Mike Isaac

News Byte

Led by Greylock, Social App MessageMe Raises $10 Million

Mike Isaac in Social on May 21 at 5:00 am PT

MessageMe, the mobile application that offers free text, photo and video messaging between smartphones, announced Tuesday that it had raised a $10 million round led by John Lilly of Greylock Partners — who will join the board of MessageMe makers LittleInc Labs — with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, True Ventures, Social+Capital and others. The company said it currently has more than five million users on its service.

News Byte

Orchestrate.io Closes $3 Million Seed Round

Mike Isaac in Enterprise on May 21 at 4:30 am PT

API service startup Orchestrate.io announced on Tuesday that it had closed a $3 million seed investment round. The round was led by True Ventures, with participation from FrontLine Ventures and Resonant Venture Partners. The funds will be used for hiring, as well as for expanding infrastructure to work with multiple partners across the world in the coming year.

News Byte

Discovery Startup Newsle Raises $1.65 Million

Mike Isaac in Social on May 20 at 10:43 am PT

Newsle, a news discovery startup, announced Monday that it had raised a $1.65 million Series A round of venture capital. The round was led by American City Business Journals, a subsidiary of Advance Publications, with participation from Maveron, DFJ, Transmedia Capital, and angels investors Launny Steffens and Rockwell Schnabel. Newsle lets users find published articles that mention their contacts or people they’ve chosen to follow on the service.

News Byte

NYT Digital Head Joins EA Board of Directors

Mike Isaac in News on May 17 at 12:17 pm PT

Game giant Electronic Arts announced Friday that Denise F. Warren, head of digital products and services at the New York Times, will join its board of directors. Warren replaces outgoing board member Greg Maffei, who sat as a director for a decade (his departure, according to EA, is due to his commitments with Liberty Media, where he is CEO). Before taking over digital products, Warren was the NYT media group’s general manager and chief advertising officer.

News Byte

Jelly, Biz Stone’s Startup, Raises a Round (With a Little Help From Friends)

Mike Isaac in Mobile on May 16 at 11:39 am PT

Jelly, the stealthy startup founded by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, announced Thursday that the company just closed its Series A round of venture capital. The round was led by Spark Capital; Bijan Sabet — an early Twitter investor — will join Jelly’s board. Other noteworthy investors include Jack Dorsey, U2’s Bono, Reid Hoffman, Steven Johnson, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, Roya Mahboob, Greg Yaitanes and former vice president Al Gore.