companies — it’s the investment company that handles the operational end of things, like renovating a property.

Helman suggested that this is likely the largest Series A raised by a crowdfunding startup — the closest being CircleUp’s $7.5 million Series A. (CircleUp subsequently raised another $14 million.) She also said that she’s particularly excited to work with Canaan because the firm previously backed peer-to-peer lending company Lending Club, so she can draw on their experience in building this type of marketplace. Canaan principal Hrach Simonian has joined the Realty Mogul board of directors.

“Realty Mogul will be the next disruption in a massive asset class just like LendingClub has been for the consumer credit market,” Simonian said in the funding release.

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

Azimo Raises $10M Series A Led By Greycroft Partners To Expand Money Transfer Service

More evidence that the online money transfer space is heating up significantly, as startups aim to disrupt the banks and incumbents such as Western Union. Money transfer startup Azimo has closed a $10 million series A round.

The new funding, which follows a $1 million seed round late last year, is being led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, eVentures (who led Azimo’s seed round), TA Ventures, RI Digital Ventures, and KRW Schindler Investments.

The UK company says it will use the funds to accelerate European expansion and target other key markets in North America and Asia. Meanwhile, Kamran Ansari from Greycroft Partners, and Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, will join Azimo’s board.

Launched in August 2012, Azimo aims to disrupt the remittance industry by letting users transfer money internationally to friends, family or other contacts via the Web, its mobile apps or Facebook, charging between 1 percent and 2 percent of the transaction, which is significantly cheaper than the rates charged by the likes of Western Union, PayPal or, indeed, the banks. The recipient receives the money either in their bank account, at local cash collection points, or as “mobile wallet” top-up credit.

It currently supports money transfer from numerous European countries to 192 countries globally, and cites fastest recipient growth in Latin America, West Africa, and South East Asia.

As we’ve previously noted, the European online money transfer market is a hot space right now, as is fintech in general. Just today, WorldRemit received a $40 million investment from Accel Partners. Last October, Dublin-based peer-to-peer currency exchange CurrencyFair raised a further $2.5 million led by Frontline Ventures. And just a few weeks earlier, Lithuanian-based TransferGo, which also operates a P2P model to undercut the banks, announced it had raised a modest €200,000 in funding to launch in the UK. Then of course there’s London-based TransferWise, backed to the tune of $7.35 million by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, SV Angel, IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and TAG.

To that end, Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, comments in a statement: “We’ve looked at the investment case for numerous remittance ventures around the world. The Azimo team’s track record in the sector, disruptive business model and their commitment to serve the two-and-a-half-billion unbanked potential remittance recipients, made us decide this was the business to back. We believe this is an exciting investment with potential for scale that can also change the world for the better.”

Change the world for the better, perhaps; money does make the world go round after all. And online money transfer startups are no exception.

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

Banjo Raises $16M To Grow Its Experiential Real-Time News And Events Platform

Startup Banjo has raised a new $16 million Series B round of funding, bringing its total raised to date to $21 million. The round was led by Balderton Capital, and included participation from BlueRun Ventures and Vegas Tech Fund, among others. For the Redwood City-based startup, the fresh injection of cash means ramping up growth, through talent recruitment, international expansion and building out its media platform product.

The startup has evolved from a mostly consumer-focused product that let you view the social media updates of people around you, to a cross-platform product that allows both consumers and media companies to experience and share real-time events and headline-making news as they unfold across the social web. The startup recently debuted its first web-based version, and also introduced Rewind, a product that allows users to re-live specific events in the past over again, and provides a historical look at what was going on in the world at any time you choose.

“Banjo is all about delivering live content that is indexed by location and context, however when people miss a news or major event, Rewind allows the user to relive the moment,” Banjo CEO and founder Damien Patton explained in an interview. “It’s the first location-based social graph, with a complete historical reference, drawing on posts that may have otherwise expired on your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feeds.”

I asked why this is different from traditional news media, which is now seen by many as inferior to Twitter or the social web as a news source since it’s usually so far behind. By the time something makes the evening news, for instance, it’s already been tweeted about nearly to the point of audience saturation – Patton says that there’s a difference between experiencing something on the social web and reading or listening to a constructed retelling, however.

“With Rewind, you can go back and catch those moments through the eyes of the people who were actually there,” he said. “Even a breaking news event such as the Boston Marathon bombing or [yesterday's] building collapse in Harlem, New York, by the time it’s trending on Twitter or you’ve figured out the correct hashtag, it’s likely you already missed a significant amount of content.”

The company, which was founded in 2011, partners with media companies including NBC, FOX and BBC to provide them real-time looks at the public response to big news stories and major events like live sport as they happen, and also offers consumer-facing apps for mobile and now the web. Patton says both point of focus are important to the company, and feed one another.

“Both [enterprise and consumer products] are of equal importance as the media partnerships drive consumer growth, and in turn the consumer growth makes our product more attractive to media,” he said. The use of the funding will reflect that dual aim, as Banjo looks to be the bridge between events unfolding in real-time, the people on the ground, and those watching from a distance.

