Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Greycroft Partners LLC

Pulse News App Raises $9 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 00:23:49 +0000

Pulse has raised $9 million in funding as they have just hit 4 million users. Pulse is a social and visual news reader company that has apps available on the iPad, iPhone, and Android.

The investors in this round include New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Ventures, and Greycroft Partners. Pulse started as a class project at Stanford University. Over the past year, the company has gone from a project to a 10-person team. Pulse also won an Apple App Store Hall of Fame award.

Patrick Chung, co-head of the consumer investing division at NEA will join the Pulse board of directors.

[Mashable]

TagMan Raises $2.25 Million In Series A

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:59:44 +0000

TagMan is a company that lets marketers and advertising company track online ad campaigns. TagMan has raised $2.25 million in Series A funding led by Greycroft Partners, iNovia Capital, and other undisclosed angel investors. TagMan uses tags/pixels and simple pieces of JavaScript to track the performance of online ad campaigns. Some of TagMan’s clients include Subaru and Virgin.

News Reading Application Pulse Raises $1 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:32:12 +0000

Alphonso Labs is a Palo Alto based company that created an application called Pulse. Alphonso raised $1 million in seed funding from Redpoint Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Mayfield Fund, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Pulse is a news reader for the iPad and iPhone that Steve Jobs mentioned during a product demo at the Worldwide developers conference. The New York Times complained to Apple that Pulse was infringing on their content so it was taken off the App Store. Later Apple realized that Pulse was simply an RSS reader and was not scraping content. Pulse was founded by CEO Akshay Kothari.

[TheAlarmClock]

Ad.ly Raises $5 Million and Hires New CEO

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 12 May 2010 05:05:09 +0000

Ad.ly is known for being a Twitter advertising company. Ad.ly has raised $5 million in funding from GRP Partners, Greycroft Partners, and Matt Coffin. Arnie Gullov-Singh has also been hired as the new CEO of the company. Arnie was previously the EVP of product, technology, and operations at the Fox Audience Network. [TechCrunch]

Greycroft Partners Raises $130.7 Million For Their Digital Media Fund

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:05:59 +0000

Venture capital company Greycroft Partners has raised $130.7 million for a digital media fund called Greycroft II. Greycroft will invest between $500K and $5 million into firms through the new fund. Greycroft has invested in companies such as blog paidContent, Crowdfusion, and Sometrics. [soCalTech]

Buddy Media Raises $2 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:02:53 +0000

Buddy Media is a social media company that runs campaigns for major brands. They can handle brand management, advertising, and relationships with PR agencies with social marketing tools. Some of their clients include Microsoft, Anheuser Busch, FedEx, and Time Inc.

Buddy Media has just raised $2 million in funding from SoftBank Capital, Greycroft Partners, Ron Conway, and Bay Partners. Some of Buddy Media’s newest tools include the abilities to create and track Facebook Fan pages to drive a campaign. There is also a Twitter Management System. [TechCrunch]

Online Parenting Website Babble Raises $1 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:15:53 +0000

Babble is an online “magazine and community for a new generation of parents.” Somehow using that as a tag line has been enough to gather $1 million in funding and attack tons of traffic.

Greycroft Partners are the VC firm behind the $1 million in funding which adds to the other $2 million made from Village Ventures. The total $3 million is paret of the same round at the same valuation.

Babble is a spin-off from Nerve Media, a sex and dating community website. Babble is targetted towards a commnity of younger parents that live in major cities. Competitors include Urbanbaby.com and Cookie Magazine. Babble is also getting a newly appointed CEO by the name of Sean Mills. Mills is the former president of The Onion and will be replacing Babble founder Rufus Griscom.

[via TechCrunch]

TAKKLE Scores $7 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:32:48 +0000

High school social network, Takkle.com took a niche and kept on strengthening upon it. Takkle lined up partnerships with major corporations that revolve around the purpose of their niche: showcase high school athletic abilities. Even Sports Illustrated, NYCIF, Greycroft, WMG Investments, IJ Smith Enterprises invested in Takkle previously.

In this round, Liberty Associated Partners, WMG Investments, and Greycroft participated.Â Takkle allows athletes and coaches to upload photos/videos/blogs/profiles on the social network.Â High school athlete statistics can also be added to profiles.

