[TechCrunch]

“Groupon has acquired Uptake, and we’re excited to continue to build the Palo Alto engineering team with an all-star roster of startup founders and experts in the mobile and social space,” said Groupon in a statement. Uptake has raised $14 million in funding from Trinity Ventures and Shasta Ventures.

[TechCrunch]

The Nest Learning Thermostat uses artificial intelligence to report when to turn down the heat and when to increase the air conditioner so that you don’t waste money. You can also communicate with the Nest Learning Thermostat using your mobile device.

Fadell thought of the the thermostat idea when he was building a green home in Tahoe. He was very involved in the design of the house and wanted it to be as beautiful as the products he worked on at Apple. When the architects showed him the option for thermostats, Fadell thought all of them were ugly.

“What was wrong with them?” said Fadell in an interview with Wired. “They were ugly. They were confusing. They were incredibly expensive. They didn’t have half the features you would expect for a modern thing. None of them were connected, so they didn’t talk to each other. I wasn’t able to remotely control them. In Tahoe, you want to be able check on the temperature of the house or turn it on before you get there. Because it’s really cold in the winter. I couldn’t do any of that, and I was like, Why is this?”

Thermostats had not changed much in many decades and the most popular thermostat was the Honeywell Round. The Round was designed by Henry Dreyfus in 1953.

“Thermostats are made by very large companies with no incentive to innovate,” said Fadell. “Their customers are contractors or HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning] wholesalers, not consumers. So why spend to make them better? It’s a good business.” Fadell estimated there are about 100 million homes in the U.S. and each one has between one and two thermostats, which means that there is about 150 million thermostats in homes out there. In commercial spaces, there is about another 100 million thermostats. And every year 10 million thermostats are sold in residential spaces.

One of the first engineers that Nest Labs hired was a cell phone engineer named Shige Honjo, a program manager for the iPhone. “Think of all the air conditioning that runs in empty houses — it wastes hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and that’s Alabama alone!” said Fadell when he was pitching another early employee named David Sloo.

Some of the investors in Nest includes Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Intertrust, and Generation Investment Management. Through Generation Investment, Al Gore is an investor in Nest Labs. Gore was inspired by a demo that Fadell gave at TED.

BankSimple was co-founded by CEO Joshua Reich, CFO Shamir Karkal, and CTO Alex Payne. BankSimple aims to make banking less complicated by providing a way for people to save money. BankSimple also wants to make it possible to track transactions in real-time.

[TC]

Movieclips also signed a deal with YouTube that allows them to license Hollywood HD movie clips. All video clips will have ads that will be shared between YouTube, Movieclips, and the studios.

“There’s a sea of content that can add to a YouTube user’s movie experience thanks to Movieclips.com…We’re excited to be working with Movieclips.com to provide users with exactly what they’re looking for when they want to get more into movies on YouTube,” stated YouTube Product Marketing Manager for Music, Movies, and Shows Camille Hearst.

The new round of funding will be used for doubling down on the YouTube opportunity. Movieclips will be integrated into mobile and social platforms too.

[TechCrunch]

Below is the company press release:

Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) May 10, 2011

LiquidSpace, the mobile application that helps anyone find a great space to work, today announced that the company has secured $3.6 million of new funding in a Series A round led by Shasta Ventures with follow-on participation from FloodGate. While the app is currently in a controlled beta in the San Francisco Bay Area, LiquidSpace will apply the new resources towards expanding the company’s presence nationally, commencing with a launch of the service and app in Q2 of 2011.

“LiquidSpace is uniquely positioned to offer the growing number of mobile workers access to a variety of public and private workspaces,” said Mark Gilbreath, Co-Founder and CEO of LiquidSpace. “Shasta is an ideal investment partner for us because of their ability to help us capitalize on future growth and strategic opportunities. Tod and his team understand this opportunity intimately, they have lived its ins and outs, and they have the relationships we need to accelerate our rollout.”

