Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Khosla Ventures http://pulse2.com Sun, 27 May 2012 19:13:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Yammer Raises $85 Million, Leading To Total Of $142 Million http://pulse2.com/2012/03/01/yammer-raises-85-million-leading-to-total-of-142-million/ http://pulse2.com/2012/03/01/yammer-raises-85-million-leading-to-total-of-142-million/#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:43:14 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=57150 Continue reading →]]>
Yammer, the service that is known as the Twitter-for-enterprise, has raised $85 million in funding, which brings them to a total of $142 million. This is Yammer’s fifth round of funding. DFJ Growth led the investment. New investors Meritech Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Capricorn Investment Group joined in this round. The existing investors that also participated include Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund. Randy Glein of DFJ Growth will be joining Yammer’s board of directors.

Yammer saw their sales triple in the last year as demand for upgrades in features were increased. Their user base jumped to more than 4 million users. Due to the growth, plenty of venture capitalists wanted to get their piece of the Yammer pie. Yammer had already raised a new round of funding last year from investors such as U.S. Venture Partners and Social+Capital Partnership. Yammer started raising their new round in January and they had term sheets from investors within 2 weeks.

Yammer CEO David Sacks said that the company is not in a rush for an IPO. They plan on using the funding to add employees. They plan on having about 500 employees by the end of the year. Yammer plans on launching a multimedia ad campaign starting Thursday.

[Source: WSJ]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/03/01/yammer-raises-85-million-leading-to-total-of-142-million/feed/ 0 Social TV Company Miso Raises $4 Million From Khosla, Google, and Hearst http://pulse2.com/2011/12/01/social-tv-company-miso-raises-4-million-from-khosla-google-and-hearst/ http://pulse2.com/2011/12/01/social-tv-company-miso-raises-4-million-from-khosla-google-and-hearst/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:31:19 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=53841 Continue reading →]]>
Miso is a social TV company that has raised $4 million in funding from Khosla Ventures, Google Ventures, and Hearst Interactive Media. Now Miso has raised a total of $6 million. When Miso first launched, they were a “check-in” app for TV shows.

Now Miso has gone beyond check-in to offer a full social experience for TV content. Miso has an app gallery, ratings system, chatter stream, and user generated platform for people to ask questions about TV content.

Miso also partnered with cable companies to create second screen experiences. Miso has partnerships in place with DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse to allow the app communicate with TV receivers to find out what is on TV at any given moment and where they are in the show.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/12/01/social-tv-company-miso-raises-4-million-from-khosla-google-and-hearst/feed/ 0 eBay Acquires Hunch For Roughly $80 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:20:04 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52997 Continue reading →]]>
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) will be announcing that they have acquired Hunch for around $80 million according to Michael Arrington. Hunch was started by Chris Dixon, Caterina Fake, Tom Pinckney, and Matt Gattis. Hunch has raised about $20 million in total funding since they launched.

Hunch is a start-up company that allows users to answer questions using crowd-sourcing techniques. Hunch will be used on eBay for recommendation technology to revamp their own e-commerce recommendations. Dixon will be responsible for the existing 50 person recommendations team and will be opening an office in New York.

The New York office will grow to about 200 employees that will focus on recommendations. The team will analyze a lot of eBay purchase and sales data to predict inflation or a potential recession.

Hunch was founded in 2008. In mid 2010 Google was rumored to be in talks with Hunch for an acquisition. Investors in Hunch includes General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.

[Uncrunched]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/feed/ 0 Enterprise Cloud App Management Company Okta Raises $16.5 Million In Series B http://pulse2.com/2011/08/09/enterprise-cloud-app-management-company-okta-raises-16-5-million-in-series-b/ http://pulse2.com/2011/08/09/enterprise-cloud-app-management-company-okta-raises-16-5-million-in-series-b/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:33:13 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=49837 Continue reading →]]>
Okta is an enterprise cloud app management company that has raised $16.5 million in Series B funding. Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and FLOODGATE participated in this round. Okta has raised a total of $28 million thus far.

Okta’s software platform allows companies to control their users, applications, and data in the cloud and behind the firewall. Okta was founded by former Salesforce.com VP of Engineering Todd McKinnon.

Okta provides the opportunity for IT managers to maintain one central directory and replicate this across cloud apps. Okta’s on-demand service currently powers over 1 million authentications per month. This round of funding will be used for sales and marketing efforts. David Weidon of Khosla Ventures will becmoe a board advisor.

[Xconomy]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/08/09/enterprise-cloud-app-management-company-okta-raises-16-5-million-in-series-b/feed/ 0 Ness Computing Raises $5 Million for Likeness.com Subjective Search http://pulse2.com/2011/07/20/ness-computing-raises-5-million-for-likeness-com-subjective-search/ http://pulse2.com/2011/07/20/ness-computing-raises-5-million-for-likeness-com-subjective-search/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:41:59 +0000 Riley Kennysmith http://pulse2.com/?p=48666 Continue reading →]]>

Ness Computing has been working on creating a selective search engine, and have raised $5 million in funding. The investors include Vinod Khosla and Ramy Adeeb (of Khosla Ventures), Alsop Louie Partners, Bullpen Capital and a co-founder of Palantir Technologies, as well as angel investors. TechCrunch reports that the search engine will be located at likeness.com, and combines data from your online likes with a search engine to provide a search designed with your preferences in mind. Corey Reese, CEO of Ness, explains that while Google organized data, likeness.com is about “organizing opportunities.”

