Aviary is a web-based software company that has designed applications such as Image Editor, Color Editor, Vector Editor, Effect Editor, Screen Capture, Image Markup, and Audio Editor. Aviary is based in Long Island, New York. And now the company has raised $7 million in Series B from Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com) and Spark Capital.
Bezos’ investment was made through his venture firm Bezos Expeditions. Aviary competes directly with Adobe Systems Inc. To access Aviary’s web based applications, the subscription cost is $24.99 for the Pro version. The Pro version gives more enhanced file privacy, full watermark control, higher quality thumbnails, and unlimited storage. The basic version gives access to the web base applications too.
“We are disrupting the status quo by eliminating the long-held barriers to digital creation and giving creators the tools they need to create, market and monetize their vision,” stated Aviary Inc. founder and CEO Avi Muchnick. “We are extremely excited to have Spark Capital on board. Their broad-ranging internet, software and consumer experience will be a tremendous asset to us in furthering our mission to make creation accessible to creators of all genres.”
ZocDoc is a service that allows users to sign up for doctor appointments online in New York City, NY. As ZocDoc plans to expand their online services to other major cities, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos and salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff have come together to invest an undisclosed amount in ZocDoc. Bezos’ investment came through Bezos Expeditions.
Last month Vinod Khosla’s investment arm, Khosla Ventures led the investment of $3 million Series A in ZocDoc. ZocDoc did not disclose how much this round of funding was, but it is “in the ballpark” of the Series A [SAI]. ZocDoc’s founders include Nick Ganju, Cyrus Massoumi, and Oliver Kharraz, M.D. ZocDoc plans to make revenue from advertising and charging a nominal fee to practicioners.
The site has rough 50,000-60,000 users. ZocDoc also turned one years old today.
A couple months ago, Social Gaming Network raised $15 million in Series A from investors such as Greylock, Columbia Capital, Founders Fund, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners. Now the company has another solid investor backing them up, founder of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos. Bezos invested through his firm, Bezos Expeditions.
“We are proud to be announcing the Bezos Expeditions investment,” stated Shervin Pishevar, the CEO of SGN. “Mr. Bezos’ knowledge and experience lends itself to the growth and expansion of the social gaming ecosystem. His participation in our funding will allow us to continue capturing new demographics in gaming by distributing the highest quality games available on the social web.”
Social Gaming Network specifically designs games and applications for mainstream social networks. Some of the games that SGN has developed includes Warbook, Jetman, Street Race, Text Twirl, Free Gifts, FightClub, Nicknames, and Superlatives.
“SGN has the expertise to bring gaming into entirely new markets.” stated Steve Campbell, the CIO of Bezos Expeditions. “There’s an obvious benefit to gaining such deep traction in the social networking area.”
About two months ago I wrote about how you can get your questions answered by ChaCha when sending a text message to 1-800-224-2242 (1800-2CHACHA). Today ChaCha has an additional feature to use with that phone number.
Now when you actually call the number instead of text messaging it, a ChaCha guide will answer the phone and search the web to provide solutions to your question. The service is free and available 24/7. The question must be asked in English in order to get a formal response back.
“ChaCha’s new voice capability pushes the boundaries of mobile 411 beyond its historical name-and-address limit” stated Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence. “It represents a next step in the evolution of the industry from directory assistance to voice search.”
This feature is called callChaCha and it was launched in beta testing around April 2008. ChaCha was funded by Bezos Expeditions, who also recently funded Twitter. ChaCha raised over $6 million in funding to date.
ChaCha has shifted away from their chat room model about 2 months ago.  ChaCha is crazy. What will they think of next? If anyone tries out the call service, please leave a comment about your experience with callChaCha.
Jeff Bezos’ personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions has completed a private equity buyout of ExpenseWatch.com. ExpenseWatch is based in Conshohocken, PA. ExpenseWatch was founded in 2000 and has 10,000 customers in 16 cities. Essentially, the software that ExpenseWatch develops generates expense reports and automates them for subscribers and customers.
Between 2006 and 2007, ExpenseWatch gained 6,500 new subscribers and 82 new customers.
“Expensewatch.com is a terrific, customer-focused company with a value proposition that makes sense for every small-to-midsize business. Until recently, integrated expense control across travel and entertainment, invoice management and purchasing was really only affordable for the largest companies. Expensewatch.com is changing the way we think about expense management—the online tools are easy to use and automate time consuming paper flow,†stated Stephen Campbell, CIO of Bezos Expeditions. “We see significant opportunities for growth in this market as more and more businesses experience the benefits, great value, and ease-of-use of web-based applications and services.”
The investment amount is unknown. A competitor of ExpenseWatch is Redmond, WA-based Concur. Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon.com and is Time Magazine’s 1999 ‘Person of the Year.’ Bezos Expeditions is also an investor in 37signals.
