Amit Chowdhry | September 26, 2011 | 1,010 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Chernin Group, David Karp, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners, Richard Branson, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, Tumblr, Union Square Ventures

Tumblr is a popular blogging service that has raised $85 million in a new round of funding. Tumblr is best known for simple blogging tools to post photos, videos, songs, etc. The investment in this round was led by Greylock Partners. Insight Venture Partners, the Chernin Group, Richard Branson, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, and Sequoia Capital also participated in this round.

Riley Kennysmith | August 15, 2011 | 442 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Bay Partners, Buddy Media, GGV Capital, Insight Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Mike Lazerow

Buddy Media has raised $54 million in its latest financing round. The company, which helps advertisers manage their Facebook and Twitter presence, is reportedly worth $500 million. The funding comes from Insight Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, Bay Partners and GGV Capital. CEO Mike Lazerow says the money will be used to expand the company to Europe and double their staff. [AllThingsD]
Riley Kennysmith | August 9, 2011 | 416 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Caixa Capital Risc, General Atlantic, Groupalia, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Jose Manuel Villanueva, Lucas Carné, Nauta Capital

Groupalia, a European online group buying company, has raised $26 million in funding. The startup’s investors include Nauta Capital, Caixa Capital Risc, General Atlantic, Insight Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Lucas Carné and José Manuel Villanueva. The daily deals company is just two years old and has 10 million users. [TechCrunch]
Amit Chowdhry | April 14, 2011 | 694 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Ashton Kutcher, Comcast Interactive Capital, Dustin Moskovitz, Evan Doll, Flipboard, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Jack Dorsey, Kleiner Perkins, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mike McCue, Peter Chernin, Ron Conway

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue has confirmed that the company has raised $50 million at a $200 million valuation. Insight Venture Partners led this round of funding. “We’re obviously thrilled, because we think it confirms our focus that people want a beautifully designed way to interact with content and to share it,” stated McCue. “And there is a lot more to come–on a scale of one to 10, we’re just at a two or three.”

Amit Chowdhry | April 11, 2011 | 691 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under General Atlantic, Groupalia, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners

Groupalia is a Spain-based group buying website that has raised $15 million from their current shareholders and new investors. Investors in this round include General Atlantic, Insight Venture Partners, and Index Ventures. Like Groupon.com, Groupalia has a daily deal in the form of discount coupons and they are expecting to turn over about $150 million in 2011 revenues. The extra funding will be used for consolidating their position in the countries that they are already established in. Groupalia has about 6 million users, 400 employees, and is present in 8 countries. [TC Europe]
Amit Chowdhry | September 27, 2010 | 1,476 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Ace Limited, Chegg, Foundation Capital, Insight Venture Partners, Iowa State University, Kleiner Perkins, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Chegg is a very popular online textbook rental service. Chegg has recently raised $75 million from Ace Limited, an Asian-based investment firm. Chegg had $144 million of funding before this. Other venture firms that put money into Chegg include Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, and Insight Venture Partners.

Amit Chowdhry | November 23, 2009 | 1,838 views | 1 Comment
Categorized under Chegg, Insight Venture Partners, Pinnacle Ventures, TriplePoint Capital

Chegg is the biggest online textbook rental company and they are aggressively funding themselves in order to expand their business. The company raised $57 million in Series D equity funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Insight Venture Partners also provided Chegg with $25 million in credit facility. Before that Pinnacle Ventures and TriplePoint Capital provided Chegg with $30 million in debt facility. This gives Chegg a total of $112 million to work with.
Insight Venture Partners Managing Director Deven Parekh will be joining the Chegg Board of Directors as part of the funding round. By providing textbook rentals, Chegg has helped students across 6,400 colleges save about $65 million.
“We are thrilled with the continued excitement from leading investors who understand the tremendous value we provide to students around the country,” stated Chegg.com CEO and Co-Founder Osma in a press release. “This new funding is a significant step up from Series C and a testament to the growing market opportunity for Chegg.com’s textbook rental offering. With college tuitions continuing to climb and higher unemployment rates, parents and students are looking for any and all ways to cut costs.”
Amit Chowdhry | September 24, 2009 | 1,089 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Insight Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, IVP, T. Rowe Price, Twitter

Micro-blogging company Twitter.com is rumored to be closing a deal worth $100 million in venture funding. The rumor is according to a Wall Street Journal source. The investors involved are T. Rowe Price, Insight Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). This is double the rumor that a TechCrunch source predicted earlier this month.
Spark Capital and IVP are previous investors in Twitter. In Twitter’s last round of funding, their valuation was $255 million. At an additional $100 million round of funding, the company is expected to be valuated beyond $1 billion. Despite the valuation Twitter has, the company does not have any substantial revenue model. But as we have learned from YouTube’s acquisition, that really doesn’t matter. YouTube was burning through VC funding before Google bought them out.
How many users does Twitter have? The company expects to have 25 million users by the end of this year. Twitter rival Facebook.com has about 300 million users. At one point Facebook made an offer to buy out Twitter for $500 million, $100 million in cash and $400 million in stock options. Rather than buying out Twitter, Facebook bought out FriendFeed.