Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » RRE 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.

Quirky Raises $16 Million

Riley Kennysmith — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:31:53 +0000

Crowdsourcing product development social network Quirky has raised $16 million in funding. Investors include Norwest Venture partners and RRE Ventures. The site connects inventors and entrepreneurs with participants who collaborate to help create a successful product. Quirky is also the subject of a reality series slated to air on the Sundance Channel at the end of August. [TechCrunch]

Social Media Platform Company SocialFlow Raises $7 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:35:11 +0000

SocialFlow is a social media platform company that teaches brands how to use Twitter in effective ways. SocialFlow uses data analysis to help brands come up with what kind of tweets to send out. SocialFlow has some solid revenues and shows evidence of long-term growth. This is why investors have put $7 million into the company in a Series A round of funding.

SocialFlow had access to Twitter’s data before but on a trial basis. Since Twitter enjoyed what SocialFlow is doing with their data, they gave them broader access. “This is exactly what we want to see out of the ecosystem,” stated Twitter Platform lead Ryan Sarver. “These guys are building a real business,”

Softbank, RRE Ventures, Betaworks, High Line Venture Partners, AOL Ventures, SV Angel, and several other angel investors were involved in this round.

[TechCrunch]

Mobile Messaging Startup Kik Interactive Raises $8 Million In Series A

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:01:26 +0000

Mobile messaging startup company Kik Interactive has raised $8 million in Series A funding from RRE Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Spark Capital. Fred Wilson (Union Square) and Adam Ludwin (RRE) are joining the Kik board of directors as a result of the funding. Kik Messenger launched in October 2010 and it works similarly as the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). After downloading Kik, the app will scan your contacts and let you know which of your friends have Kik. Kik hit about 1 million users within the first 15 days of launching to the public. Today Kik has over 3 million users. [Kik Press Release]

Solvate Raises $4 Million In Series B

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:04:31 +0000

Solvate is a company where employers and professionals collaborate in the cloud. The company has raised $4 million in Series B funding from Michael Paolucci, RRE Ventures, and DFJ Gotham. Solvate raised a total of $6.3 million in funding. Solvate is basically a Talent Search engine to match companies with consultants and freelancers. Solvate plans on using the funding to enhance the user interface and expand their client portfolio. [TechCrunch]

AdaptiveBlue Raises $6 Million From Time Warner, Union Square, and RRE

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:10:12 +0000

AdaptiveBlue, the company behind the social recommendations application GetGlue, has raised $6 million. According to the SEC filing, AdaptiveBlue raised the funding from Time Warner, RRE Ventures, and Union Square Ventures.

The GetGlue iPhone application works in a way that is similar to Foursquare. But instead of checking into venues, you check into “Watching a Show,” “Listening to Music,” “Reading a Book,” “Watching a Movie,” “Playing a Video Game,” “Thinking about a Topic,” “Chatting about a Celebrity,” and “Drinking Wine.” You can share this check-in
on Facebook and Twitter. The app has badges just like Foursquare does.

When I first wrote about AdaptiveBlue in May 2007, they were known for making a Firefox plugin that recommends information that is relevant to your web surfing habits.

[TechCrunch]

Online Dating Service HowAboutWe Raises $3.1 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:53:14 +0000

HowAboutWe is an online dating service that has raised $3.1 million in a series A round of funding. The series A round of funding was led by RRE Ventures. HowAboutWe is different in the sense that it encourages actual dates instead of online activities like web-cam meetings. HowAboutWe will be using the funding to build additional staff. Other investors in this round include Founder Collective, LaunchTime, Josh Kushner, George Kliavkoff, and several other angel investors. [BusinessInsider]

Bit.ly Raises $8.9 Million In Series B Financing

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:48:42 +0000

Popular URL shortening and analytics service Bit.ly has raised $8.9 million in Series B financing. This round of funding was led by AOL Ventures and RRE Ventures. Existing investors include Betaworks, O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, Founders Fund, and SV Angel. Every day about 200 million Bit.ly short links are clicked on through Twitter and other services. Even though Bit.ly is no longer the default URL shortening service for Twitter, the traffic continues to grow for the service.

Bit.ly currently has 17 employees and their first source of revenues came from Bit.ly Pro accounts. They signed up about 3,000 companies and 1,000 power Twitter users. Bit.ly is working with The New York Times on a project called News.me, which is expected to launch soon. [TechCrunch]

BuzzFeed Raises $8 Million From RRE Ventures, Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, Others

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:38:59 +0000

BuzzFeed is a New York-based website that has raised $8 million from RRE Ventures, Ron Conway, and Chris Dixon. BuzzFeed raised a $3.5 million Series A in 2008 from Hearst, Softbank, and Ken Lerer — who all participated in this round also. BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti was also one of the founding partners in The Huffington Post.

Essentially BuzzFeed tracks everything that is viral, whether it is videos or news stories. “We built a viral analytics platform that tracks how consumers interact with media in realtime and a viral advertising platform that sends more traffic to the content that is actually working. So we optimize content for viral distribution using realtime data and we make money through viral advertising on our site and network,” stated Peretti. BuzzFeed receives 3 million unique visitors per month. Currently BuzzFeed has roughly 12 employees, but they plan to scale up to 25.

Xobni Raises $16.2 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:07:16 +0000

Xobni, the company that built a social media platform around Microsoft Outlook has raised $16.2 million in funding according to a filing with the SEC. Khosla Ventures and RRE Ventures led the round of funding in the company. Xobni shows your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Hoover’s contacts within Outlook and can reveal past attachments from contacts. Xobni recently launched an email app for the BlackBerry too. Xobni previously raised $15 million from Y-Combinator, Khosla Ventures, Cisco, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, BlackBerry Partners Fund, and Atomico Investments. Will Posterous of RRE Ventures has joined as a new board of director as Xobni. [VentureBeat]