Engine Yard’s Rails app support gets another $19M
Engine Yard, a company that helps developers deploy and manage web applications built with the Ruby on Rails programming framework (which is popular for fast web development), has raised $19 million in a third venture round.
This brings the San Francisco company’s total funding to $37.5 million. As a point of comparison, to about 10 times the money raised by competitor Heroku. Both companies offer services to take the pain out of launching a Rails app… Continue Reading
Envia nabs $7.1M for automotive lithium-ion batteries
EnVia Systems, a supplier of lithium-ion batteries for hybrid and fully electric cars has brought in $7.1 million of a targeted $7.7 million round of equity and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Hayward, Calif., the company did not list its most recent investors — though it has named Bay Partners and Redpoint Ventures in the past.
The company’s stated goal is to produce lighter and more affordable battery packs to green… Continue Reading
FinancialContent acquires social investing site SocialPicks
Updated with confirmation
We’re hearing that SocialPicks, a fantasy stock website, has been acquired by financial data and business news company FinancialContent. There’s been no official word from either company, but if you visit the SocialPicks site, at the very top of the page it says that SocialPicks is part of the FinancialContent network. And at the bottom, visitors are told that the site is “© 2009 FinancialContent Services, Inc.”
Mountain View, Calif.-based SocialPicks was part of… Continue Reading
Zenprise nabs $10M for automated mobile troubleshooting
Zenprise, a company that has automated troubleshooting processes for mobile phone customers, just raised $10 million to grow its sales and marketing operations, as well as its presence in the U.S. and abroad. The Fremont, Calif.-based company says it monitors mobile phone systems and can provide step-by-step resolution instructions to smartphone customers encountering problems, thereby lightening the load of calls into IT and customer support teams.
Mobile management products are in greater demand than ever before,… Continue Reading
M-Factor raises new funding for profit optimization
M-Factor, which sells web-based software to improve profit and revenue, has raised an undisclosed round of funding led by UV Partners. The San Mateo, Calif. company’s solution looks at marketing investments, trade spending, and portfolio pricing for consumer goods companies and fast-food restaurants.
US Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Bay Partners also participated in the round.
Jambool launches virtual goods platform for social network apps
Competition is heating up in the virtual goods economy on Facebook, because they actually appear to be making significant amounts of money. The latest entrant is Jambool, InsideFacebook reports. A long-time developer shop for Facebook applications, the company has retooled itself to provide virtual goods features to other applications on social networks
It is launching a new self-serve payment system and analytics tools today for third-party app developers. Called SocialGold, Jambool’s new platform lets users buy… Continue Reading
Compensation software co. Xactly buys rival Centive
Xactly, maker of software that measures and tracks employees’ sales performance and compensation, has bought its major competitor, human resources software provider Centive. The stock-based deal gave San Jose, Calif.-based Xactly all of the company’s assets and employees for an undisclosed sum.
Incorporated under the name Xactly, the new entity will continue to support all of the products the companies have on the market right now for the next 18 months to ensure a seamless transition… Continue Reading
Force10 and Turin merge, pool their capital and clients
Network builder Force10 Networks has merged with Ethernet services provider Turin Networks to create a powerhouse in both spaces, with an impressive list of clients, numbering 1,300 (including eHarmony and Facebook), reports peHUB. More significant than that is the marrying of two significant pots of venture capital. Since their nearly simultaneous founding a decade ago, Force10 has raised $400 million, and Turin $250 million.
Combined under the Force10 name, the new entity, based in San Jose,… Continue Reading
Microsoft social app co. Wallop rebrands as Coveroo
Wallop, the social app startup that broke out of Microsoft in 2006, has changed its name to Coveroo and plans to refocus its efforts on mobile phone accessories. Its first order of business was to buy laser-engraving firm Etchstar, which specializes in customizing laptops and phones.
Based in San Francisco, the new entity will inherit 10 employees and what’s left of $13 million in capital from Wallop. Its investors include Norwest Venture Partners and Bay Partners…. Continue Reading
OncoMed nabs $93M for stem cell programs
OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, a company working to fight cancer using stem cells, added a $93 million tranche to a second round of funding that now totals $154 million. The money will be used to push its lead antibody candidate through phase-two clinical trials.
