Consumer Web
Carbonite, Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB), a leading provider of online backup solutions for consumers and small to medium sized businesses, and Zmanda, Inc., a leading global provider of open source and cloud backup solutions have announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Carbonite will acquire Zmanda.
"Zmanda is a great strategic fit for Carbonite. Carbonite has focused on
backing up computers and mobile devices, while Zmanda has focused on
backing up servers and databases. In the small to medium business (SMB)
market, most companies need both," said David Friend,
Chairman and CEO of Carbonite. "Furthermore, IT resellers and MSPs
want to be able to offer their clients a complete cloud backup solution
from one vendor that protects both computers and servers. We believe
that adding in the Zmanda capabilities to Carbonite Business
significantly expands our opportunity and will enable us to further
capture the emerging and fast growing SMB cloud backup market."
As reported by TechCrunch, Handybook in Cambridge, MA has raised $2M in funding from Highland Capital Partners & General Catalyst. Handybook makes booking household services faster and simpler.
Today, Punchbowl.com, the leader in start to finish party planning and digital greeting cards, announced that they have secured $1.5M in financing from Silicon Valley Bank.
The financing comes on the heels of a significant product announcement from Punchbowl. Just last week, the company announced Shopping Aisle,
a modern way to shop for supplies, decorations, gift cards and more for
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthday parties. With the
introduction of Shopping Aisle, Punchbowl has designed a
state-of-the-art online retail site that figures out what a consumer
needs for a celebration based on previous actions. Shopping Aisle
sets a new bar for a great online shopping experience in the
celebrations market and delights customers with products that foster
inspiration and creativity.
TripAdvisor®, the world's largest travel site*, today announced it has acquired Wanderfly, a travel inspiration site. "The Wanderfly team understands the value in social travel planning," said Steve Kaufer, co-founder and CEO TripAdvisor. "They're a great asset as we continue our developments in this area and I am delighted to welcome them to TripAdvisor." Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.
Daily Grommet, an online shopping site and marketing platform for
innovative and undiscovered products, today announces a round of Series B
funding led by Rakuten, one of the world’s largest online marketplaces.
Daily Grommet plans to use the capital to further expand its highly
curated e-commerce site and product launch platform.
Together, the companies provide significant benefits to one another,
as Daily Grommet will allow Rakuten to advance its sourcing, curation,
and storytelling capabilities and deepen consumer connections to its
merchant partners. Daily Grommet has gained a large and influential
following because of its proven ability to expertly source and vet high
potential unknown products. Since its launch in 2008, over 1,000
products and emerging companies have been featured on DailyGrommet.com,
many of which have become household names. The company’s “Citizen
Commerce” movement creates connections between inventors and consumers,
by enabling product purchases that express powerful contemporary values
around sustainability, quality, technology and social enterprise.
As reported by Scott Kirsner, FanTab in Ipswitch, MA has been acquired by The Sporting News. FanTab is a patent-pending sentiment platform that tracks sports fan confidence in real-time
FashionPlaytes, the retail industry's first engagement-driven e-commerce company to target the tween consumers, today announced its $5 million Series B financing. New investors Leo Capital Holdings and Spindrift Equities participated in the financing alongside existing investors Fairhaven Capital, New Atlantic Ventures and Golden Seeds. At the leading edge of digital fashion design for tween girls, FashionPlaytes will use this funding to continue to enhance the engagement, social interaction and educational components of its FPGirl site.
SimpleTuition, Inc., the leading provider of tips, advice and interactive tools that help students save on college-related expenses, announced today the acquisition of ValoreBooks, an online textbook marketplace which offers huge discounts on new and used textbooks as well as rentals.
As reported by Scott Kirsner, Swap.com has been acquired by Netcycler, a Finnish company. The acquisition actually took place back in April. Swap.com is a consumer website that allows people to swap items across a variety of categories.
Horizon Technology Finance Corporation (Nasdaq:HRZN) ("Horizon"), a leading specialty finance company that provides secured loans to venture capital and private equity backed development-stage companies in the technology, life sciences, healthcare information and services, and clean-tech industries, today announced that it has closed a $5 million venture loan to SimpleTuition, Inc. ("SimpleTuition"), a leading provider of tips, advice and interactive tools that help students save on college-related expenses. The funds provided to SimpleTuition will support its continued growth.