Takkle athletes can also create “Takkle Sheets.”Â Takkle Sheets are like a sports resume that athletes can use toÂ promote themselves to be qualified for professional and college leagues.Â Takkle is based in New York.

New Digital Entertainment Site, Worldwide Biggies Raises $9 Million Series A

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:34:57 +0000

Worldwide Biggies is a new digital entertainment website that was started by Albie Hecht. Hecht is best known for his work on Spike TV and Nickelodeon. For example, he produced shows like Clarissa Explains It All, Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, etc. Hecht also oversaw SpongeBob SquarePants and Blue’s Clues. Now Hecht is making a comeback full force and has raised $9 million in Series A from NBC Universal, Platform Equity, Greycroft Partners, Hearst Corporation, and Prism Ventures.

“The production studio creates content thatâ€™s directed for a multi-platform distribution model, offering content to be streamed online, on mobile phones, television, film, and consumer products. Covering all its bases, Worldwide Biggies is looking to attract the entire gamut of advertisers, regardless of what type of campaign medium theyâ€™d like to try their hand for^[1],” wrote Kristen Nicole of Mashable.

Worldwide Biggies is based in New York and has also struck a deal with TMZ.com. From what I understand, TMZ, is working with Worldwide Biggies to create a website called StarVsStar, a fantasy betting-like league for celebrity controversies.

Worldwide Biggies was started in 2005 and the funding that the company received seems to be consistent with other recent funded-comedy website launches like FunnyOrDie and NationalBanana.

References:
[1] Mashable: Worldwide Biggies Funded by NBC and Hearst
[2] Red Herring: NBC Funds Worldwide Biggies

Sports Illustrated/NYCIF Invests Undisclosed Amount Into TAKKLE

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 05:40:25 +0000

When TAKKLE first came out, I thought to myself, “would a high school sports social network really take off?” Every time I hear more news about TAKKLE, my question gets answered (which happens frequently these days). The answer is yes. High school sports is a national craze and I should have known this, especially after watching movies like Varsity Blues starring the guy from Dawson’s Creek.

I read an article tonight on alarm:clock^[1] about the social network receiving an investment from Sports Illustrated and as I investigated more, I found that were other investors in the company as well:

Investors in TAKKLE include:
1.) Sports Illustrated (SI.com): This publication is dubbed as the “biggest weekly American sports magazine” according to Wikipedia. The publication has over 3 million subscribers and 23 million adults read the magazine each week. The company is owned by Time Warner.
2.) New York City Investment Fund (NYCIF): is a company that was founded by Henry R. Kravis. Kravis is known as the 107th most richest person in the world and for founding Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR). KKR registered to go public on July 3rd according to Hoovers. Ironically, I was reading a book about KKR’s involvement with RJR Reynolds and Nabisco in the book, Barbarians at the Gate earlier today.
3.) WMG Investments: Finance arm of Wasserman Media Group, LLC (WMG). WMG is a sports marketing company that was started by Casey Wasserman. Wasserman graduated from UCLA with a major in Political Science and is now also an owner of the Los Angeles Avengers football team.
4.) Greycroft Partners, LLC: A $75 million powered company founded by Alan Patricof. Patricof completed a BA from Ohio State University and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon and is a board member of New York Small Business Venture Fund and New Jobs for New York Association. Greycroft has also invested in PaidContent (technology news blog), Pump Audio (hub for independent artists to sell music), and Ladies Who Launch (social network for entrepreneurial women).
5.) IJ Smith Enterprises LLC
6.) Jack Schneider, Managing Director, Allen & Company

Through the investment by Sports Illustrated, a partnership has been solidified. Sports Illustrated agreed to bring about sponsorship programs for TAKKLE endorsed by companies such as Gatorade and Finish Line. TAKKLE also made a deal with Spalding for a three-on-three basketball competition.

Previous Pulse 2.0 TAKKLE coverage is available at: http://pulse2.com/category/takkle-inc/

References:
[1] Alarm:Clock: Time Inc’s Sports Illustrated Takes Stake In TAKKLE
[2] MediaPost Publications: SI Makes A ‘Deeper Alliance’ With Takkle