Startups

For a news junkie like myself, Newsibly is an absolute Godsend. This news application gives a complete compendium of stories on your designated subject taken from all of the leading newspapers and news outlets around the world. For the avid news reader or, more importantly the news researcher, Newsibly delivers headlines on your specifically searched subject on the one page. All stories expand from their original location giving you all the detailed news without having to search individually and without having to sort the real stuff out from the ads and filler that generally fills most regular news outlets. Newsibly is a tool that allows users to get up to date with current events without having to wade through the 'fluff' and 'link bait' stories of the sort that are often prevalent on mainstream news outlet homepages. Newsibly scans the headlines from many well known news sources and, by using a proprietary algorithm, sorts through them to find and display only the biggest and most important topics. The goal is to provide an 'at-a-glance' view of what's happening in the world which can be expanded to include the full story. If a desired, users can quickly scan the tags and a few headlines of each chosen topic to get the gist of what the big stories are. Then, if .desired, you can then dive into each section's articles and take a look at the topic from the viewpoints of multiple news sources. The system was design to allow users to get a feel for the biggest events and news in just a few seconds with the added bonus of being able to delve deeper. Additional features include outlet highlighting which allows users to pick their favorite news source to display first in each section, an archive that allows users to view the big topics from the previous few days and an automated Twitter feed (@newsibly) that brings the biggest topics directly to users throughout the day. Newsibly is a truly blissful news application for those of us who want to read all the different aspects of a news story but it is especially useful for researchers. Just type in your selected subject and a multiple stream of stories on the subject from major news outlets worldwide are delivered to your screen. These stories are drawn from publications as prestigious as the Washington Post, The New York Times and the BBC so it is high quality news. It's very easily to use and, even though it's hardly the most beautiful interface that you've ever seen, it's actually beautifully functional. All of the stories are expandable to their original source material making it a dream to use. I can guarantee that this is one news app that will most certainly be used a lot in my household. I love it.

The tech industry has been buzzing about “big data” for years now. And according to venture capital firm Accel Partners, the excitement around the big data space is not set to die down any time soon — it’s just about to enter into a new phase. Accel is announcing tonight that it has closed on $100 million for a new investment fund called Big Data Fund 2. The fund is the same size as Accel’s first big data focused fund, which launched with $100 million back in November 2011. As part of the new fund, Accel is also adding QlikView CTO Anthony Deighton and Imperva CEO Shlomo Kramer to its Big Data Fund Advisory Council, which Accel has said is meant to serve as a “guiding light” to help think through investments and track entrepreneurs doing interesting things in the space. Despite the nearly identical name, Accel’s Big Data Fund 2 will mark a definite shift in focus from the firm’s first big data fund, partner Jake Flomenberg said in a phone call today. “Over the past few years, we’ve focused a tremendous amount of attention on what people like to call the ‘three Vs’ of big data: variety, volume and velocity,” he said. “We now believe there is a fourth V, which is end user value, and that hasn’t been addressed to the same extent,” and that is where Big Data Fund 2 will be focusing the bulk of its investment and attention. Specifically, Accel believes that “last mile” for big data will be served largely by startups focused on data-driven software, or “DDS.” These startups have largely been made possible through the hardware and infrastructure technology innovations that defined big data’s first wave, Flomenberg says. In a prepared statement from Accel, Facebook engineering VP Jay Parikh, who also serves on Accel’s Big Data Advisory Council, explained it like this: “The last mile of big data will be built by a new class of software applications that enable everyday users to get real value out of all the data being created. Today’s entrepreneurs are now able to innovate on top of a technology stack that has grown increasingly powerful in the last few years – enabling product and analytical experiences that are more personalized and more valuable than ever.” One example Flombenberg pointed to as an example of a “fourth V” DDS startup is RelateIQ, the “next generation relationship manager” software startup which launched out of stealth last week with some $29 million in funding from Accel and others. Accel’s existing portfolio of big data investments also includes Cloudera, Couchbase, Lookout, Nimble Storage, Opower, Prismatic, QlikView, Sumo Logic, and Trifacta.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Early Bird Tickets on Sale Enterprise cloud backup provider Zetta.netv has raised $8 million in new funding to help it bolster its backup, disaster recovery, and archiving services, the company said today. Zetta.net competes with cloud backup providers such as Carbonite and Mozy, but it differentiates itself by claiming top-tier performance. As an example, it says that it helped its customer Group Photographers Association restore 2.7TB of data in less than 24 hours back in July 2012. “We want to carve out a segment of the market that previously didn’t use cloud services,” Chris Schin, VP of Product at Zetta.net, told VentureBeat. “The dirty little secret in the cloud market is that most [cloud recovery] services can’t backup multiple terabytes and restore it quickly. But we can.” The company has seen substantial customer growth in the past year. From Q1 2012 to Q1 2013, its customers have grown by 243 percent. The company now has 400 small-to-medium sized business customers. Big customers include Yammer, Mint.com, Marketo, and Mazda. Zetta.net promises 99.99% uptime and has 2 data centers — one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast. It says that it’s now backing up 4.3 billion files in the cloud each month. Pricing for Zetta.net’s new flagship DataProtect 4.0 product starts at $225 per month. This includes 500GB of storage, backup and recovery protection, monitoring, and more. The new round of funding was led by new investor Industry Ventures with participation by existing investors Foundation Capital and Sigma Partners. Including the new funding, Zetta.net has raised $39.5 million. The new funds will go toward hiring new sales, marketing, and engineering employees. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Zetta.net was founded in 2008. The company’s focus is on the U.S. market, but it intends to look at international expansion in 2014. Clouds photo via Jeff Kramer/Flickr Filed under: Business, Cloud, Deals .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate { width:278px; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; padding:10px; float:right; border:1px solid #e4e4e4; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; color:#000; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate .logo-date-wrap { width:100%; display:block; float:left; margin-bottom:8px; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate img { float:left; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate .date-location { float:right; font-size:12px; line-height:14px; text-align:center; padding-left:7px; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:3px; border-left:1px solid #e6e6e6; } .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate .cta { display:block; clear:both; width:100%; border-radius:5px; border:1px solid #1864b1; color:#fff; text-shadow: 0px -1px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); text-align:center; text-decoration:none; font-weight:600; font-size:18px; line-height:17px; padding:4px 0px 6px 0px; background: #1f80e4; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%, #1862ae 100%); background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#1f80e4), color-stop(100%,#1862ae)); background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -o-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: -ms-linear-gradient(top,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); background: linear-gradient(to bottom,  #1f80e4 0%,#1862ae 100%); filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#1f80e4', endColorstr='#1862ae',GradientType=0 ); }

