News Byte

Viddy Raises $30 Million in Series B Financing Round

Social video application Viddy has raised $30 million in venture capital in a Series B round of financing, the company announced on Friday morning. Investors in the round include NEA Ventures, Battery Ventures, Goldman Sachs and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. The additional funds come after an initial $6 million Series A raised in February, which was led by Battery Ventures and included Qualcomm and Greycroft Ventures.

TaskRabbit Raises $17.8 Million, Brings in Eisner as Adviser

TaskRabbit, the Bay Area-based start-up that outsources human “rabbits” to perform odious chores for neighbors, has raised its second cash pile in eight months.
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News Byte

Israel’s eyeSight Raises $4.2 Million in Funding for Gesture Recognition Technology

Israel’s eyeSight Mobile Technologies, whose gesture recognition technology is being used in smartphones, announced Tuesday it has raised $4.2 million in Series B funding from investors including chipmaker CEVA and Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Global Investment.

Mission Motors Closes a Round of Funding (And Swears It Won’t Blow It All on Awesome Electric Motorcycles)

Mission Motors just landed more than $9 million in Series B funding to not build electric motorcycles. Instead, it is trying to attract other companies that might drool over record-setting mini-electric drive systems.
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News Byte

Bump Taps Into New Funding, Adds Andreessen, McAdoo to Board

Mobile social firm Bump announced on Monday night that it has landed $16 million in Series B funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. WIth the new investment, Marc Andreessen will be joining the board of Bump as will Greg McAdoo from Sequoia. In a blog post, co-founder David Lieb said the 15-person company now has more than 25 million users for its mobile-to-mobile information-sharing service, which runs on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. “This round of financing solidifies our priorities to build a world-class engineering and product organization here in Silicon Valley,” Lieb said.

LivingSocial Gets $175 Million Amazon Investment (Like BoomTown Said)

Amazon will invest $175 million in LivingSocial, the No. 2 player in the fast-growing social buying space. BoomTown reported yesterday that the massive investment was in the works. The online retail giant’s big bet on the Washington, D.C.-based start-up comes in the wake of ongoing acquisition talks between Google and Groupon, the category leader in the local deals business.

Amazon Poised to Make a Major Strategic Investment in LivingSocial to Counter Groupoogle (or Goopon?) Threat

With the red-hot acquisition dance between Google and Groupon sucking up all the attention, it’s easy once again to ignore the No. 2 player in the fast-growing social buying space–LivingSocial. But not everyone is. According to sources close to the situation, the Washington, D.C.-based company that also focuses on local deals is in advanced talks for a major strategic investment–as high as $150 million–by online retail giant Amazon, at a very hefty valuation of over one billion dollars, to counter a possible Groupoogle challenge.

Voices

Music Video For Database Start-Up? That's How CouchOne Rolls

How does a small Bay Area start-up whose business revolves around arcane coding compete for developers with the likes of Facebook and Google? By making a rap video, of course.

Voices

Three Reasons Why Venture Capitalists Are Investing in New York Startups

One criticism leveled at New York City’s fledgling tech scene is that it’s hard for entrepreneurs to find investors in their backyard. But increasingly that argument doesn’t hold water.

LivingSocial Buys Urban Escapes, As Social Discount Market Heats Up

LivingSocial, the No. 2 social local deals start-up, announced today that it has bought Urban Escapes, a social adventure company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Washington, D.C.-based start-up now has about 10 million subscribers to its discount offers online, where it competes head-to-head with Chicago’s Groupon.

Yammer Grabs $10 Million More in Funding