Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » SV Angel http://pulse2.com Sun, 27 May 2012 19:13:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Socialcam Raises Funding From 46 Angel Investors http://pulse2.com/2012/04/30/socialcam-raises-funding-from-46-angel-investors/ http://pulse2.com/2012/04/30/socialcam-raises-funding-from-46-angel-investors/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:38:13 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=60573 Continue reading →]]> Socialcam Icon
Socialcam is an iPhone app that spun off of video sharing website Justin.tv last year as part of Y Combinators winter 2012 class. Socialcam has raised seed funding from 46 well known angel investors. Socialcam’s fiercest competitor is Viddy. They have been fighting back and forth as the top Photo & Video app recently. Socialcam has reportedly surpassed the 20 million user mark. Below is a list of all of the investors involved as compiled by TechCrunch.

Brian Chesky – CEO, Airbnb
Jonathan Abrams – Partner, Founders Den
Jason Johnson – Partner, Founders Den
Zachary Bogue – Partner, Founders Den
Michael Levit – Partner, Founders Den
Jeff Kapel – Assistant Coach, Duke Basketball
Ari Emmanuel & Jason Lublin – WME
Trajan Langdon – Retired NBA Basketball Player
Yuri Milner & Felix Shpilman – Startfund
Troy Carter & Allison Streuter – Atom Factory
SV Angel – Ron, David, Kevin, Topher, Robert
Crunchfund – Michael, MG, Patrick
Paul Buchheit – Inventor of Gmail, Founder FriendFeed, Partner Y-Combinator
Garry Tan – Partner Y-Combinator, Co-Founder Posterous
Alexis Ohanian – Partner Y-Combinator, Co-Founder Reddit
Harj Taggar – Partner Y-Combinator, Co-Founder Auctomatic
Paul Graham – Co-founder Y-Combinator
Jessica Livingston – Partner Y-Combinator
Tim Draper – Draper Associates
Stewart Alsop – Alsop Louie
Erik Moore – Angel investor in Zappos
Justin Kan – Co-Founder EXEC, Co-Founder Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
Emmett Shear – CEO & Co-Founder Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
Kyle Vogt – Co-Founder Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
Matt Ocko – Angel Investor
A-Grade Investments – Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, and Chris Hollod
Ronny Conway – Andreessen Horowitz
Justin Caldbeck – Lightspeed
Shervin Pishevar – Menlo Ventures
Laurene Powell Jobs & Stacey Rubin – Emerson Collective
Ram Shiram – Sherpalo, Angel Investor in Google
Shane Battier – NBA Basketball player, Miami Heat
Michael Rapino & Michael Abrams – Live Nation

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/04/30/socialcam-raises-funding-from-46-angel-investors/feed/ 0 People Search Engine Ark Raises $4.2 Million In Seed Round http://pulse2.com/2012/04/25/people-search-engine-ark-raises-4-2-million-in-seed-round/ http://pulse2.com/2012/04/25/people-search-engine-ark-raises-4-2-million-in-seed-round/#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:55:34 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=60331 Continue reading →]]>
Ark is a people search engine launched at Y Combinator Demo Day that has raised $4.2 million in a seed round of funding. Ark crawls Facebook, RenRen, LinkedIn, and Twitter to find out as much data as possible. The founders at Ark got the idea for the startup when they found out that 30% of searches are for people.

In March 2012, Ark indexed over 1 billion people from their social networking data. About 250,000 people have signed up for beta invites.

The $4.2 million seed round is the largest that any Y Combinator has received. Investors in this round include Andreessen Horowitz, Charles River Ventures, Greylock Partners, Intel Capital, SV Angel, Atlas Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Expansion Venture Capital, and Felicis Ventures. Angel investors from Facebook, Salesforce.com, Qualcomm, and Microsoft also participated in this round.

Ark currently has 20 people on staff and they plan to hire more for their mobile and search engineering teams. Ark started in summer 2011 and their search engine was developed during the Y Combinator Winter Program.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/04/25/people-search-engine-ark-raises-4-2-million-in-seed-round/feed/ 0 Bebo Founders and Shareholders Suing Criterion Capital http://pulse2.com/2012/04/25/bebo-founders-and-shareholders-suing-criterion-capital/ http://pulse2.com/2012/04/25/bebo-founders-and-shareholders-suing-criterion-capital/#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:39:32 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=60304 Continue reading →]]>
Bebo co-founders Michael and Xochi Birch (MXB Holdings) along with SV Angel, Michael Jackson (TV executive), and Richard Hecker have filed a lawsuit against Criterion Capital Partners, who bought Bebo from AOL in June 2010. The group of investors were persuaded to put money into Bebo after Criterion acquired the social network, but the investors are alleging that Criteron was mismanaging the website and withheld information from them.