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

Azimo Raises $10M Series A Led By Greycroft Partners To Expand Money Transfer Service

More evidence that the online money transfer space is heating up significantly, as startups aim to disrupt the banks and incumbents such as Western Union. Money transfer startup Azimo has closed a $10 million series A round.

The new funding, which follows a $1 million seed round late last year, is being led by Greycroft Partners, with participation from Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, eVentures (who led Azimo’s seed round), TA Ventures, RI Digital Ventures, and KRW Schindler Investments.

The UK company says it will use the funds to accelerate European expansion and target other key markets in North America and Asia. Meanwhile, Kamran Ansari from Greycroft Partners, and Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, will join Azimo’s board.

Launched in August 2012, Azimo aims to disrupt the remittance industry by letting users transfer money internationally to friends, family or other contacts via the Web, its mobile apps or Facebook, charging between 1 percent and 2 percent of the transaction, which is significantly cheaper than the rates charged by the likes of Western Union, PayPal or, indeed, the banks. The recipient receives the money either in their bank account, at local cash collection points, or as “mobile wallet” top-up credit.

It currently supports money transfer from numerous European countries to 192 countries globally, and cites fastest recipient growth in Latin America, West Africa, and South East Asia.

As we’ve previously noted, the European online money transfer market is a hot space right now, as is fintech in general. Just today, WorldRemit received a $40 million investment from Accel Partners. Last October, Dublin-based peer-to-peer currency exchange CurrencyFair raised a further $2.5 million led by Frontline Ventures. And just a few weeks earlier, Lithuanian-based TransferGo, which also operates a P2P model to undercut the banks, announced it had raised a modest €200,000 in funding to launch in the UK. Then of course there’s London-based TransferWise, backed to the tune of $7.35 million by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, SV Angel, IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and TAG.

To that end, Monica Brand, Managing Director for Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, comments in a statement: “We’ve looked at the investment case for numerous remittance ventures around the world. The Azimo team’s track record in the sector, disruptive business model and their commitment to serve the two-and-a-half-billion unbanked potential remittance recipients, made us decide this was the business to back. We believe this is an exciting investment with potential for scale that can also change the world for the better.”

Change the world for the better, perhaps; money does make the world go round after all. And online money transfer startups are no exception.

View the original article here

Banjo Raises $16M To Grow Its Experiential Real-Time News And Events Platform

Startup Banjo has raised a new $16 million Series B round of funding, bringing its total raised to date to $21 million. The round was led by Balderton Capital, and included participation from BlueRun Ventures and Vegas Tech Fund, among others. For the Redwood City-based startup, the fresh injection of cash means ramping up growth, through talent recruitment, international expansion and building out its media platform product.

The startup has evolved from a mostly consumer-focused product that let you view the social media updates of people around you, to a cross-platform product that allows both consumers and media companies to experience and share real-time events and headline-making news as they unfold across the social web. The startup recently debuted its first web-based version, and also introduced Rewind, a product that allows users to re-live specific events in the past over again, and provides a historical look at what was going on in the world at any time you choose.

“Banjo is all about delivering live content that is indexed by location and context, however when people miss a news or major event, Rewind allows the user to relive the moment,” Banjo CEO and founder Damien Patton explained in an interview. “It’s the first location-based social graph, with a complete historical reference, drawing on posts that may have otherwise expired on your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feeds.”

I asked why this is different from traditional news media, which is now seen by many as inferior to Twitter or the social web as a news source since it’s usually so far behind. By the time something makes the evening news, for instance, it’s already been tweeted about nearly to the point of audience saturation – Patton says that there’s a difference between experiencing something on the social web and reading or listening to a constructed retelling, however.

“With Rewind, you can go back and catch those moments through the eyes of the people who were actually there,” he said. “Even a breaking news event such as the Boston Marathon bombing or [yesterday's] building collapse in Harlem, New York, by the time it’s trending on Twitter or you’ve figured out the correct hashtag, it’s likely you already missed a significant amount of content.”

The company, which was founded in 2011, partners with media companies including NBC, FOX and BBC to provide them real-time looks at the public response to big news stories and major events like live sport as they happen, and also offers consumer-facing apps for mobile and now the web. Patton says both point of focus are important to the company, and feed one another.

“Both [enterprise and consumer products] are of equal importance as the media partnerships drive consumer growth, and in turn the consumer growth makes our product more attractive to media,” he said. The use of the funding will reflect that dual aim, as Banjo looks to be the bridge between events unfolding in real-time, the people on the ground, and those watching from a distance.

View the original article here

Eventbrite Raises Around $50M At A Valuation North Of $1B, Fortune Reports

Event ticketing startup Eventbrite has raised a new round of funding at around $50 million, Fortune’s Dan Primack reports, which values the company at over $1 billion and sees the tech company join an elite group of so-called “Unicorn club” startups. The new funding comes on the heels of a $60 million round raised nearly a year ago, and Primack says that while the startup wasn’t necessarily looking to raise more ahead of a potential IPO in 2014, investors from that round made an offer that was too good to pass up.

