Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » JAFCO Ventures

Kixeye Raises $18 Million, Adds Zynga Co-Founder to Board

Riley Kennysmith — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:37:13 +0000

Game developer Kixeye, formerly The Casual Collective, has raised $18 million in new funding. The investment comes from Jafco Ventures, Trinity Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Kixeye also boasts two additions to the company’s board: Jafco partner Joe Horowitz and Zynga co-founder Andrew Trader. [TechCrunch]

Inkling Raises $17 Million for iPad Textbooks

Riley Kennysmith — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:18:30 +0000

Digital textbook startup Inkling has raised $17 million in funding to grow their company, which works with textbook publishers to create interactive iPad versions of their books. The funding comes from Tenaya Capital, Jafco Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Pearson Education. Inkling is already working with publishers like McGraw Hill and Pearson. [GigaOM]

Reputation.com Raises $41 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:37:33 +0000

Reputation.com is an online privacy start-up company that has raised $41 million in funding. The new round of funding was led by August Capital. Insight Capital, Jafco Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in this round. This brings the company revenues to over $65 million. This is the company’s fourth round of funding.

Reputation.com is raising additional money because they are getting into a new business. Reputation.com’s new business is to collect data on individuals and place layers of their own technology on that data. Then the company creates assessments on those individuals that consumers can license. Consumers would also be able to claim their online profile.

Reputation.com currently has 150 employees and opened another 100. They are currently based in Redwood City, California and plans to open a new office in San Francisco.

SocialVibe Raises $20 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:37:28 +0000

SocialVibe is a Los Angeles, California based social advertising software and technology company that has raised $20 million in equity funding. This round of funding was led by Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures, and Pinacle Ventures. Jeff Crowe (Norwest) will be joining the company board of directors as part of the funding. SocialVibe is led by Jay Samit and they plan on using the funding for growth. SocialVibe provides technology that invites consumers to participate in offers with brands in exchange for virtual goods. [SoCalTech]

Meebo Raises $27.5 Million In Series D

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:00:48 +0000

Meebo announced earlier this week that they have raised $27.5 million in Series D. The funding was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Sequoia Capital, DFJ, Time Warner, and JAFCO. Meebo said that they plan on using the funds to continue expanding upon their platform. Thus far the company has raised $70 million total.

Meebo recently launched the Meebo MiniBar browser extension and now they reach 33% of U.S. Internet users. Meebo receives 71 million domestic unique users and 142 million uniques worldwide according to comScore based on November 2010.

[PEHub]

Online Gift Card Website Plastic Jungle Raises $10 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:41:49 +0000

Plastic Jungle is an online marketplace for gift cards. The company has announced that they have raised $10 million in funding led by Jafco Ventures. Other investors include Redpoint Ventures, Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, and Bay Partners. This brings their total funding to $23 million.

Plastic Jungle allows you to buy, sell, and exchange gift cards online. You can also trade in the gift card value for an Amazon.com gift card or donate the gift card to charity. Plastic Jungle also lets you trade in unwanted gift cards for up to 92% of the unused balance.

Plastic Jungle’s former CEO Garry Briggs said that revenue is eight times more than what it was one year ago. Plastic JUngle plans to transact over $10 million in gift card value this year.

[TechCrunch]

TRUSTe Raises $12 Million Series B

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:18:42 +0000

Internet privacy company TRUSTe has raised $12 million in Series B funding. This funding round was led by Jafco Ventures. Other investors include DAG Ventures, Accel Partners, and Baseline Ventures. Full press release below.

TRUSTe Receives $12 Million in Series B Funding

Cash Infusion Rings in New Era of Leadership and Drives Product Focus for Online Privacy Innovator

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Jun 08, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — TRUSTe, provider of the leading online privacy trustmark, today announced that it closed a Series B funding round of $12 million, led by new investor Jafco Ventures. The round also included a new investment from DAG Ventures and follow-on investments from returning Series A investors Accel Partners and Baseline Ventures. TRUSTe will put the new funding toward enhancing sales and marketing in order to expand its existing enterprise foothold, while capitalizing on the booming small business market and new certification initiatives in social networking, mobile and advertising.

“The completion of our funding is perfectly timed to allow us to meet the ever-growing concern for online privacy and trust,” said Chris Babel, CEO of TRUSTe. “Recent events have shown that consumer privacy remains a hot button for usage of any online service — whether it is social tools or the purchasing of business goods. I am proud to lead the company as we raise the bar and broaden the scope of TRUSTe’s online privacy services to address new levels of transparency, accountability and control.”