Yahoo! is offering to purchase social email startup Xobni for $30 million to $40 million, according to AllThingsD’s sources. If the deal goes through, Xobni would be the latest acquisition by Yahoo! as CEO Marissa Meyer seeks to boost the company’s talent roster and product offerings. Xobni’s social email plugin automatically creates a profile for each contact with correspondence history and data pulled from social networks including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Skype and Hoovers. The San Francisco-based startup began with a Microsoft Outlook plugin and now supports Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Apple’s iCloud, in addition to its Smartr Contacts apps for Android and iOS. The deal makes sense for Yahoo! because it would enable the Internet giant to add a competitive edge to its email products. Furthermore, the startup already has strong ties with Yahoo!: Yahoo! co-founder David Filo previously worked with Xobni CEO Jeff Bonforte, who in turn was once vice president of social search and real-time communications at Yahoo!. In addition to the whopping $1.1 billion Yahoo! paid to acquire Tumblr, the company has also made a series of mobile acquisitions. These include the news gathering and delivery startup Summly, which it purchased for close to $30 million. The Summly deal followed Yahoo!’s acquisition of social recommendation company Jybe, which was staffed by former Yahoo! employees. As Drew Olanoff noted at the time of Jybe’s acquisition, the deal proves that Yahoo! is focused on “acquiring teams that do heavy research in machine and natural learning, which goes to show you that Mayer is giving the company an intelligence facelift of sorts.” (Speaking of additions to the Yahoo! team, Drew himself recently left TechCrunch to go purple). The acquisition’s closure, however, is still uncertain. Longtime Xobni followers might remember that in 2008 the startup turned down an acquisition offer from Microsoft in the $20 million range. While the $30 million to $40 million offered from Yahoo! represents an increase from Microsoft’s offer, it is important to note that it is still less than the $40 million that the startup has raised from investors including First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator. AllThingsD reports that some Xobni common shareholders might not get any of their investment back over preferred shareholders, which might prevent the deal from going through, especially since Yahoo! seems unlikely to offer more money.

