Why Charles River Ventures sat out on Twitter’s latest round
When Twitter raised its most recent round of funding at $1 billion, a few players were conspicuously absent, including Union Square Ventures and Charles River Ventures.
Why did Charles River sit out? Size and strategy.
Charles River Ventures is focused on using a $325 million fund for early stage investments. Participating in a high-valuation round means too large a share of the fund goes to too few companies, said George Zachary (pictured), a partner at the firm.
The… Continue Reading
Zendesk, the help desk that sits in the cloud, gets another boost
Zendesk, a maker of customer service software used by companies such as Twitter, MSNBC and IDEO, has raised $6 million in a second round of funding, led by Benchmark Capital.
There are plenty of companies offering competing help desk software, but Zendesk has drawn particular attention from some of Silicon Valley’s leading investors for its focus on what it calls the “help desk 2.0 movement.” It offers its service over the Web (it runs entirely from… Continue Reading
RPX raises funds to aggregate defensive patents
RPX Corporation, provider of a service that aggregates patents to prevent violations and subsequent litigation costs, has brought in an undisclosed amount of second-round funding from Index Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Based in San Francisco, the company charges companies fees between $35,000 and $4.9 million a year — a decent exchange for some companies that pay out millions of dollars annually due to patent infringement. RPX actually buys the rights… Continue Reading
Scribd to sell 5,000 e-books from Simon & Schuster
Scribd, the site that lets users upload, share and embed documents, first launched its e-books store back in May as a potential competitor to Amazon. Now it has inched closer to its goal with a deal to sell 5,000 titles from major publishing house Simon & Schuster in the form of digital e-books.
Many publishing houses are shopping around for new online distribution opportunities. E-books may have only generated $100 million in revenue last year, but… Continue Reading
Silicon Clocks takes $7.1M for processor timing devices
Silicon Clocks, a Fremont, Calif. maker of smaller, cheaper chips with timing capabilities, has brought in $7.1 million of a targeted $10.7 million round of equity. The company says it will use the financing for working capital, reports VentureWire.
It last raised funds in 2007, adding $8 million to its then $19 million first round of funding. Past backers include Charles River Ventures, Formative Ventures and Tallwood Venture Capital.
Zendesk lands funds to provide help desk nirvana
Zendesk, maker of software that streamlines customer service operations while integrating it with Web 2.0 tools like Twitter and RSS, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding to recruit more clients and open a new headquarters in Boston.
Companies of all sizes, ranging from Fortune 500s to small startups, can use the system to collect and respond efficiently to help tickets filed by users, Zendesk says. Any request submitted to the system generates a ticket, which… Continue Reading
Philanthropic fund of funds Legacy closes $276M
Legacy Venture, the Palo Alto, Calif. firm that holds a portfolio of other investment funds and distributes returns to charities, announced that it closed a new $276 million fund, its fifth, despite adverse economic conditions. Basically, Legacy takes money from limited partners who commit their profits to charities of their choice. This allows these partners to amplify philanthropic contributions that they would make regardless.
In the past, Legacy has worked with well-established firms like August Capital,… Continue Reading
CRV raises $320M — proves not all venture capital has dried up
Charles River Ventures, a venture capital firm that has invested in web companies like Twitter, but also software and networking companies such as BigBand Networks and Netezza, has raised $320 million in fresh money.
The new fund, CRV’s 14th, shows that some venture capital firms are still able to raise money — even as many of their peers are struggling and being forced to throw in the towel (many are essentially “walking dead,” with their shingle… Continue Reading
Social ad network Social Media gets funding boost, after strong year
Updated
Social Media, a new-fangled advertising network for applications on Facebook and other “social media” sites, has raised a second round of $6 million from IDG Ventures and existing investor Charles River Ventures.
While some have been skeptical of the value of advertising within social networks, Social Media says it brought in between $15 and $20 million in revenue last year, mainly due to successful sales in the last six months. The company has focused on selling… Continue Reading
Carrier IQ rings in $20M to gather mobile intelligence
Carrier IQ, provider of software that collects data on cell phone use and performance from individual handsets, just brought in $20 million in a third round of funding to fuel product development and attract more clients. The Mountain View, Calif. company’s goal is to offer the intelligence it gathers to mobile operators and handset makers so they can adapt their products.
