Newsgator’s focus on RSS for business is paying off
RSS services provider Newsgator has focused much of its effort over the past year on developing products for businesses, and that effort seems to be paying off. The last two quarters were the company’s most profitable ever, partly because it has landed major clients across industries like finance, manufacturing and aerospace. It has also closed a $10 million sixth round of funding from Masthead Venture Partners, Mobius Venture Capital and Vista Ventures, and existing investors.
RSS… Continue Reading
KnowNow winds down — RSS for enterprise not as easy as it looks?
updated
KnowNow, a startup that sought to deliver RSS services to large companies, is looking to sell after failing to build a viable business.
The San Francisco company started winding down about two weeks ago, VentureBeat has learned, after three different CEOs took turns a the helm but failed to build a business out of the new technology.
A source close to the company says the underlying technology is valuable, and he expects a sale.
RSS grabbed a… Continue Reading
NewsGator, finding success with business customer, raises financing
RSS services company NewsGator has gained a promising number of business clients even as its consumer-focused feed reader services face increasing competition from Google, Yahoo and others.
RSS, often called Really Simple Syndication, has proven to be a key web standard, and NewsGator is one of the many companies to benefit. RSS is a method of formatting data in a software service, such as the text or photo of a blog post, structured so that the… Continue Reading
UPDATE: Intel confirms investments in Socialtext, SpikeSource, Six Apart, Simplefeed, Newsgator & Topio
See our stories here (scroll down) and here (on Topio). Total amounts of Intel investments are undisclosed.
(Update: To clarify, Intel has made equity investments in Six Apart and SpikeSource, but has only signed warranty deals with the other companies, essentially giving Intel the right to purchase equity once the companies meet certain peformance criteria).
Web 2.0 investment booms (data on big players & note on Intel)
Updated
Web 2.0 start-up activity is hot, and here’s the latest data.
Venture capitalists invested $455.5 million into Web 2.0 companies in the first three quarters of the year, more than twice the amount invested over the same period last year.
This comes from the latest survey by Dow Jones VentureOne, which continues to do the best research on the Web 2.0 area. It gets help from accounting firm Ernst & Young.
Overall, more than $1.63 billion has been… Continue Reading