With mobile games responsible for some of the highest rates of user engagement seen in the mobile world today, it’s no surprise that advertisers are growing fond of in-app ads and a host of other mobile advertising tactics optimized for the mobile gamer’s smartphone screen. Mobile games are on the minds of many mobile advertisers this week thanks to App Annie and the IDC. A special new issue of the App Annie & IDC Future of Mobile Gaming Report for E3 charts the worldwide mobile and portable gaming installed base, as well as revenue by business model, average revenue per user (ARPU) and top grossing genres and countries for gaming-optimized handhelds, iOS and Google Play. The data shows that the installed base of mobile and portable gaming devices is expected to grow 55 percent over the next 18 months, to more than 1.2 billion. Equally impressive, however, is that total game software and direct advertising revenue is on track to top $12 billion in 2013. Growth drivers include the trending freemium business model used by mobile gaming publishers. Emerging markets in Asia also suggest a pronounced opportunity for both mobile and GOH hardware and software. “Although the audience for smartphone and tablet games has grown larger than that of gaming-optimized handhelds, devices like 3DS and Vita continue to realize significantly higher ARPUs,” explains Lewis Ward, IDC’s gaming research manager. “As smartphone and tablet games get more sophisticated it will be interesting to see if the genre preference distinctions that exist today will close.” To read the new report in full at no charge, click here.

For several years now, General Catalyst, the Cambridge, Mass.-based investment firm, has been seeking out executives who have run large companies in order to establish what’s become its executive-in-residence (EIR) program. The idea is to connect grizzled veterans who might be looking for a new challenge with middle-market companies that are growing but could be growing far more quickly. The plan is fairly straightforward. The seasoned executives, with the help of support staff at General Catalyst, select the companies they want to help scale, usually after poring over possibilities for a year or so. Afterward, they co-invest an undisclosed amount of money in the company alongside General Catalyst. In return, the EIRs receive equity based on how big an impact they make. The program is working, says General Catalyst, which today announced the sale of its stake in 8-year-old, Austin-based energy management company CLEAResult to the private equity firm General Atlantic. General Catalyst isn’t disclosing financial details, but managing director Brian Shortsleeve told peHUB that executive-in-residence Paul Verrochi had identified CLEAResult as a promising target back in 2010. Soon after, Verrochi and General Catalyst took a majority stake in the company, and Verrochi was installed as the company’s chairman. At the time, CLEAResult had 300 employees and was working with utilities companies in 15 states. Today, CLEAResult has 1,100 employees and works with utilities companies in 27 states and two Canadian provinces. Verrochi had previously founded or co-founded, built and sold several service businesses, including the medical transportation company American Medical Response, and Coach USA, which focuses on motor coach charters, tour and sightseeing services. Other operating hotshots to join General Catalyst’s EIR program include Yuchun Lee, co-founder of marketing analytics software company Unica; Charlie Baker, former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care; Rob Gierkink, co-founder of big data company DataLogix; Tad Elmer, former CEO of BBN Technologies; and Chris Heim, who has led Amcom Software among other companies. Many are involved with General Catalyst companies at the moment. Earlier this year, for example, Baker led his first investment as an EIR, investing alongside General Catalyst in a $17 million financing of the Lousiana-based company Oceans Healthcare. Baker now serves as chairman. Gierkink, meanwhile, has done much to scale Datalogix, a company created in 2009 when General Catalyst and Gierkink recapitalized a marketing and analytics company formerly called NextAction. Shortsleeve says that in Gierkink’s capacity as an “actively involved” chairman of the company, the business has grown 400 percent in the last three and half years and is positioned for what should eventually be a “very successful investment for us and for its management team.” Asked about General Catalysts time horizon for its EIR-led deals, Shortsleeve says the firm considers an exit within five years of its investment as ideal. He added that General Catalyst now tracks EIR candidates “almost as actively as we track deals” and has a goal of adding two to three executives into the program each year. Photo: Image courtesy of Shutterstock. The post General Catalyst Says CLEAResult Sale Illustrates Success of EIR Strategy appeared first on peHUB.

Digital coupon provider RetailMeNot filed with U.S. regulators on Monday for an initial public offering of common stock of up to $230 million. The Austin-based company offers coupons from over 60,000 retailers and brands, accessible through websites, mobile applications, email and social media. It offers discounts for goods including clothing, electronics, beauty products, home and office supplies, travel, food, personal services and business services. Earnings have been growing briskly. The company, which listed Google, Yahoo and Facebook as rivals, said its annual revenue rose nearly eight fold to $144.7 million between 2010 and 2012. RetailMeNot said it earned net income of $26 million in 2012. The offering has potential to provide significant returns to venture investors, who own the vast majority of Retailmenot shares. By far the largest stakeholder is Austin Ventures, with a 31.8% stake, followed by Norwest Venture Partners (20.5%), J.P. Morgan (13.7%), Institutional Venture Partners (7%), Adams Street Partners (6.1%) and Google Ventures (5.1%). The company started out as WhaleShark Media, a startup focused on the online coupon space funded with $87 million from investors including Austin Ventures, Norwest and Adams Street. WhaleShark made a number of acquisitions, including one in 2010 of online coupon provider RetailMeNot, which eventually became the name of the combined company. Between 2010 and 2012, RetailMeNot raised at least $265 million from venture investors, according to Thomson Reuters. Looking ahead, Retailmenot says it seeks to tap the growth in mobile commerce spending, which research firm IDC estimates represented $63.4 billion globally in 2012 and expects to grow at a 36% compound annual growth rate between 2012 and 2017. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse are acting as lead underwriters, the company said in its filing. RetailMeNot plans to list its common stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol “SALE.” Photo courtesy of Shutterstock The post VCs Angle for Big Gains in RetailMeNot IPO appeared first on peHUB.