“Building business credibility and gaining customer confidence are absolute requirements for the success of online businesses and we view trust and privacy as the next big wave of online security,” said Jeb Miller, General Partner at Jafco Ventures. “We invested in TRUSTe because it demonstrated a deep understanding of market requirements and had vision and execution to capitalize on this massive market need. In particular, Jafco sees tremendous growth potential for small and medium businesses and it is our belief that TRUSTe is the company best able to guide the industry for online privacy requirements across this and other key market segments.”

As a leader in enhancing online trust between consumers and businesses, TRUSTe certifies companies to its online privacy standards rewarding the companies with the leading trustmark thereby driving consumer confidence and better business results. According to a 2009 survey conducted by TNS, more than 82 percent of consumers who recognize TRUSTe’s privacy seal, use it to decide how and when to disclose personal information.

“Our initial Series A investment in TRUSTe and continued support through the Series B round proves the strong belief we have in the company’s success,” said Andrew Braccia, General Partner at Accel Partners. “We consider the TRUSTe executive management team the most experienced Internet authority on consumer privacy protection today and remain bullish in its unique ability to capitalize on the opportunity at hand and move the market forward to the next level.”

About TRUSTe Thousands of companies rely on TRUSTe’s leading privacy trustmark to enhance consumer trust, drive increased registrations and transactions, and comply with complex privacy requirements. Consumers know that when they see the TRUSTe seal they can “Click with Confidence” because the certified website is responsible with their personal information. TRUSTe has certified more than 40 percent of the top fifty websites including Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, AOL, Adobe, AT&T, Comcast, Disney, Weather.com, Apple, LinkedIn, Web MD, and Yelp. TRUSTe also certifies many of the top advertising and technology service providers for websites. For additional information on TRUSTe and its services, please visit http://www.truste.com.

Clicker Raises $11 Million For Consolidating Web TV

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:36:32 +0000

Clicker.com is a website that collects TV shows from the web and consolidates them in one place. Clicker launched about three months ago and they have raised $11 million in Series B from JAFCO Ventures, Benchmark Capital, and Redpoint Ventures.

[GigaOM]

SocialVibe Raises $8 Million Series B From JAFCO And Redpoint

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:38:46 +0000

SocialVibe announced earlier yesterday that they have raised $8 milion Series B in funding from JAFCO Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. SocialVibe is a social media company that has social network users create advertising badges on social networks. Advertisers using the badges include Sprint, Adobe, and Coca-Cola.

“SocialVibe has brought soul to the intersection of social media and online advertising with a solution that resonates with advertisers, publishers and members,” stated Greg Martin, Partner of Redpoint Ventures. “SocialVibe is more than a great business, they are a force for good.”

Through this round of funding, Managing General Partner of JAFCO Ventures Joe Horowitz will be joining SocialVibe’s board of directors. SocialVibe has grown to about 500,000 members. These members are sharing brand badges with about 10 million of their friends on social networks. In turn this creates 100 million endorsed impressions.

“Today’s funding round represents a tremendous vote of confidence in our team, vision and business model,” stated SocialVibe CEO Kurt Johnson. “JAFCO and Redpoint Ventures are quality venture firms that understand our business and have the experience to help us grow into a leading advertising and monetization solution for social media.”

Yodle Raises $10 Million Series C From JAFCO, DFJ, and Bessemer Venture Partners

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:16:09 +0000

Yodle is a startup that provides local online advertising across search engines and other web real estate. Yodle is based in New York and has raised $10 million Series C from JAFCO Ventures, the DFJ Growth fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Yodle started in 2005 and reports that they have increased 700% in annual revenue compared to 2007. The run rate for their fourth quarter in 2008 was about $30 million. Yodle has about 9 people in staff in 2006 and now they have 250 people. The company has over 5,000 customers. They had 125 in 2006. The company expects to make a profit in about six months.

Yodle helps small businesses advertise their products on search engines and Yodle will track and optimize the ads. This includes the clickthrough rates, phone calls, and click per action rates. Yodle has their customers grouped into different sectors such as Beauty & Personal Care, Business & Professional, Health & Medical, Home & Garden, and Travel & Lifestyle.

Yodle was founded by Nathaniel Stevens. He currently serves as the VP of Media Operations. Stevens started the company while he was attending Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. Stevens was accepted into the Venture Initiation Program, UPenn’s incubation initiative. Yodle’s first round of funding was $3 million by Bessemer Venture Partners. Yodle’s second round of funding was $12 million and provided by Bessemer Venture Partners and DFJ. This gives Yodle a total of $15 million.

[via TechCrunch]