Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Accel Partners

Etsy Raises $40 Million In Series F

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:05:48 +0000

Etsy is an online marketplace known for selling handmade and vintage goods. The company has raised $40 million in a Series F round of venture funding from Index Ventures, Accel Partners, and Union Square Ventures. Etsy has raised a total of $51 million.

Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson took the position last July after Rob Kalin, one of the original founders of Etsy, was removed by the board. Dickerson was the company CTO before that. After Etsy took over at the company, Etsy went through several changes. Last year Etsy had the biggest holiday sales in its history.

Dickerson said that the new round of funding was not a move to cover operational costs. Etsy has been profitable since 2009 and has 300 employees around the world. “This summer, Etsy will be a seven-year-old company,” said Dickerson. “But it’s not a mature company from a business perspective. I really feel like there is still a lot of growth for Etsy and its community.”

Etsy plans to hire community managers and open offices in countries where Etsy can grow quickly like Australia and Canada. “There’s a huge opportunity for Etsy to grow the opportunities for sellers,” he added.

Etsy has 875,000 sellers and 15 million users around the world. Every month Etsy receives 40 million unique visitors. Last year Etsy processed $525 million in sales. About one-third of the transactions on Etsy happen with a seller or buyer outside of the U.S.

French Mobile Coupon Service Shopmium Raises $2.1 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 01:25:06 +0000

Shopmium is a mobile shopping service company that has raised $2.1 million from Accel Partners and ISAI. Shopmium launched in September 2011 and they allow large consumer brands to stay engaged with users through special offers and coupons that are pushed to smartphones. Between the company’s Android and iPhone apps, there was about 100,000 downloads in the first few weeks since launching in France. [TechCrunch]

Cloud-Based Presentation Software Company Prezi Raises $14 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:39:47 +0000

Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software company that has raised $14 million in Series B funding led by Accel Partners and Sunstone Capital. Andrew Braccia of Accel will be joining the board at Prezi. Prezi is based in Budapest, Hungary and was started in 2009 by Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy, and Peter Arvai.

The service allows you to create storytelling visualization animated presentations without having to use any of PowerPoint’s cookie-cutter features. Some of the unique features include the ability to create movements within slides like pan left, zoom in to detail, zoom out to show a big picture, etc.

Prezi now has an iPad app, which allows users to create presentations as well. This app is currently on the top 10 free productivity apps on iTunes. Prezi has about 7 million registered users. Some of their users include the World Economic Forum, Stanford University, Facebook, IBM, and Google. TED Conferences had previously backed Prezi and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is one of the company’s advisors.

Prezi Desktop is a service for offline editing and Prezi Meeting is for real-time collaboration.

[GigaOM]

Freshdesk Raises $1 Million From Accel Partners

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:39:41 +0000

Freshdesk is a software-as-a-service based company that has raised $1 million in funding from Accel Partners. This investment will be used for expanding their product team. Freshdesk was founded by former Zoho executives, Girish Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnasamy.

“The future of customer support is on the cloud, and a good portion of it will happen on the company’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Freshdesk also places particular emphasis on ease of use and intuitiveness, with the view that any company should be able to get it up and running in a few minutes,” stated Freshdesk CEO Girish Mathrubootham. Shekhar Kirani of Accel Partners will now be joining Freshdesk’s board of directors.

Freshdesk is a social customer service platform company that allows SMBs to roll out a professional and modern customer support system. Pricing plans for Freshdesk start at $9 per agent per month. Freshdesk features include multi product support, self-service portal, forums, etc.

How Much Groupon Executives and Investors Made From The IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 20:57:39 +0000

Yesterday Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ:GRPN) had an initial public offering. The company set their stock price at $20 and yesterday it closed at $26.11. The company was given a valuation of over $17 billion. BusinessInsider.com has compiled a list of how much the executives and investors made from the IPO. Below is the list:

