On Deck Capital looks to hire CFO, other staff
On Deck Capital, a New York City-based firm that provides financing to companies making $2 million or less in annual revenue, is looking to expand its team by hiring a chief financial officer, a vice president of sales and five other staffers.
According to its website, On Deck offers “business success loans” of up to $100,000. Chief executive Mitch Jacobs says On Deck Capital serves companies who just miss the cut off for normal bank loans…. Continue Reading
Online kids’ application Kidzui launches safe search service
Following the acquisitions of Club Penguin for $700 million, there’s been a surge of interest in children’s gaming and social networking sites. Kidzui wants to cash in on the same craze, but rather than pulling kids into a portal of its own, it filters the internet for acceptable content.
Kidzui sells a subscription-based browser that actively filters content for kids ages 3-12 (or older, if you want to keep them in the dark). With the subscription… Continue Reading
Gigya helps widget companies spread across web, track advertising
Gigya, the Silicon Valley company that lets companies including RockYou track how advertising performs on their widgets across the Web, has raised $9.5 million in a second round of funding from Mayfield Fund and existing investors Benchmark Capital and First Round Capital.
Gigya, based in Palo Alto, Calif., offers ad-monitoring technology among a number of other tools it supplies to widget-makers like RockYou. Gigya helps companies make widgets, but its real focus is on helping those… Continue Reading
OpenAds lets Web companies take control of ads, raises $15.5M
The online advertising world continues to get shaken up.
OpenAds, a company based in London, is the latest to drive change, undercutting the old guard with a low-cost offering. It offers Web site owners something called an “ad server,” a device lets them take control of their online advertising management. It provides the technology needed by Web sites to control advertising creative, insert into the right place on a Web site at the right time, and… Continue Reading
Jingle Networks rings up $13M for directory assistance
A competitor to free phone directory assistance services offered by Microsoft and Google, Menlo Park’s Jingle Networks runs 1-800-Free-411, one of the most popular in the category.
We’ve written about Jingle before. Back in 2006, we reported that it had just taken $30 million with a $150+ million valuation, driven by advertising played back to callers.
In the interim, the company has grown from a base of some 200 advertisers to over 50,000, according to the Investor’s… Continue Reading
Social network ad analytics company Invite Media raises angel round
Invite Media is a stealth-mode company that plans to use social networking data to provide more accurate online advertising both within social networks and across the web.
It’s a “new spin on mathematically analyzing data,” co-founder Nat Turner says. The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania company has not yet launched, and is keeping things quiet. Turner would only add that the terms of service for social networks would not be broken.
The founding team is from Wharton and won… Continue Reading
Sendori, monetizing domain names
updated
Sendori, a Silicon Valley based company that lets you bid for traffic from other Web sites, has raised an undisclosed first round of venture capital.
The site operates in an industry that has so far been quite shady, and it’s an improvement over some past practices. The funding news was first reported by Venturewire and SiliconTap (subscriptions required).
Here’s how it works. I might own Gamespot.com, but I’d also like to draw traffic from other sites, such… Continue Reading
WeatherBill, a site for betting against bad weather, gets $12.5 million
Updated
WeatherBill, a company that lets you make money by betting on the weather, has raised $12.5 million.
The San Francisco-based company sells contracts that essentially let you put money down against bad weather hurting your business, so you can still get paid even if your business itself suffers.
You can choose your contract to be for hot, cold, rainy, snowy or dry days or seasons, and customize every specific aspect of your scenario, such as the temperature,… Continue Reading
Mint, online money manager, raises $4.7M
updated
Mint, the San Francisco company that helps you manage money online, said it has raised $4.7 million in a first round of funding led by Shasta Ventures.
Investors include First Round Capital and Ram Shriram, early investor in Google.
We’ve written several times about this company since it launched last month, and received widespread praise. The company says it has since signed up 50,000 users.
Mint also added Donna Wells, formerly vice president of corporate marketing and acting… Continue Reading
Mashery, a mashup company, raises less than $5M
San Francisco start-up Mashery has raised another round of capital to help Web companies open their platforms so that developers can build applications on top of them.
By releasing an API, or Application Programming Interface, a company can allow “mashups” of its data, and gain reach across the Web. Google did this with Google Maps, for example, mixing them with everything from housing to restaurant information. Now all sorts of businesses — banks for example… Continue Reading
Snapvine, another social voice messaging service, raises $10 million
Snapvine, a company that lets you leave voice message on profile pages in social networking sites, has raised $10 million. There are many competitors providing this type of service, without evidence any of them are making much money.
