Shopline raises $1.2 million

Shopline is a do-it-yourself e-commerce platform company that has raised $1.2 million in seed funding. Investors in the seed funding include 500 Startups, Ardent Capital, SXE Ventures, East Ventures and COENT Venture Partners. More details below:

PRESS RELEASE

Hong Kong, 9 February 2015 — Shopline (www.shoplineapp.com), a startup that offers a localized, DIY e-commerce solution targeting merchants in Asia, is announcing that it has raised US$1.2 million in seed capital in order to grow its operations. Having also completed the 500 Startups Accelerator program in San Francisco several months ago (Batch 10), this funding will allow Shopline to position itself as the go-to online shop builder in Asia, beginning with Hong Kong and Taiwan. They are also looking to expand into select markets in SEA later this year. This represents the first major round of funding for the startup since their launch in 2014. Participants include 500 Startups, Ardent Capital – founding investor of aCommerce, SXE Ventures – an early stage fund by Danny Yeung, co-founder of Groupon HK, East Ventures and COENT Venture Partners.

Shopline’s mission is to provide a completely localized solution for SMEs to quickly to launch their own e-commerce website in Asia. It has integrated regional payment gateways, delivery options and offers live localized customer support. In a few short months, Shopline’s growth soared and now boasts over 15,000 merchant shops created, with early adopters already averaging tens of thousands of USD in monthly sales through their shops. This shows huge promise for Shopline in a region where B2C ecommerce continues to mature and total sales are already exceeding that of North America. Additionally, with Shopline’s mobile approach to everything they build, it empowers the merchants that use their smartphones as their only means of accessing the Internet. Aside from organic growth, Shopline’s solid partnerships with payment gateways, existing platforms and agencies gives the company access to a large number of high quality merchants.

With Shopline, merchants are able to quickly set up a shop within a few minutes and begin selling immediately. The platform provides an easy-to-use admin panel for its merchants to manage their shops. Everything from basic settings, to uploading products, to configuring design can be done, and in the local language. Merchants can also grab a domain name and assign it to their shop directly, without additional cost. The platform has payment and delivery options that fit the local culture. Payment methods such as bank transfers and C.O.D. or delivery options such as convenience store pickups and local meet-ups are all commonplace for merchants in Asia, Shopline has all of these integrated. The system has payment gateways in place for credit card processing as well, and if the merchant does not have a payment gateway account, they can set one up directly within Shopilne. The company also offers its merchants marketing tools. Among them are capabilities to create professional marketing videos and social media integration. The opportunity here is to service non-tech savvy merchants in Asia, who do not speak English, and with limited budget. What is even more attractive about the platform is that it also does not charge any transaction fees.

This lowers the barrier tremendously for local businesses to get online quickly.

In a region dominated by marketplaces, merchants are left with very few options when it comes to creating their own standalone e-commerce websites. “The brand building aspect of this is huge. Merchants in Asia can now create something that they are proud of, something they can place on their business cards, giving them credibility as a merchant. All without the need of technical skills. This holds especially true for fashion designers selling online. So it’s not just another profile in a crowded marketplace.” says Raymond Yip, Co-founder & CEO. With this round of funding, Shopline plans on aggressively growing the product and it’s merchant base in its core markets and expanding into S.E.A. thereafter. “This capital puts Shopline in a position to grow the team and to refine our product at a rapid pace. There are a lot of talented people in Asia, we’re excited at the possibilities.”

Shopline has already doubled their team in size in the past several months, bringing on board senior engineers and also marketing and customer success talent. “We’re constantly launching new features that we know works for our customers. Our ultimate goal is to become the go-to platform for merchants in Asia looking for an end-to-end solution. Localization is key, and understanding the local cultures is also a big part of that. We have the knowledge and the right partnerships to achieve this.”

About Shopline

Currently powering thousands of e-commerce sites in Asia, Shopline is the easiest way for anyone to create a fully featured, selfbranded, online shop within minutes. It differs from other global services in that it is targeted at low-tech savvy merchants in Asia, providing native language support, and integrated with regional payment gateways. Also, the entire experience, both from the merchant’s perspective and the consumers’ side, is 100% mobile-optimized. Anyone can set up an online shop using just their smartphone. All of its shops are completely responsive and adapts to all screen sizes so the consumer experience is consistent on every device. With mobile usage skyrocketing over the past several years, they are focused on giving merchants in Asia a solution that will help them manage their business on the go, as well as for shoppers to purchase via their mobile devices.

