Samsung Electronics has invested in a cloud-based mobile enterprise company called Cloudant. Cloudant is a database-as-a-serve company that was even backed by the U.S. CIA agency as a customer and investor. Other investors in Cloudant includes Y Combinator and Avalon Ventures. Cloudant was a Y Combinator class in 2008.
Cheezburger has raised $5 million in funding according to an SEC filing. Cheezburger is known as the parent company for several humorous content channels like I Can Has Cheezburger, Fail Blog, and Memebase. Investors in this round include Foundry Group, Madrona Venture Group, Avalon Ventures, and SoftBank Capital. Cheezburger was launched by Ben Huh in 2007. The company has over 50 websites in their network. The company makes money from advertising, book publishing, and merchandising. The company raised $30 million in funding last year. Cheezburger even has a reality show where the camera interviews employees and follows the day-to-day at the company called “LOLwork.” A Cheezburger spokesperson said that the new round of funding will go towards building a social humor platform.
Kaltura is a video management startup company that has raised $25 million in Series D funding. This round of funding was from new investment partners Mitsui Global Investment and Orix Ventures. Existing investors in this round that participated include Nexus Venture Partners, Intel Capital,.406 Ventures, and Avalon Ventures. Mitsui’s participated in this round to encourage the company to expand into the Asia-Pacific market.
Pingup is a company that has created a consumer-to-business text service. They have recently announced $1 million in seed funding with major participation from Avalon Ventures. Pingup is available nationwide for businesses to self-enroll, but they have focused launch in Boston and Miami.
Zynga has filed documents with the SEC this morning which indicates that they are planning on raising between $850 million and $1.15 billion in their public offering. This is about $15 million more than their previous estimates.
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The Cheezburger network of websites include FAIL Blog and LOLcats. The company has raised $30 million in funding led by the Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, and SoftBank Capital. Brad Feld (Foundry), Greg Gottesman (Madrona), and Rich Levandov (Avalon) will be joining the board of directors at Cheezburger. I Can Has Cheezburger now has a total of $32.5 million.
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Simulmedia has raised $8 million from Time Warner Investments. Other investors include Avalon Ventures and Union Square Ventures. Simulmedia has raised a total of $12 million.
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Zynga is a social network game-making machine. The company has just raised $29 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Institutional Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures, Avalon Ventures, and Foundry Group. Union, Avalon, and Foundry were all previous investors. Zynga is based out of San Francisco, Calif.
Zynga was started by Mark Pincus. Through this round of funding, Kleiner Perkins partner and former chief creative officer of Electronic Arts Bing Gordon will join Zynga’s board of directors. Zynga’s last round of funding was $10 million in January 2008. Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel of the PayPal mafia were a couple of investors involved in the last round of funding.
Zynga currently has about 18 million uniques per month. Zynga’s revenue model is advertising and selling game add-ons. Zynga’s top games on Facebook are Poker, Blackjack, Scramble, Word Twist, PathWords, Sudoku, Sea Wars, Mafia Wars, Dragon Wars, Triumph, Attack!, My Heroes Ability, Ghost Racer, Dope Wars, and YoVille. Zynga recently acquired YoVille.
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