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/07/20/ness-computing-raises-5-million-for-likeness-com-subjective-search/feed/ 0 GroupMe Acquires BlackBerry App Development Company Sensobi http://pulse2.com/2011/05/05/groupme-acquires-blackberry-app-development-company-sensobi/ http://pulse2.com/2011/05/05/groupme-acquires-blackberry-app-development-company-sensobi/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 03:48:42 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=46650 Continue reading →]]>
GroupMe is an application company that allows people to create private groups and send out mass text messages. GroupMe has acquired a smaller application development company called Sensobi. Sensobi was co-founded by Ajay Kulkarni and Andrew Cheung. Sensobi will be integrated into GroupMe’s BlackBerry application. Later it will be rolled into GroupMe’s iPhone and Android applications.

Sensobi has a free application and a paid application. The paid application will be made free in the BlackBerry App Store in the near future. GroupMe is growing rapidly, but is still working on monetizing their users. GroupMe has raised $11.5 million in funding from General Catalyst Partners, Khosla Ventures, and several other venture capital investors.

[WSJ]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/05/05/groupme-acquires-blackberry-app-development-company-sensobi/feed/ 0 Former Facebook & YouTube CFO Gideon Yu Leaves Khosla To Become CSO Of The San Francisco 49ers http://pulse2.com/2011/04/26/former-facebook-youtube-cfo-gideon-yu-leaves-khosla-to-become-cso-of-the-san-francisco-49ers/ http://pulse2.com/2011/04/26/former-facebook-youtube-cfo-gideon-yu-leaves-khosla-to-become-cso-of-the-san-francisco-49ers/#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:53:34 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=46366 Continue reading →]]>
Gideon Yu is one of the most prolific investors and executives in the technology sector. He is currently serving as a General Partner at Khosla Ventures, but he will soon become the Chief Strategy Officer for the NFL San Francisco 49ers. Before that he was the Chief Financial Officer of both Facebook and YouTube. Yu also worked as a partner at Sequoia Capital.

Before YouTube, Yu worked as the Treasurer and Senior Vice President of Finance at Yahoo! When at Facebook, he oversaw the $375 million investment round from Microsoft and Li Ka Shing. At YouTube, he negotiated the $1.65 billion sale to Google. And at Yahoo!, he oversaw more than 30 acquisitions and investments including Alibaba.com, Overture, Flickr, and Delicious.

During his stint with Khosla Ventures, he put together investment rounds in Square, Meebo, and Hunch. Yu will remain on the board at Square and Meebo. Yu is leaving Khosla because he said that venture capital isn’t really for him.

[BusinessInsider]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/04/26/former-facebook-youtube-cfo-gideon-yu-leaves-khosla-to-become-cso-of-the-san-francisco-49ers/feed/ 0 Big Switch Raises $13.75 Million In A First Round Of Funding http://pulse2.com/2011/04/25/big-switch-raises-13-75-million-in-a-first-round-of-funding/ http://pulse2.com/2011/04/25/big-switch-raises-13-75-million-in-a-first-round-of-funding/#comments Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:38:45 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=46243 Continue reading →]]>
Big Switch Networks has raised $13.75 million in a first round of funding. Big Switch Networks is working on building a platform that will bring virtualization and a cloud architecture to enterprise networks. Four new directors will be joining the board at Big Switch Networks as a result of the funding: Mark Leslie, Bill Meehan, Shirish Sathaye, and Mike Volpi. The investors in this round include Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. [San Jose Business Journal]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/04/25/big-switch-raises-13-75-million-in-a-first-round-of-funding/feed/ 1 MyLikes Raises $5.6 Million In Round Led By Khosla Ventures http://pulse2.com/2011/03/04/mylikes-raises-5-6-million-in-round-led-by-khosla-ventures/ http://pulse2.com/2011/03/04/mylikes-raises-5-6-million-in-round-led-by-khosla-ventures/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:51:09 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=44299 Continue reading →]]>
MyLikes has raised $5.6 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures. Lightspeed Partners and Metamorphic Ventures also participated in this round. Seed investor Paul Buchheit and Alex Kinnier is joining the MyLikes board of directors. MyLikes aims to connect social influencers with advertising companies to endorse products on social networks. [TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/03/04/mylikes-raises-5-6-million-in-round-led-by-khosla-ventures/feed/ 0 Biofuel Company Gevo Raises $95.7 Million In IPO http://pulse2.com/2011/02/09/biofuel-company-gevo-raises-95-7-million-in-ipo/ http://pulse2.com/2011/02/09/biofuel-company-gevo-raises-95-7-million-in-ipo/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:40:24 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=43416 Continue reading →]]>
Biofuel and biochemical company Gevo Inc. (NASDAQ:GEVO) raised $107 million in an IPO. Gevo uses chemical processes to make isobutanol from sugar. The biofuels and biochemicals offered by Gevo could be an alternative to ethanol. After expenses and underwriting discounts, the company made about $95.7 million. Khosla Ventures and Richard Branson were investors in Gevo.

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