Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Rho Ventures

GetGlue Hits 2 Million Users and Raises $12 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:26:23 +0000

GetGlue is a mobile social networking company that has raised $12 million in a new round of funding led by Rho Ventures. Existing investors Time Warner, RRE Ventures, and Union Square Ventures also participated in this round of funding. GetGlue previously raised $6 million in November 2010. GetGlue launched in 2008 and has been constantly evolving. Currently GetGlue is a “check-in” application for TV shows, books, movies, etc. Users can interact with other people that are reading, watching, thinking about the same thing.

GetGlue is available through the web, iOS devices, and Android devices. Over 30 major media companies user GetGlue through their API to integrate the network’s user activity through their own websites and apps. These networks include Showtime, HBO, DirecTV, and FOX.

GetGlue currently has 2 million users, which is up from 750,000 from about a year ago. By about the end of the year, the company hit about 100 million check-ins. In order to reduce the noise of profane and short comments, the company integration a curation feature using natural language processing to filter. Engagement levels had climbed by about 50% since then.

GetGlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold said that they plan on using the funding for product development. The company will be launching updated apps for the iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire this year.

Clean Urban Energy Raises $7 Million

Riley Kennysmith — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:08:36 +0000

Chicago-based Clean Urban Energy has raised $7 million for their energy-efficient office buildings. CUE claims their technology can lower a building’s energy expenses by 15-30%. The company’s funding for this round comes from Battery Ventures and Rho Ventures. Battery’s Jason Matloft and Rho’s Joshua Ruch are now joining CUE’s board of directors. [TechCrunch]

MyBuys Raises $20 Million In Third Round Of Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:46:49 +0000

MyBuys is a a service that helps online retailers based on past preferences and behaviors. MyBuys gives product recommendations across multiple channels on websites, display ads, product alerts, direct mail, and mobile devices. MyBuys has raised a $20 million third round of funding led by Rho Ventures and participation from Lightspeed Ventures and Palomar Ventures. MyBuys plans on using the funding to accelerate the adoption and development of its personalization services.

“Our continued triple-digit growth rates enabled us to raise a significant amount of capital and will further separate our integrated, multi-channel personalization offering from single-channel, niche competitors. MyBuys’ powerful-integrated channel approach empowers our relationships between our brands and their consumers to deliver material increases in response rates and consumer-lifetime values,” stated MyBuys CEO Robert Cell. “We will invest the additional capital in developing more innovative one-to-one marketing offerings and increase our client-facing team members to capitalize on the vast market opportunities available to us.”

For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2010 MyBuys doubled their 2009 revenues. The company also added 225 new clients in 2010. They also provide multi-channel personalization services to over 300 companies. MyBuys helped optimize the shopping experience for companies through mobile devices including the iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry.

Tapjoy Raises $21 Million Led By Rho Ventures

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:43:32 +0000

Tapjoy, the company formerly known as Offerpal, has raised $21 million in funding from Rho Ventures. Tapjoy is recouping from bad PR after TechCrunch exposed them for misleading users to fill out online offers in exchange for virtual currency. Tapjoy recently announced a new product to help developers distribute applications across multiple platforms. Tapulous, Glu, and Playdom are a few of Tapjoy’s 5,000 develop partners. Tapjoy now has a total of $40 million in funding. [paidContent]

TOTSY Raises $5 Million Series A

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:40:30 +0000

TOTSY is a private sales website made for moms of younger children. The website has raised $5 million in Series A funding from DFJ Gotham and Rho Ventures. TOTSY recently acquired the member base of their competitor bTrendie. Below is the full press release:

TOTSY Closes $5 Million Series A Funding

Financing from DFJ Gotham and Rho Ventures will support expansion and solidify TOTSY’s leadership in online private sales for parents, babies and kids
NEW YORK, Nov. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — TOTSY (http://www.totsy.com), the private sale site exclusively dedicated to delivering deals on coveted must-haves for moms and children, announced today the close of its Series A round of financing. The $5 million round was led by DFJ Gotham and Rho Ventures.

Within just one year of launch, TOTSY has emerged as the dominant player serving the moms, babies and kids verticals in the online private sales. TOTSY’s strong performance and speedy customer acquisition exemplify high demand for its offering and verify that parents are eager to purchase top quality products for the family through the increasingly popular private sale model. Influential venture capital firms DFJ Gotham and Rho Ventures are backing TOTSY to fuel continued expansion of market share. The Series A follows TOTSY’s recent acquisition of competitor bTrendie’s member base, which secured TOTSY as the leading private sale site dedicated to kids and parents in the U.S.

“As the private sale channel continues to transform the retail industry, TOTSY has demonstrated its leadership in the children’s products category,” commented Danny Schultz, Managing Director at DFJ Gotham Ventures and a member of TOTSY’s Board of Directors. “TOTSY has generated tremendous customer growth since its inception, a testament to the team’s expertise and their innovative offering for both brands and TOTSY’s loyal customers. We look forward to helping them accelerate their growth and dominate the space.”