Shopline was co-founded by Raymond Yip (CEO, NYC/HK), Tony Wong (CTO, Venezuela/Vancouver/HK) and Fiona Lau (COO, Hong Kong/Toronto) in late 2013. The trio brings a wealth of experience in business, management, engineering and design.

Collectively, they have worked in both large and small companies, in industries ranging from finance and consulting to lifestyle and media. The team met at Startup Weekend 2013 in Hong Kong, where Raymond and Tony were winners of separate awards.

Raymond built an extensive career managing technology and engineering between New York and Hong Kong. Tony was previously a co-founding member at a mobile startup in Asia, which was acquired. Fiona Lau is a CFA with strong business acumen and a great sense of economics and finance. She is also the chief marketer for Shopline, both online and offline.

Shopline is a graduate of the 500 Startups Accelerator (Batch 10, 2014)

NEXTracker raises $25 million in funding

NEXTracker is a designer and manufacturer of the world’s most advanced single axis PV trackers. NEXTracker has announced that it has raised $25 million in equity and growth capital financing. This round of funding closed in December and it includes investments from SJF Ventures, Tennenbaum Capital Partners and earlier investors Sigma Partners and DBL Investors. More details below:

PRESS RELEASE

FREMONT, Calif., Feb. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — NEXTracker, Inc., designer and manufacturer of the world’s most advanced single axis PV trackers, today announced the completion of $25 million in equity and growth capital financing. The funding round, which closed in December, includes investments from SJF Ventures, Tennenbaum Capital Partners and earlier investors Sigma Partners and DBL Investors. NEXTracker, based in Silicon Valley, provides state-of-the-art solar trackers that maximize system energy output while reducing installation and operating costs, resulting in substantially increased solar project profits.

“SJF Ventures is thrilled to partner with NEXTracker,” said managing director and co-founder Dave Kirkpatrick. “NEXTracker is led by successful solar veterans who have developed new tracking systems which are increasing the profitability of utility scale solar power in many countries. This financing will ensure that NEXTracker’s technology helps even more solar project owners surmount design and installation challenges, while driving down the cost of solar deployment.” SJF Ventures led the Series B round, and Mr. Kirkpatrick has joined NEXTracker’s board.

“Coming on the heels of last year’s tremendous increase in customer shipments, NEXTracker is appreciative of the capital from our investors to further scale production,” said NEXTracker CEO Dan Shugar. “We are now able to deliver over 200 MW/month. We have also expanded our team with experienced solar project personnel in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia to provide customers the highest level of professional services and support to ensure smooth delivery of their solar power projects.”

“NEXTracker’s technology is facilitating large- and utility-scale project deployments by minimizing site grading and grounding requirements, while simplifying design, assembly, installation, cleaning and maintenance,” noted Todd Jacquez-Fissori, Managing Director, Energy Technology Group Head at Tennenbaum Capital Partners, LLC, a firm with over $5B in invested capital. “We’re proud to be providing financing to NEXTracker, as their innovations in tracker technology have been proven on dozens of projects financed by leading banks with total value in excess of $450M.”

Global demand for solar trackers continues to expand rapidly as the market has transitioned to higher irradiance locations where trackers deliver outstanding increases in power production. NEXTracker’s technology is proven to be a cost-effective solution to maximize solar project returns. Advanced features address and overcome layout constraints, significantly reduce the number of foundations and use of steel, eliminate stress on the drive components by aligning modules with the axis of rotation, and simplify AC wiring requirements.

About NEXTracker, Inc.

NEXTracker (www.NEXTracker.com) offers a significant breakthrough in horizontal tracking, with lower costs, better performance and more flexibility for solar power plants. These benefits increase solar project profits for developers, EPCs and system owners. Leveraging world-class design and installation expertise, NEXTracker has delivered trackers for dozens of projects in sizes exceeding 80MW, across three continents. The company is headquartered in California with offices in Asia, Europe and South America.