The investors in question are Tiger Global Management and T. Rowe Price, both of which wanted more interest in Eventbrite and approached the startup with a deal, according to a statement provided by Eventbrite to Fortune confirming the new round. Other existing investors didn’t participate, in order to provide as much stake as possible to Tiger Global Management and T. Rowe Price, and one of Fortune’s sources also says the investors would’ve added more to the funding total had they been allowed to do so by Eventbrite.

The worldwide ticketing is a big cash cow – over $1 billion in gross ticket sales passed through Eventbrite’s platform last year alone, and online ticketing in the U.S. alone was estimated to be around a $4 billion business as of February last year. But Eventbrite is thinking globally, and in fact, Fortune reports that international expansion is one of the key goals of this new, late round, alongside product development on both the event organizer and consumer side of its platform.

This will push the startup’s big plans to go public back to 2015, Primack suggests. The company was founded in 2006 by Renaud Visage, and Kevin and Julia Hartz, and has raised a total of $190 million with this new round included. The $1 billion in ticketing sales it did in 2013 alone represents a massive surge in growth, since in March 2013, the startup announced that it has done $1.5 billion in cumulative ticket sales over the course of its whole seven year history. We’ve reached out to Eventbrite for more info and will update if we receive any response.

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

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

Banjo Raises $16M To Grow Its Experiential Real-Time News And Events Platform

Startup Banjo has raised a new $16 million Series B round of funding, bringing its total raised to date to $21 million. The round was led by Balderton Capital, and included participation from BlueRun Ventures and Vegas Tech Fund, among others. For the Redwood City-based startup, the fresh injection of cash means ramping up growth, through talent recruitment, international expansion and building out its media platform product.

The startup has evolved from a mostly consumer-focused product that let you view the social media updates of people around you, to a cross-platform product that allows both consumers and media companies to experience and share real-time events and headline-making news as they unfold across the social web. The startup recently debuted its first web-based version, and also introduced Rewind, a product that allows users to re-live specific events in the past over again, and provides a historical look at what was going on in the world at any time you choose.

“Banjo is all about delivering live content that is indexed by location and context, however when people miss a news or major event, Rewind allows the user to relive the moment,” Banjo CEO and founder Damien Patton explained in an interview. “It’s the first location-based social graph, with a complete historical reference, drawing on posts that may have otherwise expired on your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feeds.”

I asked why this is different from traditional news media, which is now seen by many as inferior to Twitter or the social web as a news source since it’s usually so far behind. By the time something makes the evening news, for instance, it’s already been tweeted about nearly to the point of audience saturation – Patton says that there’s a difference between experiencing something on the social web and reading or listening to a constructed retelling, however.

“With Rewind, you can go back and catch those moments through the eyes of the people who were actually there,” he said. “Even a breaking news event such as the Boston Marathon bombing or [yesterday's] building collapse in Harlem, New York, by the time it’s trending on Twitter or you’ve figured out the correct hashtag, it’s likely you already missed a significant amount of content.”

The company, which was founded in 2011, partners with media companies including NBC, FOX and BBC to provide them real-time looks at the public response to big news stories and major events like live sport as they happen, and also offers consumer-facing apps for mobile and now the web. Patton says both point of focus are important to the company, and feed one another.

“Both [enterprise and consumer products] are of equal importance as the media partnerships drive consumer growth, and in turn the consumer growth makes our product more attractive to media,” he said. The use of the funding will reflect that dual aim, as Banjo looks to be the bridge between events unfolding in real-time, the people on the ground, and those watching from a distance.

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

Eventbrite Raises Around $50M At A Valuation North Of $1B, Fortune Reports

Event ticketing startup Eventbrite has raised a new round of funding at around $50 million, Fortune’s Dan Primack reports, which values the company at over $1 billion and sees the tech company join an elite group of so-called “Unicorn club” startups. The new funding comes on the heels of a $60 million round raised nearly a year ago, and Primack says that while the startup wasn’t necessarily looking to raise more ahead of a potential IPO in 2014, investors from that round made an offer that was too good to pass up.

The investors in question are Tiger Global Management and T. Rowe Price, both of which wanted more interest in Eventbrite and approached the startup with a deal, according to a statement provided by Eventbrite to Fortune confirming the new round. Other existing investors didn’t participate, in order to provide as much stake as possible to Tiger Global Management and T. Rowe Price, and one of Fortune’s sources also says the investors would’ve added more to the funding total had they been allowed to do so by Eventbrite.

The worldwide ticketing is a big cash cow – over $1 billion in gross ticket sales passed through Eventbrite’s platform last year alone, and online ticketing in the U.S. alone was estimated to be around a $4 billion business as of February last year. But Eventbrite is thinking globally, and in fact, Fortune reports that international expansion is one of the key goals of this new, late round, alongside product development on both the event organizer and consumer side of its platform.

This will push the startup’s big plans to go public back to 2015, Primack suggests. The company was founded in 2006 by Renaud Visage, and Kevin and Julia Hartz, and has raised a total of $190 million with this new round included. The $1 billion in ticketing sales it did in 2013 alone represents a massive surge in growth, since in March 2013, the startup announced that it has done $1.5 billion in cumulative ticket sales over the course of its whole seven year history. We’ve reached out to Eventbrite for more info and will update if we receive any response.

View the original article here