The private sale site category has achieved striking success in the US and globally in recent years, with leading domestic players such as Gilt Groupe (http://www.gilt.com) and Rue La La (http://www.ruelala.com) collectively expected to bring in over $600 million in 2010. Vente-Privee (http://www.vente-privee.com), category originator and French private sale site launched in 2001, is rumored to have posted nearly $1 billion in gross global sales in 2009.

“The parent market in the U.S. has been growing steadily over recent years and offers one of the most powerful growth opportunities for the retail industry. Our sales and vendor sentiment at the recent ABC Kids Expo overwhelmingly confirm that TOTSY’s online private sale distribution channel answers an urgent need for both our partner brands and American families. This funding will help us to meet this demand as quickly as possible,” commented Guillaume Gauthereau, Co-founder and CEO of TOTSY.

Christophe Garnier, Co-founder, President and CMO of TOTSY states, “We welcome the addition of such respected investors to our team and look forward to applying this financing to develop and execute strategic deals that will continue to drive TOTSY’s rapid growth.”

About TOTSY
Headquartered in New York, TOTSY is a privately held company dedicated to providing its members with access to coveted and essential products and brands designed for expecting moms, parents, babies and kids at sample sale prices. Shopping events are designer-specific and held over a 72 hour period. Membership is free of charge and by invitation only. For more information, please visit www.totsy.com.

About DFJ Gotham
DFJ Gotham Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City focused primarily on digital and social media, financial technology, e-commerce, mobile and infrastructure startups. DFJ Gotham Ventures partners with extraordinary teams of entrepreneurs to build strong and successful businesses that make a huge impact in their industries. A member of the DFJ network of funds, DFJ Gotham Ventures takes pride in being an active partner, leveraging its experience, knowledge and relationships to provide substantial value to its portfolio companies. For more information, please visit www.dfjgotham.com.

About Rho Ventures
For nearly 30 years, Rho Ventures has been investing in leading edge, high growth companies at multiple stages of growth spanning early, venture-stage investments to later stage, growth equity transactions. Rho has participated in the growth of some of today’s most innovative and successful companies, including Ciena, Capstone Turbine, Compaq Computer, EverdayHealth, Intralinks, iVillage, ReachLocal, Tacoda, Tripod, and Yantra. Rho Ventures is currently investing from Rho Ventures VI, a $510 million fund. The firm has offices in New York City, Palo Alto and Montreal, with investments across the globe. For more information, please visit www.rho.com.

SOURCE TOTSY

Travel Ad Network Raises $15 Million In Series C

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:02:36 +0000

Travel Ad Network is an advertising network that focuses on travel content. Travel Ad Network works with about 300 travel websites including Lonely Planet and Hawaii.com. Their network reaches about 20 million unique U.S. visitors per month. Travel Ad Network’s revenue has increased 30% over this past year. To keep growing their network, the company has raised $15 million in a third round of funding. This round was led by StarVest Partners. Other investors in this round include Rho Venture and Village Ventures. [paidContent]

ChaCha Raises $20 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:19:39 +0000

ChaCha is a mobile Q&A service that has raised $20 million. This brings the company’s total funding to about $72 million. This round of funding was led by Rho Ventures and VantagePoint. This money will be used for additional company growth. ChaCha receives about 15 million monthly unique visitors per month between their online and mobile platforms. [AllThingsD]

Social Business Application Company 7 Degrees Raises $6.8 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:23:04 +0000

7 Degrees is a start-up company that builds social business applications. One of their flagship products is called PeopleMaps. 7 Degrees has raised $6.8 million in Series B funding from Rho Ventures, vSpring Capital, and Parkview Ventures. The company has raised a total of $8 million thus far.

7 Degrees started in 2007 and launched PeopleMaps in October 2009. PeopleMaps allows professionals to find out how they are connected to people or companies.

7 Degrees searches connects all of your contacts from Microsoft Outlook, Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, and Yahoo! It also searches the Internet for public information. The engine uses “connection paths” to determine how you are connected to other contacts or companies. 7 Degrees is based in Utah and is led by CEO Timothy Sheehan.

[TechCrunch]

Publisher Ad Network NetShelter Raises $15 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:17:04 +0000

Publisher ad network NetShelter is an advertising network that powers ads for websites such as MacRumors.com, SlashGear.com, CrackBerry.com, etc. has raised $15 million in a second round of funding. NetShelter’s network saw about 133 million unique visitors this August.

Peyman Nilforoush said that they are not focusing on websites that have a high number of readers and hits, but they are most interested in websites that focuses on specific product areas. NetShelter had a 75% increase in revenue between 2008 and 2009.

The new round of funding was led by Rho Ventures. Other investors include Rho Canada and JLA Ventures. Brothers Peyman and Pirouz Nilforoush founded NetShelter in 1999, but did not launch the ad network until 2006.

[VentureBeat]

Vidyo Raises $25 Million From Four Rivers, Rho, Sevin Rosen, and Star Ventures

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 03:37:08 +0000

Video conferencing company Vidyo has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by Four Rivers Group, Menlo Ventures, Rho Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Star Ventures. Vidyo has raised a total of $63 million since they started in 2005. About a year ago Vidyo raised $15 million. The additional funding will go towards expanding their sales and marketing efforts. [NewTeeVee]