Smart Lunches, one of the Internet's fastest growing providers of healthy meal options for children outside of the home, announced today that it closed a Series A investment round, securing over $1 million in additional capital. Investors included Boston-based Data Point Capital, Jonathan Kraft, President of The Kraft Group, and Lon Chow, General Partner of Apex Venture Partners, based in Chicago. Smart Lunches partners with schools, daycare centers and camps to serve children fresh, nutritious meals that parents can order 24 hours a day with the click of a mouse. These meals are delivered free to the facility each day, relieving the Smart Lunches partner -- and parents -- of the responsibilities that go along with daily lunch planning and preparation.
Care.com, the largest online care destination in the
world, today announced that it has acquired Breedlove & Associates,
the largest provider of comprehensive household payroll, tax and
compliance services in the U.S. Terms of the transaction were not
disclosed. Stephanie and Bill Breedlove, who founded the Austin-based
company in 1992, will continue to operate the business as a subsidiary
of Care.com.
Care.com, which has approximately 7 million members in more than 15
countries, allows families to connect with millions of caregivers to
help manage the lifecycle of care challenges families face: childcare,
including special needs, senior care, pet care, housekeeping, tutoring,
and more. Breedlove & Associates provides families with a full
suite of payroll, tax and compliance services for their caregivers and
household employees. The addition of these services marks an expansion
of Care.com's consumer and corporate offerings and positions the Company
as the only online care destination to offer this broad and robust of a
payroll and tax platform.
As per SEC filings, PatientsLikeMe in Cambridge, MA has raised $2M in funding. PatientsLikeMe is the world's leading online health data sharing platform. PatientsLikeMe creates new knowledge by charting the real-world course of disease through the shared experiences of patients. While patients interact to help improve their outcomes, the data they provide helps researchers learn how these diseases act in the real world and accelerate the discovery of new, more effective treatments.
Hopper, the company bringing inspiration back to travel planning, announces a $12 million investment round led by OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension funds. Other participants in this round include Brightspark Ventures and Atlas Venture. This round brings Hopper’s total amount raised to $22
million, including previous investments from Brightspark and Atlas.
Hopper has already crawled more than half a billion pages of travel
data, with plans to double that by the end of the year, making it the
biggest travel database in the world. This funding round will further
the company’s goal of using big data to take the frustration out of trip
planning and make travel search smarter. The Hopper executive team has
an extensive travel technology background from companies like Expedia
and TripAdvisor, providing them with the perspective needed to change
trip planning for the better.
Swirl, a tech start-up that is harnessing the power of mobile, social and web technologies to reignite consumer's love of in-store shopping, has raised $6M in funding. Swirl's investors include SoftBank Capital, General Catalyst Partners and Longworth Venture Partners.
Care.com, the largest online care destination
in the world, today announced the closing of $50 million in new
funding. The financing was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
and joined by existing Care.com investors — Matrix Partners, New
Enterprise Associates and Trinity Ventures –among others.
Founded in 2006, Care.com has raised $61 million in previous rounds
of financing. The Company, which has approximately 7 million members in
more than 15 countries, allows families to connect with millions of
caregivers to help manage the lifecycle of care challenges families
face: childcare, including special needs, senior care, pet care,
housekeeping, tutoring, and more. Earlier this year, Care.com embarked
upon an international expansion campaign which to date has included the
acquisition of Berlin-based Besser Betreut, the largest online care
portal in Europe, and the launches of Care.com in the UK and Canada.
KAYAK Software Corporation (Nasdaq:KYAK) announced today the pricing of its initial public offering of 3,500,000 shares of its Class A common stock at a price to the public of $26.00 per share. The shares are expected to begin trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "KYAK" on Friday, July 20, 2012. All of the shares were offered directly by KAYAK. In addition, KAYAK has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 525,000 additional shares of Class A common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.
DraftKings, an online fantasy sports startup, today announced that it has closed a seed round of $1.4 million in a round led by Atlas Venture, with participation from Boston Seed Capital, Hub Angels, Angel Street Capital, and private angel investors. Featuring daily fantasy sports play and same-day settlement, DraftKings makes playing fantasy sports simpler and faster for both seasoned and casual players. Currently offering daily fantasy sports play options in major league fantasy baseball, DraftKings will use the capital raised to fund marketing and product development in anticipation of the 2012 fantasy football, fantasy basketball, and fantasy hockey seasons.