Rainforest raises $4 million

Rainforest is a quality assurance-as-a-service company that has raised $4 million in seed funding. Investors in this round include Storm Ventures, Rincon, Andreessen Horowitz, Morado and Crosslink. Rainforest makes it easy to test your website by writing tests in plain English and running them in under 30 minutes across thousands of testers in all of the browsers that you care about.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwired – Feb 10, 2015) – Quality Assurance-as-a-service company Rainforest has raised $4 million in seed funding from Storm Ventures, Rincon, Andreessen Horowitz, Morado, and Crosslink.

“The Rainforest team has managed to do something no one else has really nailed yet — how to truly automate functional QA all the way down to a simple API,” said Jason Lemkin of Storm Ventures. “As a SaaS CEO myself who spent millions of dollars on QA/QE over the years and was never remotely satisfied, I feel like someone has finally cracked the code. I am proud and fortunate to be investing.”

Rainforest launched in 2013 as a QA service running functional tests against a crowd from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Since then, the company has scaled to serve clients such as IBM, Airbnb, Tilt, Zapier, and Zenefits.

“Rainforest QA has developed an elegant solution that automates test initiation and feedback while allowing a massive pool of real human beings to apply their intelligence to a customer’s functional tests. The result is faster turnaround, lower cost, better coverage, and the elimination of a huge management time-sink,” said Jim Andelman, Vice President at Rincon. “Amazon Web Services and others revolutionized storage and compute with their on-demand API-based services: Rainforest QA is doing the same thing for QA.”

In addition to being a Y-Combinator alumnus, Rainforest was also selected last year to join Heavybit, a growing group of the most cutting edge and fastest-maturing developer tools companies.

“To keep up with the pace of continuous software delivery, teams must focus on shipping product without waiting for slow traditional QA or spending engineering resources refactoring tests,” said James Lindenbaum, founder of Heavybit Industries. “Rainforest provides the speed and flexibility crucial for enterprises to move fast without breaking things.”

The new funding will enable Rainforest to continue to grow exponentially, enabling more and more customers to do continuous deployment without sacrificing code quality, and prevent bugs in production on a much more massive scale.

“Every company that generates revenue online is now under pressure to add updates and improvements up to hundreds of times per day, which is impossible with old-school QA,” said Fred Stevens-Smith, CEO of Rainforest. “We’ve created a service that enables our customers to move fast without breaking things by combining the best of both worlds: large-scale automation with a human component. Our customers can fully leverage their existing in-house QA resources, while vastly increasing throughput and decreasing management overhead. Our mission is to help our customers stay laser-focused on generating revenue.”

About Rainforest

Rainforest is QA as a service. They make it easy to test your website by writing tests in plain English, and then running them in less than 30 minutes across thousands of testers in all the browsers you care about.

For more information on Rainforest, visit http://rainforestqa.com.

Humanity raises $9 million in funding

Humanity is a cloud-based workforce management company that has raised $9 million in Series B funding led by MHS Capital with participation from Point Nine Capital, Klever Internet Investments, Team Builder Ventures and Mark Britto, CEO of Boku. Humanity plans to use the funding to support its flagship online scheduling tool Shiftplanning.com. More details below:

San Francisco-based Humanity.com, a cloud-based workforce management platform, has closed $9 million in Series B funding. MHS Capital led the round with participation from Point Nine Capital, Klever Internet Investments, Team Builder Ventures and Boku CEO Mark Britto.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO – (February 10, 2015) – Humanity.com, a fast-growing cloud-based workforce management platform, has secured $9 million in Series B funding. The round was led by MHS Capital, with participation from Point Nine Capital, Klever Internet Investments, Team Builder Ventures and Mark Britto, CEO of Boku. This round comes on the heels of a $3.2 million round in September 2014.

The funds will be used to support and expand Humanity, the next generation platform of Shiftplanning.com, the company’s flagship online scheduling tool. Humanity will include a comprehensive suite of functionality that will encompass scheduling, labor and sales forecasting, performance evaluations, identity management, time and attendance tracking, payroll reporting, leave management and a secure communications platform, making Humanity flexible enough to meet the needs of any business and its employees.

