Network equipment company IPWireless restarts with $15.5M
IPWireless, a maker of mobile network equipment, has raised $15.5 million in a new first round of institutional funding. The company previously raised $235 million and was acquired by NextWave Wireless in 2007, but NextWave sold the company back to its founders last year, according to Dow Jones VentureWire. The new round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Lockheed-Martin and Northrup Grumman.
Altius lands $8M to launch accredited online colleges
Altius Education, a company that partners with real junior colleges and universities to run a cost-effective, accredited online degree program, has brought in $8 million in a first round of funding.
Recognizing the need to provide access to areas of study being trimmed from budgets, especially at the community college level, Altius launched Ivy Bridge College in 2007 — with help from Tiffin University in Ohio. The web site gives enrolled students a more affordable route… Continue Reading
Real-time search engine OneRiot rakes in $7 million
Real-time search engine OneRiot has raked in another $7 million in funding from existing investors Appian Ventures, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, and Spark Capital.
That brings the Boulder, Colorado-based company’s total financing to $27 million.
“It made sense for all of us to do this right now,” said Tobias Peggs, the company’s general manager, in an interview. “There’s an increasing and significant demand for real-time search results. This is a vote of confidence from our existing investors.”
Real-time search… Continue Reading
Boxee raises $6M more to bring web content to your living room
Boxee, a company that has won ardent fans of its software for viewing online video and web content on your TV, has raised $6 million in a second round of funding.
The New York startup raised $4 million at the end of 2008, so it seems awfully soon to be bringing on more cash. Founder and chief executive Avner Ronen says raising a new round seemed like a good way to help Boxee build on its… Continue Reading
How-to video site 5min scores $7.5M for wider syndication
5min, a site that syndicates instructional videos to a host of other web sites reaching 200 million viewers a month, has raised $7.5 million in a second round of funding.
The 5min site itself has built a library of more than 100,000 short, professional-quality videos sorted into different categories ranging from fashion to food to parenting to video games. Right now, users can view videos teaching them how to fix a leaky washing machine, how to… Continue Reading
Spark Capital unveils new seed program Start@Spark
Spark Capital, a venture firm focused on media, entertainment and technology investments, announced the kick off of its new seed-funding program, Start@Spark. The new initiative will give out funds in chunks of up to $250,000 to incubate early-stage companies in the New York and Boston areas before they seek formal rounds of capital.
The firm, based in Boston itself, asks that startups interested in the program sign up on their web site with preliminary information. Those… Continue Reading
OMGPOP to turn its casual gamers into paying customers
OMGPOP, the new brevity-focused name for the casual gaming site formerly known as Iminlikewithyou, says its half a million users are spending more than 180 hours on the site each month. That activity has positioned the company to introduce a new subscription service, a virtual currency and virtual goods, it says. Although it still isn’t profitable after raising a first round of $1.5 million last summer, the money-making potential has convinced investors to put a… Continue Reading
SendMe nabs another $12 million for mobile entertainment content
SendMe, the San Francisco company that sells direct-to-mobile entertainment content through several linked web sites, just landed $12 million in a fourth round of financing to fuel its acquisition strategy. Its web sites, SendMeMobile.com, SoLow.com and mBuzzy.com, each offer a different type of content and have gained substantial traction in their own right.
Users can find and download games, ringtones and mobile wallpapers on these sites, and participate in sweepstakes for a subscription fee of $10… Continue Reading
Microblogging service Tumblr raises $4.5M more
Tumblr, a service that lets users publish short, simple blog posts, has raised $4.5 million in a second round of funding.
That’s not a huge amount of money, but as All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka notes, it’s still impressive since the New York company is “exactly the kind of startup that’s supposed to be gasping for air in today’s dismal economy.” Namely, it’s a web company without a broad audience or a clear business model. Tumblr… Continue Reading
KickApps raises another $14M to build social networks
KickApps, a startup that enables customers to build their own social networks, has raised $14 million in a third round of funding.
As every company in the world tries to add “social” features to their web site, the number of “white label” social network startups has exploded. In April, Ning, perhaps the best-known player in this field, raised another $60 million at a $500 million valuation. So for KickApps, the challenge is two-fold: To stand out… Continue Reading
Roundup: IT budgets dying on the vine, Chrysler’s electric cars, a cure for the bees, and more
Datamonitor points to IT budget freeze — Major sector analyst Datamonitor says that half of IT organizations around the globe will cap spending levels next year.
