Tag Archives: Chris Sacca
Stickybits Raises $1.6 Million From Multiple Investors
Stickybits has raised $1.6 million from multiple investors. First Round Capital and Lower Case Capital are two new investors that joined in on Stickybits’ funding. Previous investors that participated in this round include Mitch Kapor and Polaris Venture Partners. Chris Sacca also joined in this round. Stickybits lets you attach photos, videos, text, music, etc. to any barcode.
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Swipely Raises $7.5 Million In First Round
Bit.ly Raises $1.5 Million From VCs and Received 2.7 Billion Clicks Last Month
URL shortening service Bit.ly has been growing at an aggressive rate as they have become the default for Twitter. Given their current growth rate, the company needed another injection of cash as they have raised $1.5 million from previous investors. These investors include Betaworks, SoftTech (Jeff Clavier), Ron Conway, Mitch Kapor, Chris Sacca, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and Howard Lindzon. The funding was added to an SEC filing and TechCrunch confirmed the round with Bit.ly President John Borthwick. The $1.5 million round was set up as a convertible debt note. Bit.ly received 2.7 billion clicks last month. last week alone about 744 million Bit.ly links were clicked on. [TechCrunch]
Graphic.ly Raises $1.2 Million In First Round
Graphic.ly is a CDN company that specializes in comics. The company has raised $1.2 million in their first round of funding. DFJ Mercury is the early-stage lead VC firm behind the funding. Other investors include Starz Media, GC&H Investments, Northstar Equity Partners, Dave McClure, Paige Craig, and Chris Sacca.
Graphic.ly plans to use the funding for technology development, marketing, and future partnerships. One of Graphic.ly’s first projects after the funding is to develop an iPhone application for Marvel Comics. Graphic.ly launched out of TechStars, a startup incubation firm. Graphic.ly was founded by Kevin Mann and Thanavanth Jaroenvanit and is run by CEO Micah Baldwin. Baldwin is the former VP of business development at Lijit Networks.
Gowalla Raises $8.4 Million From Greylock and Several Angel Investors
Gowalla is a location based social networking website that has raised $8.4 million in funding. Greylock Partners was the lead investor and the company plans to use the funding to strengthen their development capabilities. Thus far Gowalla has raised over $10 million since they started in 2007.
“Gowalla has rapidly attracted a passionate user base by creating an innovative, useful service that is also a lot of fun,” stated Greylock’s David Thacker. “It’s exciting to discover new places and earn stamps for your passport from places as diverse as Buckingham Palace and the Sydney Opera House to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the coffee shop down the street. Gowalla also connects you with your friends, letting you share your travels and meet up with others in real time.” Thacker has joined the Gowalla Board of Directors as part of the investment.
LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman also joined Gowalla’s board of directors as an observer.
Other investors in Gowalla include Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose, Maples Investments, Shasta Ventures, Ron Conway, Gary Vaynerchuk, Shervin Pishevar, and Chris Sacca. Previous investors Alsop-Louie Partners and Founders Fund also participated in this round.
Former Google Exec Chris Sacca Starting VC Firm
Chris Sacca is a former Google executive that has made several angel investments. Now Sacca is closing a VC fund of about $5 million. After raising that round, Sacca will make small investments of about $50,000 to $150,000.
Some of Sacca’s early investments include Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, Bit.ly, and FanBridge. When Sacca was working at Google, he was the Head of Special Initiatives such as opening part of the FCC spectrum auction and the Mountain View WiFi project.
The early investments that Sacca made will become part of Sacca’s new fund.
Categories Chris Sacca
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Facebook Hires Ivan Kirigen From TipJoy
Micro-payment service Tipjoy attempted to sell itself, but it turns out that they will be shutting down instead. Facebook even offered Tipjoy $5 million in stock. Facebook walked away from the deal and Tipjoy shut down shortly after.
Even though Tipjoy decided to shut down, Facebook was able to hire one of the company’s executives. Facebook hired Tipjoy co-founder and CTO Ivan Kirigin. Although it is uncertain about what Kirigin will be working on, it is expected to be something related to Facebook Payments.
The reason why Tipjoy shut down was because Kirigan was not around after Facebook made him an offer. PayPal and Twitter were both interested in buying out Tipjoy too. Y-Combinator, Chris Sacca, The Accelerator Group, and Betaworks invested over $1 million in funding.
Categories Betaworks, Chris Sacca, Facebook, Ivan Kirigen, PayPal, The Accelerator Group, Tipjoy, Twitter, Y Combinator
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