As per SEC filings, ReDigi has raised $760K in funding. ReDigi is an online marketplace for used digital goods.
Care.com (http://www.care.com/), the largest and fastest-growing online service in the U.S. used by families seeking high-quality care providers, announced today that it has acquired Besser Betreut GmbH (http://www.betreut.de/), the largest online destination for care and service providers in Europe, creating the world's largest online care destination. Terms of the transaction, which has been completed, were not disclosed.
DailyBreak, which rebranded from CampusLIVE, raised $5M in funding from GSV Capital, Highland Capital Partners, and Charles River Ventures.
DailyBreak provides daily contests for consumers to earn "Coins" to enter prize raffles and to bid in prize auctions. For advertisers, their platform provides laser-focused targeting, engaging content, and guaranteed results since their model is pay-for-performance.
As per Rob Go's blog post, Directr in Cambridge, has raised $1.1M in funding. Directr is a mobile application company that provides users with the ability to create beautiful movies on their phones in just minutes. Directr’s app will automatically edit/sync videos on your phone and make moving sharing easy for everyone.
Directr Promo - Feet from Directr on Vimeo.
Today, Nara Logics Inc., a company that solves the problem of web search by crafting a more personalized and liberating Web, announced the launch of the company and $4 million in Series A funding to build Nara, a next-generation personal Internet platform. Starting with restaurant recommendations, Nara’s innovative platform analyzes the structure of the Web in a way that has never been done before, filtering information based on personal preferences and interests. Nara is currently in beta but available for testing at www.nara.me.
As reported by TechCrunch, Burst in Boston has raised $3.5M in funding. Burst is a mobile and photo sharing application for families or anyone interested in a way to privately share media on your mobile phone. Funding was led by angel investors, such as Tom DiBenedetto (part owner of the Red Sox), Fay Vincent (former MLB Commissioner), Jesse Itzler (co-founder of Marquis Jets), and other undiscolsed investors.
Smarterer completed its Series A funding, raising $1.75 Million. True Ventures led the round, which also included an investment from Google Ventures, as well as a dozen angel investors. Tony Conrad from True will join Smarterer’s Board of Directors. Smarterer is a the Boston startup building a platform to help job-seekers validate their job skills.
Gemvara, Inc., the leading online retailer of customizable fine jewelry, announces the closing of a $25 million oversubscribed round of Series D funding. Led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a global venture and growth equity investment firm, the round also involves participation from all existing investors including Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners and Balderton Capital. Sergio Monsalve of Norwest Venture Partners will join Gemvara’s Board of Directors. Gemvara plans to use the capital to further enhance all aspects of the customer shopping experience and continue to drive innovation that will bring the jewelry industry to the cutting edge of commerce.
As per SEC filings, Quick Technologies in Boston, has raised $1.6M in funding. Quick Technologies is building an online marketing place to buy and sell anything quickly.
As reported by Scott Kirsner, TurningArt in Boston, MA has raised $1.5M in funding. The round included, NextView Ventures, who participated in the company's previous seed round. TurningArt is a subcription based eCommerce company that provides customers the ability to try artwork in their home before they buy.
Likelii, a disruptive supply chain solution for the multi-layered, inefficient wine industry, announced that it has secured $450K in seed funding from Angel investors. Likelii delivers a marketplace
supported by a new supply-chain infrastructure that works with the entire
supply chain to extend the reach of all players.
Likelii
also serves as a digital bridge between consumers and the supply chain through
its patent-pending wine recommendations engine.
Seed
funding was made by Thierry Maupile and Amit Tiwari. Both investors were early
members of management at Starent, a telecommunications start-up that was sold
for $3B to Cisco Systems in 2010.
As per SEC filings, Spill Inc. in Boston, MA has raised $445K in funding. Spill is an anonymous peer-to-peer support system online, currently focused on college students but quickly expanding to corporations and the military. Students can vent confidentially (and privately) about whatever problems they're going through in a private message and connect to 6-8 other anonymous local students with experience in that particular issue. Colleges purchase Spill as a tool for student retention and crisis prevention on campus.