Twitter went main street yesterday, goes enterprise today
Last month, micro-blogging site Twitter went mainstream, at least according to my own litmus test: The hosts of my local radio station here in the Bay Area talked about a guy who lost his job offer from Cisco for tweeting how he hated the job. And my hairdresser told me she finally was on Twitter, after saying in February she’d never heard of it. Twitter is everywhere.
And now, in April, Twitter is going one step… Continue Reading
Ripple TV raises $4M more for in-store television
Ripple TV, which places digital television displays inside stores to deliver targeted advertising, has raised $4 million in new funding.
El Segundo, Calif.-based Ripple is one of a host of companies behind the televisions you see in coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants, and elsewhere. Ripple says it plays a mix of national news, sports, and local weather, combined with (of course) targeted ads in locations such as like Borders, Noah’s Bagels, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf,… Continue Reading
PubMatic scores more funds to optimize ad revenues
PubMatic, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that works with online publishers to squeeze more revenue out of their advertising strategies, announced that it has brought in an undisclosed amount in a second round of funding from existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus India Capital and Helion Ventures. The company, which partners with 5,500 publishers right now, says the money will be used to fuel worldwide expansion.
PubMatic offers a suite of tools to streamline publishers’ ad… Continue Reading
Siimpel raises undisclosed round for low-power micro-cameras
Siimpel, manufacturer of precise low-power mobile and digital cameras, announced an undisclosed round of strategic funding from LG Innotek. The Arcadia, Calif. company previously raised $75 million from backers Motorola Ventures, DOCOMO Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Global Catalyst Partners, Portage Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Sun America Ventures and Zone Venture Fund.
In the fall, Siimpel said it was going to start developing micro-elecro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technology ideal for cell phones.
Massachusetts shines on solar co. Konarka, loans $5M
Thin-film solar company Konarka just landed a $5 million loan from the Emerging Technology Fund of Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust’s Business Expansion Initiative. The funds will be used to build out its new solar material factory in New Bedford, Mass., which has been open since October.
Konarka is known for making plastic solar film capable of turning natural and artificial light into power. Its current manufacturing plant can make enough… Continue Reading
VivoTech tacks on $8.6M for wireless credit-card transactions
VivoTech, provider of infrastructure for wireless credit-card transactions, just added $8.6 million to a now $40 million third round of funding open since 2007. Its technology lets people make payments via radio frequency enabled credit and debit cards and some mobile phones. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has already sold 470,000 of its payment terminals in 35 countries. It is also developing systems for use with taxi cabs, vending machines and ATMs.
Previously, VivoTech raised $52… Continue Reading
World of Good raises $1.1M for socially conscious shopping
World of Good, which operates an eBay-powered online marketplace for ethical shopping, has raised another $1.1 million in funding, according to VentureWire.
The Emeryville, Calif. company emphasizes small artisans in developing countries. In order to sell products on the World of Good website, you must be certified as meeting environmental and ethical standards by an independent “trust provider” such as Transfair USA, Co-op America, or Aid to Artisans. The products include everything from electronics to jewelery… Continue Reading
Tesla forecasts 2009 profit, despite recent hard knocks
Electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors announced it will hit profitability by the second half of 2009. The statement was made in a recent company newsletter. Boosted by the $40 million in capital it raised from existing investors in December, the San Carlos, Calif.-based company said this prediction is based on pre-sales of its new Roadster vehicle model, which is already sold out through November of this year. On top of that, the Department of Energy… Continue Reading
More funding for mobile ads: AdMob raises $12.5M
Mobile ad network AdMob has raised a $12.5 million addition to its latest round of venture funding, bringing its third round to $28.2 million in all.
In a blog post announcing the funding, chief executive Omar Hamoui says the new cash will help AdMob “cement our leadership position by making the investments that will help us to come out of this challenging economic environment even stronger than when we went in.” The San Mateo, Calif.-based company… Continue Reading
4Info gets $20M more for text message advertising
4INFO, the Silicon Valley company that serves advertisements in mobile phone text messages, has raised another $20 million in funding.
The money comes from a previous backer, Peacock Equity, a joint venture between NBC Universal and General Electric Commercial Finance, according to a report in the WSJ. VentureBeat has heard that 4INFO’s advertising rates have plummeted since the onset of the economic downturn in October, though if it’s true, 4INFO would hardly be the only ad… Continue Reading
GoodGuide raises $3.73M for ethical shopping
GoodGuide, a site that helps shoppers find healthy, sustainable, and ethical products, has raised $3.73 million in a first round of venture funding.
