Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » True Ventures

Google, True Ventures, and Resonant Invest $5 Million Into Duo Security

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:01:17 +0000

Duo Security is an Ann Arbor, Michigan based company that has raised $5 million in funding from Google Ventures, True Ventures, and Resonant Venture Partners. True and Resonant previously invested $1 million into Duo. Duo Security is best known for developing its two-factor authentication technology, which requires users to authorize important online decisions separately through a webpage separately through a mobile device.

Duo Security CEO Dug Song said that the company’s solutions are relatively simple, but they provide a practical answer to small businesses and corporate technology companies that are concerned about web attacks.

“These days anything of any value that’s sitting behind a log-in can and will be attacked,” said Song in an interview with AnnArbor.com. “We see ways to try to solve that problem at scale both for our small customers as well as our large customers.” Duo Security’s customers include the University of Michigan, Tumblr, and Toyota.

Currently Duo is based in the Tech Brewery startup business incubator in Ann Arbor, but Song believes that they are starting to outgrow its presence there. The company is currently weighing their options on how to handle their growth.

Duo Security was co-founded by chief technology officer Jon Oberheide. Oberheide recently finished his PhD in computer science from U of M.

Bloomspot Raises $40 Million

Riley Kennysmith — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:27:05 +0000

Bloomspot, a deals company focused on high-quality spending and loyal customers, has raised $40 million in funding. The funding comes from InterWest Partners, Columbia Capital, Menlo Ventures, True Ventures, QED Investors, Harrison Metal, Western Technology Investment, Erik Blachford and Gary Parsons. The company analyzes (with permission, TechCrunch reports) the credit card spending data of the places they’re running deals, allowing Bloomspot and their partner merchants the opportunity to see whether a deal really encourages other buying that makes the deal profitable for the merchant. That data helps predict how much customers will spend when provided with a certain offer, which in turn lets Bloomspot promise a certain level of profits to their partner merchants.

Customers who use Bloomspot are rewarded for their data with better deals for repeat purchases with the same merchant and for using the same card with both Bloomspot and the merchant. Bloomspot’s CEO and co-founder Jasper Malcomson explains, “in a way, it’s less about discounts and savings, and more about recognition and status.”

GigaOM Raises $6 Million, Led By Reed Elsevier

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:03:54 +0000

Technology blog and research company GigaOM has raised $6 million in a round led by London-based venture capital company Reed Elsevier Ventures. Reed is one of the largest publishing companies. Other investors participating in this round include Alloy Ventures and True Ventures. Kevin Brown of REV will be joining the board of directors. GigaOM is raising a new round of funding so they can grow GigaOM Pro. GigaOM Pro is a research service that has over 400 in-depth reports that covers 5 industries in real-time. [GigaOM]

In-Game Ad Company Kiip Raises $4 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:46:10 +0000

Kiip is an in-game advertising company that has announced $4 million in Series A funding in a round that is led by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Crosslink Capital, and True Ventures. Kiip has not revealed how they plan on using the funding. They plan on using the funding to “bridge the gap between mobile advertising and mobile gaming.” Hummer Winblad partner Lars Leckie will be joining the board of directors at Kiip. Kiip has hired former director of sales at Digg Chris Kobran as VP of sales and former EA Mobile employee Dan Silberberger as VP of business development. [Vator TV]

Social Analytics Start-Up BackType Raises Over $1 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:39:39 +0000

BackType is a social analytics company that allows you to enter a URL to find out how big the website’s social media impact is. When you enter a URL, it shows the number of Twitter followers, retweets, Reddit comments, Hacker News comments, Digg comments, etc. that is related to that particular URL. The investors in the $1 million seed round was led by True Ventures, K9 Ventures, Freestyle Capital, Lowercase Capital, 500 Startups, Founder Collective, Raymond Tonsing, and several other angel investors.

BackType raised $315,000 in seed funding from True Ventures and Y Combinator. Currently BackType’s free analytics service is in private beta. They plan on making money by offering paid premium services. BackType plans on using the funding to grow their team and launch the paid analytics platform, which is expected to launch later this year.

[TechCrunch]

CRM Software Company Assistly Raises $3 Million In Second Round

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 01:31:29 +0000

Assistly is a customer relationship management software company that has raised $3 million in a second round of funding. Assistly mashes up different forms of communication in one interface. These methods of communication include e-mail, phone calls, Twitter, and Facebook. Assistly started in 2009 and this is co-founder Alex Bard’s second customer service company. Bard previously sold a company to AOL called Goowy Media.

Assistly raised a total of $4.7 million so far. The first round of funding was led by True Ventures and Social Leverage. In this round Bullpen Capital, Index Ventures, and Kenny Van Zant invested.

[VentureBeat]

Mobile Development Company Appconomy Raises $1.5 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:31:12 +0000

Appconomy is a start-up company that develops mobile applications that is based in Austin, Texas. Appconomy has two divisions, a Studios and Labs division. Appconomy Studios works with enterprises to develop applications for businesses. Appconomy Labs helps enterprises with mobile research and strategy. Palo Alto based VC firm True Ventures led the funding in Appconomy. [VentureBeat]

AOL Acquires About.me In An Amazingly Fast Acquisition

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:21:57 +0000

Well, this is a first. In the same day I wrote about a start-up exiting beta mode, the same company announced that they have been acquired. AOL has acquired custom profile and personal analytics dashboard service About.me.

About.me will become part of the consumer applications group led by AOL’s Brad Garlinghouse. About.me was co-founded by Tony Conrad, who previously sold Sphere to AOL. About 400,000 people have signed up for About.me when it was in beta mode since this past September. About.me was also co-founded by Tim Young and Ryan Freitas. About.me raised $425,000 from AOL Ventures and True Ventures. AOL and About.me had actually signed an LOI back in November.

[TechCrunch]

Mobile Company Urban Airship Raises $5.4 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:55:58 +0000

Urban Airship is a mobile company that helps developers set up push notifications and in-app purchases. The company has raised $5.4 million in funding led by Foundry Group and includes True Ventures and Founders Co-op. Urban Airship makes push and in-app purchases possible on multiple mobile operating systems including iOS, BlackBerry, and Android. Urban Airship also recently started offering mobile subscription services. Some of their clients include Tapulous, LivingSocial, and Gowalla. [TechCrunch]

GigaOM Blog Raises $2.5 Million From True Ventures and Alloy Ventures

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 21:13:31 +0000

Technology blog network GigaOM has raised $2.5 million from True Ventures and Alloy Ventures. GigaOM founder Om Malik said that the new funding will not be used for acquisition but for “the future.”

GigaOM’s conferences and traditional ad-support blogs are doing well. Their network of blogs receives 4 million monthly unique visitors. GigaOM also has a paid content service called GigaOM Pro. GigaOM Pro has 10,000 subscribers. Skip Hilton of Focus Research joined GigaOM Pro. Congratulations to Om and his team.

[GigaOM]