The Redwood City, Calif. firm specializes in developing treatments to target cancer stem cells — the cells that cause tumor growth and renewal. They are unique in their resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments…. Continue Reading
Envia raises $3.2M for lithium ion batteries
Envia Systems, a company that provides energy storage services via lithium ion batteries, took $3.2 million in first-round funding from Bay Partners and Redpoint Ventures. The Hayward, Calif.-based firm hopes to integrated its technology into cleantech applications, particularly electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
The adoption of lithium-ion batteries over heavier nickel-cadmium batteries has pushed electric car development forward, but they are still said to still be prohibitively expensive for regular use. Envia also… Continue Reading
Sonoa lands $10M for cloud hosting
Software provider Sonoa Systems announced that it raked in $10 million in third-round funding to expand its sale and marketing operations. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company hosts computing platforms for businesses. This means they provide storage, security, and traffic management and measurement services for their clients’ websites and applications.
In particular, Sonoa hosts cloud computing environments, which generally allow users to run their scalable systems faster and cheaper. The 60-employee company counts Pfizer and the Warner… Continue Reading
Eventful nabs Ticketmaster partnership, new funding
Online event-listing portals have been trying for a long time to get a cut of ticket sales. One of them, Eventful, seems to have finally gotten the Grail: a partnership with Ticketmaster, one of the world’s largest ticketing companies.
Under the deal, Eventful will be able to sell Ticketmaster stubs through its website. There’s no indication of what sort of cut Eventful will get, but the two companies are also agreeing to a co-advertising deal that… Continue Reading
Applied Identity raises $10M for enterprise IT
Applied Identity, a San Francisco startup that improves enterprise IT security, has raised $10 million of a projected $15.3 million third round, according to Private Equity Hub, citing a regulatory filing. New investor ABS Ventures joined existing backers Bay Partners, Globespan Capital Partners, OVP Ventures and Sigma Partners.
Daptiv scores more funding for project management software, continuing on growth trajectory
Still on its quest to become the Salesforce.com of project portfolio management (PPM), Seattle startup Daptiv has raised $9 million more to develop and market its platform to large companies.
PPM, for those of you who haven’t spent much time in a cubicle, refers to the sets of goals, objectives and steps required for completing large projects. In essence, it’s how corporations keep their internal operations ticking along. Given the size and complexity of most modern… Continue Reading
Cloud company Elastra gets $12M from Amazon
Elastra, a company that helps manage applications in the Internet cloud, has raised $12 million in new funding.
This is Elastra’s second venture round, and it was led by Bay Partners, with Amazon.com and existing investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners also participating. Amazon’s backing is particularly impressive, since its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) makes Amazon one of the most important companies to cloud computing in general, and to Elastra in particular, since the San Francisco startup… Continue Reading
Corefino raises $13.6M for business accounting and finance
Yet another company focused on helping businesses with their accounting — and specifically with regulatory compliance — has received its first funding, with $13.6 million going to Sunnyvale, Calif. startup Corefino.
The firm joins a set of similar companies to receive funding in the past couple months: Risk manager Agiliance with $10 million, internal investigator Vantos with $10.6 million, and archiving and eDiscovery group Mimosa with $17 million.
The specific niche Corefino is going for is… Continue Reading
Online gambling is illegal, right? Not quite; the poker is still going on PurePlay
It’s pretty rare that venture capitalists will bet on a company that shows a hint of impropriety. Yet happens occasionally, for companies that don’t push the envelope too far.
In March, for instance, soft-porn site Zivity got $7 million from two prominent firms. The latest is PurePlay, a poker and proto-gambling site that today announces $15 million in funding from Bay Partners and prominent investors including Ron Conway, Peter Thiel and Owen Van Natta.
PurePlay doesn’t do… Continue Reading
Advanced Power Projects, for power plant efficiency, takes first funding
A new startup that promises to make new and existing power plants run more reliably and produce less greenhouse gas emissions has received an undisclosed amount of funding by Bay Partners, Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures.
Advanced Power Projects has a technology called the Simplified Combined Cycle, which is capable of capturing waste heat more effectively than the arrays of turbines and cooling towers used at most plants.
The company also has a mixing method for steam… Continue Reading
ParAccel, analytical database company, raises $22M more
ParAccel, a San Diego company that has developed an analytical database that it says provides faster access to business information data, has raised $22 million in a second round of financing, VentureBeat has learned.
Investors include Bay Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures and PacVen Walden Ventures.
Here is some of the company’s literature on its offering:
Built for Speed: Why ParAccel’s Columnar, MPP DBMS is More Efficient
Only relevant columns are retrieved (A row-wise DBMS would pull all columnns and… Continue Reading