The concept behind GoodGuide is rather obvious, but it was also tough to pull all the necessary data together. That’s why there are plenty of other sites offering information about how products measure up in a specific area — say, environmental friendliness — but none attempting to aggregate as much data from as… Continue Reading
Sharpcast raises $10M for sync service SugarSync
Sharpcast, the maker of the SugarSync service for synchronizing your files across multiple devices, has raised a $10 million addition to its first round of funding.
I was super impressed when I tried SugarSync last March, because it was the the simplest and most usable sync service I’d seen. You just select the folders you want synchronized, and SugarSync takes care of the rest. But the product didn’t make as big a splash as I’d expected,… Continue Reading
Yodle lands $10M for local web advertising
Yodle, a company that helps small businesses buy online ads to market themselves locally, has raised $10 million in third-round funding to continue product development and expand sales nationally. An alternative to Yellow Pages, the New York-based company aims to turn click-throughs into direct-response phone calls and new customers for small, local businesses like salons and mechanics.
Yodle actually purchases the keyword-linked ads called up on search engines like Yahoo, Ask.com and Google (it’s an authorized… Continue Reading
Steve Jurvetson on focusing on cleantech during the economic storm
Steve Jurvetson, a managing director at Silicon Valley stalwart venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, talks so fast I always have to use a digital recorder to capture his rapid-fire thoughts. Jurvetson is an investor who ventures deep into the technology of his subjects. He was passionate about investing in nanotechnology a few years ago and has since poured his energy into cleantech. He has had some big hits with investments in Hotmail, Interwoven, Kana,… Continue Reading
Konarka powers up with $45M for solar “plastic”
Solar innovator Konarka Technologies took in $45 million in strategic funding to further develop its new product for sunlight conversion called Power Plastic and bring it to market. Oil and gas company Total provided the round, acquiring a 20 percent stake in Lowell, Mass.-based Konarka. It hopes to integrate the plastic solar film into products made and used by its subsidiaries, including Hutchinson, Sartomer and Bostik.
The Power Plastic line is prized for being lightweight, flexible… Continue Reading
Power.com wants to let you interconnect with all social networks
Power.com, the latest company that wants to bring you social networking Nirvana by letting you update all your profiles from a single place, launches this evening.
However, it needs a bit of work before it’s truly convincing. It has some bugs, and has the air of being rushed.
But it’s goal is noble. For a while now, the problem of having multiple profiles has plagued users. You may use Facebook regularly, but you may also have a… Continue Reading
Raydiance raises $20M for lasers, lasers everywhere
Laser maker Raydiance has picked up $20 million more in its quest to manufacture lasers for everyday commercial use in medicine, manufacturing, energy and other fields.
Raydiance’s lasers are a type called ultrashort pulse (USP) lasers, which pulse light on the femtosecond time scale — a method that can help keep excess heat from building up, thus preventing damage to surrounding material. But the company’s real innovation, it claims, is in making lasers easier to acquire… Continue Reading
Meebo partners with Hearst Magazines Digital Media, teen girls rejoice and chat
Meebo, the company that powers social interaction through instant messaging and group chat on its own and partner sites, has partnered with Hearst Magazines Digital Media, a unit of Hearst Magazines. Seventeen.com and Popularmechanics.com are two of the digital media properties that are integrating Meebo’s chat and instant messaging services to drive users to the sites and create active, passionate communities.
The key reason Hearst entered the deal is to increase engagement on its sites, according… Continue Reading
The VC model is broken
These days, the more you talk to folks about Silicon Valley’s venture capital industry, the more negative the message is becoming.
And for good reason. There’s no more patience. Last time, circa 2001, the entire VC industry got a “get-out-jail-free card” after the Internet bubble burst. That’s because the scores of new firms created in the late 1990s argued they should be forgiven for any poor performance — it was the bubble’s fault, and everyone was… Continue Reading
Planet Metrics tracks down carbon hotspots, at home or abroad
Environmentalists like to point out that a person’s carbon footprint is about more than just the CO2 they emit through daily activities like driving or surfing the Internet. It extends to the goods they own, and even the food they eat. The same holds for most companies, Planet Metrics’ core user group for a new carbon information platform.
Companies’ hidden CO2 emissions tend to come from their supply chains, long tails of vendors and manufacturers that… Continue Reading