Funding roundup - week ending 4/3/15

Steven Loeb · April 3, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/3cf0

DroneDeploy, Fitbit, HyTrust, Noom, SalesLoft, Thrasos, Monkimun, ReadyPulse, GoFormz, Scutify, FLYR

Seed stage

Monkimun, an educational technology company, raised $1 million in seed funding from investors including 500 Startups, Incuvest, SHO-z emi Innovation Ventures, Lanzame Capital and angel investors Ian Noel, Iñaki Arrola and Carina Szpilka.

Scutify, a social network for the finance community, raised $1.5 million from undisclosed private investors.

KeepTrax, an "Internet of Me" mobile technology company, raised $1 million in seed funding from Naya Ventures. 

Indoor position system company SenionLab AB raised $1.8 million from SEB Venture Capital.

FLYR, a data science company focused on forecasting airfare volatility, raised $3.7 million in a round led by Streamlined Ventures and Montage Ventures, along with Western Technology Investment and several angel investors.

Testlio, a provider of development teams with dedicated quality-assurance testers, raised $1 million in seed funding from Techstars Ventures, Galvanize, Yee Lee, Pat Matthews, Lew Moorman and Carman Chan.

Bitt, a digital asset exchange channel, raised $1.5 million in a funding round from Avatar Capital 

Laundrapp, an on-demand laundry startup, raised £4 million from a group of investors including Michael Spencer and Jeff Blue.

PlayVox, a provider of employee engagement software, raised $1.5 million from a corporate venture investor in Colombia.

Luxify, a marketplace for new and used luxury goods, raised $800,000 in seed funding from undisclosed investors in Asia and Europe.

Redbird, a company that analyzes data from small civilian drones, raised €2 million from GDF Suez New Ventures.

Lumen Learning, a provider of open educational resource alternatives, raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by the Oregon Angel Fund, with the Portland Seed Fund, Seattle’s Alliance of Angels, and local investors Ray Henderson, David Mills and Tom Rubin also participating.

 

Early stage

DroneDeploy, a smart drone management platform, raised $9 million in a Series A round led by Emergence Capital with participation from SoftTech, DataCollective and Angelpad.

Sales development company SalesLoft raised $10.15 milllion in a round led by Emergence Capital, Jason Green and Joseph Floyd.

Thrasos Therapeutics, a biotherapeutics company focused on solutions for kidney disease, raised a $21 million Series D round led by BDC Capital and SR One with participation by all current investors.

Mobile-first productivity solution GoFormz raised $3 million in Series A funding from Cloud Apps Capital Partners and FLOODGATE. 

Digital marketing platform ReadyPulse, raised $5 million in Series A Funding led by Venture Capital Firms, Walden Venture Capital and Rally Ventures.

Instabrand, a mobile influencer marketing platform and technology startup, raised$2.5 million Series A round led by TI Capital. 

Mobile marketplace Duriana raised a $2.5 million Series A  round led by BEENOS Asia Pte. Ltd., with participation from existing investors.

HealthQx, a provider of analytics software and services for healthcare providers, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Health Enterprise Partners

ProsperWorks, the developer of Simple CRM for Google Apps, raised $7.5 million in a round led by True Ventures, along with Bloomberg Beta, Crunchfund and angel investors.

GlassesUSA, an online retailer specializing in prescription eyewear, raised a $12.5 million round led by Viola Private Equity. 

In-home care startup Honor raised $20 million from Andreessen-Horowitz, and individual investors including Jeremy Stoppelman and Max Levchin.

TaaSera, a provider of preemptive breach detection for cybersecurity, raised a $14.5 million Series A round from undisclosed investors. 

Bigleaf Networks, an Internet redundancy and optimization service, raised a $1.5 million Series A round led by Oregon Angel Fund. Portland Seed Fund, Alliance of Angels, and other angel investors.

 

Late stage

Wearables manufacturer Fitbit raised $17.8 million in a funding round from undisclosed investors. 

Cloud security automation company HyTrust raised $25 million led by Accelerate-IT Ventures, with participation from Vanedge Capital, VMWareCiscoIntel, Fortinet, In-Q-Tel, Granite Ventures, Trident Capital and Epic Ventures also contributed.

Noom, a mobile health company, raised $16.15 million in Series B funding led by InterVest Co. Ltd., with participation from LB Investment, Hanmi IT, RRE Ventures, TransLink Capital and Qualcomm Ventures.  

TripHobo, a platform for discovering user-generated travel itineraries, raised $3 million in Series B funding from Mayfield and Kalaari Capital.

Jama Software, a cloud-based, collaborative solution, raised $20 million in funding from Updata Partners, Trinity Ventures, Madrona Venture Group and the Oregon Angel Fund.

YapStone,, a provider of web and mobile payment technology solutions, raised a $60 million financing package with Comerica Bank and Bregal Sagemount.

Genshuixue, a Chinese education search portal, raised$50 million Series A round  ed by Hillhouse Capital.

Raptr, an optimization platform for PC gamers, raised $14 million from Advanced Micro Devices, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, and Tenaya Capital.

On-demand house cleaning service Handy raised $15 million in a round led by TPG Growth, with participation from Sound Ventures and other current investors.

Sprinklr, an enterprise social technology, raised $46 million in a round led by Battery Ventures, Intel Capital, and Iconiq Capital.

