Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Balderton Capital

KupiVIP Raises $55 Million In Third Round Of Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:01:00 +0000

KupiVIP is the largest online private members shopping club in Russia for purchasing designer brands. KupiVIP has raised $55 million in a third round of funding. The investors in this round include Balderton Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Russia Partners. Other investors in this round include Accel Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners.

KupiVIP plans on using the funding to start selling consumer goods. KupiVIP has seven million registered users and revenues have increased 600% year on year. KupiVIP is based in Moscow, Russia by 28 year old German entrepreneur Oskar Hartmann. KupiVIP currently has 750 employees.

[TechCrunch Europe]

SCVNGR Raises $15 Million With $100 Million Valuation

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:45:55 +0000

Geo-location service SCVNGR has raised $15 million in funding with a $100 million valuation. The funding in SCVNGR was led by Balderton Capital. There was also participation from Google Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. Balderton partner Barry Maloney will be joining the board of directors at SCVNGR. This round of funding puts SCVNGR’s total funding close to $20 million. Right off the bat, people believe that SCVNGR competes with Foursquare and Facebook Places. But SCVNGR has more of a focus on gaming and challenges like trivia. Local venues can customize the games on SCVNGR. [TechCrunch]

Reliance Buys 50% In Game Development Company Codemasters

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:11:53 +0000

Reliance has bought a 50% equity stake in U.K. game development company Codemasters. Balderton Capital joined in on the investment as well. Reliance’s gaming division Zapak will oversee the investment.

Codemasters was founded in 1986 and earns about $150 million in annual revenue. Codemasters has a partnership with Warner Brothers for developing games in the U.S.

Codemaster developed games such as Colin McRae: DiRT and Race Driver: GRID. In 2007 Goldman Sachs invested $98.5 million in the company. [TechCrunch]

GreenRoad Raises $10 Million From Al Gore’s Generation Investment

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:00:42 +0000

GreenRoad has a device that starts each day with a green light. If the driver swerves a lot or has to brake hard, then the light turns yellow. If the driving gets worse, then the light turns red. The device uses a GPS chip, accelerometer, a CPU, and has Google Maps built in. GreenRoad has raised a total of of $40 million from Virgin Green Fund, Balderton Capital, Benchmark Capital, and DAG Ventures. Today the company has raised $10 million from Generation Investment, owned by Al Gore and David Blood (former CEO of Goldman Sachs asset management). [TechCrunch]

Bling Nation Raises $20 Million In Funding For Mobile Payment Processing

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:03:31 +0000

Bling Nation has just raised a $20 million Series B round of funding from Balderton Capital. The company develops payment systems for mobile phones. Since Bling Nation launched in 2007, the company has raised a total of $33 million in total funding. Bling Nation partners specifically with local banks for offering secure payment transactions.

Bank customers put a chip on their mobile phone that allows them to make a payment directly from their checking account to merchants or stores. Local merchants are also given card machines that scan the chips on the mobile devices. Bling Nation is being tested heavily in Colorado Springs and Woodland Park in Colorado. Bling makes revenue by taking a commission for each transaction. Merchants end up paying less in fees to Bling Nation than credit card purchases making it an appealing transaction option.

Bling Nation was founded by Meyer Malka ad Wenceslao Casares. In the last round of funding, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Meck and Camp Ventures participated. Bling Nation is based in Palo Alto, California.

Balderton Capital Makes $140 Million For Selling Bebo Shares To AOL

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:23:39 +0000

“We got involved in an exciting and competitive investment in Bebo because we believed in the social networking space and the fact that Bebo was positioned for exponential growth,” stated Barry Maloney, a partner at Balderton.Â “Our expectations for Bebo have been exceeded in a relatively short period of time, and todayâ€™s transaction with AOL has delivered an exceptional return on our original investment in 2006.”

The venture capital firm, Balderton Capital has sold off their shares of Bebo to AOL today.Â The amount that they will earn from the deal is $140 million.Â This is about 9 times the return on investment that they made into the social network 2 years ago.Â Balderton plugged in $15 million to Bebo in May 2006.Â Balderton also invested in MySQL, which sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion.

Balderton is based in London, England.Â Balderton also invested in Betfair, Codemasters, Habbo Hotel, Setanta Sports.Â Balderton used to be the European arm of Benchmark Capital.