Chrysler to roll out electric cars — Car maker Chrysler will unveil a line of electric cars to its dealers next week, according to the Wall Street Journal. The large car company has not previously shown off any electric vehicles.
Bee well — Remember when some researchers were blaming mobile phone signals for colony… Continue Reading
Roundup: Market researchers report on global game sales, Microsoft introduces Photosynth and more
Here’s the latest action:
Leading market researchers team up to report on video game sales – The leading research companies in the field (The NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Limited and Enterbrain) have released the Top Global Markets Report in a long overdue move to provide reliable data on worldwide game sales. The bestselling game of the year so far is Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV, according to the report.
Microsoft introduces photosharing technology Photosynth — A “synth,”… Continue Reading
Bug Labs, the do it yourself electronics device company, raises cash
Bug Labs, a New York company providing a do it yourself service for people who want to build their own electronic devices, has raised a third round of financing from Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Court Square Ventures, according to CNET.
Bug Labs wants to bring open source to hardware. It draws on outside developers to help fashion building blocks for personalized devices that non-techies can easily assemble. It is also backed by Robert Young,… Continue Reading
8D World raises a round for secret online fantasy world
Gaming startup 8D World, which is currently operating in stealth mode, has raised a first round of funding to create a new virtual world from Spark Capital. The amount is “meaningfully” more than $1 million, according to Alex Finkelstein, a principal at Spark, VentureWire reported.
There’s not much information available yet on the company, but from the art style on its site, it looks like a fantasy massively multiplayer online game, perhaps not unlike the existing… Continue Reading
Iminlikewithyou raises $1.5M for social gaming site
Iminlikewithyou, a startup that began as something close to a dating site and has become closer to a casual game portal and social network over time, has raised a $1.5 million second round tor expansion.
The New York-based company only features its own games on the site, and is based entirely in Flash. Co-founder Charles Forman has said that he based many of his ideas off South Korean sites.
We’ve written more about the company as part… Continue Reading
Twitter finally gets its new round of funding; “very strong” valuation
It’s been in the works for several months, but Twitter has finally announced its new round of funding.
The new round was led by Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital and Jeff Bezos of Bezos Expeditions (and also chief executive of Amazon). Existing partners Union Square Ventures and Digital Garage participated as well.
Sabet has also accepted a seat on Twitter’s board of directors.
In a post on the matter, co-founder Biz Stone writes:
Twitter will become a sustainable business… Continue Reading
Covestor joins the ranks of funded investment sites
Covestor, an investing community site, has raised $6.5 million in its second round of funding. The London and New York-based company plans to build out its asset management platform, which helps its users make investment decisions.
Covestor targets both average investors and professional fund managers. The site mines information from real portfolios on online stock brokerages, giving a holistic view of different risk levels and investment strategies. In all, it tracks 150 variables
The fund management platform… Continue Reading
SendMe Mobile grabs $15 million for mobile media
SendMe Mobile, a provider of direct-to-consumer mobile entertainment has raised more funding to extend its market share for its core brands and to expand upon them.
The company not only operates SendMeMobile.com, but also in the past year launched SoLow.com, a mobile sweepstakes destination, and purchased mBuzzy.com, a mobile community site. This trifecta of sites helped bring in partners such as AEG Live, Interscope Records, MobiTV, and Universal Music Group, all of which want to extend… Continue Reading
Veoh is raising a round, claims to be pretty big and growing
Updated with more information from the company
Online video startup Veoh is in the process of raising a $40 million round at a proposed $150 million valuation and has hired investment bank Bear Sterns to help with the effort, Silicon Alley Insider reports.
San Diego-based Veoh is a distant competitor to market leader YouTube, but still claims to be growing at a healthy rate. The site features user-created videos, clips from partners such as the Independent Comedy… Continue Reading
Roundup: Farber takes over at CNET, Mozilla’s new email subsidiary, Scribd iPaper, and more
Here’s the latest action:
1) Dan Farber takes the helm at CNET
2) Mozilla launches email-focused subsidiary
3) Scribd creates iPaper, an Acrobat competitor
4) Hewlett-Packard has great first quarter
5) Tesla Motors pulls in another $40M
6) Verizon, AT&T unveil new unlimited wireless plans
7) Oligarchs, proletariat run amok in Silicon Valley
Scientists suck up CO2 to make alternative fuel
Dan Farber takes the helm at CNET — One familiar figure is stepping aside for another at CNET, where long-time editor-in-chief Jai Singh… Continue Reading