Trip-planning site TravelMuse zooms ahead with $2M
TravelMuse, a web site and widget maker that allows users to make, save and book elaborate travel plans, has raised $2 million of an anticipated $3.9 million in debt and equity funding, according to VentureWire. Based in Los Altos, Calif., the company gained $517,000 of that oney from the conversion of promissory notes into preferred stock. It had raised $3.5 million in a first round of venture funding in 2007 from Azure Capital Partners, California… Continue Reading
TripIt launches iPhone app — puts itineraries at your fingertips
TripIt, the online service that lets you create and share your travel itineraries, has launched a free application for the iPhone. The app lets users view their meticulously organized travel plans on the go — even in airplane mode — eliminating the need for cumbersome maps and paper schedules, the company says.
When you view an itinerary in the app, it’s not just a list of next stops. For 500 different sites and brands — resorts,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Brin backs Parkinson’s study, iPhone gets shakable ads, and more
Google co-founder backs major Parkinson’s study – Sergey Brin says he plans to contribute money and DNA to a study run by his wife Anne Wojcicki’s startup 23andMe.
Dockers introduces shakable iPhone ad — Users can shake their iPhones to make urban street dancer Dufon perform his moves. The ad was created by mobile ad company Medialets.
Twofish launches analytics platform for social games — The company’s Elements platform will help social game and virtual world developers understand and make… Continue Reading
TravelMuse launches new widget, scores $600K
It’s a good week for trip planning website TravelMuse. It launched its first application, the TravelMuse Plan-It!, which allows users to collect travel information from a range of sites in one centralized location — and then share it with their friends. On top of that, it brought in $600,000 in first-round funding from Azure Capital Partners.
The widget, designed for placement on travel blogs, lets users quickly save content by clicking on a Plant-It! icon on… Continue Reading
Boom for travel sites — Can they make money?
Travel sites are in fashion this spring, with new sites adding at a steady pace. Finnish travel site TripSay is just the latest to emerge, for example, with ways to share tips about travel. It’s still in closed testing, but it plans to open to the public in a few months.
With hundreds of travel sites now existing — ranging from the big ones like Expedia to the small, single-author blogs dedicated to travel — how… Continue Reading
TripIt raises $5.1M to better organize your travels
As someone who has been home for one weekend of the past six, I know that traveling can be a real pain. While the Internet has eased some burdens such as scheduling and price hunting, it has also created new ones, such as organizing trip details when plans are often made across several sites. That is where a site like TripIt comes in.
There are a lot of online traveling sites such as Kayak (our coverage),… Continue Reading
Roundup: Pitchfork.tv launches, Google search share hits an all-time high, and more
Here’s the latest:
New online video service Pitchfork.tv launches — The well known music blog Pitchfork has launched its foray into online music video realm and has gotten generally positive reviews. ReadWriteWeb thinks it may challenge the just announced MySpace Music (our coverage), while NewTeeVee thinks it is “catering to the T-shirt-wearing, black-rimmed-glasses set,” which exactly describes me right now — better go try it.
Google Search hits 67 percent share in March — New data from Hitwise shows… Continue Reading
Kango makes travel search personal and raises $4mm
Kango, a travel search engine that finds lodging and activities that match your personal preferences, is launching a closed testing version and announcing that it raised $4 million from Shasta Ventures earlier this year.
This area is extremely competitive. Companies like Kayak and Sidestep, which search multiple sites for the best ticket prices, have raised millions from marquee VCs; cFares, which finds wholesale plane tickets at discount rates, recently raised $4.5 million. TripIt makes it easy… Continue Reading
Launchpad: G.ho.st, Realius, Cleverset and more
[Update: The crowd has voted: Cleverset wins best in show. G.ho.st wins most creative idea. Spiceworks mostly likely to exit first.]
Here are the companies presenting at today’s Launchpad event at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco: G.ho.st, Realius, Cleverset, Click Forensics, TripIt and Spiceworks.
The first three are new to VentureBeat, although two of those have been around for a while. We’ll update this post as we learn more about them. For now, here’s a… Continue Reading
New companies, continued: MusicShake, Cake Financial, Ponoko, TripIt standout
Ten more companies presented during today’s afternoon portion of the Techcrunch40 conference. If we were able to have stock in these companies, here’s the order we’d rank them: MusicShake, Cake Financial, Tripit, Ponoko, Everywhere, CrowdSpirit, DocStoc, Flock, StoryBlender and TeachThePeople. Summaries of each company follow.
MusicShake, a music-creation app — This is site is winning kudos because it looks addictive. According to the logo on the webpage, it’s a “Music making game which is no need of… Continue Reading
TripIt, another travel start-up, raises $1M
TripIt, a San Francisco online travel startup that plans to launch this summer, has raised $1 million in a first round funding from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. One of the company’s executives is Hotwire co-founder Gregg Brockway. Bryce Roberts, of OATV tells VentureBeat he invested because of the team’s deep experience in travel industry.
The funding was first reported by PE Week.