Tod Francis, Shasta’s Managing Director, will be joining the company’s board alongside Mike Maples of FloodGate Fund and LiquidSpace co-founders Mark Gilbreath, CEO, and Doug Marinaro, COO.

“There is a significant need among mobile workers and an expansive supply of underutilized office space. LiquidSpace has developed a mobile platform that addresses these consumer needs,” Tod Francis, Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, stated. “We truly believe in this market and product. LiquidSpace is intuitive and useful. They are establishing the right partnerships, and they are well-positioned to capitalize on the distinct need for great workspace on-the-go.”

This funding news comes against the backdrop of a continuing evolution within the workplace, supporting a new and extraordinarily large market opportunity. Increasingly, workers are leaving work to get work done. In fact, as of 2011, there are already over 1 billion mobile workers in the world, and 110 million in the U.S. alone according to a report by IDC. This growth is being fueled by the convergence of mobile technologies, an increasingly collaborative and distributed workforce and companies rethinking their real estate strategies in pursuit of economic and environmental sustainability.

This is the second time the company has formally raised venture capital since its founding in 2010. The company previously closed a $1.3 million seed round led by Reid Hoffman of the Greylock Discovery Fund and Mike Maples of FloodGate. LiquidSpace’s funding to-date totals $4.9 million.

The new monies from Shasta and FloodGate will assist LiquidSpace with ambitious plans for continued growth and new hires. To date, LiquidSpace has officially launched four workspaces within the Bay Area: RocketSpace, NextSpace, and Pacific Business Centers in San Mateo and San Francisco.

LiquidSpace is actively seeking relationships with major corporations, venues and hospitality providers that can help support mobile workers locally and nationally. LiquidSpace is partnered with Turnstone, a division of the world’s largest office furniture manufacturer, Steelcase. Turnstone is looking for new ways of supporting the workspace needs of emerging companies. According to General Manager, Kevin Kuske, “Turnstone believes everyone has the right to a smart workplace, no matter where they are in business, or in life. Through their eyes, we are reminded of how simple and smart have the capacity to unleash the power of space for anyone, regardless of how creative or deep their wallet may be.” Turnstone will be joining with LiquidSpace to connect mobile workers with the types of spaces they are both comfortable and effective working in.

The company recently debuted at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas, where attendees and VIP’s were able to download the LiquidSpace iPhone app and reserve unique places to work, on-the-go. User adoption and press attention were unusually strong, building momentum in advance of the Bay Area launch.

For more information, please visit www.LiquidSpace.com.

About LiquidSpace
LiquidSpace is a location-based mobile application that lets you find the workspace you need, when you need it, wherever you are. You can book space in high-end business centers, hip startup co-working spaces, or hotel conference rooms. You can even unlock private spaces for meetings at offices that have space to share.

With LiquidSpace on your phone, you always see the best workspace available nearby, right now. You can book space for 15 minutes or a day, invite your collaborators, and check-in securely to unlock access to Internet, printers, phones, parking and more.

For more information, visit: www.LiquidSpace.com or follow us on Twitter at @LiquidSpace.

About Shasta Ventures
Shasta Ventures is an early-stage investment firm focused on companies in the consumer Internet, mobile and software sectors. Shasta was formed to back brilliant entrepreneurs with an unwavering commitment to the customer experience. The firm is based in Menlo Park, California.

For more information, go to www.shastaventures.com, or follow us on Twitter at @shastavc.

About FloodGate
FloodGate is a Silicon Valley based, early-stage micro-VC fund focused on start-ups that fundamentally disrupt existing large markets or create new market categories. The firm currently works with consumer-focused companies such as Twitter, Chegg, ngmoco, digg, Modcloth, Kno, Stipple, and Smule, as well as business-focused companies such as Solarwinds, Spiceworks, Demandforce, Egnyte, and YuMe Networks.

For more information, visit www.floodgate.com.

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]

[TechCrunch]