Systems and security management company Tanium raised $52 million from Andreessen Horowitz.

Online auction house Auctionata raised a €42 million (US $45 million) Series C round led by MCI Management, along with Hearst Ventures, Kreos Capital, Yuan Capital and all existing investors including Earlybird, e.ventures, Kite Ventures, Raffay Group, TA Ventures, Bright Capital, REN Invest and Holtzbrinck Ventures.

P2P lending website Ratesetter raised £20 million from Woodford Investment Management, Artemis and existing investors including Charles Peel and Ken Costa.

SmartDrive Systems, a provider of driving performance solutions, raised $50 million from Oak Investment Partners, New Enterprise Associates and WABCO.

Indian online commerce company LimeRoad raised $30 million in a round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Matrix Partners India.

CafeX, a provider of real-time engagement solutions for mobile and web platforms, raised$21 million Series B round from Intel Capital, a subsidiary of USAA, Illuminate Ventures and other angel investors.

Japanese news reading app SmartNews raised  a $10 million round led by GREE, with Globis Capital Partners, Atomico, Mixi and Social Venture Partners.

Sports video analysis platform Hudl raised $72.5 million in a funding round led by Accel and Nelnet.

Ride-sharing app Via raised $27 million round led by Pitango Venture Capital, with Hearst Ventures, Ervington Investments, and 83North participating. 

Ticket search engine SeatGeek raised a $62 million Series C round led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with Accel, Causeway Media Partners and Mousse Partners also participating.

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DroneDeploy makes Drone Operations Simple.


DroneDeploy.com is a smart drone management platform that helps you get stuff done with drones. It's built to be simple, safe and powerful, controlling multiple drones, from anywhere, on any device.


Making flight plans has never been easier -  just describe your mission, and DroneDeploy will build a dynamic flight path that avoids other aircraft, airports, and even urban areas while respecting local laws.


DroneDeploy also makes it easy to fulfil the purpose of missions, with a growing selection of Apps that enable a number of operations, including seamless photo-stitching and object identification. Our APIs are simple and open to developers.


Signup for the beta at dronedeploy.com

SeatGeek

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SeatGeek forecasts the price of sports and concert ticket on the secondary market, analogous to what Farecast (now Bing Travel) does for airline tickets. For ticket buyers this helps determine whether to buy a ticket immediately or wait for a price drop. For sellers it helps identify the optimal time to unload their tickets.

SeatGeek’s crawlers have compiled millions of ticket transactions and have also aggregated other factors that influence prices. SeatGeek's patent-pending technology uses this data to accurately predict prices.

SeatGeek offers a free version for buyers and will soon release a premium version for brokers and other sellers.

FLYR

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FLYR revolutionizes the way we book flights.

Booking flights today is a difficult process by design:

  • Travelers spend 6.5 hours searching on 22 websites
  • While they search - 29 days elapsed while airfares increase
  • $200 avg. airline change fees - US Airlines collect $3 Billion a year in change fees

Booking with FLYR:

  • 2 minutes spent
  • 1 Mobile App used
  • Simply search and select the flights you’re interested in
  • We protect you against rising prices for 7 days
  • Get notified of even better deals as they become available
  • Switch or cancel your flights without penalty

We are a team of 11 data scientists, developers and marketers in San Francisco, leveraging machine learning to turn the FLYR promise into reality. 

Our API is now available for beta users, and our iOS app will be launched in the spring. 


http://getflyr.com/

Q&A:

1) How do you know when prices are going up?
We manipulate over 135 Billion records of airfare data to accurately predict prices and availability.
2) Why do travel companies want to work with you?
We are extremely good at predicting where airfares will go, and this allows us to sell price insurance. That price insurance is combined with automatic detection of better deals, and since we do not book flights but rather insure against price increases people can change or cancel at will with no charges.
3) How much does this "change" insurance cost a consumer? Why would they pay it? 
About $22 to lock in an airfare for seven days. People pay it because 1) change fees are $200 2) we automatically find better deals 3) as a result, our service ends up saving people money and is extremely convenient (book a flight in 2 minutes as opposed to searching over 22 websites in 6.5 hours as people do today, on average).
4) Don't airlines already offer consumers an ability to change flights?
Typically, flights where you can change without penalties are 3X to 7X more expensive than regular fares. That's why nobody buys them -97% of flights booked are on regular coach with change restrictions.
5) Is this live today?
The API is in beta right now and we are launching the mobile app in < 2 months.
6) If this is an insurance policy of sorts, if a consumer does change flights, who pays the cancellation fee for the cancelled flight? 
Nobody, because no flight was booked.
7) Are all the flights booked on mobile or is their a Web version?
Mobile first, API and web second.

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Acting as a "Windows Update for games," the Raptr client keeps your games up to date seamlessly using background downloads and a lightweight interface. Raptr automatically tracks your gaming stats and achievements and shares them with your friends. With Raptr, you can see what your friends are playing, what they've recently downloaded, and how they're doing in those games. Raptr also enables you to receive recommendations for new games you might like or meet players who share similar gaming tastes. Raptr is the home for your gaming life.

Founded in 2007 by Xfire co-founder and world champion gamer Dennis Fong, Raptr is backed by several million dollars in funding from an all-star group of investors.

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