“We invested in Humanity because Ryan and his team built an exemplary track record with Shiftplanning, which ultimately became the market leader in employee scheduling,” said Christoph Janz, managing partner at Point Nine Capital. “With such a strong core product, this was a natural evolution to build a more robust, human resources tool for businesses and its employees.”

Humanity’s new applications and features are built to serve the needs of both employers and employees. Through self-service applications, employees can interact with their managers and colleagues from their mobile devices or home computers. Humanity boosts productivity and employee job satisfaction while saving managers time and money.

New applications available on the Humanity platform include: Sessions, a secure messaging application that allows everyone in a company to communicate with each other in real time from one centralized location and Humanity Connect, a robust interface for connecting Humanity with third-party payroll providers.

“We are taking what we’ve learned over the past five years and creating a next generation workforce management solution so that companies can focus on their most important asset – their people,” said Ryan Fyfe, Founder and CEO, Humanity. “We’re anticipating our revenues and team size to grow by more than 100 percent in 2015, while investing heavily in product development and expanding our sales and marketing teams.”

Humanity added three prominent Silicon Valley executives to its Advisory Board: Victoria Treyger, the chief marketing officer at Kabbage, the leader in providing real- time, automated financing to small businesses; Michael Wolfe, technology entrepreneur and portfolio advisor at Point Nine Capital; and Mark Britto, Chairman and Founder of Boku.

About Humanity Inc.

Founded as Shiftplanning.com in 2010, Humanity is a comprehensive cloud-based workforce management platform for any small and medium-sized business (SMB) and its employees. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Belgrade, Serbia. For more information please visit: Humanity.com.

DigiSight Technologies raises $7.8 million

DigiSight Technologies is a company that integrates data from mobile tests into clinical settings. DigiSight Technologies has raised $7.8 million in Series B funding from new investors Biosys Capital, Waycross Ventures, GE Ventures, and Lagunita LLC. More details below:

PRESS RELEASE

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–DigiSight Technologies, Inc. (DigiSight), a software company that integrates data from mobile tests into clinical settings, today announced it raised $7.8 million in a Series B financing. New investors Biosys Capital, Waycross Ventures, GE Ventures, and Lagunita LLC joined existing investors in the financing.

DigiSight’s core technology, called the DigiSight Network™, creates a secure connection for data from mobile devices to move seamlessly into clinical settings. The first specialty in the company’s commercialization strategy is ophthalmology. Patients generate ophthalmic data using mobile devices and share that data with permissioned care providers in real-time. These tests provide physicians insight into patient performance between regular office examinations, unlocking the true potential of remote patient monitoring and data analytics. The company will use the proceeds from the financing to continue developing the DigiSight Network™ and other specialized remote monitoring technologies with an expanded team.

Drs. Mark Blumenkranz and Daniel Palanker of Stanford University founded the company with the belief that mobile technologies can help deliver care more efficiently. Dr. Blumenkranz is the H.J. Smead Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University. He is also a serial entrepreneur and has founded and been a board member of a number of successful companies including Avalanche Biotechnologies (Nasdaq:AAVL), Optimedica Corporation and PEAK Surgical. Dr. Palanker is a Professor of Ophthalmology at the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford University. He was a co-founder of PEAK Surgical and developed foundational technologies for Optimedica Corporation. He is an expert in light and laser-based systems in ophthalmology.

Boris Nikolic of Biosys Capital stated, “DigiSight is the leading mobile healthcare company in ophthalmology. Its vision to integrate mobile diagnostics into clinical care will be a keystone to streamlining the delivery of care to patients that need it most. As an investor and user of DigiSight’s products, I could not be more excited to participate in this financing that will enable the company to execute its plan, build the team and bring new products to the market.”

DigiSight Technologies CEO, Doug Foster, said, “Ophthalmology is a specialty well-suited to using mobile tests and diagnostics. Blindness is a debilitating condition that is expensive for the healthcare system, and patients with acute conditions are highly motivated to be engaged with their care plans. Generating more patient data can profoundly impact the ability to deliver high quality, cost-efficient care for these patients.

