Amit Chowdhry | July 28, 2011 | 599 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Accel Partners, Azumio, Bojan Bostjancic, Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, Peter Kuhar, The Founders Fund

A couple of years ago Bojan Bostjancic and Peter Kuhar started building Instant Heart Rate, an iPhone app that measures the heart rate of a user through the smartphone camera. Users would hold their finger over the camera for 10 seconds and the app would be able to detect and measure their heart rate. This app has hit 8 million downloads in 9 months between iPhone and Android.

Amit Chowdhry | July 25, 2011 | 587 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Allen Morgan, Atomico, Bob Goodson, Charles Lho, Endeavour Vision, Founders Fund, Gordon Crovitz, James Hong, Max Levchin, Niko Dounchis, Quid, Ron Conway, The Founders Fund

Quid is a quantitive analysis startup company that has raised $10 million in Series C funding from Atomico Ventures, SV Angel (Ron Conway’s investor fund), Founders Fund, Endeavour Vision, Infocomm Investments, and Charles Lho. PayPal co-founder Max Levchin joined Quid’s board of directors.

Amit Chowdhry | April 19, 2011 | 1,066 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Bezos Expeditions, Chris DeWolfe, Columbia Capital, Eric Schmidt, Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, Greylock Partners, Hallpass Media, Lars Hinrichs, MindJolt, MySpace, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, SGN, Shervin Pishevar, Social Gaming Network, The Founders Fund, TomorrowVentures

MindJolt is a gaming company that is run by MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe. DeWolfe left MySpace a few years after News Corporation acquired the social network company.

Amit Chowdhry | March 10, 2011 | 526 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under BlueRun Ventures, Founders Fund, Ignition Partners, Scott Banister, The Founders Fund, Topsy, Western Technology Investment

Topsy is a real-time search engine that has raised $15 million in a third round of funding. Topsy allows users to search for real-time content on Facebook and Twitter. Topsy recently launched Topsy Social Modules, which lets publishers add real-time content to their websites. Social Modules are being used by websites such as Discovery Communications and The Huffington Post. Western Technology Investments, BlueRun Ventures, Ignition Partners, Founders Fund, and Scott Banister invested in this round. This puts Topsy at a total of $30 million in funding. [VentureBeat]
Amit Chowdhry | November 30, 2010 | 945 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Charles River Ventures, David Stewart, Emergence Capital, Founders Fund, Mamoon Hamid, Mark Woolway, The Founders Fund, U.S. Venture Partners, Yammer

Yammer, the micro-blogging service for enterprises, has raised $25 million in funding. The funding was led by U.S. Venture Partners. Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures, and the Founders Fund had participated in this round. Yammer’s total funding is at $40 million. U.S. Ventures’ Mamoon Hamid will join the Yammer board of directors.

Amit Chowdhry | November 15, 2010 | 1,007 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Founders Fund, Jeff Clavier, Keith Rabois, Naval Ravikant, Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, The Founders Fund, Topguest

Topguest is a mobile check-in loyalty service that was founded five months ago. The service has raised $2 million in Series A funding and has added Peter Thiel as an advisor. The investors in this round of funding include Founders Fund, Ron Conway, Keith Rabois, Jeff Clavier, and Naval Ravikant. Topguest is also exiting beta today.

Amit Chowdhry | October 19, 2010 | 898 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under Causes, Causes.com, Dustin Moskovitz, Founders Fund, Joe Green, Karl Jacob, Keith Rabois, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Scott Sandell, Sean Parker, The Founders Fund

Causes is an online philanthropy service that was started by Joe Green and Sean Parker. Causes recently raised $9 million in Series C funding from Founders Fund, Marc Benioff, Dustin Moskovitz, Karl Jacob, Keith Rabois, and Ron Conway. Scott Sandell will also be joining as an observer on the Causes board of directors. Green said that the company plans to use the funding for building their team.

Amit Chowdhry | October 11, 2010 | 784 views | Add a Comment
Categorized under AOL Ventures, Betaworks, Bit.ly, Founders Fund, O'Reilly AlphaTech, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, RRE Ventures, SV Angel, The Founders Fund

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.
