SlideRocket beefs up slide shows for sales and marketing teams
SlideRocket, maker of a web application that allows groups to collaborate on multimedia presentations and slide shows, launched a new sales and marketing version of its platform today.
The San Francisco-based company says this new offering is tailored for companies with extensive sales and marketing organizations that have many people working on the same projects. For too long, top-tier corporations with innovative projects have been depending on antiquated presentation software, SlideRocket says. In order to sell… Continue Reading
SlideRocket surges ahead with $5M for presentation collaboration
SlideRocket, maker of an application that allows multiple individuals to collaborate on media-rich presentations, has brought in $5 million in a second round of funding to continue developing the platform and to expand its headcount.
Based in San Francisco, the company says its product breaks through the limitations of traditional PowerPoint presentations to give users the next level of tools in the cloud. The most different feature, perhaps, is the ability to use SlideRocket to share… Continue Reading
Aria Systems raises $10M more for online billing
Aria Systems, perhaps the first company to offer billing and subscription management through a software-as-a-service business model (i.e., online subscriptions), has raised a $10 million second round.
The Media, Pa.-based company has been around since 2003, but interest in online billing software seems to have taken off this year — and it’s not just Aria chief executive Ed Sullivan who says so. A new competitor called Zuora, led by an early employee of SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com,… Continue Reading
Evostor packs away $5M for storage software
Evostor, a Los Gatos, Calif. provider of storage software, nabbed $5 million in a first-round of funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Starfish Ventures and the Southern Cross Group, reports PEHub. Very little information is available on the startup. So far, it offers only spotty Google results and an empty website.
InMage gets $15M for enterprise data backup
InMage Systems, a data backup and recovery company that serves small and large enterprises, has raised $15 million in a round led by Intel Capital.
DR-Scout is the company’s main product. It allows continuing access to data during “critical” events and provides both regular backup and disaster recovery of data.
Other investors in the round included Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and InMage’s chairman, Kumar Malavalli. The company’s previous round, its second, provided it with $10 million in… 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
Price-setting company SignalDemand gets $20M
SignalDemand, a startup that delivers software-as-a-service to help manufacturers set their prices, has raised a hefty $20 million second round of funding.
Chief executive Michael Neal says the money will go toward international expansion and to continue SignalDemand’s “march across verticals.” The company focuses on “disassembly” markets — namely, companies who take raw materials and disassemble them into products like beef and lumber. Until they’re approached by SignalDemand , most of these companies rely on Microsoft… Continue Reading
WaveMaker Software raises $4.5M for web development tools
Wavemaker Software, which offers open source visual tools for web development, has raised $4.5 million in a new round of venture funding. Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Sippl Investments all participated.
The San Francisco startup has created an Ajax development platform based on the Spring, Dojo and Hibernate open source projects. Its offerings include both a free version and a premium enterprise license.
Roger Sippl of Sippl Investments, previously chief executive of Informix Software,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Giving up on the “mobile web,” cleantech gets crunched, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Mobile enthusiast gives up on “mobile web” – Russell Beattie, a Silicon Valley developer and mobile enthusiast who spent two years working at Yahoo Mobile before launching a start-up called Mowser, has given up on the mobile sector. He writes: “The general answer is that I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at… Continue Reading
BSG Alliance raises $50 million to expand next-generation business building operations
BSG Alliance, a company that helps other businesses ready themselves for the future has secured a new round of private funding to accelerate growth.
By way of both people and software, BSG Alliance provides its clients with the tools needed to compete in so-called “next-generation” enterprises. One key area for BSG is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. Goldman Sachs expects the market for on-demand SaaS to grow to $21 billion annually by 2011.
The $50 million private round was… Continue Reading
Five9 takes $12M for on-demand call centers
Instead of maintaining permanent call centers, some companies prefer to outsource their work to outside companies like Five9, which offers a “virtual call center” that allows companies to tap into its services whenever necessary.
There’s plenty of competition in this area, including Transera, which upped its total financing to $30 million last year, and LiveOps, which has taken a nearly equal amount.