Their filing against Bebo alleges:

- Criterion “exploited” Bebo and was “fraudulent” by “using its operating capital to pay the salaries of Criterion’s staff” including $14,000 per month to Bebo CEO Adam Levin.
- Bebo operated for 20 months and “failed to hold a single board meeting or shareholder meeting.”
- Bebo had also defaulted their San Francisco lease and moved to Criterion’s L.A. headquarters without board approval.

The investors are suing the new Bebo owners for $5 million.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2012/04/25/bebo-founders-and-shareholders-suing-criterion-capital/feed/ 0 eBay Acquires Hunch For Roughly $80 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:20:04 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52997 Continue reading →]]>
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) will be announcing that they have acquired Hunch for around $80 million according to Michael Arrington. Hunch was started by Chris Dixon, Caterina Fake, Tom Pinckney, and Matt Gattis. Hunch has raised about $20 million in total funding since they launched.

Hunch is a start-up company that allows users to answer questions using crowd-sourcing techniques. Hunch will be used on eBay for recommendation technology to revamp their own e-commerce recommendations. Dixon will be responsible for the existing 50 person recommendations team and will be opening an office in New York.

The New York office will grow to about 200 employees that will focus on recommendations. The team will analyze a lot of eBay purchase and sales data to predict inflation or a potential recession.

Hunch was founded in 2008. In mid 2010 Google was rumored to be in talks with Hunch for an acquisition. Investors in Hunch includes General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.

[Uncrunched]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/22/ebay-acquires-hunch-for-roughly-80-million/feed/ 0 “YouTube For Businesses” Service Vidyard Raises $1.65 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/11/17/youtube-for-businesses-service-vidyard-raises-1-65-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/11/17/youtube-for-businesses-service-vidyard-raises-1-65-million/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:08:17 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52924 Continue reading →]]>
Vidyard is a company that is considered a “YouTube for Businesses.” The company has raised $1.65 million from SoftTech VC, Jawed Karim (YouTube co-founder), Y Combinator, SV Angel, iNovia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Paul Buchheit, Vivi Nevo, David Nizkad, Dennis Kavelman, and several others.

Vidyard launched in August and is intended for businesses to use as a marketing tool. Vidyard is similar to YouTube, but their video upload services links to the brand’s website rather than YouTube itself. Vidyard also has real-time analytics about embed performance and there is ad free video hosting. Video players can be branded and there is instant search technology.

Vidyard allows you to upload a video file or a video from YouTube. Then you can add a custom thumbnail and use 10 different player skins with different sizes and colors. You can also enable viral sharing on Twitter and Facebook.

Vidyard has also added the ability to push video content to YouTube channels, Facebook walls, and Twitter feeds today. You can also pull in YouTube analytics into your Vidyard Dashboard.

[TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/11/17/youtube-for-businesses-service-vidyard-raises-1-65-million/feed/ 0 Skillshare Raises $3.1 Million From Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital http://pulse2.com/2011/08/17/skillshare-raises-3-1-million-from-union-square-ventures-and-spark-capital/ http://pulse2.com/2011/08/17/skillshare-raises-3-1-million-from-union-square-ventures-and-spark-capital/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:09:05 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=50173 Continue reading →]]>
Skillshare is a P2P learning company that has raised $3.1 million in funding from Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. Skillshare is a platform that can help turn anyone into a teacher. Users can offer their own offline classes based on their skill. Skillshare takes 15% of the revenue.

Skillshare organized about 500 classes in New York with 2,500 students. Skillshare plans on using the additional funding to expand outside of New York. They are branching out to San Francisco and Philadelphia so far. The company plants to expand to Boston, Portland, Seattle, L.A., and New Orleans later this year.

Skillshare co-founder and CEO Michael Karnjanaprakorn believes Skillshare can continue to grow and start building physical schools. Fred Wilson of Union Square plans on offering MBA Mondays classes on the website this fall. Skillshare previously raised $550,000 in a seed round of funding from Founder Collective, SV Angel, and other angel investors.