DigiSight is leading the movement to realize this vision for healthcare through mobile technology. This financing enables us to move aggressively on our plan and we are excited to partner with our new investors.”

About DigiSight Technologies, Inc.:

DigiSight Technologies, Inc., is a privately held Silicon Valley software company focused on bridging the gap between healthcare providers and patients with mobile tests. DigiSight links patient and doctor by offering a single, secure portal for providers to access diagnostic data in real time. This portal unites information across various data creation devices into a single database, enabling providers to realize the full potential of remote patient monitoring and data analytics. For more information, please visit www.digisight.net.

Parklet raises $1.5 million

Parklet is an onboarding and culture integration platform service that has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Storm Ventures and Greylock Ventures led this round with participation from FundersClub, Winklevoss Capital and Western Technology Investment. Here is a blog post that Parklet published about the deal:

Parklet Raises $1.5M to Onboard Tomorrow’s Workforce

Parklet, the onboarding and culture integration platform, today announced that it has closed a $1.5 Million seed investment to further accelerate the company’s already impressive growth and customer success. The investment was led by Jason Lemkin of Storm Ventures, and Joseph Ansanelli & Sarah Guo of Greylock Ventures. The round also included participation by angels like Facebook co-founder Andrew McCollum, Radius CEO and co-founder Darian Shirazi and KISSMetrics co-founder Hiten Shah as well as FundersClub, Winklevoss Capital and Western Technology Investment.

“This is the most exciting time ever to be working on helping employee retention. We are finally at a moment where systems can be connected and the focus of HR can be put back on its people,” said Dane Hurtubise, CEO of Parklet. Parklet is growing like crazy, and we’re trying to bring together the smartest people we can to help us do this. We’re going from running to sprinting.”

Parklet has also added Lemkin, Managing Director at Storm Ventures and co-founder of EchoSign (acquired in 2011 by Adobe) to their board of directors. Lemkin brings a wealth of enterprise sales knowledge to Parklet’s board. At Adobe, he oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document to $50,000,000 in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in 2012 and $100,000,000+ ARR in 2013.

”According to HR Exec Magazine, 57% of companies plan to buy new HR technology in 2015 – and Employee Onboarding is one of the top two areas that matters most to executives,” said Jason Lemkin, Managing Director at Storm Ventures. The entire HR stack is being completely remade as we speak thanks to some incredibly elegant web services. Employee onboarding is one of the most broken and unautomated parts of the employee experience, and I’m pleased and fortunate to be partnering with and investing in Parklet.”

Cricket Wireless now has unlimited calling and messaging to Mexico on all $50/$60 plans

Cricket Wireless has upgraded their no-annual contract wireless plans by adding unlimited calls and messages to Mexico on the new Cricket plans starting at $50 per month or $45 after a $5 auto pay credit with taxes and fees included. The existing customers on the $50 and $60 Smart, Pro, and Advanced plans do not have to do anything. More details below:

ATLANTA, Feb. 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Cricket continues to upgrade no-annual contract wireless, adding unlimited calls and messages to Mexico* on the new Cricket plans starting at $50 a month or $45 after a $5 auto pay credit with taxes and fees included, All-In. Existing customers on $50 and $60 Smart, Pro and Advanced plans don’t have to do a thing.

Beginning February 11, for the first time ever, new and existing customers on Cricket’s $50 and $60 plans — all on a nationwide 4G LTE network can now make unlimited mobile-to-mobile and landline calls and send unlimited messages from the U.S. to friends and family in Mexico.  More value for the same low price.

“Cricket is on a mission to upgrade what customers can expect from no-annual contract wireless,” said Janna Ducich, marketing vice president and chief marketing officer for Cricket Wireless. “Whether it’s providing more 4G LTE coverage than T-Mobile, Metro-PCS, Sprint and Boost; increasing high speed data access on our plans at no extra cost; providing access to the world’s largest streaming music library with Deezer; and now bringing unlimited calling and messaging from the U.S. to Mexico, we are giving customers more value at low prices.”

