Tag Archives: RRE Ventures
Incubator Firm Betaworks Raises $20 Million In Second Round of Funding
Betaworks is an incubator firm that is based in New York. The incubator firm has raised $20 million in a second round of funding. Betaworks primarily invests in web startup companies. The firm was started by AOL veterans John Borthwick and Andrew Weisman. So far Betaworks has made investments in about 24 companies including Bit.ly, TweetDeck, Twitterfeed, and Chartbeat. The investment was led by Intel Capital. RRE Ventures, Softbank, Founders Collective, AOL Ventures, DFJ Growth, and The New York Times also participated. The last round of funding was $8 million. [GigaOm]
LLOYD!!… I Mean Solvate Raises $2.3 Million.
Ari Gold has Lloyd, but not all of us can have an assistant that is as handy as the Entourage character. The problem with business today is that sometimes administrative tasks may take as much time as important jobs.
Solvate is a startup company that has just raised $2.3 million to help you find an assistant. Julie Ruvolo, the co-founder and COO of the company considers today to be the company’s real laucnh date even though the company was first noticed back in March. The investors in this round include RRE Ventures and DFJ Gotham Ventures Solvate recently redesigned their website too.
The website works like this: first you tell Solvate what you would like to have accomplished. The company finds who is the most qualified and charges you for every 5 minute increments of work with a rate of about $25 per hour. The company contracted can be contacted by the client through e-mail or phone. Some of the tasks that can be done include PowerPoint presentations, expense report management, sale management, and trip planning.
“There’s this hegemonic Valley mentality that the way to scale is automation,” stated Ruvolo in an interview with VentureBeat. However Solvate does not believe in automation as much as they believe in human interaction and involvement. And I couldn’t agree with them more. I’ve used eLance before and it seems like that there isn’t much human interaction at all.
Categories DFJ Gotham, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Julie Ruvolo, RRE Ventures, Solvate
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News Filter and Feed, SkyGrid Raises $11 Million
SkyGrid is a news aggregation and filtering service that is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. SkyGrid has announced that they have raised $11 million as part of their Series B round of funding. The lead investor was RRE Ventures. Previous investor, BlackRock also participated. Other previous investors includes Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Esther Dyson, a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.
SkyGrid scans millions of news sources and then filters out the important information. SkyGrid was started in 2005 and is run by Kevin Pomplun. SkyGrid looks very similar to Bloomberg’s software, but positive news stories are color coded green, negative stories are color coded red, and neutral are white. Below is a screen shot from GigaOM.
SkyGrid has applied for several patents on their “sentiment algorithm” and seven other components of their search technology. I haven’t seen any other search engine provide color-coded company stories and blog posts so I am definetely impressed.
SkyGrid’s services are about $500 per month. The last round of funding added up to about $2.25 million.
Related Links:
1. SkyGrid
2. paidContent
Categories BlackRock Inc., Draper Fisher Jurvetson, RRE Ventures, SkyGrid
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Digital Marketing Company, iCrossing Has Raised $62 Million
iCrossing is a digital marketing company founded in 1998. The company has raised $62 million in a fifth round of investment that brings their total round of funding to $110 million. The $62 million investment was received from Goldman-Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and several other investors.
“iCrossing is at the forefront of developing search and social media strategies that engages not alienates users,” stated Richard Rosenblatt, the chairman of iCrossing. “The market is responding and iCrossing has seized a leadership position in the digital space. With CEO Jeff Herzog’s vision for the future, there are sure to be even bigger things to come.”
What does iCrossing actually do? An example of their work includes developing a solution to make PR Newswire mobile. PR Newswire is a press release website. Essentially, this would benefit journalists all over the world. Other major clients include Coca-Cola, Colgate, GM, Office Depot, and Travelocity.
Investors in iCrossing include:
1.) Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS): Goldman Sachs is a global investment and securities firm based in New York. Goldman Sachs focuses on investment banking, asset management, and trading and principal investments. Some of Goldman Sachs’ case studies are available at: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/insight/case_studies/.
2.) Oak Investment Partners: is a venture capital firm with $8.4 billion in committed capital. Some of the consumer Internet investments that Oak participated in includes aQuantive (acquired by Microsoft for $6 billion), Connexus Corporation, Fastclick, Inc. (acquired by ValueClick), and Shop.com
3.) RRE Ventures: RRE is a venture capital firm that manages $850 million in assets. Some of the companies that RRE has invested in includes WeddingChannel.com, Stockback (acquired by Vesdia), SmarterKids.com, Pinnacor (acquired by MarketWatch), and eMachines.
4.) StarVest Partners L.P.: is a private equity company that has $150 million in assets. Companies that StarVest invested in include Tibersoft Corporation, Newgistics Inc., NetSuite Inc., Connected Corporation (acquired by Iron Mountain Inc.), and Insurance.com
References:
[1] iCrossing press release: Goldman Sachs and Oak Investment Partners Lead Investment in Digital Marketing Leader iCrossing
For further details, refer to iCrossing’s website: www.icrossing.com
Categories Goldman-Sachs, iCrossing, Oak Investment Partners, RRE Ventures
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