[GigaOM]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/08/17/skillshare-raises-3-1-million-from-union-square-ventures-and-spark-capital/feed/ 0 BankSimple Raises $10 Million Led By IA Ventures http://pulse2.com/2011/08/15/banksimple-raises-10-million-led-by-ia-ventures/ http://pulse2.com/2011/08/15/banksimple-raises-10-million-led-by-ia-ventures/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:32:16 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=50034 Continue reading →]]>
BankSimple has announced $10 million in funding led by IA Ventures and previous investor Shasta Ventures. This is BankSimple’s Series B round of funding. The company previously raised $3.1 million in their Series A round. The company’s seed investors include IA Ventures, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Village Ventures, etc. That is not the only thing that the company had announced. They also made some partnerships.

BankSimple made partnerships with CBW Bank, Allpoint, Visa, The Bancorp Bank, TxVIA, and Andera. BankSimple is currently in stealth mode. The company should be opening up by the end of the year and will be sending cards out to their family and friends soon to test out.

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]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/08/15/banksimple-raises-10-million-led-by-ia-ventures/feed/ 0 ZeroCater Raises $1.5 Million To Help You Plan Office Lunches http://pulse2.com/2011/08/15/zerocater-raises-1-5-million-to-help-you-plan-office-lunches/ http://pulse2.com/2011/08/15/zerocater-raises-1-5-million-to-help-you-plan-office-lunches/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:07:19 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=50015 Continue reading →]]>
ZeroCater is a startup that plans to help you plan lunchtime for you office by handling the logistics around it. The company recently announced $1.5 million in funding. Previous investors include StartFund (SV Angel and Yuri Milner) and Y Combinator.

ZeroCater removes the hassle of ordering lunch for employees on a regular basis. When companies sign up, they tell ZeroCenter how many employees need to be fed and if there is any special dietary requests. ZeroCenter works out deals with the restaurants too. ZeroCenter also tries to rotate different restaurants so you don’t get sick of the same food.

ZeroCater is currently based in the Bay Area of California. ZeroCater co-founder Arram Sabeti plans on using the additional funding to expand into other areas with New York being the next target. Some of the other previous investors in ZeroCater include Keith Rabois, Paul Buccheit, Vaizra International, Felix Shpilman, Stewart Alsop, Justin Kan, Emmet Shear, Othman Laraki, Gabor Cselle, Mark Friedgan, Alexander Goldstein, and Starling Ventures.

[TC]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/08/15/zerocater-raises-1-5-million-to-help-you-plan-office-lunches/feed/ 0 Gay Social Network Fab.com Raises $8 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/07/28/gay-social-network-fab-com-raises-8-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/07/28/gay-social-network-fab-com-raises-8-million/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:56:14 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=49066 Continue reading →]]>
Fab.com is a social network for gay men that used to be known as Fabulis. Fab.com has raised $8 million in Series A funding.

The Series A funding was from Menlo Ventures, First Round Capital, Baroda Ventures, The Washington Post, Jason Goldberg, SoftTech VC, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, A-Grade Investments, and Zelkova Ventures. Angel investors in this round included Kevin Rose, Jon Anderson, Don Baer, Josh Kusher, Dave Morgan, Ben Ling, and David Tisch. Fab.com’s seed round of funding was $1 million from Ashton Kutcher, SV Angel, SoftTech VC, First Round Capital, Baroda Ventures, and The Washington Post.

Fab.com has daily design inspirations and flash sales that provides 70% off of the retail cost. Membership to Fab.com is free, but the number of users are capped to maintain the low prices. Fab.com launched on June 9, 2011 and they have 350,000 registered users. Fab.com reported a profit of $1.3 million in the first 30 days of the debut. The company currently has about 45 employees.

[TechCrunch]

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/07/28/gay-social-network-fab-com-raises-8-million/feed/ 0 MemSQL Raises $2.1 Million From Multiple Investors http://pulse2.com/2011/07/17/memsql-raises-2-1-million-from-multiple-investors/ http://pulse2.com/2011/07/17/memsql-raises-2-1-million-from-multiple-investors/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 04:41:11 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=48571 Continue reading →]]>
MemSQL has raised $2.1 million in seed funding from First Round Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Start Fund, SV Angel, Y Combinator, Ashton Kutcher, Paul Bucheit, Sam Altman, Guy Oseary, and several others. MemSQL will be using the funding to move into a new office in downtown San Francisco. MemSQL is an in-memory database system that is 30 times faster than relational databases. MemSQL focuses on online transaction processing.

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