Profitable for Three Years, Apartment List Raises $15M Series A Round

Unlike some other up-and-comers in the space, Apartment List never scraped Craigslist to boost its inventory.

Zendesk Releases New Help Center, Adds First Outside Director to Board

Betsey Nelson, former CFO of Macromedia, joins the board.
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News Byte

Bee Cave Games Raises $1.3 Million Round of Seed Funding

Bee Cave Games, the developer of the social casino game Blackjack Casino, has closed a $1.3 million seed round of funding led by Matrix Partners. The round is aimed at helping the company grow and continue to support its existing game, which is available on Facebook. Last month, Zynga co-founder Eric Schiermeyer became a board advisor and investor in Bee Cave.

News Byte

Confirmed: Oculus VR Raises $16 Million Series A for Virtual Reality Gaming

Irvine, Calif.-based Oculus VR has closed a $16 million series A funding round co-led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners, the company confirmed today. Leaked news of the round was first reported by PandoDaily. Oculus VR is the maker of the Oculus Rift, a forthcoming consumer-priced virtual gaming headset. Prototype “dev kit” versions of the headset are currently being sold to software developers for $300 apiece. A price and release date for the first consumer version has not yet been announced.

News Byte

Matrix Partners Adds Two New EIRs

Matrix Partners has added two new entrepreneurs in residence, Kevin Barenblat and Mihir Shah. Barenblat founded social music app SpotDJ and Context Optional, a social marketing software startup which was bought by Adobe. Shah was the former CEO of mobile advertising platform Tapjoy, and also worked at social app firm RockYou and QuinStreet, a performance marketing firm. Both will focus on cloud, mobile, consumer Internet and ad tech at the Silicon Valley venture firm.

Square Exec Jared Fliesler Becomes VC at Matrix Partners

Fliesler is leaving the entrepreneurial world for cushy VC life, at the relatively young age of 28.

Salesforce May Go Shopping in Response to Oracle Deal

Oracle’s purchase of Eloqua may spur Salesforce.com to look for acquisitions to help build its own “marketing cloud” offering.

News Byte

Google Ventures Bets on Mobile Ad Start-Up Adelphic

Adelphic Mobile, which promises to help advertisers target their mobile ads, has raised a $10 million round led by Google Ventures; Matrix Partners, which led a $2 million seed round last year is back, as well. Adelphic’s co-founders hail from Quattro, the mobile ad company Apple bought in 2010 and turned into iAd.

News Byte

Social Media Marketing Firm HubSpot Adds $35 Million in Funding

HubSpot, which helps users with marketing via social media, has completed a new funding round of $35 million. The Cambridge, Mass., software company had previously raised about $65 million. The latest investment included previous investors Altimeter Capital and Cross Creek Capital, as well as, reportedly, Fidelity Investments. Earlier fundings have included General Catalyst Partners, Matrix Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, Salesforce.com and Charles River Ventures. The new money will be used for international growth and acquisitions.

Matrix Adds Hotwire’s Grosse and Yahoo’s Beriker as EIRs

New entrepreneurs in residence for the Silicon Valley VC firm.

AOL Music Boss Jumps to Start-Up

BuyWithMe CEO Cheryl Rosner Checks Out