Cricket’s Upgraded Plan International Features

Cricket Plans

International Offering

(Now available in Cricket Plans starting at $50)

Smart Plan

$50 or $45 (after $5 Auto Pay credit) with 5GB of high-speed data access**

NEW: Included Services to Mexico from the U.S.

·  Unlimited landline and mobile-to-mobile calling

·  Unlimited text, video and picture messaging

Pro Plan

$60 or $55 (after $5 Auto Pay credit) with 10GB of high-speed data access**

Advanced Plan (limited time only)***

$60 or $55 (after $5 Auto Pay credit) with 20GB of high-speed data access**

Unlimited International Texting

· Unlimited Texts to 35 countries

Cricket continues to run its promotional Advanced Plan offer for a limited time with unlimited talk, text and 20GB of high speed data access for $60/mo with taxes and fees included.  And customers with a new activation can also get a free 4G LTE smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 635, after $75 mail-in rebate Cricket Visa® Promotion Card.****

Customers interested in expanded international features can take advantage of Cricket International Extra for $15/mo to receive unlimited landline calling and messaging to 35 countries plus 1,000 mobile-to-mobile minutes to 29 countries. And with Cricket International Roaming Mexico, customers can make and receive calls and texts while traveling in Mexico for only $10/mo, taxes and fees included.

Customers switching from T-Mobile, Metro-PCS, Sprint and Boost are eligible for 1 free month of service on us after completing two months on the Smart, Pro or Advanced plan*****.  The time to switch to Cricket is now.  It’s #SimpleMath.

To check out the new Cricket or find a store near you, visit www.cricketwireless.com and connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/cricketnation and Twitter at twitter.com/cricketnation. For news, information about events and other press materials about Cricket, visit the new Cricket Wireless Newsroom.

About the new Cricket Wireless

Cricket is bringing consumers more value with a simple, friendly, and reliable nationwide wireless experience with no annual contract. The power of Cricket is our nationwide 4G LTE network that covers more than 300 million people; easy and affordable unlimited plans that are all in with taxes and fees included – no surprises; and a great selection of phones customers love. Cricket, Something to Smile About. Cricket is a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. Coverage and services not available everywhere. © 2015 Cricket Wireless LLC. All rights reserved. Cricket and the Cricket logo are trademarks under license to Cricket Wireless LLC.

*Unlimited Calling to Mexico: Available with Smart, Pro and Advanced Plans. Not available on legacy Cricket CDMA plans. Includes long distance voice calls from the US to Mexico only. Calls to special and premium services may be blocked. Service cannot be resold or used for fraudulent purposes. Other restrictions apply.

**High-Speed Data Access: Cricket’s Basic, Smart, Pro and Advanced unlimited plans include 2.5GB, 5GB, 10GB and 20GB high-speed LTE data access allowances, respectively.  Data use exceeding these high-speed access allowances will result in data download speeds reduced to a maximum 128Kbps for the remainder of the monthly billing cycle.

***Advanced Plan: Limited time offer; subject to change. LTE-capable device and activation of Advanced plan required to get 20 GB of high-speed data access. Not eligible for Group Save discount. All Monthly Plans:  Monthly plan price includes taxes, applicable fees and unlimited domestic talk, text and data access. Monthly plan payments are not refundable or transferable, and other charges and fees may apply. In-store activation fee up to $25. Service and coverage not available everywhere. All plans and services are subject to Cricket’s Terms and Conditions of Service available at www.cricketwireless.com/support.

****Free 4G LTE Smartphone: Free phone offer ends 4/9/15.  While supplies last. New activation required. Lumia 635 is $74.99 before $75 mail in rebate. Sales tax not included. Card valid at US locations where Visa accepted for 150 days after Card issuance. 2nd month of service req’d. Restrictions & other charges apply. See store for details. 

***** Free Month of Service:  Limited time offer. Is only available at Cricket Wireless retail locations. Requires $50 or $60 rate plan. Not available to AT&T customer, or Cricket CDMA customers. Third month free applies to rate plan only and excludes features or other services. Qualifying customers will receive an account credit approximately five days prior to payment due date for the third month of service. One-time credit is applied on a per line basis. Customer remains obligated to pay for features and other services in the third month.