Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Bessemer Ventures http://pulse2.com Sat, 26 May 2012 21:27:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Millennial Media’s Shares Surge 97% In First Trade Of $25 http://pulse2.com/2012/03/29/millennial-medias-shares-surge-97-trade-25/ http://pulse2.com/2012/03/29/millennial-medias-shares-surge-97-trade-25/#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:54:44 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=58138 Continue reading →]]>
Millennial Media is a mobile ad network that has debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MM.” The shares popped 97% in the first trade of $25. Millennial Media’s valuation jumped to almost $2 billion and the company priced their IPO at $13 per share. Trading reached as high as $27.90 in early trading.

Millennial Media filed their original S-1 in early January and they raised over $130 million in the offering, which is up from $75 million. Millennial is one of the last largest remaining independent mobile ad networks, which currently serves ads to 200 million unique users. Over 30,000 apps use Millennial for their ads, which are served to 200 million unique users worldwide.

Millennial Media’s revenue increased 195% from $16.2 to $47.8 million. The company took a net loss of $7.6 million and $7.1 million between 2009 and 2010. Between 2010 and 2011, revenue increased 117% from $47.8 million to $103.7 million. In 2011, the company saw a net loss of $287,000.

Paul Palmieri founded Millennial Media and they raised $65 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, and several others.

“Today is an exciting day for our company, and also a significant milestone in the maturation of the mobile advertising industry. We have spent the last six plus years helping create what’s now a multi-billion dollar mobile application advertising market and we look forward to continuing to drive growth and innovation in the space,” stated Palmieri.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/03/29/millennial-medias-shares-surge-97-trade-25/feed/ 0 eBay Acquires Hunch For Roughly $80 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:20:04 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52997 Continue reading →]]>
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) will be announcing that they have acquired Hunch for around $80 million according to Michael Arrington. Hunch was started by Chris Dixon, Caterina Fake, Tom Pinckney, and Matt Gattis. Hunch has raised about $20 million in total funding since they launched.

Hunch is a start-up company that allows users to answer questions using crowd-sourcing techniques. Hunch will be used on eBay for recommendation technology to revamp their own e-commerce recommendations. Dixon will be responsible for the existing 50 person recommendations team and will be opening an office in New York.

The New York office will grow to about 200 employees that will focus on recommendations. The team will analyze a lot of eBay purchase and sales data to predict inflation or a potential recession.

Hunch was founded in 2008. In mid 2010 Google was rumored to be in talks with Hunch for an acquisition. Investors in Hunch includes General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.

[Uncrunched]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/feed/ 0 Yelp Files For $100 Million IPO http://pulse2.com/2011/11/18/yelp-files-for-100-million-ipo/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/18/yelp-files-for-100-million-ipo/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:02:55 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52946 Continue reading →]]>
Yelp is a local business review website that has filed for a $100 million IPO. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Jefferies are working as the lead underwriters. However the San Francisco based company has not selected an exchange to be traded on. Yelp is using multiple classes of shares for the public offering.

It is believed that Yelp will seek a valuation of between $1 and $2 billion. Like Groupon, the daily deals website that recently went public, Yelp turned down an acquisition offer from Google. Yelp turned down a $500 million offer from Google in 2009.

Yelp reported a $7.6 million net loss for the first 9 months of 2011 on about $58 million in revenue. Yelp also reported an $8.5 million loss on $32 million in revenue during the year earlier.

Yelp raised $56 million in venture capital funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Elevation Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Max Levchin. Yelp founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1% of the company.

[Fortune]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/18/yelp-files-for-100-million-ipo/feed/ 1 BillGuard Raises $10 Million In Series B http://pulse2.com/2011/10/18/billguard-raises-10-million-in-series-b/ http://pulse2.com/2011/10/18/billguard-raises-10-million-in-series-b/#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:37:53 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52095 Continue reading →]]>
BillGuard has raised $10 million in Series B funding. Investors in this round includes Founders Fund, Innovation Endeavours, Bessemer, IA Ventures, Saul Klein, and Joe Lonsdale. The company previously raised $3 million in Series A this past February.

BillGuard looks through your credit card statements and flags questionable charges. This includes double charges and potential frauds. BillGuard maintains a database of these charges and allows users to flag their own. BillGuard launched at TechCrunch Disrupt and has saved people nearly half a million dollars since then.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/10/18/billguard-raises-10-million-in-series-b/feed/ 0 Box.net Raises $81 Million With Valuation That Is Over $600 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/10/11/box-net-raises-81-million-with-valuation-that-is-over-600-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/10/11/box-net-raises-81-million-with-valuation-that-is-over-600-million/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:37:25 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=51875 Continue reading →]]>
Cloud storage company Box.net has raised $81 million in Series D funding from Salesforce.com, SAP Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Box.net has now raised a total of $162 million. This puts Box.net’s valuation at over $600 million.