Company / App Name: Tesla.IM https://www.tesla.im Twitter – teslaIM What does it do? Instant Messenger for Teams. Why do we need it? It’s the easiest realtime group chat solution out there and it’s free. Who is it for? Teams that want to communicate effortlessly as a group. What makes it stand out from the crowd? User experience. It’s really easy to create a chat room and get started. What’s next? Build more realtime functionality/features into chat rooms using our ‘Tesla Realtime Engine’. Pitch Video https://www.tesla.im

July 9-10, 2013 San Francisco, CA Tickets On Sale Now There wasn’t much big news today in the tech world today, but the deals kept flowing. We saw some big money around a rolodex for the world’s most interesting people and a platform to help connect doctors and patients. But, surprisingly, our most popular funding story of the day happened to be the smallest deal — people just can’t get enough of privacy solutions ahead of the NSA data snooping controversy. Kenandy slurps up $33M for ERP  Kenandy has raised $33 million for its cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Kenandy applications are built on top of salesforce.com’s social enterprise cloud computing platform Its built specifically for companies that design, manufacture, and distribute products. Applications include inventory management, engineering, purchasing, production, resource planning, order management, and complete financials. Lightspeed Venture Partners led this round, with existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Salesfroce.com, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Read the press release.    RelSci racks up $30M for its digital database of the world’s most influential people A Rolodex filled with two million of the wealthiest and most influential people in the world sounds like a business urban legend. Relationship Science has created one, however, and people are willing to spend thousands of dollars for access. Today the startup announced raising an additional $30 million, closely following its public debut and a $60 million round of funding in February 2013. Medivo raises $15M to bridge gap between patients and physicians Health startup Medivo has raised $15 million to expand its health monitoring platform that connects doctors, consumers, and clinical labs. The company’s vision is to save and improve lives through faster and easier access to quality health care. Antitracking startup Disconnect nabs $3.5M from FirstMark With privacy concerns at a new high following revelations related to PRISM, it makes sense for VCs to invest in companies aiming to improve online privacy. Antitracking app maker Disconnect falls into that category, and it just raised $3.5 million in new funding. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Disconnect builds applications that promise to make online browsing faster and more secure. Money in men’s shirts Mens fashion startup Trumaker has raised $1.9 million from Venrock, RRE, and angel investors including Alex Bard, David Tisch, Bonobos CEO Andy Dunn, Velos Partners, Eniac Ventures, and others. The company offers personalized, made-to-measure fitted casual mens shirts. Its team of Outfitters visit clients where they are to take their measurements and then the customer can design their shirts with specific fabrics, fits, collar shapes etc…and have it custom made. SteadyServ chugs down $1.5M for beer tech India startup SteadyServ has raised $1.5 million for beer. Beer technology that is. The company makes a mobile software-based inventory and order management system for the beer industry. Its iKeg solution measures draft beer in hand and reports that inventory to the system of bar and restaurant owners. Elevate Ventures contributed $125K to the round from the Indiana Angel Network, joining other Indiana, New York, California, and Arizona investors who invested private capital. St. Louis forming $100M startup fund to send deals flowing down the Mississippi Old St. Louis wants to become hot with young startups. Civic and business leaders are raising $100 million to kick the region’s burgeoning startup scene up a notch. Dubbed the Regional Entrepreneurship Initiative (REI), it seeks to attract venture capital over the next five years to support the “rapidly growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and high-growth startup activity” as well as fund new ventures. Filed under: Business, Deals .boilerplate-before .event-boilerplate-mobilebeat { width:278px; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; padding:

Startup success takes more than sharp vision and smart code. Early adopters of your product, along with excited press, bloggers and engaged social users spreading the word can mean the difference. In late March, I gained the opportunity to present to Devoxx France, in Paris, and talk about how startups can find these early first users, how to gain a relationship with top press and use all channels possible to get your word out. Many of the examples are familiar to longtime readers of louisgray.com, highlighting companies launched here, from Feedly, TweetDeck and Toluu, to some of my own favorite products, like FriendFeed, BackType and Google Reader. The video just came online today. Hope you find it useful. More: louisgray.com | RSS | E-mail | Cell: 408 646.2759