This financing puts Five9 right in that same range, with about $29 million in venture… Continue Reading
Will Price named Widgetbox’s new CEO
Create-your-own widget company Widgetbox has named Will Price as its chief executive. Price was previously a managing director at Widgetbox investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
Price has also served as the chief executive for several software startups. He’s replacing Michael Dearing, who was interim CEO during the search process. Dearing will remain on the board of the San Francisco-based company.
You can read more of our Widgetbox coverage here.
Ad optimizer YieldBuild raises $6 million — this area is getting competitive
YieldBuild offers software that lets a web publisher optimize text advertisement placement and formatting, so the ads will receive the maximum number of click-throughs. In other words, it helps publishers make more money.
Optimizing text ads without this type of software typically involves a lot of manual effort — compiling data from across ad networks on a site, running tests on format changes, etc. And, even after optimization, readers may stop clicking once they get used… Continue Reading
Star Analytics, data integration company, raises $3.5M
Star Analytics, a Palo Alto, Calif. company that provides software to large businesses to help them integrate date for business analysis and financial reporting, said it has raised $3.5 million in a first round of venture capital financing.
The round was co-led by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
See the company’s announcement here.
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InMage, data protection software company, raises $10M
InMage Systems, a provider of data protection software for medium and large enterprises, has raised a $10 million second round of funding.
The round was led by existing investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, and an unnamed “strategic corporate partner,” Kumar Malavalli, chairman of InMage told Byte and Switch (see full story).
According to the publication:
The company’s list of strategic partners includes some intriguing possibilities: HP, IBM, Pillar Data, Quantum, RedHat, Sungard, Symantec, VMware, and Xiotech, as well… Continue Reading
Yahoo buys sports network, Rivals.com
Yahoo is expected to announce tomorrow that it has agreed to acquire Rivals.com, an Web site focused on college and high school basketball, football and baseball.
The property, priced by unconfirmed reports at about $100 million, will be wrapped into Yahoo Sports, where it competes with ESPN.com, Foxsports.com and others. The New York Times has more details here.
Rivals, of Nashville, TN, had 1.4 million visitors in May, and was the 19th most visited sports site, according… Continue Reading
MuleSource, open-source integration company, raises $12.5M
Right on the heels of SnapLogic’s announcement of its first round of funding, San Francisco-based MuleSource, another open-source integration technology, says it has just closed $12.5 million in its second round of financing
The investments confirm growing momentum of open-source software in the vast multi-billion dollar market of data integration.
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
MuleSource is different from SnapLogic in that it focuses on large-scale enterprise application integration, competing primarily with giants like… Continue Reading
Baynote raises $10.75M for corporate Web site search
BayNote, Cupertino, Calif. company that tracks the surfing patterns of users of corporate Web sites, in order to make a site easier to navigate, has raised more cash.
It has gotten $10.75 million in a second round of funding, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week. Investors include Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, JK&B Ventures and Steamboat Ventures.
The company raised $4.6 million in 2005.
The company hasn’t gotten much visibility, despite launching earlier than the… Continue Reading
Move Networks, yet another video delivery company, raises $11.3M
Move Networks, another video content delivery company, based in American Fork, Utah, has raised $11.3 million in venture capital from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Steamboat Ventures.
Founder is Drew Major, who previously founded Novell, and Arroyo, which sold to Cisco last year for $92 million.
Move serves broadcast networks, and told VentureBeat last week that its customers include Fox Network, CW and E! Online.
The company says it gives a much higher quality experience to viewers, resulting… Continue Reading
Replay, a co. that fixes software bugs, raises around $4.2M
Replay Solutions, a Redwood City provider of technology that tests software for bugs, said it has raised around $4.2 million in a first round of financing.
Here is the company’s statement.
The round was led by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Partech International. Replay Solutions’ technology was developed over the past three years.
Mark Gorenberg, managing director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, and Nicolas El Baze, general partner of Partech International, have joined Replay’s board.
Replay says its technology… Continue Reading