Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Ignition Partners

WePay Raises $10 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:14:38 +0000

WePay has raised $10 million from Ignition Partners, Highland Capital Partners, and August Capital. The company launched as a way to help friends and family pool resources. Now they are offering online payment tools for merchants and non-profits.

WePay is aiming to compete against PayPal for SMBs. The advantages they have include ramp up time, fees, setup, and installation. WePay COO and co-founder Rich Aberman said WePay offers “one-stop shop tools to get anyone up and running accepting payments online, the way that they want to accept payments,” in ab interview with Betakit.

WePay charges a flat rate of 3.5% per transaction compared to PayPal’s 2.9% plus $0.30. They charge $0.50 if funds are drawn from a user’s bank account instead of a credit card. WePay is also targeting non-profits by offering a donation page creation tool. They charge the same 3.5% rate that they charge businesses. This is less than competitors like Kickstarter and First Giving.

WePay plans on using the funding to expand their team. Currently they have 40 employees. Mobile is becoming one of their core focus.

Couchbase Raises $14 Million

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:05:53 +0000

Couchbase, the NoSQL database company created by the merger of CouchOne and Memebase, has raised $14 million in new funding. The investors include Ignition Partners, Accel Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund. The Series C funds, which bring the company’s total to $30 million, will be used to grow Couchbase’s enterprise and help the company expand internationally. [TechCrunch]

Inporia Raises $1.25 Million From NEA, SV Angel, 500 Startups, Others

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:18:50 +0000

Inporia is a stealth e-commerce start-up company that has raised $1.25 million in funding. Inporia was founded by Ryan Junee, who is known for co-founding Omnisio (acquired by Google) and works as an advisor at 500 Startups. The investors in this round include New Enterprise Associates, SV Angel, 500 Startups, Clearstone Venture Partners, Y Combinator, Ignition Partners, Southern Cross Venture Partners, and Start Fund. [TechCrunch]

Photo Sharing Website DailyBooth Raises $6 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:17:26 +0000

Photo sharing website DailyBooth.com has raised $6 million in funding in a round that was led by Ignition Partners. Sequoia Capital also participated in this round. DailyBooth shared 14 million photos and many of them are self-portraits. [AllThingsD]

Topsy Raises $15 Million In Third Round

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 01:50:49 +0000

Topsy is a real-time search engine that has raised $15 million in a third round of funding. Topsy allows users to search for real-time content on Facebook and Twitter. Topsy recently launched Topsy Social Modules, which lets publishers add real-time content to their websites. Social Modules are being used by websites such as Discovery Communications and The Huffington Post. Western Technology Investments, BlueRun Ventures, Ignition Partners, Founders Fund, and Scott Banister invested in this round. This puts Topsy at a total of $30 million in funding. [VentureBeat]

Cloud Automation Company Skytap Raises $10 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:50:42 +0000

Skytap is a cloud automation solutions company that has raised $10 million in a Series C round of funding. OpenView Venture Partners led the round of funding with participation from Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Washington Research Foundation.

Skytap plans on using the funding to scale their sales and marketing teams. Scott Maxwell, the senior managing director of OpenView will be joining the board of directors at Skytap. Below is the full press release:

Skytap Secures $10 Million to Accelerate Business Growth for Cloud Automation
OpenView Venture Partners Leads Round With Participation From Current Investors — Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Washington Research Foundation

SEATTLE, WA–(Marketwire – January 3, 2011) – Skytap, the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced an oversubscribed $10 million Series C round of funding led by OpenView Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Washington Research Foundation. The investment will be used to scale sales and marketing, and accelerate innovation of the company’s flagship cloud automation platform. Scott Maxwell, senior managing director of OpenView Venture Partners, will join Skytap’s board of directors.

“After evaluating the emerging cloud market it became very clear that Skytap is a driving force in cloud automation and a breakout success in every sense of the word,” said Scott Maxwell at OpenView Venture Partners. “The company’s market leading cloud automation solutions are some of the most complete and well-received offerings on the market. We’re eager to contribute to Skytap’s future growth and lead this round of funding.”

Since its launch in 2006, Skytap has broadened its portfolio of cloud solutions and built a comprehensive cloud automation platform. Based on the breadth of its offerings and rapid customer adoption, Skytap has experienced both usage growth and year over year revenue growth of more than 300 percent.

“Skytap had a tremendously successful year and we are enthusiastic about what’s to come as we refuel for aggressive execution on all fronts,” said Scott Roza, CEO of Skytap. “Hundreds of customers have chosen Skytap for their cloud automation needs and these same customers frequently double or triple their users and usage after just a few months. This funding will enable us to expand our current customer relationships, further build out our sales team, and develop new solutions that help customers accelerate their transformation to the cloud.”

