Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Sierra Ventures

Payvment Raises $6 Million In Series B

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:14:47 +0000

Payvment is a start-up company that lets you create and operate virtual stores through Facebook. Payvment has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by Sierra Ventures with participation from BlueRun Ventures. Payvment has raised a total of $8 million in funding thus far.

You can sell products through Payvment and import photos through the application. Once you set up a virtual shop on Facebook, it will appear as a separate tab on your personal profile. Payvment launched in November 2009 and over 40,000 people and businesses have sold goods on Facebook. About 500,000 people on Facebook have shopped for products through Payvment. The company recently announced ability for businesses to provide instant discounts and coupons through the Payvment application to Facebook Fans. Payvment users can also review items within stores. Payvment plans to use the funding to hire engineering and community support employees.

[TechCrunch]

Ooyala Raises $22 Million Fourth Round Of Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:27:17 +0000

Online video platform startup company Ooyala has raised $22 million as a fourth round of funding. The company plans to use the funding in order to expand global operations. Ooyala has raised $42 million over the last 3 years. This new round of funding was led by CID Group, ITOCHU Technology Investments, Sierra Ventures, and Rembrandt Venture Partners. [paidContent]

Ooyala Raises $10 Million From Rembrandt and Sierra

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:29:52 +0000

Ooyala is a video start-up company that has raised $10 million in Series C funding. The funding will be used for aggressive growth, partnerships, and international expansion. Investors in the company include Rembrandt Venture Partners and Sierra Ventures. Ooyala created a platform called Backlot which is used for publishing and monetizing videos. Some of Ooyala’s customers include Warner Brothers and Electronic arts.

Ooyala was founded by three former employees at Google in 2007. So far the company has raised $20 million in funding. This past August, the company hired Jay Fulcher as the CEO. “We will probably be doubling, possibly even tripling our operation (from over 60 staff) over the next 12 months,” stated Fulcher in an interview with paidContent.

Goodbye NebuAd

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:54:52 +0000

Due to a class action lawsuit, NebuAd will be calling it quits. Last year NebuAd had to lay off most of their staff in order to cut costs too. Rather than bleeding more cash, NebuAd will be giving their assets to creditors and will “cease to exist as an ongoing concern” according to court documents.

The shutting down of NebuAd will be seen as a failed investment by venture capital firms Menlo Ventures and Sierra Ventures. Both companies invested $20 million into NebuAd around September 2007.

NebuAd was an advertising company based in Redwood City, California. NebuAd sought deals with ISPs for behavioral targeting purposes. At one point, NebuAd had enough partnerships to cover 10% of the broadband population in America.

The company faced a substantial amount of controversy that led to their downfall. Back in July NebuAd CEO Bob Dykes appeared in front of the House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee and admitted to collect information from people without their permission.

Four months later, a group of people filed a lawsuit against NebuAd and six ISP companies for the tracking activities. Will NebuAd be missed? Very unlikely.

[via WSJ]

Flypaper Raises $3.5 Million For Online Flash Design Interface

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:10:43 +0000

Flypaper Studio makes it easy for anyone to create, edit, and build upon Adobe Flash presentations through it’s online interface. Flypaper features a simple drag & drop interface. Users can click on Themes, Text, Chapters, Shapes, Buttons, Audio, and Media. When all of the chapters of the Flash presentation is complete, users can preview their presentation on the Web and then publish it to web sites, social networks, and blogs.

Flypaper launched the Pro version in the last couple of weeks. Flypaper Pro allows users to track viewer stats, capture the data of users that watch presentations, the ability to add animated charts, and gives 1GB of space on Flypaper servers. Pro is available for $145 for now and then the price will go up to $195 in the near future.

Flypaper launched in January 2008 at the DEMO Conference in California this past January. One month later, Flypaper raised $3 million in Series A from Sierra Ventures and SCF Arizona. Sierra Ventures and SCF Arizona also participated in this round of funding bringing Flypaper’s total funding to $6.5 million.

Flypaper was founded by Don Pierson and is run by CEO Pat Sullivan.

Related Links:
1. Flypaper.com
2. TechCrunch

Flypaper Studio, Inc. Launches At DEMO 08′ and Raises $3 Million Series A

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:19:03 +0000

Flypaper Studio, Inc. is a media software company that announced recently that they have raised $3 million in Series A.Â The funding was provided by Menlo Park’s Sierra Ventures and Phoenix’s SCF Arizona.Â

“We can easily see how Flypaper solves a problem for businesses, while providing something very simple and attractive for consumer use as well,” stated David Schwab, MD of Sierra Ventures. “Early recognition of Flypaper has been substantial. With Pat Sullivan and his team leading the way, we anticipate growth of the company and success of the product to come very quickly.”

Flypaper launched at DEMO 2008 in late January and won the DEMOgod award.Â Flypaper allows users to download a software that makes it easy to create and edit Flash content.Â Flypaper has templates that can be downloaded and edited from the website.Â Below is Pat Sullivan, CEO of Flypaper’s presentation at DEMO:

Recent Tech Funding: NebuAd Raises $20 Million For Behavioral Targeting Network Services

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 04:56:19 +0000

NebuAd is a Redwood City, Calif. based behavioral targeting company that works with Internet Service Providers to determine how advertisers should design their media for different markets.Â The names of the ISPs they work with seems to be confidential and undisclosed on their website.Â

“NebuAd combines this web-wide view of pages navigated, searches performed, ads clicked, etc., with the industryâ€™s most accurate targeting capabilities, matching consumer interests across more than 1,000 categories. And all of this is done without collecting and using any personally identifiable information,” states their Advertisers Overview page.

The investors of NebuAd includes Menlo Ventures and Sierra Ventures.Â NebuAd has roughly $30 million in funding and has ambitious plans for operation expansion.Â Considering the market opportunities, its an excellent time to sell services related advertising analytics such as those provided by NebuAd.Â Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and AOL have all acquired digital advertising companies for billions of dollars, thus indicating that such opportunities will be around for a long time now.