Ted Leonsis – Former AOL Vice Chairman – Made $48.27 million from 1,848,770 shares owned
Brian Totty – Groupon SVP of Engineering – Made $16.31 million from 624,786 shares ownde
Howard Schultz – Starbucks CEO/Groupon board member – Made $49.59 million from 1,899,336 shares owned
Kenneth M. Pelletier – Former Groupon CTO – Made $70.47 million from 2,698,944 shares owned
Robert S. Solomon – Former Groupon President and COO – Made $105.88 million from 4,055,000 shares owned
Andreessen Horowitz – VC Firm – Invested $40 million, Earned $132.2 million, Gain of $92.2 million
Maverick Fund – VC Firm – Invested $50 million, Earned $165.3 million, Gain of $115.3 million
Greylock Partners – VC Firm – Invested $65 million, Earned $214.9 million, Gain of $149.9 million
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – VC Firm – Invested $65 million, Earned $214.9 million, Gain of $149.9 million
Morgan Stanley – VC Firm – Invested $75 million, Earned $248 million, Gain of $173 million
T Rowe Price – Investment Firm – Invested $100 million, Earned $330.6 million, Gain of $230.6 million
Fidelity Investments – Investment Firm – Invested $100 million, Earned $330.6 million, Gain of $230.6 million
Battery Ventures – VC Firm – Invested $58 million, Earned $417.4 million, Gain of $359.4 million
Technology Crossover Ventures – VC Firm – Invested $150 million, Earned $459.9 million, Gain of $345.9 million
The Growth Fund of America – Fund – Invested $175 million, Earned $578.6 million, Gain of $403.6 million
Accel Partners – Invested $20 million, Earned $866.96 million, Gain of $856.96 million
Digital Sky Technologies – Invested $151 million, Earned $1.11 billion, Gain of $959 million
The European Founders Fund – Earned $1.02 billion based on 6.2% ownership in Groupon
Brad Keywell – Groupon Co-Founder – Earned $1.07 billion based on 6.5% ownership
Andrew Mason – Groupon CEO – Earned $1.2 billion based on 7.3% ownership
New Enterprise Associates – VC Firm – Invested $14.8 million, Earned $2.28 billion, Gain of $2.26 billion
Eric Lefkofsky – Groupon Co-Founder – Gained $1.67 billion based on over 10% ownership of the company
Elizabeth Lefkofsky – Wife of Eric – Gained $1.67 billion based on over 10% ownership of the company

Brightcove Files For An IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:24:38 +0000

Brightcove is an online video infrastructure company that has filed for a $50 million IPO. It is unknown how many shares they plan on selling as part of the deal. The underwriters in this IPO includes Morgan Stanley, Stifel Nicolas, RBC Capital, Pacific Crest and Raymond James.

Brightcove is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has over 3,000 customers including Bank of America, Oracle, Showtime, NYT, the U.S. Army, and Macy’s.

Brightcove posted $26.35 million in revenue for the first half of 2011, which is up from $20.31 million the year before. Brightcove reported a loss of $9.5 million during the first half of 2011 and $8.1 million a year earlier.

In all of 2010, Brightcove reported revenues of $43.7 million and lost $17.4 million total. Investors in Brightcove includes Accel Partners and General Catalyst.

[Forbes]

Centrify Raises $16 Million In Series D

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Centrify has announced that they have raised $16 million in Series D. They plan on using the funding for international expansion and continued revenue growth. Centrify provides security and compliance for on-premise and cloud-based systems. Centrify also provides applications to over 3,500 customers. Investors in this round include the Mayfield Fund, Accel Partners, Invesco Private Capital, and Sigma Partners.

Couchbase Raises $14 Million

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:05:53 +0000

Couchbase, the NoSQL database company created by the merger of CouchOne and Memebase, has raised $14 million in new funding. The investors include Ignition Partners, Accel Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund. The Series C funds, which bring the company’s total to $30 million, will be used to grow Couchbase’s enterprise and help the company expand internationally. [TechCrunch]

Storm8 Raises $300 Million, $1 Billion Valuation

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:50:32 +0000

Mobile gaming development company Storm8 has, according to TechCrunch‘s sources, raised about $300 million in funding. At a rumored $1 billion valuation, possible investors include Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. Storm8′s games include iMobsters and TeamLava’s Restaurant Story, Farm Story and more. The company boasts more than 210 million downloads.

Turntable.fm Raises $7.5 Million from USV

Riley Kennysmith — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:20:51 +0000

Betabeat reports that the rapidly-popular music service Turntable.fm has found an investor in Union Square Ventures. The company is reported to have raised about $7.5 million, having chosen an investment from Union Square-based USV instead of the west coast’s Kleiner Perkins or Accel. It’s possible that other investors from the founders’ other startup Stickybits may join in the funding, including First Round Capital, Lowercase, Polaris, Chris Sacca and Mitch Kapor.