Zoove is a mobile marketing company that is planning to raise a $13 million Series C round of funding. Out of that $13 million planned round, the company has raised $5.2 million thus far according to an SEC filing. Zoove did not disclose who the investors involved are for the Series C, but the company previously raised $21.4 million over two rounds of funding from Worldview Technology Partners, Cardinal Venture Capital, and Highland Capital.
Zoove brokers ads for SMS, MMS, and WAP. Zoove also has a technology called StarStar where users press the “star” sign on the phone to respond to the ads on digital billboards and on TV.
FanSnap is a web startup that focuses on ticket searches. Earlier this week, the company announced $5.2 million in funding led by Highland Capital Partners. Richard de Silva of Highland will be joining the FanSnap Board of Directors as a result of the funding.
Thus far FanSnap has raised about $15.7 million after receiving $10 million in Series A from General Catalyst Partners last year.
To find the best deals on tickets, FanSnap searches through StubHub, eBay, and RazorGator. FanSnap claims to have over 13 million tickets indexed in their search engine across over 30,000 events.
One of the cool features FanSnap has to offer is that there is an image of the venue, such as a stadium with different hot spot images that correlate with the tickets that are selling. Below is an image of how it works.
Hangout.net is a virtual environment that has fully customizable rooms, avatars, etc. The company makes it possible for MySpace users to create custom virtual rooms. Highland Capital Partners and Polaris Venture Partners has extended their Series A investment by an additional $4 million in Hangout.net.
The total funding that Hangout has raised is now about $10 million. The company’s seed funding is $1 million and the initial Series A financing was $5 million. The $4 million extension gave Hangout enough backing to last them a long time. The company confirmed the funding in an SEC document. Hangout is based in Boston, Massachusetts and is led by CEO Pano Anthos.
iZumi Bio is a biotechnology company that focuses on cellular reprogramming and stem cell research. iZumi is based in the Bay Area of California and started in 2007 with backing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers along with Highland Capital Partners. Now the company has signed an agreement with Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CIRA). CIRA will exchange part of their pluripotent stem cell lines with iZumi as part of the agreement. iZumi and CIRA will then determine which methods of cell lines are appropriate for drug screening and development.
Pluripotent stem cells tend to be embryonic which is different from adult stem cells. Inducing embryonic stem cells to perform certain functions is crucial for the advancement of stem cell research as a whole, but anti-abortion activists believes that this is a violation of human life. Induced pluripotent stem cells are made from adult stem cells, but have embryonic pluripotent characteristics so this would enable researchers to further conduct studies while avoiding ethical issues with anti-abortionists.
“The partnership between these two leading organizations is a critical step in furthering this research and turning stem cell research into therapeutic realities sooner,” stated former Vice President and Kleiner Perkins partner Al Gore.
In September 2006, the month that Pulse 2.0 was created, I pointed out that New York-based Quigo was beefing up their client list and that in terms of advertising, the company would be able to compete with Google AdWords. Quigo Technologies is known for their AdSonar product. AdSonar provides contextual advertisements based on keywords from any given website, similar to Google AdSense.
Currently, Quigo provides services to ABC News, Hollywood.com, ESPN.com, Forbes.com, FOXNews.com, CareerBuilder.com, and USAToday.com. In June 2007, Time Inc. decided to choose AdSonar to power the advertising for their websites as well. Time Inc. is a subsidiary of Time Warner Company. Time Warner Company owns America Online. Technically, its a situation where the client wants to become the owner.
America Online is currently putting together a deal to acquire the advertising company for $300 million. Kara Swisher of AllThingsD broke the news.
Metacafe has over 25 million unique views per month. And yesterday the company officially announced that they have officially raised $30 million in Series C from Highland Capital, DAG Ventures, Accel Partners, and Benchmark Capital. While YouTube dominates traffic for online video, it seems that Metacafe has a more established business model since users are actually rewarded financially for their creativity.
“Metacafe is defining the next generation of online video, moving away from simple video sharing and hosting to delivering an exceptional entertainment experience for short-form content, said Richard de Silva, Partner, Highland Capital Partners. “Its sophisticated approach to audience-driven programming is unique in the industry.”
With this round of funding, Metacafe plans on supporting continuous operations and developing the Producer Rewards program further. The Producer Rewards program gives users a financial incentive to develop intriguing video content. For every thousand views a video gets on a site, the user will receive $5. The video has to reach a minimum of 20,000 views.
Highland Capital Partners’ Richard de Silva and DAG Ventures’ Tom Goodrich will join Metacafe’s Board of Directors. Metacafe is privately headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. and has offices in Tel Aviv, Israel and NYC, NY.
References:
[1] alarm:clock: Video Site MetaCafe Hammers $30M Round
