Sequoia takes root in Evernote as early investor gets big exit
In a head-scratching private-market barter, illustrious venture firm Sequoia Capital has managed to secure an even larger chunk of up-and-coming Silicon Valley startup Evernote.
Russian firm Troika Ventures, Evernote’s first institutional investor, sold its stake in the note-taking and note-sharing company at more than ten times its investment.
Troika led a $4.5 million raise in Evernote in January 2009 (the round closed later in the year at $6.5 million), and quickly piled on with new … Continue Reading
Semiconductor startup Avalanche closes $11.5M funding round
A startup is hard at work making a new type of high-speed memory that stores data even when the power is turned off. Avalanche Technology, a company focused on Spin Programmable Memory (SPMEM) non-volatile memory class storage solutions (not pictured), has raised $11.5 million in a new round of funding.
This is the semiconductor startup’s third round of institutional funding.
Previous investors Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Leader Ventures all … Continue Reading
DeanBeat: Game companies raised a record-breaking $1.54B in 2011
Game fundings destroyed the record book for fundings this year as 145 companies raised more than $1.540 billion in 2011, not counting initial public offerings.
In 2011, games took center stage. Game investment changed fundamentally during the year, as investors shifted their money into social, mobile and online games as they chased after users who were embracing the newest platforms for games.
The total game investment number is up more than 47 percent from the … Continue Reading
Headset maker Jawbone raises another $40M, bringing its total to $210M raised
Jawbone, the maker of Bluetooth headsets for cell phones and other cool hardware, announced today that it has raised $40 million.
That amount is one of the biggest raised by a mobile hardware company, but San Francisco-based Jawbone has always been ambitious. As we noted when the company raised its $49 million round earlier this year, you could say that “over-engineering” a headset has gotten Jawbone pretty far.
The company makes wireless Bluetooth headsets for … Continue Reading
Scandanavian payment startup Klarna nabs a huge $155M round
A handful of big-name venture firms have lobbed a sizable chunk of change at Klarna, a Swedish startup that’s taking on Paypal in the mobile and online payments arena.
This is the startup’s third round of venture capital funding; previously, it had raised just $10 million total, including an angel round that weighed in at less than $100,000.
Now, however, it’s apparently playing in the big leagues, with funding coming from previous investor Sequoia Capital … Continue Reading
Updated: Xoom, the money transfer company, gets a little money of its own: $25M from Sequoia
[Editor's note: Updated with quotes from Xoom's chief executive John Kunze.]
Money transfer company Xoom received a $25 million round of funding today, according to a Form D filed with the SEC. The round comes from existing investors, including Sequoia Capital and Keith Rabois, chief operating officer of payments service Square.
The company allows people from 30 different countries to transfer money to one another without needing a bank account. In lieu of a bank … Continue Reading
Virident raises $21M to replace thousands of hard drives with flash memory
Virident is announcing today that is has raised $21 million to launch its next-generation flash memory for enterprises.
The funding is a rare one for a chip maker, but Virident is playing in one of the hottest parts of the market, where data centers use more flash memory in their servers in order to reduce power consumption and improve their ability to process an enormous amount of data quickly.
Milpitas, Calif.-based Virident is introducing its … Continue Reading
Sencha launches HTML 5 cloud service, receives $15M
Sencha, provider of HTML 5 tools for web and mobile developers, received $15 million in a second round of funding led by Jafco Ventures.
HTML 5 applications can make beautiful, interactive experiences on PCs and mobile devices. But there are some drawbacks to using HTML 5 that have held the marketplace from rushing the field. These apps are unable to connect to a device’s own native apps and data. For example, an HTML5 app running … Continue Reading
Sequoia Capital offers free bootcamp session for all Innovation Showdown finalists
We’re thrilled to announce that all 10 finalists in the CloudBeat 2011 Innovation Showdown will be invited to attend a special Bootcamp session hosted by Sequoia Capital. The session will take place at Sequoia’s offices in Menlo Park on November 11, a few weeks before the event.
As will be the case live at CloudBeat 2011, each company will have four minutes to showcase their cloud product or service. After each presentation, a mix of … Continue Reading
Achievers raises $24.5M for employee rewards platform
Achievers has raised $24.5 million for its business of motivating employees by inspiring them with rewards and social network.
That seems like something every company should do. But Achievers gives them a helping hand, and the company has grown 105 percent in monthly revenue over the last 12 months.