“Since our first investment in Skytap, we’ve been extremely impressed with the company’s ability to routinely exceed its business and revenue goals,” said Matt McIlwain, managing director at Madrona Venture Group. “Over the last year, Skytap has also delivered against key product milestones that position the company well for its next stage of growth. We’re proud to invest in Skytap’s future and support the company as it continues to build its reputation as one of the most innovative technology companies.”

Along with this funding and the company’s rapidly growing customer roster, Skytap has received numerous accolades based on the superiority of its cloud automation technology. Recent awards include: SD Times 100, Red Herring 100, AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100, SearchCloudComputing Top 10 Cloud Computing Startups and the 2010 Best of VMworld finalist. Skytap has built one of the strongest partner networks in the cloud industry enabling Fortune 1000 enterprise customers and government and defense agencies to accelerate their transition to the cloud. Earlier this year, Skytap was selected by Google as a cloud partner for the Google Apps Marketplace launch, and global IT leader CSC selected Skytap to power its prestigious CloudLab offering.

About Skytap, Inc.
Skytap is the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions for dynamic workloads. Skytap enables users to run enterprise applications unchanged in the cloud, collaborate securely with global teams, and gain unparalleled business productivity. Additionally, IT organizations can gain visibility and control over cloud projects, align capacity with demand, and reduce costs by 70% or more. Enterprises can securely connect Skytap to their data centers and create virtual private clouds. Skytap is ideal for any dynamic workload including application development, testing, virtual training, application migration and sales demonstration projects. To buy or learn more, visit www.skytap.com.

About OpenView Venture Partners
OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion stage venture capital fund with a focus on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, OpenView helps portfolio companies to quickly scale Product, Go-To-Market, and Organizational and Operational functions with best practices. The firm was founded in 2006 and has total capital under management of approximately $240 million. OpenView recently launched its new operational value-add content site at www.openviewlabs.com. OpenView Venture Partners is based in Boston and invests on a worldwide basis. To learn more, please visit www.openviewpartners.com.

Electronic Signature Company DocuSign Raises $27 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:48:36 +0000

Electronic signature company DocuSign has raised $27 million in a third round of funding. DocuSign lets businesses send verified electronic signatures to save time from having to handwrite and fax documents back-and-forth. DocuSign hired two new executives: Roger Erickson and Dustin Grosse.

DocuSign controls about 70% of the total electronic signature market. This round of funding was led by Scale Venture Partners. Other existing investors that participated in this round include Ignition Partners, Sigma Partners, salesforce.com, and Frazier Technology Ventures. Scale Venture Partners managing director Rory O’Driscoll is joining the DocuSign board of directors.

[VentureBeat]

Ruby On Rails Platform Company Heroku Raises $10 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 12 May 2010 05:01:44 +0000

Heroku is a Ruby on Rails platform built on Amazon.com’s EC2 infrastructure. The company has raised $10 million in a second round of funding, bringing them to a total of $15 million. The number of apps using Heroku has risen from 40,000 to 60,000 within the last 6 months. Ignition Partners led the fund. Other investors include Redpoint Venture Partners, Baseline Ventures, and Harrison Metal Capital. [GigaOm]

Apple Buys Out Music Streaming Company Lala.com

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:44:59 +0000

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has bought out steaming music company Lala.com. Earlier this year Warner Music Group invested in Lala and it seems like their investment has paid off.

While this is good news for Lala’s board of directors, the acquisition may spell bad news for Lala users. Lala users can stream music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song as of right now. Lala users may lose that ability if Apple starts to make some changes. Apple is highly interested in Lala’s engineering talent and technology for their music streaming in the cloud abilities. Lala has $35 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Ignition Partners, and Warner Music Group.

The financial details are unknown.

Jobster Seeking More Funding, But Reported $11 Million Loss in 07′

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:37:14 +0000

Jobster is a social network and online recruitment web site that started in 2004.Â Every time a user creates an account on Jobster, they add skill tags to their profile and show their availability which includes job hunting, happily employed, etc.Â I was just looking through some of the profiles on Jobster and it seems like that this is a good way for recruiters to network with potential prospects.Â However, one of the flaws with Jobster’s revenue model is that they made job postings free.Â

Maintaining Jobster is not cheap.Â Since 2005, the company had raised $48 million.Â The company is burning $1 million per month.Â The company had $11 million in losses in 2007.Â And the company has $3 million left.Â The founder and CEO of the company, Jason Goldberg left last year as well.Â Now that the company is under new management, they are looking to raise more money and try to get the recruitment social network back on track.

Previous investors include Ignition Partners, Mayfield Fund, Trinity Partners, and Reed Elsevier Ventures.Â A few months after the social network launched, Jobster acquired WorkZoo.Â Jobster also acquired Jobby, a startup that matched candidates to jobs through the use of tags.

If the Seattle, Wash. does receive additional funding, then one of their first priorities on the agenda should be cost cutting and talent management.Â The new management should be focusing on also making Jobster in a competitive position to be able to take on Monster or CareerBuilder.

[Information Source: ERE]