Box.net has 7 million users and stores about 300 million documents. Box.net was founded in 2005 by Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith from their dorm rooms in 2005. Box.net currently provides cloud storage to 77% of the Fortune 500. About 100,000 businesses are using Box.net’s services and 250,000 new users are joining every month.

Box.net has even received several acquisition offers that was roughly worth about $500 million. The company eventually plans on going public.

[TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/10/11/box-net-raises-81-million-with-valuation-that-is-over-600-million/feed/ 0 Pinterest Raises $10 Million Series At A $40 Million Valuation http://pulse2.com/2011/09/16/pinterest-raises-10-million-series-at-a-40-million-valuation/ http://pulse2.com/2011/09/16/pinterest-raises-10-million-series-at-a-40-million-valuation/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:59:37 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=51546 Continue reading →]]>
Pinterest is a social bookmarking service that has raised $10 million in Series A from Bessemer Venture Partners recently. Supposedly they raised the funding at a pre-money valuation of $40 million. It is rumored that Pinterest is now trying to raise around the same amount of money in the form of Series B. According to sources with TechCrunch, the company’s valued is pegged at $125 million. [TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/09/16/pinterest-raises-10-million-series-at-a-40-million-valuation/feed/ 0 Reputation.com Raises $41 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/07/21/reputation-com-raises-41-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/07/21/reputation-com-raises-41-million/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:37:33 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=48790 Continue reading →]]>
Reputation.com is an online privacy start-up company that has raised $41 million in funding. The new round of funding was led by August Capital. Insight Capital, Jafco Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in this round. This brings the company revenues to over $65 million. This is the company’s fourth round of funding.

Reputation.com is raising additional money because they are getting into a new business. Reputation.com’s new business is to collect data on individuals and place layers of their own technology on that data. Then the company creates assessments on those individuals that consumers can license. Consumers would also be able to claim their online profile.

Reputation.com currently has 150 employees and opened another 100. They are currently based in Redwood City, California and plans to open a new office in San Francisco.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/07/21/reputation-com-raises-41-million/feed/ 1 LinkedIn Shares Surges Over 100% To $10+ Billion Valuation http://pulse2.com/2011/05/19/linkedin-shares-surges-over-100-to-10-billion-valuation/ http://pulse2.com/2011/05/19/linkedin-shares-surges-over-100-to-10-billion-valuation/#comments Thu, 19 May 2011 18:24:03 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=47384 Continue reading →]]>
LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) went public today and their shares have surged over 100% during mid-day trading. The company priced their IPO at $45 and the stock opened at $83 before settling at about $120 within 2 hours of the trading. LinkedIn raised over $100 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Bessemer Venture Capital Partners.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/05/19/linkedin-shares-surges-over-100-to-10-billion-valuation/feed/ 1 Mobile Video Sharing Company Viddy Raises $1.6 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/04/27/mobile-video-sharing-company-viddy-raises-1-6-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/04/27/mobile-video-sharing-company-viddy-raises-1-6-million/#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:04:29 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=46389 Continue reading →]]>
Viddy is a mobile video sharing start-up company that has raised $1.6 million in a first round of funding. Viddy had launched a mobile video creation and sharing application for the iPhone. This round of funding was provided by Battery Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, Qualcomm, Jarl Mohn, and early YouTube employees. Viddy said that they are creating a “Twitter-style feed of videos from friends, family, celebrities.” Viddy was founded by JJ Aguhob and Brett O’Brien. [soCalTech]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/04/27/mobile-video-sharing-company-viddy-raises-1-6-million/feed/ 0 Adap.tv Raises $20 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/03/28/adap-tv-raises-20-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/03/28/adap-tv-raises-20-million/#comments Tue, 29 Mar 2011 03:10:25 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=45485 Continue reading →]]>
Adap.tv has raised $20 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Gemini Israel Funds, Redpoint Ventures, and Spark Capital. Adap.tv has raised a total of $43 million thus far. Adap.tv’s platform lets advertising companies manage their online video ads. Publishers use Adap.tv to monetize their websites with the video content. Adap.tv currently sees about 60 million unique visitors and they deliver about 1.8 billion video ad views per month. [TechCrunch]

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