The company has programs such as social recognition, which allows employees to share their work accomplishments on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Employees can forward their recognitions … Continue Reading
Mintigo reads your customer code to find leads, gets $9M from Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital has turned its eyes toward lead generation in its latest investment, Mintigo, a company focused on streamlining the customer acquisition process. The second round of funding was announced today and was capped off at $9 million.
Mintigo describes finding sales leads not as a needle in a hay stack, but rather a needle in a needle stack. There are so many potential customers out there and many of them seem as worthy of … Continue Reading
Ad innovation takes the stage at Y Combinator event (video)
A few lucky people got a peek at the future of online advertising recently, thanks to a Y Combinator event.
Close to 200 entrepreneurs, marketers, publishers, and venture capitalists packed Y Combinator headquarters in Mountain View on Sept. 14 for the startup incubator’s first ever Ad Innovation Conference. The two-hour event was open to the public and designed to showcase companies developing ad-related technologies.
What with Demo, TechCrunch, Intel Developer Forum and Microsoft Build last … Continue Reading
Sequoia Capital believes in the mobile workforce, invests in MeLLmo
Sequoia Capital made a $30 million investment in MeLLmo Inc.’s first round of funding today, not long after it extended its Roambi product reach outside of San Diego to Boston, New York City, San Francisco, London and Shanghai.
MeLLmo is focused on mobile applications for businesses. The company believes we are moving toward a “mobile workforce” and need to be able to access important business information on the fly. Its more popular product, Roambi, offers … Continue Reading
RingCentral raises an additional $10M to bring calling to the cloud
Cloud phone service RingCentral has raised an additional $10 million in funding, with a goal of expanding its size and scope.
RingCentral offers cloud computing-based business phone systems to more than 200,000 customers. The service essentially makes small businesses appear larger than they are and gives them inexpensive tools to compete with bigger companies when it comes to phone services. RingCentral offers things like multiple voicemail boxes, call routing, auto-receptionist, extension dialing, call transfers and … Continue Reading
Interactive video advertising startup Innovid nabs $9.5M
Video advertising platform Innovid has raised a new $9.5 million round of funding, the company announced Wednesday.
Innovid’s iRoll ad service embeds interactive elements in pre-roll video ads to make them dynamic and engaging to an audience. The company also provides an ad server and analytics service called DYNAMO. Founded in 2007, the New York-based startup’s services are used on campaigns for many popular brands, including Disney and Sony.
The new round was led by … Continue Reading
Popular Android app Dolphin Browser swims over to iPhone
One of the most popular apps for Android, MoboTap’s Dolphin Browser, landed in Apple’s App Store late last night.
Dolphin first gained recognition as an early alternative to the pre-installed Android browser, and for a long time it was faster and better-featured than the stock browser. While it may not be that much faster now, the Dolphin Browser still has many more features and takes an innovative approach to browsing.
Unlike Android, where the Dolphin … Continue Reading
The global internet speedup initiative will make web video faster
Get ready for a ride on the Global Internet Speedup Initiative. It’s an alliance of companies who want to make the internet faster by shortening the distance that data has to travel when someone is requesting it.
With the new standard, it will be easier to fetch something like a YouTube video for any given user. That’s because of the alliance among companies such as OpenDNS, Google, Verisign, Comodo and major content delivery networks such … Continue Reading
Sequoia Capital raising fifth growth and principals funds
Storied venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is in the process of raising a new growth fund and principals fund, the firm has confirmed with VentureBeat.
Sequoia would not disclose any new details about the funds when contacted by VentureBeat. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that the firm is raising a new fund, but the filings do not list the amount of money the firm expects to raise for its fund.
Sequoia … Continue Reading
Evernote nabs $50M for expansion and acquisitions
Note-taking service Evernote has secured a $50 million funding round, the company announced Wednesday.
The Mountain View, California-based startup said it plans to use the new funds to aggressively expand its operations and acquire companies that will increase growth of its note-taking service.
Evernote’s service, which allows individuals to easily capture notes on a variety of devices, has 11 million users and a community of over 5,000 third-party application developers. The service has nearly doubled … Continue Reading
Sequoia & Kleiner VCs: Past year first for meaningful mobile momentum
Who doesn’t love to entertain venture capitalists? They have insight, they have an innovative eyes, they have lots of money… So we grabbed two of the best dressed (plaid blazers anyone?) to join us on stage at MobileBeat 2011 today to discuss why VC’s are going long on mobile.
Jim Goetz of Sequoia Capital and Matt Murphy of Kleiner Perkins have been investing in mobile companies for 5 years but say that the past year … Continue Reading