Specifically, the embedded software gauges how people use voice and data services, music players, cameras… Continue Reading
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
Active Network acquires online campsite booker ReserveAmerica
The Active Network, a network of sites targeting athletic and active-lifestyle users, announced today that it’s buying ReserveAmerica, an online service for booking campground space across the U.S., for an undisclosed amount.
It was formerly a subsidiary of IAC, a conglomerate of interactive web-based businesses (including CollegeHumor, Vimeo and eVite), which agreed to hand over 100 percent of its stock in Reserve America Holdings in exchange for 3.5 million shares of convertible preferred stock in Active…. Continue Reading
OneSeason puts a market spin on fantasy sports
Hoping to attract stock market refugees benched by the downturn, web site OneSeason lets users buy and sell virtual shares in their favorite athletes — from SHAQ (at $15.69 a share) to AROD ($5.08). The concept, which combines fantasy sports with virtual goods sales, just earned the San Francisco company $3.5 million in first-round funding led by Charles River Ventures.
After joining the site, users pay real dollars for what the company calls Synthetic Ownsership Interests… Continue Reading
Yammer ups bet on the “Twitter for business” market
This could be the year that micro-messaging makes it big with businesses, Yammer is betting. The company lets employees share 140-character messages about what they’re working on — a simple intranet to help communicate more quickly than through masses of emails and phone calls. It has raised $5 million from the Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures, founder David Sacks tells TechCrunch.
I’d be interested to hear specific ways that Yammer saves companies time and money… Continue Reading
Sylantro and BroadSoft merge to form VoIP powerhouse
The voice-over-internet-protocol space just got less crowded. Big name BroadSoft has just acquired long-time competitor Sylantro Systems for an undisclosed sum. The merger may portend many to come for VoIP companies in 2009 as the recession encourages further consolidation, industry insiders predict.
BroadSoft and Sylantro are unique in that both enjoyed generous venture backing going into the deal — raising $72 million and $113 million respectively to date. Even though it brought in less, Broadsoft was… Continue Reading
Scribd raises $9 million, hires new president for social publishing
Social publishing firm Scribd is announcing today that it has raised $9 million in a second round of funding and has hired George Consagra, former chief operating officer of Bebo, as its president.
The San Francisco-based company lets people share and publish original writings on its web site. It has more than 50 million readers each month, and more than 50,000 new writings and documents are uploaded daily.
This round of financing was led by Charles River… Continue Reading
Pocket Communications stuffed with $100M for unlimited wireless
Youghiogheny Communications (much more conveniently dubbed Pocket Communications) is in the money today, closing a $100 million first round of financing led by Battery Ventures. The San Antonio, Tex.-based company will use the new funds to launch its flat-rate unlimited wireless plan in the northeastern region of the U.S.
The announcement comes as somewhat of a surprise in an economic climate that many thought would preclude such sizable investments (though this could still be on the way). The company… Continue Reading
iSkoot gets $19M warchest to launch Web services platform for AT&T
ISkoot, the company that lets you make Skype Internet calls from your mobile phone, has raised $19 million in a third round of venture capital to build an ambitious mobile platform for AT&T.
The platform, to launch in testing Nov. 14, will let the giant operator offer an array of Web services to users of its low-end phones — the majority of its phones, which don’t have the iPhone’s powerful features. The services will include things… Continue Reading
Metaplace raises more funding to be the MySpace of virtual worlds
Metaplace, a company that will allow anybody to build their own virtual world and access it through through an ordinary web browser, has taken $6.7 million in funding as it nears a public release.
There hasn’t been much hype around Metaplace yet, probably because of the failure of Second Life, There.com and other virtual world companies to take the real world by storm. However, Metaplace looks like one of the more promising companies in a new… Continue Reading
Samplify Systems — a rare semiconductor startup
Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs alike have been bemoaning the fact that nobody starts semiconductor companies anymore. It seems that it’s just too costly and too risky for entrepreneurs to challenge old world chip companies who have locked up the market.
But the folks who started Samplify Systems didn’t listen. The Santa Clara, Calif. company is coming out of stealth today with a plan to create a smarter generation of chips that convert analog data to digital… Continue Reading