Navify lets you see what Wikipedians are reading
Wikipedia is all about words words words. The big arguments at the user-edited encyclopedia are always about the wording of articles — and even a casual user can see that the articles emphasize written over audio or visual content. For those who think that’s a… Continue Reading
Inigral lands $2.4M to let students swap class schedules
Inigral, maker of applications that let students share their class schedules and other academic infomation with their friends, has brought in $2.4 million of a $3 million preferred-stock offering. It received $580,000 in seed funding from Founders Fund in 2007. It has also gotten support… Continue Reading
Twitter search engine Topsy launches with $15M
Topsy.com, launched last week, is a brand new search engine focused exclusively on Twitter content. Like Google, it presents its results based on popularity metrics, namely the popularity or influence of the tweeter in question — a factor determined by how many followers the user… Continue Reading
UserVoice raises $800K for customer feedback systems
UserVoice, provider of online tools used to gather and organize customer feedback, complaints and product requests, has raised $800,000 in a first round of venture capital from Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, Betaworks, David Shen Ventures, Accelerator Group, and several individuals.
Based in Santa Cruz, Calif.,… Continue Reading
Overseas Craigslist rival OLX brings in $5M to fuel rapid growth
OLX, a self-styled Craigslist competitor that has gained traction abroad, announced that it’s raised $5 million in a third-round of capital to continue its expansion in 87 countries and 39 languages. It will use the money to improve its site and beef up its marketing… Continue Reading
Facebook’s fbFund incubator program looks to cash in on the site’s growth
This year, Facebook and two of its venture investors, Accel Partners and the Founders Fund, are changing up their fbFund incubator-style program from handing out grants to making equity investments. Venture capitalists aren’t generally known as purely altruistic, so the switch suggests these two firms… 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… Continue Reading
Raptr raises money and launches public beta of gamer social network
Raptr is unveiling the public beta test of its social network for all kinds of video game players. While it’s a crowded market, the company has a good chance of becoming a central hub for gamers who want to know what their friends are playing… Continue Reading
Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO
Friendster, the formative social network of the modern web era that became a verb for rollercoaster failure and then took over large chunks of the Asian market, has some good news this evening.
It has raised $20 million and plucked Richard Kimber, Google’s regional managing… Continue Reading
SGN, on quest for social gaming revenue, raises $15 million
Social Gaming Network, or SGN, is one of the more promising companies exploiting Facebook’s platform. It builds “social games” — online games that use friend relationships and other social data from social networks to deliver more compelling games.
It’s promising because it wants to straddle… Continue Reading
OLX, a competitor to classifieds site Craigslist, raises $13M
OLX, a company competing with classifieds site Craigslist, but more popular outside of the U.S. than it is here, has raised $13 million in a second round of financing.
The company, based in New York and Buenos Aires, is like Craigslist in that it focuses… Continue Reading
YouNoodle offers investors a “start-up predictor”
YouNoodle, a new San Francisco company, says it has developed a “startup predictor,” or a set of analysis tools to help investors place bets on the university entrepreneurs that are the most likely to succeed.
The company, founded by two 20-something entrepreneurs who met at… Continue Reading
Alamofire, a stealthy casual gaming company, gets $2M boost
Alamofire, a company bringing professional web design principles to gaming on Facebook, has gotten a recent boost of venture capital coinciding with the release of its first game.
The company is an offshoot of Firewheel Design, an award-winning designer of Web 2.0 sites including IconBuffet,… Continue Reading
Web traffic measurement company Quantcast raises $20M more
Quantcast, the company that places a piece of code on Web sites so that it can track traffic and other data directly, has raised $20 million more in financing.
The round was led by the Founders Fund and included Polaris Venture Partners. It follows $6… Continue Reading
Widget-maker Slide raises $50 million at $550 million valuation
Updated
Widget-maker Slide has raised nearly $50 million at a $550 million valuation from two private equity funds, Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, according to the New York Times, with the two firms buying a total of around a nine percent stake in the company.
San… Continue Reading
Parker’s Project Agape = Friendster + Facebook?
Entrepreneur Sean Parker’s latest undertaking is Project Agape, a secretive start-up working to empower people to further their political or social cause using the Internet.
Parker, 27, isn’t sharing much publicly about the company yet, but it’s worth noting because Parker tends to make waves… Continue Reading
Quantcast, traffic measuring company, raises about $5.7M
Quantcast, a San Francisco start-up that measures the traffic on other sites, has raised around $5.7 million in Series A funding, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week. Investors included the Founders Fund and Revolution Capital, chief executive Konrad Feldman confirmed with VentureBeat… Continue Reading
Ooma, home communications co., raises $12M
Updated
Ooma, a secretive Palo Alto, Calif. company that has labored for more than two years to produce a telecommunications product for the home, has raised $12M of an $18M Series B round, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week. Return backers include… Continue Reading
Geni aims to build family tree for whole world
Geni, a new start-up in Los Angeles, wants to do for families what LinkedIn does for business contacts: Create one giant tree that shows you who is connected to who.
The world may be getting smaller; Geni, if successful, will make it tinier still.
Geni… Continue Reading
Facebook “definitely” not for sale
Facebook, the social-networking Web site courted by Yahoo, isn’t for sale, board member Peter Thiel tells Bloomberg.
“It’s going to remain an independent company,” Thiel said in an interview last week. “The plan is to actually build it, maybe at some point take it public,… Continue Reading