SayNow, one of Seattle-based Snapvine’s many competitors, raised $7.5 million last month.
The company, like other widget companies that are popular on social networks, is still experimenting with ways to be profitable. So far, it has done a couple… Continue Reading
Mint: The easiest way to manage your personal finances
[Update: Mint has won the TechCrunch 40 conference's competition, which goes to the most impressive presenting company from among the 40 participants. Mint will receive a $50,000 cash award and other services and awards from corporate sponsors.]
Mint, a long-awaited online tool for managing your personal finances, has launched today.
For those who have used Quicken or other traditional personal accounting software to manage your checking, savings and credit card accounts, Mint will be a relief.
Once you… Continue Reading
Email company Xobni launches, may steal Techcrunch prize
(Update: CEO Matt Brezina tell us the response has been so strong that he’s closing open access and will make it invite-only this evening.)
Xobni Insight, a new email service that sits on top of your Outlook, launches today at Techcrunch40.
It’s extremely useful and we’ll make a bet now it will win the show here, after the two-day competition between 40 companies finishes (we’ve yet to see half the companies, but it blows away the competition… Continue Reading
Satisfaction, the Web 2.0 customer service site, raises $1.3M
[Disclosure: Satisfaction is led by Thor Muller, who is an advisor to VentureBeat. ]
Satisfaction, a San Francisco company that aims to improve online customer service by letting the customers effectively take over the process, has raised $1.3 million seed funding.
VentureBeat reviewed the company two months ago. Satisfaction creates customer support pages for companies and their products. But it goes beyond the standard customer support pages. It gives companies a way to provide answers — but… Continue Reading
Bazaarvoice raises $9M for product reviews
Bazaarvoice, which incorporates product reviews into e-commerce sites, has declared a $9 million second round of financing, one day after its primary competitor, PowerReviews, announced $15 million in financing.
Despite the fact that the companies provide a similar service, they are quite different. PowerReviews gives its service to e-commerce sites for free and aggregates the reviews that get written in on its own Buzzillions site. It makes money when consumers visit Buzzillions, find a product, then… Continue Reading
Transpera, latest mobile video channel company
Transpera, a Santa Monica, Calif. company that lets users create their own mobile video channels for sharing with friends, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding Intel Capital, IDG Ventures and First Round Capital,
There are several other companies, including MyWaves, doing very similar things. The company has yet to emerge, so its hard to tell how different its product will be. It lets you pull videos from YouTube and other sites.
Frank Barbieri, former President and… Continue Reading
Adserver company, Openads, raises $5M
Openads, the developer of a free, open source product that serves ads for Web sites has raised $5 million in a first round of financing led by Index Ventures.
Also participating are First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. The London, UK company sells so-called adservers, which are used to serve and manage ads on the pages of Web sites
Often publishers rely on outside parties to serve their ads. We at VentureBeat do… Continue Reading
Photobucket, Cuts.com, and new video editing tools
Photobucket, a Silicon Valley start-up, has quietly become the third largest video hosting site after YouTube and MySpace — reporting more than 35,000 videos uploaded every day.
Next Tuesday, it announces some extensive image and video editing tools it hopes will help keep bringing people to the site. These users can post the edited versions to any of several popular sites, such as MySpace, Faceboo or Bebo.
These Photobucket editing tools, to be announced in a… Continue Reading
Attributor scans web for copyright violations
Updated
Attributor, a Redwood City start-up, is scanning the Web to fingerprint pages for copyrighted audio, video, images and text, to give publishers a way to request that Web sites take down priated content — or pay for it, at least.
The company’s statement is here; there’s a good summary in the WSJ today.
This service has an obvious market, highlighted by YouTube’s continued hosting of pirated video and music. Publishers need tools to find that content, in… Continue Reading
Jingle gets $30M to grow its free directory assistance service
(Updated below with comments from chief executive George Garrick)
Jingle Networks, a Menlo Park start-up which provides free phone directory assistance, has raised a whopping $30 million more in venture capital — upping the ante in what is now a crowded field.
This area has become popular because people find this an easy way to avoid the $1 to $3 they get charged using regular DA service.
Jingle, which markets itself as 1-800-Free-411, supports the free service by… Continue Reading